LED help

Texsun

Active Member
New grower here. I do industrial/commercial electrical work, went to school for four years to be an electrician, so I understand the light spectrum, par, umol, etc. I get slot of new led fixtures through work for free. Ex: a concrete truck backed into a pole light with two 416 watt LEDs on top. Lights got scratched up, no big deal, customer wanted new ones. Cool, I took one fixture, buddy took the other. $3k apiece, for free. I know these aren’t grow lights, and in the back of my mind I have my doubts, but I’m hoping/wishing these will work. I guess what I’m looking for is for someone to tell me they will. The fixture breaks down into four arrays, with a driver for each. I metered them out at the wall, they’re pulling what they quote. I have one array with driver 12” above plant and seems to be working for veg, but also maybe too close/intense. Right under ten thousand lumen, 5000 kelvin, also four 9 watt feit’s in clamp on fixtures at four corners, 15-18” away. Plant has grown substantially with in veg, 2gal smart pot, ocean forest medium. GH nutes I got with purchase of powergrower. I’m trying but every move I make is nothing more than an educated guess. Plant is starting to exhibit some crinkling, yellowing in center of new growth above sixth node. Purple haze. I’m aware of ph issue, I water with nothing but Fiji water. Jk, I’m a fucking electrician, I can only afford ozarka. Any advice on the lights will be greatly appreciated, I’m considering buying an inexpensive Cree led on amazon or similar. I know the quality that comes out of China. I don’t like it. Actually, any advice will be honored. Thanks guys.
p.s.
Link to light:
 

Texsun

Active Member
5000K will flower but it's not what you want.
Appreciate the reply. I get it, it’s like the electrical trade, the old guys will give the noobs just enough guidance to not get hurt. There’s so much I learned from those guys that wasn’t taught in a book, classroom, internet, etc. Feels strange being at the bottom of the totem pole again
 

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
Appreciate the reply. I get it, it’s like the electrical trade, the old guys will give the noobs just enough guidance to not get hurt. There’s so much I learned from those guys that wasn’t taught in a book, classroom, internet, etc. Feels strange being at the bottom of the totem pole again
As is probably true in your trade. Being straight to the point and asking specific questions will get you far. A lot of people see a whole bunch of text and skim or skip it completely.

That light sounds like it's pretty decent for veg. If it is separate arrays, you could spread them out on a frame and cover pretty good area if you're wanting to veg a room or tent with it. If theres a lens on it, you'll want to ditch that if you haven't already.

With your background, you should be able to handle diy lighting no problem. Take a look at some of the stuff offered by HLG to get an idea of what a lot of people use in LEDs.
These v1 boards are a great bargain to get you going with something that's better for flower.

https://ledgardener.com/ is a good place to start for better explanations of how we apply leds to grow.

Also.get your post count up so you can share pictures. People here love pictures.
 

Texsun

Active Member
I'd like you're some pics of the fixture
As is probably true in your trade. Being straight to the point and asking specific questions will get you far. A lot of people see a whole bunch of text and skim or skip it completely.

That light sounds like it's pretty decent for veg. If it is separate arrays, you could spread them out on a frame and cover pretty good area if you're wanting to veg a room or tent with it. If theres a lens on it, you'll want to ditch that if you haven't already.

With your background, you should be able to handle diy lighting no problem. Take a look at some of the stuff offered by HLG to get an idea of what a lot of people use in LEDs.
These v1 boards are a great bargain to get you going with something that's better for flower.

https://ledgardener.com/ is a good place to start for better explanations of how we apply leds to grow.

Also.get your post count up so you can share pictures. People here love pictures.
Gracias amigo. I certainly don’t mind sharing pics. As far as knowledge goes, you enlighten me brother, and if I can, I’ll do the same for you. Pics coming if possible.
 

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
Lots of need for electrical advice around here I'm sure there will be plenty of people that could benefit from your knowledge.

I would start with getting your water situation set. Filtering your own water is best in the long run. Plenty of us use plain tap water though. There are cheap easy tests to see if your water is usable.

Care to share any environmental info you have?
Temp and humidity. What type of space are you growing in like do you have a small tent, a closet, or in a corner of the basement type thing.

Growweedeasy is a great place to pick up some of the basics and may help you get a better idea of what you're doing.
 

coreywebster

Well-Known Member
Well the unit will grow weed, its just we aim for 170-200lm/w range with our LEDs. With that we aim for 30-35w per square foot, so you have to aim for probably 50w per square foot for flowering, maybe more.

Spectrums not ideal but it will work.

fragileassassin posted an affordable option if your Stateside and want an upgrade.
 

Texsun

Active Member
From what I’ve read, it’s all about the ph, tds, and ppm on water/nutes.
As is probably true in your trade. Being straight to the point and asking specific questions will get you far. A lot of people see a whole bunch of text and skim or skip it completely.

