# 25 Watt LED Grow



## Rogue (Jun 3, 2008)

Hello everyone this is my first grow journal on here. I have been conducting an experiment with LEDs for small closet grow that I thought I would share. 

My ladies are now in their 9th week from seed. The seeds were from a good bag. I originally grew them to test some new prototype lights and check distance needed for separation. The plants stretched like crazy no matter the distance. I think this is because of too little blue in the prototypes. The lights are a mixture heavy on 670 nm red, with about half as many 420 nm purples and some warm white thrown in to round out the spectrum. I thought 420's and the warm whites would be enough blue but I was wrong. Like I was saying they stretched to the point they fell over. After 10 days out of the ground I then added a 7 Watt warm white spot to the mixture and this seems to have done the trick. I was able to brace them and get them to grow mostly straight. I decided to let them grow and see what would happen. After 4 more weeks under the combined total of 25 watts from all the lights, I turned the lights to 12/12. That was 3 weeks ago. They are showing pretty good now. I have been interested in how well they will flower as just about every LED grow i've seen the grower uses some other type of light before they finish flowering. I decided to start doing a grow journal at this time because I figured there are others who have wondered how well a pure LED grow turns out as well. I plan on continuing to grow them under nothing but LEDs until finished. So if interested please check in and see their progress from time to time. 

Factoids:
Total lighting power 24.8 watts according to Save-A-Watt

To date the 3 plants have only been watered 6 times with a grandtotal of 5 quarts of water.:holysheep:

Total energy used to date is less than one 250watt HPS light used 24hours a day for one week.

Plants are in 2 liter soda bottles filled with MG soil.


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## Rogue (Jun 4, 2008)

I took the picture yesterday in a hurry as it was just about time to start the dark period for my girls. Here are some better ones and a little overview on my setup. The last two pictures are the same plant looks like I need to feed her some more magic bloom. but it is hard to since the soil holds the water so well.

Any experts out there venture a guess at any of the girls genetics? They are from a bag so I don't know nothing about them.

Til later gents!


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## stoner (Jun 4, 2008)

it looks like it is stretching a bit


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## Rogue (Jun 4, 2008)

stoner said:
			
		

> it looks like it is stretching a bit



Understatement of the century. When I started them I was just using the prototype lights, only about 3.5 watts a plant and very heavy on the red spectrum. They got to be amost 6 inches tall with just the pea leaves and tiny real leaves before they fell over from the rapid growth. I thought about taking a few shots and posting them but figured you guys would ban me do to plant abuse. LOL!!! I was just going to pullem out and throw them away but when they responded to the additional white I decided to try and save them.


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## stoner (Jun 4, 2008)

lol, ye it was a good idea to try and save them they are looking really healthy now, im liking the shade of green to


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## Ilikebigbuds (Jun 4, 2008)

:stuff-1125699181_i_ hum, Interesting....

you could add a 120 watt grow light (u can buy at lowes or menards) and that might help fill her out a bit.

good luck.


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## Rogue (Jun 4, 2008)

I am sure more light would help I usually grow with 7 27watt cfls, but i'm doing this one just with the LEDs to see what happens.


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## stoner (Jun 4, 2008)

wel if you didnt experiment you wouldnt find out what works so i support you


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## Rogue (Jun 12, 2008)

The ladies are doing good. They are 10 weeks old from wetting the seed, ending their fourth week into flowering. I was able to get them to drink a little more than half a quart of water with MG magic bloom in it. Here are a few quick shots.


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## MeNtAlPaTiEnT (Jun 12, 2008)

Looks pretty good. For only 25 watts, you got three healthy females doing great and loving life!


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## Rogue (Jun 15, 2008)

I was wondering what everyone thought about when is a good time to stop feeding nutes when you are flowering? Any help would be appreciated!


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## stoner (Jun 16, 2008)

I was thinknig the same thing very impressive :hubba: 


			
				MeNtAlPaTiEnT said:
			
		

> Looks pretty good. For only 25 watts, you got three healthy females doing great and loving life!


 ​


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## Cali*Style (Jun 17, 2008)

They are stretched. I am impressed though, kudos for sticking to your plan. 

