Bravo my friend, glad the heat exchange was the perfect solution for temp stabilization. Please post more as it develops. BTW, I like lots of pictures (smile).
totally! that's why a write up would be great. could allow some people to get an idea of where to start when it comes to keeping temps down in the tent/box/cabinet/room while producing significant amounts of light.
Looks pretty good, I was messing with diy LEDs a few years ago but had to move and never started back up. I have almost 800 1w chips packed away somewhere. Just curious what is the efficiency on your drivers, and on your different spectrums on the chips. At the time I was playing around with them the premade drivers had horrible efficiency compared against a custom made one 75-85% vs 95%.
It's been a while since I visited the forums. I've actually grown a crop with the lights now and had no problems. I think the water cooling was a good call. Often the temp inside the tent a as cooler than outside. I have the bare LEDS out there and any leaves that touched them got cooked. It was something to watch for. Look for a write up soon.
I'm not very good at waiting so please hurry with the "write up". Can't wait and pics would be nice too!
Ok. I will give you a teaser and some highlights. I regret nothing about this setup. Pros Efficient lights Cool tent Very little vertical distnace needed Fun project No major issues in few months running 568w max with everything on in my entire setup (fans, pumps, everything) Targeted spectrum that the plants respond well to Pretty even light distribution (colas grow toward 10 spots instead of 1-2 spots) Overall cheaper than premade LED assemblies Custom made for light distribution in tent Cons Lights bleach and burn plants that get within a couple inches Complicated build - not for someone afraid to solder With water cooling, leak is risky Risk it mitigated with automatic shutoff (details later) Still have over $500 invested Parts suppliers from China take a long time to ship
Begin photos. By the way this is currently legal for me by Washington State law per the Cannabis Patient Protection Act – 2SSB 5052 (PDF) and the Medical Cannabis State Law – chapter 69.51A RCW. This is a fan on the radiator mentioned above. I have a CPU cooler pump and silicone lines, both ordered from ebay out of China. It's sitting on top of my cloner. Lines run directly in/out of the tent to LEDzilla's heatsinks.
Here you can see the tent, which I have elevated to ease access. You can see the 10 x 50w drivers. If I knew more about electronics, I wouldn't need 10 drivers and I could probably do something more heat efficient. I have some inline auto fuses on each one just in case a light shorts. You can also see the temperature gauge showing 98.0 degrees F. That is a $25 sous vide controller that will shut off if the temp gets too high. I have tested killing the pump and it will shut off before frying my light just in case. I have a strip of copper under one heatsink curled around the temp probe. Low cost and effective. Feel free to ask for more detail or anything about the other stuff you are seeing.
Here you can see the light hanging in the tent. The picture doesnt do justice for the extreme brightness of this. Im growing 2 plants this round, since they were really crowded with 6 plants. I put the clones in yesterday. I'll show how they grow. I dont turn no the supplemental lights (1 UV, 2 mid, 2 low) until it gets bushy and tall. I raise the lights as the plants grow. These are going to take off in a week or so - hopefully. They are Snoops Dream clones that are as old as the plants I just harvested and they look like they were trying to flower, probably due to a power outage we had. The light cycle is 16 on, 3.5 off, 1 on, 3.5 off. I am using a gas lantern schedule for efficiency. It worked last 2 grows very well.
Sample small bud from last grow under these lights. Lots of trichomes and smells great. Still curing, so I havent weighed yield. I could probably find a better example but I didnt want to dump out the jars right now.
The lighting is pretty even at 18000 lux 15 inches away. A few inches away, it is over 200000 lux. It is designed to remain about 10 inches away and have even 25000 lux. Remember, these are targets grow spectrums and should be more efficient than white light for the same intensity.
Bravo my friend, nicely done! Really looks like an efficient system but I would really like to know what the PAR of the light is. Also it looks like you're running MW drivers, what drivers and what is the wattage draw for each chip (ball park would be OK). I built a light using the Cree CXB3070 chips (8) and it works beautifully. The girls really respond in both growth and potency. If you need any info regarding the Cree chips i would be happy to assist. Thx for sharing the build and would like to see more pics when they're available.
Each chip is advertised 80w and underpowered with 50w drivers. I've measured the draw from the outlet and it is around 50w. 8 of the chips are 4:1 660nm and 445nm. I've used a cheap spectrometer and they are close. 2 of the chips are "warm white" and I don't remember where the concenterations were in the spectrometer. I would be interested in the Cree chips, but my spending now is focused on automation and data collection from Raspberry Pi + sensors.
You can go to 22ga wire safely, but I use 18ga. I buy rolls from Amazon and it's cheap enough. I always wanted to liquid cool a PC during that craze, but never did. I think that is why I talked myself into doing it this way. Having heat out of the tent, though, has been a huge bonus.
I am also planning a cob build. I just got lucky and found a sale. Picked up 6 100 watt full spectrum cobs the other day for 60 bucks. Got these . Still on sale for 7 more days.
I have bad news for you. Those have white LEDs undeneath a silicone orange filter. I have tried these in early experimentation (LEDzilla isnt my first LED project). They produced a massive amount of heat, including smoke - mostly on that orange thing. I didn't even feel it was safe to use them. I even tried to peel off the orange silicone, but I ended up ruining them. I strongly recommend that you get chips that produce the spectrum natively rather than white with a colored filter. They will still have clear silicone covering the actual chips, but they will produce much less surface heat, therefore safer and more efficient. This style of chip is my favorite so far, but it is more expensive. Maybe you could buy one of the fancy ones and compare. If you want cheap, these are pretty much the same as the colored ones you linked, but without the hot, smoking filter. They totally work to grow, too.
These chips really shouldnt even be sold. They will burn your house down and your insurance will not cover it if it was related to anything illegal.
Well they are on the way so I will give them a shot, perhaps I will get lucky. I plan on running them at roughly 1.75a instaed of 3a so might help with the heat but I guess we will see. Thanks for the input.
Of course. I probably should post some of my failed experiments on these forums. Please let us know what your results are. Note that the white ones are only $3.57ea for 100w chips and I have used them to grow. I still use one to start plants (herbs and vegetables) from seed indoors. It kicks out a LOT of light. I've thought about making an uber homemade flashlight with one.