25 Watt LED Grow

[papabeach1]

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!!

 

[Rogue]

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.

 

[MeNtAlPaTiEnT]

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!

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

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?

 

[Runbyhemp]

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:

 

[Thorn]

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

 

[Rogue]

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:

 

[madmunk]

if u like lo-energy stealthy ops

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

 

[420FREEDOM]

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

 

[Rogue]

I stand corrected. I forgot I wrote that.

 

[Thorn]

hope you enjoyed the smoke

 

[420FREEDOM]

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

 

[Rogue]

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!

 

[city]

wow have to keep track of this one. good job

 

[Rogue]

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.

 

[Tater]

Very cool.

 

[tcbud]

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

 

[Cam09]

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

 

[TrailerTrashed]

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

 

[Rogue]

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.