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New Grow Box

Nearly finished construction of new grow box and thought I would share.
 
I'm using a cheap 'china light' 600w double led (2 x 5w) with 60 leds.
 
Hope this works now :rofl:
 
Here's the box closed
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Shot of the LED's
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One of the guinea pepper pig
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And getting 30000 lux at top leaves
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Edit - Fixed pictures :clap:
 
Also got a Cayenne Pepper experiment on the go.
 
Again with a cheap 'china' E27 50W grow light. Two 50W and a 10W 5700k in a 40x40x80cm mdf box.
 
These two photos are 50 hours apart. Seems to be working great.
 
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lek said:
i guess you didn't run the LEDs at their full power.  100W are more than enough.
 

It's one of those 'Buy my light cos it's uber powerful' scenarios. Misleading advertising to the max.
 
I reckon the 600W is more like 100W actual power and the 50W are around 10W actual power.
 
I must measure even if it's just for interest.
 
Did some power readings today and the 600W is 120W actual power draw. The 50W is 16W actual power draw so not too far off.
 
KAOS said:
Did some power readings today and the 600W is 120W actual power draw. The 50W is 16W actual power draw so not too far off.
SO you have two grow boxes? 
 
You are getting 30k lumens on a 120 watt led in the one?
 
And your cayenne box got two 16watts with a 10w 5700k?
 
How much lumens is the cayenne giving you?
 
Gonzo said:
SO you have two grow boxes? 
 
You are getting 30k lumens on a 120 watt led in the one?
 
And your cayenne box got two 16watts with a 10w 5700k?
 
How much lumens is the cayenne giving you?
 
Yup two grow boxes
 
Not lumens. It's reading 30000 Lux at about 20cm
 
I've dropped the cayenne box down to one grow bulb and one 5700k.
Reading a lux of around 7000 at top of leaves, but the with the setup I can drop the lights.
Safe height (before it gets warm) is around 50000 lux.
Excuse the poor cayenne. It got a topping on the weekend.
 
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50k lumens for a 16w and 10 w led?
 
From my understanding you can not measure led with a lux meter due to different color it gives off,it's something to do with the red and green,
making a led reading invalid as to what lux it truly gives like the sun.
 
I'm not all clued up on lighting i'm actually checking into it now to see what better options there are for a new seedling growbox,so maybe others can add to this.
 
So i'm curious if this is actually giving off 50k lumens,it seems way too much for a combined 26w led lighting.
 
 
 
It's a cheap and dirty method and yes these meters are calibrated for what the human eye sees so the blue spectrum peak give incorrect lux readings.
 
I fully agree that the readings are not accurate, but other than spending $$$$k on lab gear why not try get something cheap to do readings, find a baseline that works, and compare for future.
 
I use it for lux comparison of different led lights and aim for around 5k-6k at top of leaves. This seems to work a treat for me.
 
Has anyone else done readings with grow lights so that we can compare ?
 
Two photos of Cayenne at 7k lux 48 hours apart
 
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As a side note I have noticed that since the pepper in the big grow box (first set of pics) has had a couple of days of rays some of the top leaves are getting sunburn so 30k lux seems too high, however the fruit is ripening at a much faster rate so a bit of a win lose really. I might just leave it like that, let the fruit ripen and top a third of the height off.
 
Yeah i agree get the cheapest light and see what they can do.
Im just in awh that the 16w and 10w can produce 50k lux when going closer to light. I need to get me a e27 grow light they dont look to cheap over here.

I tested my fluoro t8s with a phone which is said to be somewhat close in measurement and they only give 7000lux at 6 inches This is a 4ft with two 36wats(3250 rated lumens each). Right against the light it's 20k lux.

I thought only the expensive pro high watt types like 400 hid lights give that kind of lux. The sun is rated 100k lux and its said that 20-50k lux is good for growing.

So yeah im in a bit of confused state now lol We need to get more people to test their setups.

Sent from my GT-I9190 using Tapatalk
 
KAOS said:
I have an iPhone6 so will do some readings with that also. What app are you using?
Just a generic app from the google play store. Lux meter is the name.
 
