DIY LED Hydro System

[kev82]

I didn't get dimmable drivers. I do however have some dimmable meanwell drivers I could use. I got some 10-18 led 680mA drivers from satisled.com. I also got the 660nm, 445nm leds and lenses from there. The other leds I got off ebay.

I have been DIYing LEDs for a few years now, about 2 years ago I had a small nano reef with 6x RBs and 6x CW cree leds, and a small planted aquarium too. I'll have no trouble mixing this together in record time I intend to use 4x3cm C-channel aluminum for cooling. Possibly adding a fan if need to.

Here's my old reef:

And my planted tank (12x cree xr-e CW):

Hope you don't mind me posting this in your thread. Let me know and I can remove the pics.

I'm really looking forward to experimenting with LEDs again, this time on plants.

 

[queequeg152]

nice tank. show us the lights tho! if gullio is cool with it anyway?

i love those little red shrimps, my brothers tank has like a bazillion of something similar.

 

[Guillo1]

nice looking tanks, i especially like the planted tank. If I didn't have such a big tank at my shop to maintain I would definitely change my home tank to a planted tank. You can post whatever pictures you want here, I don't mind at all.

 

[socapots]

ive never seen such a thing as that planted tank..
that looks very cool.

and thanks for sharing.

 

[kev82]

nice looking tanks, i especially like the planted tank. If I didn't have such a big tank at my shop to maintain I would definitely change my home tank to a planted tank. You can post whatever pictures you want here, I don't mind at all.

Thanks. The reef hadn't been set up for very long when I took that pic so it wasn't fully grown in. The growth on the turbinaria and montipora was really amazing under the LEDs. Never seen anything like it.

ive never seen such a thing as that planted tank..
that looks very cool.

and thanks for sharing.

Thanks!

 

[Guillo1]

Yesterday I switched to the Lucas Formula using only dry Maxibloom and I raise my nutes to around 960ppm. We shall see how this works out for my plants.

finally getting some pots forming. The 1st flowers on one plant were falling but it looks like the other ones are all getting pots.

roots are insane

plants continue to grow

Morugua and Brain Strain are coming along nice

 

[kev82]

That's an impressive root system you got there! Seems like the IO bucket won't be big enough soon

How did you germinate the flowers? And which plants are getting pods?

 

[kev82]

I've been struggling to create a layout for the leds on the heatsink and I was hoping I could get your input on it:

The heatsink is 83x32cm and spacing between leds is ~9cm center to center.
The dark red cylinders are 36x 660nm leds, light red are 16x 620-630nm, dark blue are 19x 445-450nm and light blue 9x 460-470nm.

What do you think?

 

[Guillo1]

I've been struggling to create a layout for the leds on the heatsink and I was hoping I could get your input on it:

The heatsink is 83x32cm and spacing between leds is ~9cm center to center.
The dark red cylinders are 36x 660nm leds, light red are 16x 620-630nm, dark blue are 19x 445-450nm and light blue 9x 460-470nm.

What do you think?

that lay out looks good to me. All the LEDs are evenly spread out. Are you gonna put some fans on the top to cool it down?

 

[kev82]

that lay out looks good to me. All the LEDs are evenly spread out. Are you gonna put some fans on the top to cool it down?

I probably won't get away with going fanless. I have 1-2 120mm fans lined up that I'll use.

How big is your heatsink and what's the spacing between your leds?



I based the spacing and number of leds by comparing it with penetrator x-pro (which also has 3w leds) - Looks like I will have similar amount of LEDs per square foot as they have. Probably not the same quality leds, but close enough for my purposes.

According to my (very) shoddy trigometry calculations the diameter of leds with 60 degree lenses raised 30cm above the plants should be ~35cm. With a 9cm spacing it should blend quite nicely.

 

[Guillo1]

my c-channel heat sink is about 8"x24" and i think the LEDs were like 1 1/2" apart.

Here is my latest DIY project. Its going to be a NFT system made of 4" draining pvc that will hold about 16 plants outside.
The pvc are 8' long

 

[Guillo1]

plants keep on growing but sadly they are dropping all the flowers which it has a lot off. I'm not sure what else I can try. I do have the ph kinda low at 5.8-6. Temp averages about 70 deg

 

[hot pepper]

seem to be having the same problem ,,, flowers drop off and pr no pollen... any tips ???

 

[kev82]

How's this grow doing now? Still the same flower dropping problem, or are you producing bucketloads of chilis by now?

 

[megamoo]

Just read this thread, looks real good, hows the grow going, did you get any pods to set? I've gotten flower drop from high temps before, but inside you probably have that under control. Possibly an air circulation or nute imbalance problem.

Did you ever get around to writing that guide to DIY led light set up? I'm no electrical engineer but I can use a multimeter and solder, love to give this a go. What site did you get the components from?

edit: just found your guide