My DIY Led panel

[Lean_McSheen]

After reading shit loads on Leds, I came to realize that buying a pre made Led panel would be a waste of my money. Except for a couple of companies products such as the Apache at600 (which was too expensive for me), none would have produced what I wanted for the money I wanted to spend. So while reading on another forum I found people who were building their own Led panels which looked easy to replicate and they were kind enough to post an items list for these panels. So I made one! All in all, this panel cost me around £600 and that is including power tools (except for a drill which I already had).

And here it is...

I can turn it down to 25 watts for seedlings and up to 400watts for flowering (which it is at now). I could make it produce more but it would be too much hassle to cool the COBs. You can, in fact, run this up to 800-900watts but you would require Laboratory cooling equipment (liquid nitrogen kind of cooling).

I have been using this since the second or third week of veg, before that I was using a 250watt CFL to veg them with. I have been using a 400watt hps up until this run so I should be able to see roughly how well it performs against my hps. This run I have been using new strains so I can't compare perfectly, especially as the sweet cheese I'm running didn't stretch half as much as I thought it would, nor did the sweet black angel.

Here are the plants under it (FYI I have the panel about a foot above the canopy and lower still if I lower the power). They are day 25-26 of flowering. I have Sweet black angel, og kush and sweet cheese in there.

I would also like to point out that I grow in soil and Organically. I use Storage boxes and have no holes for drainage, I hate the idea of wasting water and nutes. Also in the pic I have a tube heater but I isn't needed yet, probably will be needed in winter though.

Peace

Edited November 2, 2014 by Lean_McSheen

[OddNut]

Looks sweet that mate

[SoD]

No drainage? I've never heard of someone doing this before. Obviously works for you if you've had previous crops this way but I'm puzzled as to why the roots aren't starving of oxygen in your system and rotting in the stagnant root zone. Do you provide oxygen by other means?

[Lean_McSheen]

Nope no drainage at all, and it's just soil, no perlite/vermiculite/clay pebbles. Tbh I'm not sure why it works myself, I have two 5 liter bottles that I fill up, usually I put the tap on full so maybe that puts a bit of oxygen in there? I water each tub with 5 liters of water with nutes, wait until it's pretty dry and then water again (every 2-3 days atm). One tub has 2 girls, 1 tub has 3 girls. I read somewhere (can't remember when, I've been doing this for quite a while) that the Three Little Birds grew in tubs with no drainage holes... I figured I'd give it a go and it worked for me so I just kept on doing it as it seemed less wasteful. I don't provide them with an oxygen (not that I know of anyway), I used a mixture of nutes, PM Oldtimers grow and bloom, Bio bizz grow and bloom, PM bio Silicon and Bio bizz root juice. Obviously not all at the same time, just what they need at the time.

I have noticed however that if I water too much it does starve the roots of oxygen, leaves go brown etc. it's just knowing how much the plants can handle before it gets to that point.

Peace

[SoD]

Nope no drainage at all, and it's just soil, no perlite/vermiculite/clay pebbles. Tbh I'm not sure why it works myself, I have two 5 liter bottles that I fill up, usually I put the tap on full so maybe that puts a bit of oxygen in there? I water each tub with 5 liters of water with nutes, wait until it's pretty dry and then water again (every 2-3 days atm). One tub has 2 girls, 1 tub has 3 girls. I read somewhere (can't remember when, I've been doing this for quite a while) that the Three Little Birds grew in tubs with no drainage holes... I figured I'd give it a go and it worked for me so I just kept on doing it as it seemed less wasteful. I don't provide them with an oxygen (not that I know of anyway), I used a mixture of nutes, PM Oldtimers grow and bloom, Bio bizz grow and bloom, PM bio Silicon and Bio bizz root juice. Obviously not all at the same time, just what they need at the time.

I have noticed however that if I water too much it does starve the roots of oxygen, leaves go brown etc. it's just knowing how much the plants can handle before it gets to that point.

