LED Grow-Drobe

[Prophet]

My mini grow box project started around three years ago. The idea was to build a stealth cabinet that would sit in the spare room. The idea being to only grow 1-2 plants at a time, simply to keep me in smoke.

 

 

 

At first i started with a small cupboard and some energy saver bulbs (80W total):

 

 

 

After a time i realised that i needed more height. So i extended it upwards a bit and fitted a 150W HPS:

 

 

To be fair this box worked quite well. However i'm now going to increase the size again. This'll give me room for two plants and more height. Height is important . . .

 

My new box is twice the size of the old one. We're now at; Height-120cm, Width-85cm, Depth-60cm. This was quite simply achieved by chopping the top off a double wardrobe. Ok it's not quite so 'stealthy' anymore but it'll grow more weed!

As well as a bigger box i wanted to improve every aspect of the box. When you're only growing 1-2 plants your environment needs to be spot on. So what i've done is build a new LED light rig which covers the entire floor-plan of the unit and upgraded the air circulation. Extraction is still via a 4" fan/filter, which does the job just fine. But i've also added 7 PC fans. Four of these are for circulation inside the box, One pushes air into the box (active intake), one pulls stale air away from the filter (as it's backed onto a wall with only a 4" gap i don't want the wall to get damp) and lastly i have one extracting hot air out of the upper section where the electrics are housed. As you know ballasts and transformers get hot so it makes sense to cool this area too, no?

 

This shows a single plant (Mohan Ram) under a HPS in the new box. Just to give you an idea of internal space:

 

 

 

 

This shows the upper shelf. Before adding the LED driver or any padding to the fan. You can see the [crude] extract hole by the plugs. Yes i use a segmented timer and yes it's worked perfectly for three years  :

 

 

 

So what about these new LED lights? Well i got chatting to @Key4 about bridgelux LED strips and they seemed like a good idea. They are 15.5w each and give out 2200 Lumens @700mAh. So 10 of those strips will give 155W @ 22,000 lumens (156lm/W). An equivalent HPS gives 17,000 max. These will be run by a 200w driver, which should be here tomorrow  

 

This was the plan:

 

 

 

And these are the strips:

 

 

 

First job is to make up a heat-sink style hanging frame. For this i got some 3mm ally cut to size and bolted them on:

 

 

 

These were then made into a frame using some right-angle sections to bolt them all together:

 

 

 

 

Once the frame was assembled i could then wire them up (Silicone 16AWG, good to 3.6A & 200c):

 

 

 

Then i had to make up the fan brackets for inside the box. These would be attached using some heat-bent strips of 2mm ABS:

 

 

 

And then added (at staggered heights) inside the box with some conduit to keep everything nice and tidy:

 

 

 

 

I'm currently cracking some new beans. Hence the CFL  

 

 

 

And that's pretty much where we're up-to. My driver *should* be here tomorrow so i'll update with some pics etc. Once the main grow gets underway it'll be in the Sweet Seeds sub-forum so i'll post a link to there. In-case anybody fancies seeing how these LED's work out.

 

 

Thanks for reading  

Edited August 9, 2017 by Prophet

[Guest Key4]

Very clean build with the strips . Ill be watching see how they do .

 

I like the way you connected them with the "l" channel and the back.I was going to make a square but your design is better ill be coping that nice one  

 

One question though you soldered instead of using the connectors. Are the connectors not rated high enough with 10 in series or just because its more fun to play around soldering things ?

 

Good luck with the grow.

[Guest]

Very nice build that @Prophet, very clean. Like the way you've routed the pc fans with the tubing. 

 

Be be interesting to get your thoughts on the LEDs, especially since you've ran CFL and hps. I think in small spaces now, led options such as these, Cobs, boards, even household bulbs  makes hps redundant for new setups. If anything from a safety view too. 

 

what kind of price point you at with these?

 

Good luck

[Satchitananda]

Interesting stuff, I think you are right a small space needs to spot on if you are going to maximise yields, I tend to wing it and get variable results. I haven't seen those LED strips before, they look interesting. They could augment my 150w CMH maybe...

[Prophet]

@Key4

I prefer a 'hard' connection where possible. I know clips are good normally but i dont want any weak points that could arc. And yes, i solder everything

 

@bobnudd

Thanks. I'll certainly be posting up my results. A chap in the states is using them and they look the shizz. Price wise you're looking £150 odd for the lot (strips, driver, ally)

[Prophet]

Righty then . . .

 

So my driver turned up today in the AM, which was nice. So she's now all wired up and good to go. However . . . There are good points and bad points

 

Firstly the bad. Two of the strips don't seem to work. When connected to the rest, every LED (on every strip) goes out, expect two on the affected strip. Not sure if i damaged them or not during the building process. I suppose it's possible. So i'm two strips down at the moment but will order up a couple replacements ASAP. Because of this issue i had to remove all my soldered wiring *groan* and use the push-fit wiring. And of course my wire was too thick! So i had to replace it with some bog standard flex i had lying around. This works just fine but im not getting the brightness i expected. It's hard to show in the pictures below but it feels about as bright as my 125w CFL? Doesn't hurt your eyes like a HPS would. And yes the driver is turned all the way up  (700mA)

 

These things run super cool. You can put your finger onto an LED with no problem. I think my heat-sink frame was overkill  .The driver too doesn't get anywhere near as hot as my 150W mag ballast for the HPS. So that's good.

 

The other 'issue' i've got is that the strips connected closet to the driver is the brightest, then they tail off. You can see it in the below picture. The driver is above and to the left:

 

 

 

 

 

My cream caramel

 

 

[Guest Key4]

How have you wired them mate ,looks like a lot of extra wires .Have you done parallel/series and split the current by accident too 350ma? That would explain it.

 

8 strips runs at 125wish so it should leave you seeing dots if you look directly at it.

 

Run one wire + to - between each strip and it should pull 700ma.

 

 

[Prophet]

@Key4 you were right buddy. Wired them in parallel by accident 

 

We now have sun

 

  

[Guest Key4]

Is it bright now? Could do with a watt meter to check what its pulling if you have one.

 

Shame about the 2 damaged. Did you complain and ask for new ones Somebody elsewhere had a couple arrive damaged and got replacements.

[Prophet]

It's probably my fault. I used one (or two) of the strips as drill jigs  They're only a fiver each, i'll get a couple more.

 

Yes the pictures don't do it justice as the light auto-balances on the camera. They are much brighter and warmer. The ally heatsinks are now hot to the touch, as is the driver. So i know we're cooking on full power 

 

I'll get a picture once the sun goes down

 

Thanks again for your help

[vortex]

looking good mate .... ive just built one but cant seem to post any pics up?

i used 2x 300w led pannels in mine .  girls look happy enough in there tho ... great job ...

[Muppet]

Expansion is addictive, my first grow space went from 4'x3, to 4' x, 8' to 8' x 8'! Once ya start...