Household LEDs for growing?

So, I got a few cases of LEDs at an auction. Bunches of them. Some 5000K, some 2700K. Guess what occurred to me …

Can anything be learned or inferred from these marking?

Then I can pop the cover off, screw them into an adapter and plug them into a power strip, like so:

Each one has about 15 LEDs so they’re not nearly as powerful as actual “grow lights”,but why not?

Thoughts, anyone?

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@dbrn32 should have an answer for you :blush:

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Be good for seedlings

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Sure you can use them, depending on what you’re trying to do you may need quite a few though.

The numbers are just giving you specs on the bulbs. Less than 100 lumens per watt isn’t stellar by led tech, about the same output as T5’s. If you’re mixing the color temps, you’ll want more 5000k’s for veg period and more 2700k’s for flowering.

Before you spend a bunch on the adapters, there were some multi bulb fixtures on amazon for about $10.

Any other questions and I’d be happy to try and help.

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That’s the kind of thing I was looking for, @dbrn32 , Thank you.

So, what would be a good ratio of lumens/watt?

I’ll go poke around Amazon, meanwhile.

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I’ve grown these with two similar, 15 watt, 5000k bulbs. I have no intention of upgrading any time soon. The plants are happy, and they’ll be under 175 watt led panel for flowering. They are this big, with short internodal lengths, at only five weeks old. Those are 3 gallon pots.

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Well that’s about average for those bulbs. But the lights that a handful of us out building are in the 150-200 lumen/watt range. Granted, it’s going to be more work and more expensive than plug and play with some a19 bulbs. You can go from relatively mild to pretty wild.

What size space are you working with?

I use the following splitters with 15 w 5000k for veg and 15w 3000k for flower. Right now i have two 7 bulb splitters and one 5 bulb splitter. Two 7 bulbs are in my flower tent with a 200 true watt COB. I use the 5 bulb for veg. The 7 bulb 15 watt splitter gives me about 107 true watts.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01FKIE6M4?tag=greenrel-20
Your bulbs are 9.5 watt.

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Usually about 8 square feet, 2 x 4. At the moment I’m flowering a single auto on one end under about 300 watts of flouro and LED, including 8 of these 2700K. Now that we’re legal, this space will be mostly for veg/seedlings and/or a couple of plants at a time for breeding and seed production.

Thanks for your help, @dbrn32.

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Very nice, @elheffe702 - definitely proves they’ll veg some nice plants, doesn’t it?

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Fantastic, @HJL - that may be just the thing I was looking for.

I’m all about cheep … !

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No problem. I am as well.

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No problem, sounds like you should be doing pretty good with that.

You can put those very close to the plants(but be careful) :+1:

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The only problem with these is that they cost about twice as much to run as the most efficient COBs. If your electric bill is killing you, RapidLed has some nice COB kits that will cost less to run if you don’t drive them too hard. If you are thinking about growing for years, it might pay to change. But maybe you have excess solar power and pay nothing.

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Electric cost is my main concern. I use solar direct from the sun itself as much as possible.

I’ve been looking over some of the DIY LED stuff and might take the plunge. I think I’d just build in the carcass of some old fluorescents.

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@M4ur - did you flower exclusively under that dozen or so LEDs? How many watts are they?

That was not my grow, sorry… I just put those pictures to help you figure it out how to do things… But that guy it was using 9w bulbs.

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I’ve seen a few people get down with bridgelux and Samsung strips using the thermal transfer tape in them. You just don’t want to run drive currents too high, as most will not pull heat as well as aluminum.

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Howzit bro.

Looking at starting a beginers grow. Without investing alot of cash. Your grow seems quite interesting and i have similar equipment.
I would just like to confirm a few things.

  1. You used 2 x 15w led bulbs =30w ?
  2. The bulbs were 5000k each = 10 000k ?
  3. From seed to this stage roughly took 5 weeks ?

Could you please maybe share pics of the lights used .