D.I.Y. L.E.D. Easy!

Hello there

So you want to play around with LED technology but don't want to fork over the big $$$. Well you have come to the right place!

The Plan
LEDs are not a new technology, but they are new to the growing scene and many have been slow to adopt due to the high cost. The small amount of people using LEDs also contributes to the small amount of information we know about them, so I think it's time to change that! By coming up with a design that was easy to make and much cheaper there should be no excuse to not test your own and see what results you get!


Overview
In order to keep the costs as low as I could I resulted to eBay *cringe* but everything is A-OK as far as I can tell. The basic design will be that we mount the LEDs to the bottom of our heatsink, fans on top of the heatsink, and then mount the driver to its best fit on the heatsink. We will be using the 3Watt LED, although watts aren't a good way to describe LED power. This would be because for an LED to function properly it requires a certain Forward Voltage(vF) and Current(amperage). A 3Watt LED usually just means that it requires about 700ma at whatever the vF for that particular color is. All LEDs even ones that are the same color will require a slightly different vF while they all will require the same 700ma, this is where the driver comes in to play. For LEDs a constant current driver is used so that the current will remain the same in each LED while allowing the voltage to fluctuate to accommodate all the different vF required by your LEDs.

Reasoning
In order for people to switch to a new technology, they need a reason right? Well besides some of the already discussed reasons like lower wattage and lower heat there are a few others. For instance, the typical light is omni directional and even with good reflectors there is going to be some light loss. Well LED's produce light in pretty much one direction, thereby not wasting any watts on areas you don't want covered. Also with a normal light there is a lot of the spectrum that is produced that isn't heavily absorbed by the plants, but LEDs emit light in only a tight range utilizing all the watts more efficiently and allowing a targeted spectrum for certain plants. They are also small in size so this increases the places and arrangements can be put in. And the LED emitters themselves can be relatively cheap and easy to replace if a single unit fails.
Check out this page as well


Parts List:
-LED Driver (Note: You will need 10 LEDs minimum more on that later)
-660nm Deep Red LED
-620-630nm Red-Orange LED
-445nm Blue LED
-460-465nm Blue LED
-12,000K White LED
-LED Optics
-DIY Fan
-Male end two pronged cord
-Heatsink

Tools of the Trade:
-Soldering Iron
-Hot Glue Gun
-Electrical Tape
-Heatshrink

Step by Step:
1.) Gather your parts, for the sake of this tutorial we shall go with a 10 LED setup and use the driver listed. At this point this is when you want to decide how to blend your spectrum I encourage people to play around with the ratio themselves. I used 5 Deep Reds, 2 Red-Orange, 2 Blue(445nm), and 1 Blue(460nm).

2.) Follow this generic wiring diagram for your LEDs. You may need to do a different shape but that isn't important, wiring the LEDs serially is important, this ensures that the current is the same throughout all the LEDs and doesn't overdrive/underdrive any. Attach the LEDs to the heatsink with either thermal tape or whatever is at your disposal. I used hot glue because I will probably be modifying it in some way.
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3.) Solder all the wiring for your LEDs together as well as shrink wrapping them afterwards. You should be left with one positive wire and negative wire on two separate LEDs and then proceed to solder that to the respective wires on your driver(LED out). Now if you wanted this is where you would want to add your lenses onto the LEDs to increase penetration while losing a bit of coverage.

4.) Attach your driver to the heatsink in whichever spot will suit your set-up the best, and now take the other two wires hanging from the driver(AC in) and wire them to your 120V standard two pronged cord that plugs into any outlet in the U.S. It doesn't matter which color wire goes to which because Alternating Current isn't flowing in a single direction.

5.) This is where you would attach a fan to the top of your heatsink, but I haven't done so on mine yet. All that is required is this tutorial.

6.) Plug it in and post a grow log! You can see my (Nearly) Finished D.I.Y. L.E.D. at the very bottom. To see how it performs compared to CFLs check out this thread!


I hope this tutorial has enough information in it so that anyone could assemble their own very similar to mine. Anything that you feel is missing or wrong let me know I do a lot of the so I forget little things. Enjoy!

Questions and comments very welcome

Edited by InsomniacFiles, 28 June 2011 - 12:44 PM.

first comment

Excellent excellent excellent,

Thank for opening your thread to questions,

Do i need or should i have a multimeter to build one of these? Honestly i don't know why i would, but it seems to be the thing to have.

Edited by Inthedirt4good, 25 June 2011 - 01:44 AM.

Well it's not something you would need but when working with electronics it is always nice to have a multimeter. The only purpose it would really serve here is to verify that the LEDs are getting the correct current and voltage, which really you don't need to worry about unless playing around with different drivers.

can you buy those leds in bulk? i want to make the inside of my mother plant space all leds its in a wardrobe so i will just mount them to the wood..

A lot of the places on eBay have a lot in stock and usually restock pretty quickly. If you went to a better manufacturer's website like Mouser you can get deals in bulk, but I think it may be more expensive than on eBay still.

Also I wouldn't put them directly onto wood, even any random kind of metal you have laying around will work better than wood. Mine doesn't need fans only because I have my ventilation system set up to help cool it off. These will generate a good bit of heat, especially if you start talking larger numbers.

Yo!
Great tutorial! I think I'm gonna build one of these.
Would this driver work for the setup?
Intelligent LED Solutions | Optoelectronics and Displays | Optoelectronics | Solid State Lighting | Intelligent LED Solutions LED Drivers |ILCC-18-350

I intend using these LEDs: 5 of these red ones Bivar | Optoelectronics and Displays | Optoelectronics | Visible LED | High Power Leaded LEDs |R50RED-4-0045

2 of these blue ones Bivar | Optoelectronics and Displays | Optoelectronics | Visible LED | High Power Leaded LEDs |R20BLU-V-3045

Again. great tutorial!