Peace

Fair play to ya bro. If you've sussed it out so it works for you then more power to ya. I love it when someone tries the unconventional and it works. I like your attitude towards learning by getting to know your plants and their needs. It's by far the best way to learn to grow top quality cannabis and will do more for you than any well marketed "bud boost" etc will. So zero drainage eh? I feel a wee experiment coming on.

[Lean_McSheen]

Well tbh, it wasn't so much about me trying to push my knowledge or the boundaries of growing, more to do with waste and laziness haha, I hated putting my plants into buckets of water when they got a bit too dry and the soil wasn't able to soak it up from top watering... this way, even if I leave watering a bit late, I just have to water from the top and it just soaks into the soil without me submerging the pot. As for learning by getting to know the plants, well that's what it's all about for me. Some people look at a nutrient chart to tell them what to do, I look at my plants, they let me know what they need.

As for no drainage, go for it, just look at the plant, it'll tell you what to do

Peace

[SoD]

Submerging yer pots too? You're way out there bro I never heard of that either bro. Mibbe I need to read up some more

[Saddam]

What leds are they mate? They don't look like the low wattage diodes you see on other manufactured panels, they look more like the type of leds you'd find in a kitchen. I can only see one colour too? (white) Most of the manufactured panels I've seen have 4 or 5 different diodes each with different spectral outputs giving them that purple fairy light look. Fair play on building your own though

Edited November 2, 2014 by Saddam

[oscar zeta acosta]

Hello mate all looking good, what did you yield on your last run with hps? Oza

[Lean_McSheen]

These are Cree CXA3070 Led Cobs, they are all at warm white 3000k. they can be powered up to something like 112 watts each (don't have the data sheet to hand for the specific number) but like I said, it would be far too much hassle. Yeh they are all white, these specific cree cobs produce an almost perfect colour ratio for flowering so no need to add extra colours. The theory behind the muti colour diodes is that the plants peak abortion in chlorophyll A+B are in the red and blue zone, but you can't grow plants with just the red and blue (well you can but the aren't pretty). Plants need a full spectrum (this is why you see most manufacturers have a few white diodes as well as other colours) to grow to their full potential. Plants absorb different wave lengths at different stages and at different parts on the plant... We all know that a bluer spectrum is best for veg and a redder spectrum is better for flowering. But the other part, plants absorbing different colours at different parts is easily shown too. If you look at a mature plant, the leaves lower down (if healthy) will tend to be a darker green than the leaves higher up, this is because the lower leaves use more of the green spectrum where as the newer leaves don't. The newer leaves reflect that part of the spectrum rather than absorbing it, hence why they tend to be lighter green.

Hope this makes sense, bit stoned atm.

Peace

Edited November 2, 2014 by Lean_McSheen

[Lean_McSheen]

Last run with Hps I ran Cheese (known for not being a heavy yielder) and I came in at about 0.6g/w but I had a plethora of issues, mainly heat control though. The run before that however was with bubblgummer and White Grapefruit which came in at 0.85g/w

Peace

[distracted]

These are Cree CXA3070 Led Cobs, they are all at warm white 3000k

That's the same kelvin as Halogens, isn't there almost no chlorophyll activity @ 3000k? It's in the trough between the 2 peaks of useful light isn't it?

[Lean_McSheen]

Not sure about Halogen kelvin, but 3000k hits both A+B, i'll have to try and find the graphs to show you, I'm way too stoned to try and explain it right now. 3000k Is a white light which has all of the spectrum in it (except UV if I remember right) it covers either side of the absorption peaks

Peace

[distracted]

just looked at the relative spectral power distribution on their site and it does cross both, I take it back... they have a 2700K but there is no spectrum distribution

[Lean_McSheen]

Yeh they do have a 2700k but getting your hands on those in small quantities is hard, and they aren't as efficient at producing light as the 3000k by a fair amount.

Peace