What v and drive current are you running on those mate? Or how many watts?
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Lighting Kelvin talk
- Thread starter orrganic
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So what's the consensus here, because it should be obvious that I like thinking "out of the box" a bit and am already planning my next cheap LED strip panel instead of being boring and using cobs or pre-fabricated fittings like most people. Why? Because, first, I like experimenting and, second, "because I can".
Basic plan is a similar 9.8m of strip on what is effectively a 1 sq. ft. lump of what will likely be 1/8" aluminium (nice big passive heatsink), but this time instead of a 3000K and Blurple mix (I noticed something with the blurple which I should have seen earlier, and that is that they are RGB leds with only the "R" or "B" connected so you don't have the "full" output of what would be the led. Explains a lot, and that ain't getting used again. People should be aware of that when DIY-ing) I'm looking at 2500K and up to 6500K. Plan is each "temperature" can be switched on and off separately, so the "cold" or "daylight" gets used for veg and then the "warm" added to that for flowering. Bear in mind this will be for a single plant only.
So I reckon the 2500K is a given, just need some idea of how "high" to go for the other "colour", do I go for 4000K or all the way up to 6000-6500K?
Oh, before y'all ask, I'm used to running Constant Voltage and not you guys' usual Constant Current so I'll be sticking to what I know in that respect. Plan is to do the research on whether it's worth stepping up to 24vdc from the current 12vdc, and if the output is increased enough then that's the way I'll go.
Basic plan is a similar 9.8m of strip on what is effectively a 1 sq. ft. lump of what will likely be 1/8" aluminium (nice big passive heatsink), but this time instead of a 3000K and Blurple mix (I noticed something with the blurple which I should have seen earlier, and that is that they are RGB leds with only the "R" or "B" connected so you don't have the "full" output of what would be the led. Explains a lot, and that ain't getting used again. People should be aware of that when DIY-ing) I'm looking at 2500K and up to 6500K. Plan is each "temperature" can be switched on and off separately, so the "cold" or "daylight" gets used for veg and then the "warm" added to that for flowering. Bear in mind this will be for a single plant only.
So I reckon the 2500K is a given, just need some idea of how "high" to go for the other "colour", do I go for 4000K or all the way up to 6000-6500K?
Oh, before y'all ask, I'm used to running Constant Voltage and not you guys' usual Constant Current so I'll be sticking to what I know in that respect. Plan is to do the research on whether it's worth stepping up to 24vdc from the current 12vdc, and if the output is increased enough then that's the way I'll go.
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Got a dimmable 320 2100ma dimmable, 80% is highest I got turned up, no reflectors. I'm thinking of grabbing another 36volt Vero and reducing switching driver to 1700.
I'm not %100 sure here mate but what I can tell you is that people are using cobs not because they are boring types of people but because they are proven to work, unlike stips and such. as far as I'm aware the strip led do not provide enough lumen/photon density to bloom sufficiently whereas a cob in its place would.
Ive also thought about using these rgbs aswell, going back to mono spec as it did actually work regardless of efficacy, I'm sure we could find some red and blue chips that have great efficacy and could put out what we need. this would be tricky to calculate but im sure as long as the spectrum is pink/purple and theres lots of brightness you should be fine.
3000-4000k 80 or 90 cri. Strips work if you get good strips like samsung F series and give them some juice... I like 3000 and 3500k 90cri myself.
I wouldn't call anyone "boring", it's the concept of "following the crowd" that is, not thinking out of the box and trying things.
I wouldn't be keen on the actual RGB's as you don't use the full output of the strip, each chip is really 3 and if only a third of the chip is running then that's a lot lost, and that's what I noticed with the blurple, it wasn't a single chip with a coating or whatever to give the colour but only the red or blue from an RGB that came on and, well, that was my mistake for not realising that which is why they won't be bought again. It's how we learn, by mistakes.
Move onto whites, however, and you have the full output of the led, not a third, so that's quite a difference. Throw in how you can fit 9.8m, 32 feet, of strip into a space around a square foot in size and you can see, with the right strip, just under 1200 Smd 5730 chips (for example) in that space. That's a LOT of lux and lumens by any standard, and if others are getting results from the various led light panels out there then the same or similar led on flexible strip should do the same, especially when you are throwing the chips in at such a density.
As I said elsewhere, the 3000k and blurple panel maxes out the lux meter on my phone so I won't get a true indication of things until my new light meter arrives. On that panel, visually to my old and knackered eyes, the blurple is swamped, you don't see it. If that had been a cool or daylight white, I would need sunglasses when I walked into that room. And, of course, flexible strip can be formed into other shapes than just "flat" which can be an advantage too.
As you say, we could find strip of the right colours, but at what cost? The cheap RGB is only good for decorative backlighting imo, so it's out, and getting strip specially made with the right colours will be the sort of expense that defeats the purpose of using cheaper strip to save money. So that's why I'm looking at two "white" colours, but finding what is the best combination is not easy.
As I say, I love experimenting, keeps my mind sharp. If I can't get the results, then I move onto more "traditional" LEDs, making a panel with cobs or just buying something like @BigSm0 autocobs. If it does work, then those with small stealth cabinets have another option.
We never find out anything by not trying. As we know led tech has come on leaps and bounds in recent times and is only likely to get even better on efficiency so, with the right strip and not some crap you get for 10 bucks in Walmart I think it should work.
Especially if, thanks to an idea I saw someone else have, I can figure out how to fit the headlamp glass from a truck, not a pickup but a semi tractor unit, to focus things more....
That's what I wanted to hear, I was thinking to go more "extreme" using a lower Kelvin for a bias towards red with a "cooler white" just to give better spectrum coverage but banging on 10m of 3000k, 1200 LEDs, on a small panel is not an issue
As a side note, something else has just come back into mind.
At the firm I used to work with making all sorts of lights, we would also use a translucent "paint" on the LED itself from time to time as this was something that would filter out "blues" from the spectrum giving you much more bias towards the "reds". My boss liked it as it softened the harsher LED light and made whatever a bit more "cosy" for living rooms, etc. Obviously we used one specific mix for a specific "colour", but it could be mixed to work on any part of the spectrum meaning that, IN THEORY, you could actually filter out any colour(s) in the spectrum which are not necessary for plant growth and therefore customise any LED light to emit precisely the wavelengths you want. Obviously the downside is that you do attenuate the output a little, so you are looking at a trade off between output versus the "colours" hitting the plant.
The stuff we got was bloody expensive, as you would expect, might have a dig around to see if there's something a bit more "commercially available"
At the firm I used to work with making all sorts of lights, we would also use a translucent "paint" on the LED itself from time to time as this was something that would filter out "blues" from the spectrum giving you much more bias towards the "reds". My boss liked it as it softened the harsher LED light and made whatever a bit more "cosy" for living rooms, etc. Obviously we used one specific mix for a specific "colour", but it could be mixed to work on any part of the spectrum meaning that, IN THEORY, you could actually filter out any colour(s) in the spectrum which are not necessary for plant growth and therefore customise any LED light to emit precisely the wavelengths you want. Obviously the downside is that you do attenuate the output a little, so you are looking at a trade off between output versus the "colours" hitting the plant.
The stuff we got was bloody expensive, as you would expect, might have a dig around to see if there's something a bit more "commercially available"