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My DIY LED build

grantmichaels said:
 
I saw somewhere that there's a v1 and v2, ,so make sure you are looking at v2 ;)
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Yeah I believe that was in another thread. It doesn't look the same in the other ones he used red and blue. This one uses red and cool white. Plus he posted this today so I think this is the new one.
 
Knowing way more LED wise than I ever wanted to using anything "white" is a waste of energy presently.  Just a blue LED with phosphor between the die and your plants.  Most of the energy is wasted away.
 
Blue for growth, reds for blooms along with some UV A and you have it coverred.
 
His first used only red and blue. This one uses the white for the little bit of blue that is in it.
 
Nuclieye said:
Knowing way more LED wise than I ever wanted to using anything "white" is a waste of energy presently.  Just a blue LED with phosphor between the die and your plants.  Most of the energy is wasted away.
 
Blue for growth, reds for blooms along with some UV A and you have it coverred.
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Please catch up to 2015.
 
like i say in the build, you can use any led colors you want, this is really just a template for the fixture that works.

i like to use red and white as it makes taking pics/viewing easier. and just because the other wavelengths are less important doesn't mean they should be nonexistant (in my opinion). I'm only using 33% white so it's still less "waste" than an all white light. anyway it's all your choice to pick whatever wavelengths you want!

i did think about offering them but they take like 2 hours to make(say 20$) + 18 shippipng + 23 each build = too much. and the build quality is diy, not really factory stuff you can get on ebay.
 
able eye said:
 
Please catch up to 2015.
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What in my response do you think was incorrect? I've only been in an LED biz for 9 years so maybe missing something.

I strongly recommend using at least two 3mm bolts for a mechanical connection of the UFOs instead of simply thermal adhesive also. All of them let go eventually with the constant thermal expansion and contraction of the aluminum.
 
They also make white by making 3 color COBs.
 
Since like 2003? Or was it 1993?
 
Either way you can find plenty of white LEDs without a phosphor frosting. A lot of them line up pretty well with the PAR spectrum.

My homemade LED is up on here somewhere. 125W from 5w LEDs.

I definitely wouldnt be using epistar.
 
LEDEngin makes some 10w LEDs with a full 2 watts of light. My 5w were only half a watt ea of light.
 
We have 3 SMT lines at work doing COBs daily, and yes some designs do not use phosphors for simulated white light. It's RGB with micro controllers for adjusting levels. Still not full spectrum and roughly 40% of the energy is for the green portion to balance the Reds out. Green has minimal use for growth also.

I've had best success with deep reds, amber, royal Blues and aqua's along with near UV in the 400 to 405 nm range.

Last year I experimented with bottom lighting the roots in my hydro cell with different colors and had some very interesting results.

COBs on ceramics are now available up to 5KW's. Cooling them though is very tricky.
 
Minimal use for green is also old thinking. New research suggests plants use it quite a bit more than we thought.

With the one I built I used 660nm, 450 or 460 I dont remember which, 625, and like 730 to promote the Emerson effect.
 
Out of all my plants peppers liked this mix of spectrums more so than the other species.
 
Aside from recent research that indicates that plants use green light levels to grow in shaded environments what research are you referring to that shows green spectrum helpfull to vegetable gardeners? Got any links?
 
grantmichaels said:
I'm enjoying this thread ...
 
There's nothing I like more than a thread where I know the least ...
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Prolly why I poked my head On Cutlery.
Nuclieye said:
Aside from recent research that indicates that plants use green light levels to grow in shaded environments what research are you referring to that shows green spectrum helpfull to vegetable gardeners? Got any links?
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Dont some vegetables grow in shaded environments?
Green light is probably helpful to the interior of bushy vegetable plants. Or just any leaf thats shaded by another leaf.
 
Nuclieye said:
Blue for growth, reds for blooms along with some UV A and you have it coverred.
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Someone correct me if I am wrong, but all my research has informed me that UV light is pointless to most plants.  The major exception to this is pot when it is flowering.  This is why most LED fixtures have UV light.  They are mostly based around the pot market.  IR on the other hand, as someone already mentioned is used to promote the Emerson effect.  Even though this again is not on the normal PAR/photosynthesis spectrum.
 
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