Let's talk DIY lights

Is that the ones with the growmau5 logo in the center? Those are sweet looking! And a whole lot of light in a small package.

Edit. This one?

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That’s the one I’m probably buying.

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Check these new strips from PLC a little pricey but still impressive. They’re a solid contender for a build like mine. Take about $5 off the price and they’re in the same range considering you’d need less of them. Green gene posted a video of a build with them. 8 for a 2x4 area.

https://www.pacificlightconcepts.com/product/photo-boost-strip-light-engine/

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Oh and for anyone needing a discount code for arrow the one from last month didn’t work but this one is still good.

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So is that a white light fam

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Yes looks like the same color as sunlight at midday.

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they look solid to me!

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Performance wise they are probably reasonable for the money, but those stars are a giant pain in the ass to work with. You have to physically solder wired to each and every one of them, and mount them to a fairly reasonable heatsink. If you’ve ever tried to solder something already mounted to a heatsink, it really sucks. Or having to paste or epoxy them to heatsink with wires already soldered, neither are fun. In my opinion, not enough to gain there for you to go through that.

Did you happen to see any of the knock off quantum boards available there?

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Fam I got some thing I’m working on and it will power your home and some let you know wen I made it

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@dbrn32 do you know where I can buy a reasonable light meter. I don’t think $200 - $350 is worth spending for something that I won’t be using much. I wouldn’t have any idea where to look for a used one. The cheaper meters won’t do. I can use the phone to measure lux.

I wish I did lol. There are some conversion formulas out there supposedly, but I’m clueless.

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It’s going to be $250 for one that measures par and umol. I guess I’m just going to have to buy a $50 lux meter. I need to get a handle on how much light I need. It seems like I’m burning the plants even at 24". I didn’t have this problem with the crappy lights. The plant could be a foot away and no leached looking leaves.


Maybe it’s just the plant finishing faster than with the old lights. No idea.

Well, probably a few things stacking up. You could very well experience them finishing a little faster. But they’ll also take a shit ton more nutes than you were probably accustomed to using as well. If you start to get something like nitrogen or calcium deficiency on leaves the extra intensity will turn them pretty quickly. If I had to guess, you’re probably having to water a little more too. All coincide with having more photosynthetic energy.

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Yep more watering and I really haven’t increased the nutes beyond 1250ppm that I was at with the Amazon lights. Maybe I need to raise it to 1500 or higher. I haven’t seen any sign of nute burn. If I move the light down to 18" the plants seem to stress out more. I moved them up and cranked 50 watts out of each light.

Yes, I seen it, but are to pricey for me, now

happy anniversary fam…

I think the key would be to see if you can find some of them that will run without any heatsink. The cost on the leds you posted was indeed pretty inexpensive. But you’re still going to have heatsink, thermal compound, wire, power supply, and probably a fan and power supply to cool heatsink too. The leds themselves become only a small portion of the total build cost. As opposed to some of the passively cooled boards available, you pretty much only need the power supply and some wire. So total build cost is about the same or in some cases even cheaper. And you’ll be getting leds that are I’m the neighborhood of twice as efficient.

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I already have some big heatsinks/plates(I will post some pictures later and tag you then), I have some pads to put under leds, no problem with wires :joy:, only soldering them will make me some problems :joy:
I also think this will be better than what I already posted
25pcs/lot 3w full spectrum led grow chip with PCB star , led grow lights ,broad spectrum 400nm-840nm led diode for indoor plant
AliExpress - Online Shopping for Popular Electronics, Fashion, Home & Garden, Toys & Sports, Automobiles and More.

The only problem is what to use to power them(I want to use 50 pcs)

Hi everyone. Newbie to the forum here. I’ve spent a few hours over the last week to read this whole thread from January 2018 and I’ve learned shitloads. What a great community!

I’ve done a few outdoor grows over the years, but I’ve moved into a new house and my garden is now shady AF. So it’s finally time to take things indoor. I’m building a grow cabinet with a 6x3 footprint. Height will be just over 6.2ft. The plan is to use the whole area for vegging and flowering, with a low rack at the bottom for clones or seedlings. Why this size? I’ve got some leftover commercial plywood that’s 6.2ft in length. And a 6x3 cabinet felt right. Can change the dimensions if you guys have good enough reasons…

I would like to build a light for the cabinet, but I am limited by a budget of only $400, so perhaps covering just 3x3 for the first phase will be better? I’m designing the cabinet so that it can be easily partitioned to two spaces with a hardboard insert.

I live in South Africa, which comes with a few restrictions when it comes to ordering parts. Digi-key and Arrow are great with free shipping on large orders. But HLG and most Amazon sellers won’t ship here. With other sellers the shipping can be prohibitively expensive.

I’ve spent many hours on Alibaba and almost pulled the trigger to buy this Bava 4x 288 quantum board rig for $400 shipped, but then found some posts of how the company have used lower bin quality LEDs and even edited Samsung spec sheets to cheat buyers.

I’ve also been looking at this Meijiu HGL 550. Other forum posts suggest that Meijiu was the original manufacturer of the HLG boards, but it’s over my budget at $515 shipped. They do sell quantum boards alone too, and they have a 2x 288 v2 quantum board light for $250 shipped, which is probably good enough for 3x3

Thing is, I am hesitant to order from Alibaba because of the risk associated and I’d rather buy and build it right the first time. I can also source aluminium plate locally, and even heat sink extrusions.

So now I’m here, looking for advice and guidance. I’m fine with DIY stuff and I can solder okay. I’m all ears. Thank you!

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You need the light guru, @dbrn32. He’ll help you with your build.

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