That light sounds like it's pretty decent for veg. If it is separate arrays, you could spread them out on a frame and cover pretty good area if you're wanting to veg a room or tent with it. If theres a lens on it, you'll want to ditch that if you haven't already.

With your background, you should be able to handle diy lighting no problem. Take a look at some of the stuff offered by HLG to get an idea of what a lot of people use in LEDs.
These v1 boards are a great bargain to get you going with something that's better for flower.

https://ledgardener.com/ is a good place to start for better explanations of how we apply leds to grow.

Also.get your post count up so you can share pictures. People here love pictures.
F07DCEA6-D192-47E3-B9D9-EFF7F0A9F97E.jpeg
 

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Texsun

Active Member
Well the unit will grow weed, its just we aim for 170-200lm/w range with our LEDs. With that we aim for 30-35w per square foot, so you have to aim for probably 50w per square foot for flowering, maybe more.

Spectrums not ideal but it will work.

fragileassassin posted an affordable option if your Stateside and want an upgrade.
Thanks for responding. I was a little nervous asking too many questions. I learned most of what I know in the electrical trade by acting like I didn’t know what I was doing, when I did, just to see how the other guy did it. Now, I really don’t have a clue. Luck at best.
 

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
Nice little closet grow you go going there. How much vertical space do you have? Youll have to do some training or a short veg if you want to keep them contained in that small area. If you plan to flower in that area, it will make everything in that closet stink of weed. If youre wanting to stay with a small area like that, I would build in a little cabinet for it so you can put a filter on it.
Overall they look pretty happy right now, maybe some magnesium deficiency and the lighter new growth could be early calcium deficiency. Both of these would make sense if youre using bottle water without adding any calmag.
Nodes look like theyre stacked fairly tight so they should have enough light.
Just do what you can to keep it around 75F and 50%+ humidity if possible.
Im a hydro grower and cant give you much advice on your nutrients or soil, but you look to have a pretty good start to things so far.
Are the bigger 3 all the same age or did you do them spaced out?
 

ChiefRunningPhist

Well-Known Member
5000K will work just fine. Buds will be smaller than majority red SPD. If you added some red your plants would like it. 3000K in the clamp lights and you're golden. Keep RH 45%+. After about 900PPFD you're just wasting electric. 416W + the clamp-on's is plenty for a couple plants in that space. Rule of thumb is ~30W/ft2 of mid to higher efficiency LED.
 

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Texsun

Active Member
Thanks for responding. I was a little nervous asking too many questions. I learned most of what I know in the electrical trade by acting like I didn’t know what I was doing, when I did, just to see how the other guy did it. Now, I really don’t have a clue. Luck at best.
P.S.
I can compute all the info out there, thing is, there’s a lot. I have the tendency to over engineer the shit out of something. You put ten electricians in a room. What do you get? Ten different ways of doing the same thing.
Nice little closet grow you go going there. How much vertical space do you have? Youll have to do some training or a short veg if you want to keep them contained in that small area. If you plan to flower in that area, it will make everything in that closet stink of weed. If youre wanting to stay with a small area like that, I would build in a little cabinet for it so you can put a filter on it.
Overall they look pretty happy right now, maybe some magnesium deficiency and the lighter new growth could be early calcium deficiency. Both of these would make sense if youre using bottle water without adding any calmag.
Nodes look like theyre stacked fairly tight so they should have enough light.
Just do what you can to keep it around 75F and 50%+ humidity if possible.
Im a hydro grower and cant give you much advice on your nutrients or soil, but you look to have a pretty good start to things so far.
Are the bigger 3 all the same age or did you do them spaced out?
I spaced them out. Homemade humi dome, think I left’em in too long. I’m getting my feet wet with hydro, tried it once already, thought I had to remove the rock wool from the roots to set it in clay pebbles. Yep. Going for round two
 

Texsun

Active Member
5000K will work just fine. Buds will be smaller than majority red SPD. If you added some red your plants would like it. 3000K in the clamp lights and you're golden. Keep RH 45%+. After about 900PPFD you're just wasting electric. 416W + the clamp-on's is plenty for a couple plants in that space. Rule of thumb is ~30W/ft2 of mid to higher efficiency LED.
30 watts a foot,
Nice little closet grow you go going there. How much vertical space do you have? Youll have to do some training or a short veg if you want to keep them contained in that small area. If you plan to flower in that area, it will make everything in that closet stink of weed. If youre wanting to stay with a small area like that, I would build in a little cabinet for it so you can put a filter on it.
Overall they look pretty happy right now, maybe some magnesium deficiency and the lighter new growth could be early calcium deficiency. Both of these would make sense if youre using bottle water without adding any calmag.
Nodes look like theyre stacked fairly tight so they should have enough light.
Just do what you can to keep it around 75F and 50%+ humidity if possible.
Im a hydro grower and cant give you much advice on your nutrients or soil, but you look to have a pretty good start to things so far.
Are the bigger 3 all the same age or did you do them spaced out?
thank you for the comment. Thank you for the compliment.
 