I have a life long friend who does some big things with indoor grows. 

That friend told me to stop all nutes at 50-60 % amber triches. I was told to let them sit for at least two weeks once I cut the nutes. Giving them a couple good flushes in that time. The only reason I was giving is, nutes will affect the taste and burn quality of the buds.:ignore:

That may be wrong, or not the general consensus...?? Just what I was told.

Keep us posted and keep it up.


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## Cam09 (Jun 17, 2008)

nice looking ladies.  glad you decided to do a all led grow :aok:  im very interested to see how it turns out, definitely going to follow the rest of yer grow.


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## Roken (Jun 17, 2008)

interesting!
               Well i happend to stumble upon this thread and think that a L.E.D only test grow is a great idea.  But i think if your going to take the results seriouse than you should be growing with enough lumen output to that of a 250watt bulb, which i think is around 35,000 lumens.  This will at least give you the minimum requierd lumen output per sq foot, which is 5,000lumens.  Hope some of this can help, and as far as your grow i would fertallize untill my 6th week and then add water only for the last 2 weeks so your finishd product will taste smooth and have more of an aroma!!  Peace and Love!!!
Roken.


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## Rogue (Jun 18, 2008)

The ladies are now 11 weeks old from seed ending fifth week in flowering. Starting to see some good trics forming.


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## stoner (Jun 19, 2008)

hey they are looking really nicce, that shade of green looks so good

:48:
:2940th_rasta:


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## Rogue (Jun 21, 2008)

1. Due to my living situation I am limited to to small micro closet type of grows and the LEDS generate very little heat. They make CFLs appear to be hot in comparison.

2. They last a long time and use very little energy for the amount of light the produce. My grow to date has used 32.6 kilowatt hours of energy or about $3.40 worth of electricity. This is less juice than a 250 watt HPS ran for 6 days 24 hours a day. I like using green technology to grow my green.:hubba:

3. They produce a wide spectrum of light. The attachment shows a MH and a HPS both comparaed to the plant reaction curve (the curve used by 'PAR Watt' light meters) and a warm white LED. The LED is the blue line for those new to seeing the plant reaction curve. As you can see the LED has a nice smooth curve of a spectrum that matches up fairly well to the PAR curve. The MH and HPS are both more spikey and have the most light produced around 560nm by them. Which makes sense since they are meant to help us see not grow plants. So basically what the graphs show is that at equal maximum intensites the LED produces far more plant usable light. The HPS and MH bulbs are far cheaper and produce far more light from a reasonable budget at this time but the price of LEDs are dropping everyday. One day not to long in the future LEDs will be the way to go I am convinced.

The 2 spectrum read outs for the MH and the HPS are for the standard lighting variety of bulbs not the ones that are enhanced for growing, I try to play fair but I couldn't find a good spectrum analysis of an enhanced bulb to use.


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## brushybill (Jun 21, 2008)

hey rogue
interesting thread, i have 1 northernberry that i have been vegging under  t5 that i plan to flower with an led and a 17w ott light   just to see what happens, i am looking forward to see what you get off of those plants of yours,    good luck


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## lorenzo (Jun 21, 2008)

I wonder what the results would be if you put those plants under 150W LED lights?  Keep it up.:headbang:


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## Rogue (Jun 21, 2008)

brushybill said:
			
		

> hey rogue
> interesting thread, i have 1 northernberry that i have been vegging under  t5 that i plan to flower with an led and a 17w ott light   just to see what happens, i am looking forward to see what you get off of those plants of yours,    good luck



I'm not sure what a ott light is but as for the LED try a warm white flood or spot instead of the red and blue combo lights that are for sale everywhere. The warm whites give you a better spectrum. Goodluck!