I'm sure this is not perfect but some people say it gives a somewhat close enough reading,so lets see what yours read.
 
I use an app called Galactica and get readings of 3.6k @ 80cm and 148k @ 20cm. Hope these programs are comparable.
 
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KAOS said:
I use an app called Galactica and get readings of 3.6k @ 80cm and 148k @ 20cm. Hope these programs are comparable.
 
 
How did the app compare to your own lux meter,was it more or less the same?
 
I was getting 30k lux at 20cm with the lux meter, so far less than the iPhone.
 
I think it may be the sensor in the phone that cant deal with the focused nature of light of the LEDs.
 
It may be a different story with CFLs and floro's (diffused nature of light). I got a 4ft flouro in the pantry so will do a compare.
 
KAOS said:
As a side note I have noticed that since the pepper in the big grow box (first set of pics) has had a couple of days of rays some of the top leaves are getting sunburn so 30k lux seems too high, however the fruit is ripening at a much faster rate so a bit of a win lose really. I might just leave it like that, let the fruit ripen and top a third of the height off.
30k lux is not that high.  i think the problem is heat.  you need a good method to dissipate heat from led panel and bring the heat outside grow box.
reflective material like aluminium/mylar can burn the plant too.  some people only use plain white color.
 
PS. when i built > 1000W LED, i use solution like this to dissipate heat.
 
computer-cpu-water-cooling-kit-sc600-water.jpg
 
Nice cooling setup. Reminds me of trying to keep my 450W power hog 4870x2 cool back in the day.
 
I got the LED venting up so temps inside the box are only around 25c max. I was actually toying with the idea of blowing some of the hot air into the box to get it up to around 28c.
 
So it's really just the heat from the LED light in the box. Could it be anything to do with the light combination ?
 
44Red + 8Blue + 2Warm White + 2White + 2IR + 2UV
 
I'm thinking effects from the IR and more so the UV LED's
 
30k lumens is actually plenty. The sun is 100k on full clear skie. Plants grow perfectly from 20-50k. So you are fine,im just amazed that a single 16w and 10 w gives that amount,hence why i asked you to test as i thought the led colours was throwing off the numbers. To give you an idea..i have 1,2m x 600mm width x 600mm height with four t8 36w (1,2m bulbs) at 20cm im only geting 8000 lumens. If i hild it against the the bulb with 1cm gap i get 20000 lumens,but i cant grow up against it so i keep about 10-20cm with a average of 8000 lumens. Now this is not a lot of lumens but plans depend more on the PAR rating,for the different wavelengths. Currently im only using 6500k daylight bulbs but im thinking of adding a e27 like yours to give a more full spectrum .

Sent from my GT-I9190 using Tapatalk
 
KAOS said:
 
Yup two grow boxes
 
Not lumens. It's reading 30000 Lux at about 20cm
 
 
i will try to convert to lumen.   suppose your beam angle is 60 degree. distance = 0.2 meter, lux = 30000 then lumen will be 1010.
 
if beam angle = 120, distance = 0.2m, lux=30000 then lumen will be 3770.   LED lens may help.   
 
PS. 1lux will be equal to 1lumen when spherical radius = 0.28209479177, surface area = 1m2
 
 
Gonzo said:
30k lumens is actually plenty. The sun is 100k on full clear skie. Plants grow perfectly from 20-50k. So you are fine,im just amazed that a single 16w and 10 w gives that amount,hence why i asked you to test as i thought the led colours was throwing off the numbers. To give you an idea..i have 1,2m x 600mm width x 600mm height with four t8 36w (1,2m bulbs) at 20cm im only geting 8000 lumens. If i hild it against the the bulb with 1cm gap i get 20000 lumens,but i cant grow up against it so i keep about 10-20cm with a average of 8000 lumens. Now this is not a lot of lumens but plans depend more on the PAR rating,for the different wavelengths. Currently im only using 6500k daylight bulbs but im thinking of adding a e27 like yours to give a more full spectrum .

Sent from my GT-I9190 using Tapatalk
 
his meter, measure in lux, not lumen and the area is quite small with reflective material.  so 30000 lux in this case is not that high.  :party:
 
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