Lighting No money, no common sense, no problem

[Puddentane]

Fans are on a transformer I recycled from something dead long ago. The AC is welded into a feed line and I will join all 5 in parallel when the others arrive. Same with the Fans.

Sorry to hear your so buried. I am sure you will dig your way out with time. But good people keep themselves buried. That is why I have nothing but time on my hands.

 

[BigSm0]

I'll be late to my own funeral due to double overtime. Oh man I just burst out reading that last sentence.

So cost and labor are down big time on those. No drivers, no extra wiring just mount and fire it up. That's the future by the way. Dc current outside automobiles is foolish if you ask me.

 

[Puddentane]

Like I mentioned earlier on I think that provided these are putting out decent light they will do for this season, and would make great side lights later on to drive some light into the bottom of the canopy. With the cobbled light system I am running this one light seems like the answer to my metaphorical prayers. I can get the second box up and running soon and will probably try to scrog one in there. No running out this coming year.

 

[Rapha El]

well the ic cobs are getting about 100lm/w.. which is better than hps, about on par with the most efficient fluorescent tubes but still only half as good as the best feasible standard cob driven low.

BUT

they are cheap. 200watts worth for 20bucks; that's 5 times better than the high efficiency solution.
for the same light output, driving your normal cobs on default specs you are about 80% as efficient with the ICs

so let's check how much a bare bones 300 watt 30klm light would run us

22.44€ - 6x 50 watt ic cob 3200k
02.80€ - 2x ac switch 2A
17.00€ - 1x heatsink 300x140mm (just big enough to fit these on)
05.00€ - 1x 12v 1A driver
06.00€ - 2x 140mm fan
----------------------------
53.24€ for a 300 watt grow light.

so that's about 2 months worth of electricity you can buy yourself from what you saved. after that you are running a 20+% deficit.

 

[Puddentane]

The nice part about what I am running this winter is that I have the heat sinks. I got PLENTY of left over computer parts around this house. The fans are running off a left over 12v 2a transformer wall wart also from the pile. The chips were picked up during the 11.11 sale. Recycled metal frame courtesy of the old clothes line carousel I should have thrown out years ago. And the extra heat comes in handy as I only grow in the cold season and it helps to drive the temps so the exhaust fan runs harder and keeps the temp around 80f and humidity between 38-52rh.

Next year will be different with much better equipment, but this I think will get me there. I can ditch the space heater for this season as I keep the heat pump set on 60f in the house and the lights will do the rest. And during the coming summer you can bet I will be picking you guys brains to build out a system that goes to 11.

Puddentane

 

[Puddentane]

Just got the driver in for the second cheap cob I bought early and now it is up and running. Brightness factor is significant. This cob will go to the cabinet once the second wave of cobs come in. I am starting to see the light... yuk yuk yuk.

 

[Rapha El]

You know I think I'm gonna build one of those too.. "Under a hundy grow light"

 

[Puddentane]

It would be nice to get feedback from others that take a look at these. I don't think they will be a replacement for any significant hi power cob system but may of us work on a shoe string budget and it might be a way to supplement lighting on a dime. My big question is how much of that light is usable. That I don't have the tools to measure other than to take images using differing white balances with my DSLR and then try to make a guess at how well the camera exposed. What I do know is that when all the parts are in I will have $12 invested out of pocket for supposedly 20k lumens of light.

 

[Rapha El]

so 200 watts?

found something interesting.. the 120v models seem to be running with a higher efficiency..

 

[Puddentane]

So its Thanksgiving and I give thanks for getting my two prototype lights up and burning. What a difference! More on the lights ( to keep from being redundant ) can be found here. 100 watts up and 300 watts on the way!

https://www.autoflower.org/threads/...-x-bb-fast-buds-gsc.56188/page-3#post-1263599