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## Rogue (Jun 25, 2008)

The ladies are now 12 weeks old ending their sixth week in flowering. My runt shown in the first 3 pictures. Is starting to change colors on her pistils all over her it may not be to long before it is time to harvest her. The other two just have a couple of orange pistils so the will be fattening up for awhile yet. I can't believe how much the buds have grown in the last week.:hubba:


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## lyfr (Jun 26, 2008)

very interesting rogue.  if you told me you could do that with 25 watts for like 3 bucks i never wouldve believed it.  thanks for sharin


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## Rogue (Jul 2, 2008)

The ladies are now 13 weeks old ending their 7th week in flowering. The lower leaves are starting to droop and yellow. I am seeing yellow spots on the leaves of my runt now all over many of the fan leaves will put a picture up tomorrow. Any one have an idea why?


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## dannyt70 (Jul 2, 2008)

from what i understand some yellowing of lower fan leaves can be expected.hope it helps.your grow is awesome man and a whole bunch of levels...keep us posted.let us know when you really dial in this led thing im way into thanks a bunch for this thread


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## brushybill (Jul 2, 2008)

the fan leaves will start to die off right before harvest time, i wouldnt worry. one or two weeks to go, nice job, i just started flowering 1 northernberry with 1 red led
       1- 40w cfl
        1- 14w cfl full spectrum--- hope i get results like yours, i never thought you could even get buds with such a small amount of light 
                            good luck


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## tcbud (Jul 6, 2008)

Real interesting, thanks for sharing this.  And i am with who ever it was that said hold the nutes the last two weeks, and flush those plants when you water.  I think you want to put three times the amount of water thru those pots as the pots hold to do a "flush". (a bunch of water anyway to get those nutes out of that soil)


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## desertsead (Jul 7, 2008)

Nice grow!  have you considered not using any red leds for the veg stage.  From what I understand the red leds give you the long stems.  Are you not allowing the water to drain  at all?


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## Rogue (Jul 7, 2008)

desertsead said:
			
		

> Nice grow!  have you considered not using any red leds for the veg stage.  From what I understand the red leds give you the long stems.  Are you not allowing the water to drain  at all?



I drilled holes through the points of the bottle bottoms and have them sitting on clear overflow trays so they drain like normal pots. I learned most of what I know about growing from Mel Frank's book 'Marijuana Grower's Insider's Guide'. He preached using deep pots so that is why I used the bottles. 

I have thought about removing the red light but the plants really need it too. Sunlight is flooded with red light. The problem with my current setup is too little blue to counter the red. The prototype lights were made with flowering more in mind than vegging. I am going to build my own for my next grow. I have a bunch of the really strong 10mm 350mw ones on order. I am going to try and mimic the par light curve with my next setup. I am also going to supercrop it, now that i know what that is and how to do it. I learned about supercropping about a week in to flowering to late to use it.


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## AlienBait (Jul 9, 2008)

:holysheep:  What??? An LED grow and no one told me??  Guess I need to log in more often.  LOL! 

Rogue, I think you are on the right path with going with the Jumbo Warm White LEDs.  I bought a bunch of them myself because I was going to be building my own lights.  I've had them for a while now, but haven't had the time to put the thing together.

If you haven't already, you might want to check out mine LED grow from last winter.  There is some good technical information towards the end.

http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18126


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## Rogue (Jul 9, 2008)

Alien Bait your grow was my inspiration!


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## Rogue (Jul 9, 2008)

The ladies are now 14 weeks old ending their 8th week in flowering. I have decided to harvest the runt tomorrow right after lights on. Pictures of her top bud are the first two shots. The third shot is a bud down just below. The fourth and fifth shots are of the upper halves of the other two. They are acting a little tipsy. Going to have to either add a support or a string or two across to help hold them up.


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## Mutt (Jul 9, 2008)

I'd get those lights right on top of em almost. 1-2" if ya can.
Stop feeding ferts last 2 weeks of flower


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## Rogue (Jul 17, 2008)

The ladies are now 15 weeks old ending their 9th week in flowering. I am toking on the runt that was harvested last week, while I write this. She came out to about a gram after drying. Decided not worry about curing her and just smoking her. Nice cerebral energy high. It is definitely stronger than the bag of swag the seed came from. I used some bamboo skewers to give the other two some support. I moved the lights around after harvesting the runt last week. I have the 7watt warm white and one of the prototypes on the lady in the first three shots and four of the prototypes on the lady in the last three shots. It looks like the warm white is doing a better job. The one with the 4 actually has more total wattage on her but it is mostly red light.


