Best through hole Led Bulbs for homemade Led Panel.

Discussion in 'Lighting' started by hammerswinger, Jul 9, 2011.

  1. Help find brightest through hole Led Bulbs for homemade Led Panel. I think all agree on the fact that the most efficient and brightest led bulb available is best to make a panel with. However finding them is a real job because there are so many sources for led's out there. Here is a example i have found the World's Brightest 10mm LED! .5watt 5 chip through hole led bulbs i have ever seen. The would make a killer grow panel because at this time i think the are World's Brightest compared to other 10 and 8 mm bulbs. Here at- 10mm LED high power . Bad thing is the are very expensive $30 for 10 Anyone know of a place to buy them cheaper in packs of 50 or 100? Maybe without the wires and transistors attached one could do that himself . We need Red. Blue . White. I understand some white is needed to hasten the onset of flowering without delay. My goal is to make a complete working plan for a modest but killer led light panel in the 30 to 45 watt range for all to share here there is nothing good available all the led grow light kits and plans that i have seen on the internet are all crap.
     
  2. I am not an affiliate of rapidled but I am just excited to have my grid up and running. I just started and have a journal that just began. I just felt the need to reply to your post because I went through the same question as you a while back.

    Forget the baby 5mm-10mm leds, make one of my grids:

    rapidled.com

    9 - Osram Golden Dragon Plus 660 nm Reds ($6 x 9 = $54)
    2 - XP-E Cree Royal Blue 460 nm Blues ($4 x 2 = $8)
    1 - XR-E Cree Warm White ($5 x 1 = $5)
    1 - Meanwell 700 mA Driver ($18)
    12 - Precut Thermal Adhesive Pads ($7)

    Optional
    2 Wire Nuts (Can sub electrical tape)
    20 Precut wire strips (can sub 20 - 22 guage wire (cheap))

    Radioshack
    2 - Aluminum Project Enclosure ($3.5 x 2 = $7)

    Time required 1 - 2 hours depending on skill

    High Power led's are sorted by bins (light output per electrical input) and it makes a HUGE difference. All the led's on rapidled are the highest or second highest bin (hard to find/guarantee anywhere else online).

    The efficiency of these led's are amazing and there is little heat. Check my signature and if you want any details on construction I would be glad to help.
     
  3. Wow. Your kind of input is what i had hoped for the light you made sounds exactly what i want to make right now. Yea good details of how you made it and a little plan would really help and thanks for the parts list. I am real good with conventional wiring, soldering, Etc but the led stuff blows right past me.LoL. If you had a scanner you could make a sketch of your system just a pencil drawing and post it here that would be most helpful to a novice. The cool thing is the cost of what you made is actually less then if one purchased 8 or 10 mm bulbs to make a light with the same output, and the work is much less too, wiring up hundreds of leds would take a long time. Here is a link to a homemade system i eventually want to copie. Growing Marijuana with LED, Growshow have you ever looked at this web site? Let me know what you think of those lights.
     
  4. I just looked at your pictures awesome work!!!!
     
  5. Funny I ran across that exact website when doing my research, he actually is 100% accurate on some things, but his system is a little whack and very hard to copy. You are asking a lot of the same questions I did a couple weeks ago, here is some knowledge that I have found out the hard way (by spending money).

    1) Bin Matters - This is the hardest part to learn. LED's either produce light or heat. No two are the same. 1 Cree Royal Blue can produce 10% light and 90% heat and another can produce 50% light and 50% heat. They group them in bins. This is the reason I recommend RapidLED.com. So many sites are cryptic and some look like they are probably just full of it, but RapidLED actually delivers only the highest bins. Look at coral acquarium sites dedicated to replacing Flourescants with LED's, that is RapidLED's mission.

    BINNING IS THE REASON NOONE TRUSTS LED GROW LIGHTS!

    2) Its worth building your own. Most production LED grow lights do not use highest bin leds, (the best LED's are made in Japan and South Korea, not the US...). Just from the LED Lens profile, noone uses Osram Golden Dragon nor Cree XP-E, the best Royal Blues and Hyper Reds on the market.

    I can put together a little build guide because it is actually really easy with these parts. I just don't have time right now. So check back tomorrow
     

  6. Thanks, Just be sure to skip the first post with the prototype (it was no good).
     
  7. #7 Deleted member 369225, Jul 10, 2011
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2011
    I have put together a guide which I am sure is similar to yours in everything short of our parts lists, I was aiming for a budget LED. I plan to replace them when I can. But it is possible with the cheap ones, especially vs CFL for micro grows.
     
  8. Are you using the golden dragon 1 watt or the 3 watt? i looked on the rapidled web site and all i could find was the 3 watt golden dragon in the picture however on mauser.com the have 1 watt golden dragons.
     

    Attached Files:

  9. Nice work making the light especially on the testing. And thanks for the tuorial.
     
  10. #10 ronaldb, Jul 12, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 12, 2011
    They are 3watt but wattage doesn't really mean the same thing with these lights as with others.

    LED.jpg


    Current measures how many electrons are pushed through the system.
    1 Watt LED's are rated to handle 350 mA of current
    3 Watt LED's are rated to handle 1000 mA of current
    etc.

    Think of it as pressure in a hose. The larger/higher quality the hose, the more pressure (current) it can handle. Think of heat as leaks through cracks in the hose. The more current you push the more light you get out. But driving a high current through a small hose, or low quality hose, leaks more heat and produces less light. Osram is a high end LED producer though so I bet even their 1 Watt LED can be driven at 700 mA (but will produce more heat and less light than driving a 3Watt LED at 700mA).

    Hope this gives more insight. Also, the LED's I found on Mouser and Digikey sometimes don't come premounted on starboards. The starboards are like mini heatsinks (although not large enough) that also have easy to use solder pads (ie, you solder your wire to the starboard, not the LED itself). You have to use a reflow solder technique to mount LED's to starboards which is not easy. (youtube or google it) There is a guy who did it without starboards using Kapton Tape and copper tape and it comes out looking like this. Definitely cheaper and probably more efficient but I didn't try it yet:

    The last two are pretty are really cool:
    My DIY LED light and how it got a bit out of hands
    LED homemade - The Garden's Cure
    http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1587273
    http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=146324
    http://www.gardenscure.com/420/lighting/117772-how-build-your-diy-led-array-8.html
     
  11. Great explanation on the difference of 1 and 3 watt led's and wasted electricity in the form of heat. Thanks.
     

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