First time grower. Just looking for opinions

Looking great @zachwils95

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Hey guys. So two of my plants got a couple of brown spots. Any idea what it Is?

I thought about it a little bit. And those are the first set of leaves. The single bladed ones. They die off anyway Right? Is that whatā€™s happening?

@zachwils95

My first single fan leaves looked a little beat up and started yellowing also. I eventually took them off after my plants were established. I think when those first ones come out, the plant is still developing and may not look as good as subsequent leaves. Iā€™ll bet your next set will look much better barring any serious issues.

I notice water droplets in your leaves from your misting and your Led might be magnifying the drops and causing a little burn. Second set look good, I donā€™t think Iā€™d stress too much.

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@SilentHippie. Thanks for the info! I actually donā€™t mist. I just got the leaves wet during watering. I make sure to knock them off a little before I leave them. When I broke the root on the plant with the rounded leaves, I assumed it was going to die, so I started another seed. Itā€™s just now producing itā€™s fist set of leaves. But the other plant is doing fine. I canā€™t decide whether or not I want to try and squeeze a 4th plant in there. That led just manages to light those 3.

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they have really taken off the last few days.
The edges have started to curl up a little. I think I either had the led too close or I am over watering. I lifter the led to about 18 inches. (Had it around 14) . And I have started watering when the plants start wilting. Hopefully the issue will correct itself.

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Looking good! I had to raise my leds to about 20-22 inches for my 300s. 18 inches was still a little close for mine. When I switched out for the 600s I moved them up to 24 inches and they are blowing up.

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Maybe Iā€™ll raise it up a little more then just to be safe! Donā€™t want them burning up for sure.

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So I had this idea and was wondering what you guysā€™ opinion was on it. Maybe i should have started a new thread on this. IDK. But I was thinking about different grow light set ups and this kinda dawned on me. A relatively high output, and pretty inexpensive set up. LED car headlights. You can get inexpensive pairs on eBay for about $10. Each pair puts out around 8000 lumens and runs between 50 and 100 watts. And they can be driven with an inverter. Maybe a PC power supply. You can get a 650 watt one for $50 all day long. Or like me just have a couple laying around. LED headlights rarely top 75 degrees Fahrenheit. So heat wonā€™t be a problem. Most of them run between 6000k and 6500k so perfect for vegetation. And they are headlights, so im thinking the intensity of the light would be great. So Iā€™m thinking 3 sets of these bulbs and a power supply I already have would make a pretty decent setup. What do you think?

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@zachwils95
Interesting concept. Letā€™s see what the led guy thinks @dbrn32

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I just found some that are 6500k on high beam and 3000k on low beam to decrease reflection of fog. I feel like these would be perfect! 9600 lumens/ pair. $30 a pair.

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Thanks for tag @SilentHippie!

We looked at led car headlights before with a different member, and Iā€™m pretty sure we found it to not be a viable solution. If I remember, the 9000 or whatever lumens was per pair and not individuallly, and there was some trickery with advertised wattage. Moral of the story was, for the money you would spend messing around with it, you could pretty much build a nice cob fixture that would be a much better application.

If you find an amazon link or whatever Iā€™d be happy to look at them again though. Just tag me if you post.

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Ah. Sounds about right. I know with car audio all of your cheaper brands Will rate wattage off of 20v instead of 12v to make the output seem larger. Probably something similar. Thanks anyway!

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Probably something similar.

What size area are you trying to light? Vegging doesnā€™t require a lot of light intensity, so depending on what youā€™re trying to do it may not be very expensive. All of the flagship cob models get the attention, but there are some really good smaller cobs from the same companies at fraction of the price. These are not ideal for flowering in small quantities, but can make a kick ass veg light in the right application.

If you think you couldā€™ve made those headlights work, a guarantee you can make a cob light.

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@dbrn32 A have a 300 watt bloomspect LED right now with some florescent tubes on the side. I was thinking more for next grow. Iā€™m a pretty handy guy. Iā€™m a lead tech in an electronics repair company. (Not that that means anything lol) I was thinking about trying my hand at the cob. Maybe sinking about $400 into a nice veg/flower fixture for my 4x2 tent. I only plan to do autos. So I donā€™t think I need a massive fixture.

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You can do a lot in a 2x4 with $400. Quantum boards would be in play, and thatā€™s probably the least labor intensive. The standard with cobs is running them around 50 Watts each, a little higher on the bridgelux. At 50 watts, 4 is just a little shy and 8 is way more than you need in a 2x4. 6 would work, but spacing doesnā€™t really work out great. Kind of depends on where you want to balance budget and kick ass. I think you could stuff about 250 Watts of strips in there for around $250 and do pretty good. Spending more would just get you more.

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Iā€™ve looked into the quantum boards a little. Definitely peaked me interest. What strips do you mean? Just LED strips? Could you post a link of a decent line?

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Here are a couple of examples. I donā€™t think I can link them due to site advertising agreements. But should get a decent idea from the screenshots.

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In the terms of cheap, the bridgelux strips are a best bang for your buck. Theyā€™re available in 1120 mm, 560 mm, and 280 mm lengths. Basically 4 feet, 2 feet, and 1 foot. One of the major benefits of these is that you can run them at test current without heatsinks. Mounting them with to 1/8ā€ aluminum bar with double sided thermal transfer tape will keep them well below manufacturers recommended operating temp. Makes building relatively cheap and mounting very easy.

The downside is there are kind of limited driver applications as the poke in connectors are only rated for 300 volts. And the 4ā€™ strips have forward voltage of about 45 volts at 700 ma. Sometimes you can find a little better with 2ā€™ strips that are 22 ish volts.

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As to where something like this in qb would provide a little better performance, included everything you need, and be a lot easier to assemble for less than $100 more. Key here is having money when they restock, as they typically sell out within a day or two.

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