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## papabeach1 (Jul 17, 2008)

can ya show us the led lights ya using? or where ya get it? show us the url?


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## Rogue (Jul 17, 2008)

The prototypes are par 38 style Bulbs with a mixture of red, violet and warm white 5 mm LEDs. My avatar is a picture of one of them pointed at my camera. As far as I know they are not for sale any where. The warm white spot I am using I bought at superbrightleds.com. I would recommend a flood instead the beam is to tight really even for one plant. Live and learn.


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## Rogue (Jul 27, 2008)

Sorry about the gap between updates life and summer got in the way.

The ladies are now 17 weeks old and in their 11th week in flower. I think they are about ready the calyxes are getting nice and puffy. The first three shots are to give you a better idea on my lighting as requested. The next several are of the lady living under the prototypes. The last ones are of the one getting both warm white and the prototype. 

I received my LEDs from China. I am getting ready to build some new lights in a storage cabinet so I can have my closet back :hubba: LOL! I will have have both a veg and a flower area in it. More on it later as it develops.


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## [email protected] (Aug 12, 2008)

update?


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## Sexologist420 (Aug 12, 2008)

dam them some sexy hoes for only 25watts led


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## someguy (Aug 12, 2008)

really really not bad lookin, lets see more


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## papabeach1 (Aug 12, 2008)

OMG that is intz!!  I would go out shoppin and check what I can get  china hmm maybe flood lights yeah.. I notice u got small "china" pots where plants grew on.. its really small can pot lol.  just that maybe plants will be bigger if uses bigger pots along with that flood lights.. hmm I would try that myself thanks for good sharing info!!


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## Rogue (Aug 12, 2008)

Just  a quick update I harvested about a week ago. After drying I ended up with just a hair over 7 grams of fairly airy but potent buds. It's a nice energy high. The work on my new LED setup is progressing. I have settled on a final design and have obtained just about everything I need. I plan to have it done by next week to start a new grow.

I am building a light board that will be 2' x 3' that will hold 384 10mm LEDs. I am putting them in clusters of 4. Each cluster will have 1 135k mcd red, 1 130k mcd blue, 1 210k mcd warm white and 1 255k mcd super white LED. There will 96 clusters in all. Total lighting power will be about 193 watts or about 32 watts per square foot. Total cost is going to come in at just under $400. Yes I know I could get a HPS for that, but this will run cooler and will be brighter than a HPS as well as last for 7+ years.


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## MeNtAlPaTiEnT (Aug 12, 2008)

Just over 7 grams? That sounds very promising considering you only used 25 watts. Your new set-up will undoubtably be an excellent set-up, I can imagine. All the best of luck to you and keep up the good work!


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## The Hemp Goddess (Aug 13, 2008)

I'm confused...

Although it is great to be able to grow with smaller wattage bulbs that produce less heat, IMO, it still basically gets down to grams per watt.  So 7 grams from 25W is .28 grams per watt.  Maybe there is something I didn't get, but .28 grams per watt is really not a good yield.  So, I can't look at this as "green" growing since ultimately it actually takes more wattage to produce less bud...or did I miss something?


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## Runbyhemp (Aug 13, 2008)

> I'm confused...
> 
> Although it is great to be able to grow with smaller wattage bulbs that produce less heat, IMO, it still basically gets down to grams per watt. So 7 grams from 25W is .28 grams per watt. Maybe there is something I didn't get, but .28 grams per watt is really not a good yield. So, I can't look at this as "green" growing since ultimately it actually takes more wattage to produce less bud...or did I miss something?



:yeahthat:


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## Thorn (Aug 13, 2008)

good to see an led grow! Do you have harvest pics? what colours were your trichomes at harvest?


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## Rogue (Aug 13, 2008)

The Hemp Goddess said:
			
		

> I'm confused...
> 
> Although it is great to be able to grow with smaller wattage bulbs that produce less heat, IMO, it still basically gets down to grams per watt.  So 7 grams from 25W is .28 grams per watt.  Maybe there is something I didn't get, but .28 grams per watt is really not a good yield.  So, I can't look at this as "green" growing since ultimately it actually takes more wattage to produce less bud...or did I miss something?