Well the driver would work for 1W emitters, and would probably handle 18 or so. As for the LED's though, those will not work with that driver, they take a lot less power than the driver dishes out, they have a max of 50ma whereas the driver you chose puts out 350ma. You would just roast the LEDs. Look for something that has an 'IF max' just a bit higher than 350.

another noob question.

When looking at some of the high end led units and they say the light shines at an angle, are they talking about using lenses like these,

25 degree lens for Seoul P7, Cree, Lumens LEDs

Or is it a function of the led itself and an internal lens

Are lenses such as the above necessary,overkill or unnecessary..?

if i start to grow again THIS is how im vegging out my plants.

sick guide and very in expensive.

i could build 4 of these for the price of one "90 watt ufo"

another noob question.

When looking at some of the high end led units and they say the light shines at an angle, are they talking about using lenses like these,

25 degree lens for Seoul P7, Cree, Lumens LEDs

Or is it a function of the led itself and an internal lens

Are lenses such as the above necessary,overkill or unnecessary..?

Well, LEDs will when you order them have a for lack of a better term... built in angle. Now you can change the angle to a more focused beam with lenses, which I actually am going to try on some of the bulbs, but only down to about 90 degree angle. Because when you are working with the lenses, the more obtuse angle you have the better coverage, but start working towards a smaller angle and you will get more penetration but lose coverage.

Really it depends on your grow space and how you need to slightly tweak your light to better fit it.


@Pigpen Yeah it is MUCH cheaper and is nice because you could start smaller and gradually add in more of the LEDs as it can be afforded as opposed to having to save up a bunch of money for just one light.

This is the most inspiring thread I've read since Micro's grow box. Thank you.

Think I'm gonna order some stuff to tinker with later, I'll let you guys know if I do.

If you do, be sure to post the finished product! I want to see how everyone else's lights turn out, if anyone makes one of course haha.

how much was the total cost?

also, please keep us updated on how well they work for you. I wanted to try LED's but they were just way too expensive.

Well, you can get a VERY good estimate of the cost by clicking the links in the parts list... But overall it only cost me like $30-40. Basically this system will cost you about a dollar per watt or so. Not nearly as expensive as commercial LEDs

I have received my 90 degree lenses in the mail and have finally gotten around to doing a few tests to how effective they were.

So I grabbed my lux meter, and in order to get good comparative results I wanted a closed test environment so I used this little tube from a computer sub that I disassembled and threw out a while back (I knew I needed the tube for something!) I then modified a lens holder and some cardboard to seal out pretty much all ambient light. The height was 3.5 inches above the meter.
[ATTACH]637425[/ATTACH]

I ran tests with each color that I currently have on my lamp which turned up some interesting results. The lux values are x100 as well.

90 degree
Red: 91 lux
Red-Orange: 163 lux
Blue #1: 627 lux
Blue #2: 746 lux
White: 423 lux

120 degree
Red: 30 lux
Red-Orange: 58 lux
Blue #1: 131 lux
Blue #2: 187 lux
White: 160 lux

I didn't want to take too many pictures while the LEDs weren't attached to the heat sink, but this is a picture while I was taking a reading of the Blue #1 LED.
[ATTACH]637427[/ATTACH]

Anyhow, taking a look at the values shows pretty much a 3x increase in lux for each color... wowza! I will most certainly be ordering more to help increase penetration in my light. I'm trying to come up with a decent way to test coverage but I will have to wait until I actually have an extra LED because all the ones I have are currently hooked up. This makes it difficult to get an isolated reading from each individual LED. The only possible arrangement was at about 20 inches above the meter which isn't practical because that is waaay too high above a plant for LEDs. I'll have to get back to you guys for a good coverage test.

This picture is just looking at all the LEDs after I detached them from the heat sink, I thought it looked neat.
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whats up insomnia i'll be making a couple of panels I do have some questions but I'm following this thread. Glad to see its fairly recent.

Question though you said these generate quite a bit of heat. How much heat would u compare to a HPS? because I plan to line the walls in my veg room with the panels from at least 2 sides.

You said earlier that it would be better to mount the panels on metal?

Edited by Flip The Script, 08 July 2011 - 01:02 AM.

LED's do not create a lot of ambient heat within your grow area, they just create a good bit of localized heat that needs a heat sink to take it away or it will fry your diodes. That's the only reason you really need to control the heat is so you don't mess up your emitters and even a small heat sink can usually do most of the work without a fan. Although adding in a few cooling fans may be necessary depending on the size/amount of LEDs you put onto one heat sink.

I cannot compare to HPS from firsthand experience but I can tell you I can touch the entire heat sink and LEDs with my hand and it's not burning it. I would compare the heat to a CFL, but probably a bit cooler than that because I sometimes find the CFL's a bit hot after running all day.

Thanks for the fast reply my guy.

Yeah thats what I was hoping. I did my entire last grow in one single room. I have an A/C that I plan to put in the tent and wanted to line the veg room with the LEDs like I stated before.

The only thing I'm on right now is finding a suitable LED driver and a suitable array (which i still dont know about). The other thread had me kind of confused. They where talking about a regulated power supply, constant current drivers and such.

No problem! I try to be quick as I can. But, if you check out the parts list in the first post, it has all the exact parts from the same exact ebay stores that I ordered to assemble this LED array. That is a constant current voltage regulated power supply which is optimal for LED lighting set-ups, because LEDs are more sensitive to changes in current than in their supplied voltage.

For this project to be a viable idea, I wanted to make sure that all the important parts could be sourced. The only thing I left out really was the heat sink, which I had laying around and you can buy online as well. You just need to determine what size you need depending on the amount of LEDs you want to run.