ChiefRunningPhist

Well-Known Member
30 watts a foot,

thank you for the comment. Thank you for the compliment.
Ya, 30W/ft2 - 35W/ft2 for mid to high efficiency LED (2.35μmol/J - 2.7μmol/J), I'm not sure if you were asking for confirmation or not.


1m2 = 10.764ft2
1W = 1J/s



Lets say your LED pushes ~2.5μmol/J.

2.5μmol/J × (10.76ft2/m2) × [(30J/s)/ft2]
=
807μmol/s·m2



If your fixture is 2.1μmol/J, and your target PPFD is 850μmol/s·m2 then...

(850μmol/s·m2) = (2.1μmols/J) × (10.764ft2/m2) × [(θJ/s)/ft2]

(850μmol/s·m2) ÷ (22.604μmol·ft2/J·m2)
=
[(θJ/s)/ft2]

θJ/s = 37.6W

Walls ect will absorb some of the photons emitted, and if the spread or throw of your trajectory is greater than 1ft2, then youll have to add more wattage to achieve whatever per ft2 intensity you desire.


After further review of your light I'd estimate an efficiency of ~1.5μmol/J. The luminous efficacy of emission of a typical 5000k 80CRI SPD is somewhere around 310lm/W (max lumens per watt, or 100% efficiency). The datasheet linked shows a CRI of 67, so its luminous efficacy of emission is probably closer to 300lm/W (less diverse SPD, SPD is more clumped around base pump of ~450nm which is less observable to the human eye than a higher CRI SPD). The data sheet shows 98lm/W as the highest performing model in the 5000K category. A typical radiometric efficacy of the emission of a 5000K SPD is ~4.55μmol/J, perhaps a bit less considering lower CRI than the one I'm modeling after (a 80 CRI, max μmol/J or 100% efficiency).

Screenshot_2020-02-03-22-34-04~2.png

(98lm/W) ÷ (~300lm/W)
=
0.326 electrically efficient

0.326 × (~4.5μmol/J)
=
1.47μmol/J

So...


(416W) × (1.47μmol/J)
=
611.5μmol/s

You'd want to divide the surface area that the throw of your light creates by ~610μmol/s to calculate your canopy PPFD, at least concerning the street light. Lets say you hang it to the point that your throw is 4ft2.

(610μmol/s) ÷ (4ft2)
=
152.88μmol/s·ft2

10.764ft2 = 1m2 so...

(152.88μmol/s·ft2) × (10.76ft2/m2)
=
1644.98; 1,645μmol/s·m2; 1,645PPFD


That's quite a bit of blue light and not a very diverse SPD without supplementing with your clamp-on's. I'd recommend hanging the street light so that it provides a throw of ~12ft2 (548PPFD) and then add some 3000K 90CRI bulbs for the clamp-on's (enough for 300 - 350PPFD more, for a total of 850 - 900PPFD).
You can estimate your clamp ons in the same manner but use 340lm/W as the luminous efficacy of emission for a 3000k 90CRI bulb, and 4.8μmol/J as the radiometric efficacy of a 3000K 90CRI emmision. They won't be exact figures but will give you an idea of the wattage per bulb you'd want to buy/use, how many of them, and how high to hang in order to blend your ratio to your desired level.

Also you can buy a cheap light meter to estimate intensity or PPFD from. They are sensative to a limited spectra so they'll measure certain SPDs with more intensity than others and are not exact but they can give a, "this spot is brighter than this spot" type of indication. The measurements may resemble true intensity, or they may not, it just depends on the SPD of emission and the spectral response of the instrument. Price will likely scale with accuracy.

EDIT:
The calcs are averages, so you'll still have greater intensity directly under than at the edges, so if you're not reflecting the side emmisions back in you may want to further increase your hang height to account. If you're good with trig you can calculate an estimate based off the beam angle found on the data sheets, sometimes they're listed as radiance, or in units of output power per steradians per m2.
 
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fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
P.S.
I can compute all the info out there, thing is, there’s a lot. I have the tendency to over engineer the shit out of something. You put ten electricians in a room. What do you get? Ten different ways of doing the same thing.

I spaced them out. Homemade humi dome, think I left’em in too long. I’m getting my feet wet with hydro, tried it once already, thought I had to remove the rock wool from the roots to set it in clay pebbles. Yep. Going for round two
I tend to be the same way.
Best advice I wish i would have gotten. Unless someone can lay out data like chief just did, try to absorb a broad range of ways of doing things. Dont focus on one article or build and copy it directly, take aspects that would work for you and apply them in your grow and make it your own. In the end, it's a weed and if you take care of its basic needs you'll get an end result.
I've found that young plants love it really humid, but you need good air circulation as they start pushing out leaves. A few holes in the dome helps if you dont have any, but taking off for a few mins so they can get new air regularly works well for me.
Hydro can be difficult to get your feet wet with, it's often a save up and go big thing and a lot of ppl have difficulties.
 
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