 This was just an experiment that I was able to learn from.  No claims of this being a green grow. No claims that this was a fantastic result. But if you never try new things you never learn and never improve on what you do.  I have never claimed to be a expert grower. I have about a dozen grows under my belt over the years. I learn tons every time I grow. If I had understood what super cropping is when I started I am sure the out come would have been different. My hope for this journal was nothing more than to share the experience with all of you out there. I knew before I started the journal that my outcome would probably not be something to brag about, but that wasn't the goal. My goal was to find out if you could get buds from nothing but LEDs and you can. Now I am going to try and do it better. My new setup will produce almost 27000 lumens and hopefully a whole lot more bud. But if it doesn't it isn't the end of the world really good buds are easy enough to come by where i live so i am not depending on it.

I don't have pictures of the final product as I have smoked most of it already they weren't that photogenic anyway. Oh and the trichs were a nice milky white. Stay tuned another season of SciFi growing will be starting soon!:hubba:


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## madmunk (Aug 13, 2008)

if u like lo-energy stealthy ops

try an 250w envirolite, one blue bulb and one red...
switch as neccessary


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## 420FREEDOM (Aug 13, 2008)

Hey rogue, cool LED grow
You did say "this was a green grow".  I'm starting to think that by the time you get enough lumens to flower and put on good weight, that you'll be using the same energy as an hps or something.   

"2. They last a long time and use very little energy for the amount of light the produce. My grow to date has used 32.6 kilowatt hours of energy or about $3.40 worth of electricity. This is less juice than a 250 watt HPS ran for 6 days 24 hours a day. I like using green technology to grow my green."

Hey rogue, I admire you doing this research.  What probably needs to be done is to get a lightmeter and see how many leds at  what watt it'll take to produce the same amount of foot  candles as an hps


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## Rogue (Aug 14, 2008)

I stand corrected. I forgot I wrote that.


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## Thorn (Aug 14, 2008)

hope you enjoyed the smoke


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## 420FREEDOM (Aug 14, 2008)

I learned something about leds today. Lumen for lumen , you can't compare them to other lights cuz the led shines only down and the fluoresecnts and bulbs shine 360 degrees and only half actually goes down while the other half is reflected down, I belive the  only way to measure them side by side for lumens would be to use a light meter. Manufacturers "Light Lumens" are measured at the bulb.
I would so love to do an LED project


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## Rogue (Aug 21, 2008)

I have started building it. Here is a picture with a standard Bic lighter for scale. I just finished putting the last coat of white on the front of it a couple of hours ago. As soon as it sets (tomorrow) I will start gluing the LEDs in and then it will be soldering time. Hope to be done by the end of the weekend.

:holysheeprilling all the holes wasn't any fun.:hubba:

Thanks for all the encouragement I have been getting. I'm definitly going to do a journal when its ready. Stay tuned!


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## city (Aug 22, 2008)

wow  have to keep track of this one. good job


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## Rogue (Aug 24, 2008)

Taking a break from gluing and thought i would load a couple of pictures.

The first show the reinforcing frame i added.

The second shows all of the LEDs in waiting to be glued. 

I am using hot melt seems to be working good, it just sucks to do anything 384 times.


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## Tater (Aug 24, 2008)

Very cool.


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## tcbud (Aug 24, 2008)

Looks good for the second go round.  Glad you got some nice smoke out of the first.


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## Cam09 (Aug 27, 2008)

Sweet. Cant wait to see that baby up and running. i will be watching :watchplant:


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## TrailerTrashed (Aug 27, 2008)

Very nice thread! Hope you dont mind if I watch and learn...IMO Much Love.


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## Rogue (Aug 27, 2008)

I've done the most tedious part now. The LEDs are all connect into their small 4 piece series and have the protection resistors soldered in place. I didn't think it would take too long, but it took almost 12 hours of work after the gluing was done to get to where it is now. I just have to wire them all together in parallel and it will be good to go. i tested them after this round of soldering and they all work. :woohoo: So I didn't cook any with the iron. I think about another day and it will be done.

