modular overkill led striplight build

Much better growth since we last talked mate. When I was last in this thread you were having the same problems as me with poor growth and stress issues.

What did you change in the end? Doesn't seem to be the heat. Did you alter the nutes at all?

One month veg from clone... 4 clones... how big is that tent? (new to photos and clones)

thanks man, growth is really nice in both tents atm.
they wont grow worse with 2-3C more, but they perform with 23- 24C also quite nice, which isnt a terible low temp either.

i would really need to think a bit what i changed.

changed nothing on the light setups in the last time, but i gave up the concept that a plant need to take a certain wattage or ppfd at a certain time.
i follow the priciple in veg that a plant needs to pray most of its time otherwise i dial back the light.
this way i get happy nice plants,i always take measurements with the spectrometer and have some numbers saved in the head i know beeing quite save.
its doable under leds, you just need to realize that these led units push out so much more light then cfls do, basically about 3 times.
the suqaremter tent i vegged with below 100w, more like 80-90.

for the flower cycle i still need to play a bit, there they pray all the time anyway (even or especially with too much light),i have the one tent at 1000ppfd since a few days and think its maxing them out, maybe 900 is better for me atm.

i changed the medium maybe 3 times in a year.
atm i use cocos chips in the smaller tent and cocos chips mixed with finegrain in the square meter, its still a expermient but roots are great,
makes the whole thing easier llikely..
this is a good week old picture., plants are in veg.

fertilizer wise i didn changed much.
still using my saltbags.
i play a bit with ratios and maybe change forth n back between 2 basesalt bags, one is 3-17-36 the other is 5-20-30 plus calcium nitrate and magnesium sulfate, atm i just use the 5-20-30 as cocos have so much K anyway.
i use RO water, so i give always a bit epsom , 1-2g a 10l.
in veg i try to give quite some calcium nitrate in flower i dial it back a lot and give more basesalt instead which contains a lot MKP, i do have a bag MKP too but may use 5g of it a run.
i also use bennies/seaweed in cocos but not much, i autofeed just plain salts
i do autofeed the tsmaller ent which is in flower this run, 3 times a day when lights on, EC not that high, sensitive plants maybe just 1.3 EC most of the time.
EC range is maybe 1- absolute max 1.5 pure nutirents.

@KonopCh the tent is a sqaure meter pretty exact.
growth was really good for this month all went well, would say from the partycup they came till filling out the 3 gallon bags like above, 3 weeks.
but they are for sure 8 weeks at least, 2 weeks from fresh cut to really rooted cut and maybe another 2 weeks in my veg box slowly growing on standby.

Looking good grower......

some more from the smaller tent, should be about D30.
overall the foilage and buds are doing well.

i went to 1000ppfd at the tops a few days ago.
thats a 200w wall on my meters (maybe a tad more in real, 5-10%).
some tops now get near to 1100ppfd and are maybe 4 inches away from the leds.


i do have some slight mg defficiency on older leaves, mostly those exposed to lots light.

whil,e not much and its really just the older ones.

i consider some more deleafing to improve the airflow.

cocos chips

Doing a little test run in the 2x4. Running 155W at the wall across 40 strips. I've got one plant in a 3gal and a bunch of testers in 0.75 gal pots. The testers aren't being fed anything to test for intersex traits. Strips run only a few deg above ambient temp, the fan is for canopy air movement not cooling. I've been running the strips about 4-6in from canopy and no light stress.

Here's a pic from earlier in flower:


Black Marsha in the 3 gal


Salami Leg F2 tester looking extra frosty:

same for me dude.
fans are just for air movement, not for cooling strips.
they do have a cooling effect, but as you have "felt", the strips hardly never see the human body temparature of 37C, even on the die itself.
hard to justify putting much more effort in to cooling at this temps.

plants looking really frosty
,really really frosty.
prb thats gnetics to a good part, well choosen.
no foxtailing, nice color expression, swollen buds at just ^155w.

thanks for the feedback, 155w in a 2x4 is low!
and goes in line what i encounter, thanks.
am at a good 200 now board level in a 3x3 (86x86cm), its the edge what they can take i think and only doable with a good root system.

things are doing well in the small tent.
still a 1100ppfd at the tops, think i iwll go lower soon.
otherwise i think this tent could yield well if it finish flawless.
all is moving a little slower due to lower temps i think, but am quite happy with the results so far.

things are moving along.
needed to go a lil lower with the wattage.

Amazing results! I definitely have to learn to DIY with LED strips.

thanks, these LED strips impress me still everyday.
now am at just 180W, 200W was too much.
i could maybe give more wattage when i could hang the fixture higher but i cant.
the tent is quite small, have to be noted, hardly more then 0.75 squaremeter.

They are really looking lovely. The nice frost on those fan leaves is something to behold. I see gummy scissors in your future.

cobshopgrow said:

thanks, these LED strips impress me still everyday.
now am at just 180W, 200W was too much.
i could maybe give more wattage when i could hang the fixture higher but i cant.
the tent is quite small, have to be noted, hardly more then 0.75 squaremeter.

Click to expand...

I have about 185w (I think?) in my tiny tent using 5 HLG QB96 boards, I use the same boards on my cactus/other plant setup and have been desperately looking for replacements as they're getting old. I guess DIY is the only way to go since no one is selling anything similar, plus the DIY stuff is definitely more efficient.

looking good, clever placement of the exhaust fan.
the hlg96 arent bad for sure, the didodes used are still recent to what i know.
but for sure DIY can give you ecaxtly what you want and to build such a light isnt so difficult, takin some time of course.
if you have the space to hang the light below the filter you probably can get a better spread for the cost of loosing height,
no idea if thats a good idea for your usecase.

think my main efficiency gain comes from using really lots of diodes driven very low.
am close to the canopy while the fixture covers almost all the canopy, that saves quite a few percent as there are less losses on the wall.
otherwise the eb3 diodes arent any special, performance wise likely a slight tad behind samsungs, which you can be countered by using more diodes.

the other tent needed some deleafing.


after some deleafing



have a nice sunday people

I really like the balance of size in upper and lower fan leaves. According to comments in a video I was viewing this would indicate good Ca uptake/availability.

Psyphish said:

I have about 185w (I think?) in my tiny tent using 5 HLG QB96 boards, I use the same boards on my cactus/other plant setup and have been desperately looking for replacements as they're getting old. I guess DIY is the only way to go since no one is selling anything similar, plus the DIY stuff is definitely more efficient.

Click to expand...

I never knew they were originally strip style version. Only familiar with the small square/rectangular QB96's. Cobshops build is good place to start looking for inspiration for strip build. His formula leverages lots and lots of diodes.

never heard of this before, but Ca uptake worked likely well.
nothing special made there, calcium nitrate 4-6g a 10 liter is working for me.

cobshopgrow said:

never heard of this before, but Ca uptake worked likely well.
nothing special made there, calcium nitrate 4-6g a 10 liter is working for me.

Click to expand...

It was mentioned in a video I was watching this weekend. As a related aside, Boron deficiency could be indicated where there is available Ca in older (lower) growth and the soil. If this also applies in hydro-nutrient scenario I don't know.