The first shot shows the whole board.
The second is one of the 4 piece clusters.


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## Rogue (Sep 4, 2008)

Sorry for the delay in updating. 

I finished the light Saturday.  I've been updating my closet since. I put in a diffuser vent to exhaust the air from the can filter and any heat with it. I have it venting to the room. Tomorrow I will be putting mylar on the walls and making a couple of reflectors out of a big chunk of card board and some mylar, to block one side and in front of the door. Then I just have to hang the  light. I bought some of those self adjusting spring loaded light lifter pulley things to hang it and make it easy to move up and down. Then it will be time for a new journal.


Here is a couple of shots:
The first shows the light all wired and ready to go.

The second is with the light powered on.:holysheep:  I didn't turn off the room lights, it is just so bright that the camera adjusted to make everything else look like night.  That is also the back of the light. I am a little afraid to take a shot straight into to it.


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## Thorn (Sep 4, 2008)

that looks ace, well done on having the patience to do that, i'm not sure I would


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## aslan king (Sep 4, 2008)

You have done R&D for threst of us. Much thanks. We can still grow and lower our carbon footprints, Who Knew!


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## Funkfarmer (Sep 4, 2008)

Cool light Rogue, I hope you get a better harvest from this project.


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## Rogue (Sep 7, 2008)

I've just finished the rebuild on my closet. New Mylar on the walls and on the side and front reflectors. I installed the carbon filter and can fan with an exhaust hole out of the closet it is the small white disc in the corner of last image and with a 3 speed fan control switch. I also added a 4" a/c cooling fan to the grow area for air circulation. The light is on raisers to make it easy to adjust. Just did a 2 hour burn in. Temps hit 90 degrees F in the grow area with the light at the lowest height it would ever be and the exhaust fan on low. Trying it with the fan on medium now. If it makes a big enough difference to justify the noise I may run it that way. I have seeds germinating now so I will be starting a new journal when they sprout. I will post a link here when I do. 

Thanks for watching.


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## [email protected] (Sep 7, 2008)

so are you useing passive intake? if so make sure its a big hole, or better yet get a smaller fan for intake should help cool it a couple degrees. everything looks good i cant wait see how they grow, peace.


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## HydroManiac (Sep 8, 2008)

The Hemp Goddess said:
			
		

> I'm confused...
> 
> Although it is great to be able to grow with smaller wattage bulbs that produce less heat, IMO, it still basically gets down to grams per watt. So 7 grams from 25W is .28 grams per watt. Maybe there is something I didn't get, but .28 grams per watt is really not a good yield. So, I can't look at this as "green" growing since ultimately it actually takes more wattage to produce less bud...or did I miss something?


 

Some people like the brick some people like the quality


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## Rogue (Sep 8, 2008)

[email protected] said:
			
		

> so are you useing passive intake? if so make sure its a big hole, or better yet get a smaller fan for intake should help cool it a couple degrees. everything looks good i cant wait see how they grow, peace.



Yes I am using passive intake. The closet doors are the sliding variety so there are plenty of gaps for air to flow in. The 90 degree temp was with the light 8 inches from the floor. This is where it will be to start my next batch. The 90 degrees was about a 10 degree increase from room ambient so not a huge jump and it was with the fan control on low. This made the can fan run so slow that it was silent, just a a trickle of air out of the closet maybe 50-70 cfm so it is exchanging the air in the closet maybe once per minute or two.  The hottest parts of the light at maybe 120-130 degrees (mini heat sinks, the leads and resistors) are on the backside of the board and are cool enough to hold onto for several seconds, but there are alot of them (384 heat sinks, 768 leads and 96 resistors). The light produces a fair quantity of heat but not real high temperatures because of this. Also the grow area is 2x3 feet and up to 7 foot high if needed. Right now I think  my 4" fan is recirculating the heated air back through the grow area since it has a higher flow rate (150 cfm) than the exhaust when it is on low.


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## Rogue (Sep 12, 2008)

http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?p=317851#post317851

Or check my signature.


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