General DIY LED thread

[dedragon]

First these lights are not 1500W(atts)
Your link now goes to this one

Fine print

they went out of stock so it linked to those, maybe it will work now. Was $58

Red attenuates rather rapidly but the blue to yellow green content is fine.
Not seeing any secondary lensing so yea, spreads rapidly as well.

Then there would be the unacceptable color..

I get that, just wondering more about it as it seems very similar to the route that the ati straton went just for horticulture.
Most led fixtures i find people running way dimmed down as well. Any other 3030 brands out there that make quality blue, cyan, maybe even UV? Mix those with the samsung lm301b 6500k or lm301h mint white and maybe we have a lower cost led fixture, IDK I just put it out there more to ponder than anything else

 

[dedragon]

Or a mix of the 3030 whites, red, UV , and use a couple of these at angles to create the shimmer we all love

The BOOSTER Series Grow Lights -329

www.stevesleds.com

 

[oreo54]

they went out of stock so it linked to those, maybe it will work now. Was $58


I get that, just wondering more about it as it seems very similar to the route that the ati straton went just for horticulture.
Most led fixtures i find people running way dimmed down as well. Any other 3030 brands out there that make quality blue, cyan, maybe even UV? Mix those with the samsung lm301b 6500k or lm301h mint white and maybe we have a lower cost led fixture, IDK I just put it out there more to ponder than anything else

In the spirit of the same form factor as the above light..


Funny thing is they list an unusually short lifespan for an led fixture.


And 300W is NOT 300 watts just a "model number" From the hort. style

Power Consumption: 65W±5%

They actually "had" a more appealling model but in any of these the chip brand is ??
Regardless of what they say. Long tricky story about Chinese leds manuf.

 

[dedragon]

Great info oreo, thank you. I know a lot of these use random brand leds, which is more why i was leaning toward samsung lm301b for price to performance , but i dont know if there were any branded 3030 leds of similar performance but with a royal blue spectrum. UV at 380nm seem pretty easy to find though, more worried that a blue led for it wouldnt exist.

I own the layond 1500w led and i could maybe test it above my tank just to see what sort of par it puts out at 24". Wouldnt be too helpful as blue leds arent a part of it and most of the red wont penetrate well but may give some indication of the penetration the samsung lm301b could theoretically put out

 

[oreo54]

Great info oreo, thank you. I know a lot of these use random brand leds, which is more why i was leaning toward samsung lm301b for price to performance , but i dont know if there were any branded 3030 leds of similar performance but with a royal blue spectrum. UV at 380nm seem pretty easy to find though, more worried that a blue led for it wouldnt exist.

I own the layond 1500w led and i could maybe test it above my tank just to see what sort of par it puts out at 24". Wouldnt be too helpful as blue leds arent a part of it and most of the red wont penetrate well but may give some indication of the penetration the samsung lm301b could theoretically put out

There is a lot of blue in a white led.. Remember royal blue (usually) pump yellow/green phosphor.

 

[oreo54]

NEED SUGGESTIONS:
I put together an array of various leds to emulate the "look" of metal halides.
At this point it is just a thought exercise.
The sort of unique part is it uses some IR chips and takes advantage of the "full spectrum" led which add a broad phosphor converted red band. You will see why in a minute.
Also uses amber for the mercury spike part and a TON of green.
Pretty sure that the amount of green will look excessive to the eye but it was what the "recipe" called for..

Details, borrowed a chart of the radions ect.
As you see the big difference between the Radium and the 14k Ushio is mainly in the strength of the 450 blue and less in the violet range oddly enough.
The mixing list is pretty self explanatory.

So that is the basics..
Beside building tweaking ect the next part is a challenge to me.
My normal mantra is one color one channel but I want to break it here.
I've played w/ combining certain channels to make various intermediate tones like lime or horticulture magenta with a twist.


I had to round up some colors to make even diode counts.
I also did it differently using Luxeon Rebels the best I could. They make "full spectrum" diodes but are called purple 12b or 25b ect in the hort series. They also make some uv in the Z series but are now called something else. Luxeon UV U1. Both of which would probably be mounted on star boards. REst I believe one can find "pre-made".
Oh and the whole thing can be done w/ cheap "Epistar" diodes on flea bay.. for about $80 or so.
$1 /3w diode but need to buy in lots of 10.

Anyways the board is borrowed from Orphek Amazonia which is 80 diodes.
That is basically 8 "channels". I have 10 "colors" and decided to try to condense it to 7 x 10 array.

Like so. Shifting the below diodes to 7 channels gives me things like
amber/420
full spec/cyan
Royal blue
470/390/420
amber/IR/deep red
and 2 green channels



Someone once thought since nobody ever emulated mh's well why I would think I'm smarter then past designers.
Well I'm not smarter I just think I look at the data differently.

Like who in their right mind would think you have more green than royal blue diodes..

Need lots of green add green, amber spike add amber and there are new things like the "full spectrum" ect diodes
T oadd a red "wash" like the mh salts do.

And unlike "days of yore" there are
tons of others to now use as well like uv/violet, lime, mint, high cri whites ect are out there.

My only worry here is that leds in the green range are nowhere near as spikey as metal halides in that range.
The look is unpredictable in that range.
One reason I kept green on it's own channel.
One reason I wrote off lime/mint.. too spread. Reg green is horrible enough.

Hopefully the concept is in the ballpark.


I've got the spectra files on a lot of the ones missing from SPECTRA though you may need to change the lumens or mW. And "full spectrum" ect.



IF you look at the different project keep in mind the "LED" ones are 1W. Divide by 3 to match the rest
Oh and I 'm reserving the 8th channel for an "actinic" add-on.. or something. Don't know atm and may not have the space if I do something like is shown on the left.

OH and to be even more perfectly clear, this is only a "look" match not a "better than growth" match.

Anyways .. there you have it.
Anyone bored????

One fun thing is by selectively dimming the blue range one can shift from "20000K" (really no K) to about 14,000.
It does take a ton of blue dimming though.
and look.. no whites!

 

[hadampump]

nichia's 'azure' looks pretty useful. if only it had a violet pump like kyocera's 'aqua blue' aquarium lights

 

[hadampump]

part of the H6 series that uses KSF phosphors for pure red wavelength spikes, the new Nichia Clear White is essentially the first high CRI and cool CCT (7800K) below the BBL (less yellow) product on the market

its meant for elderly dwellings to help with poor blue light sensitivity and white rendering, but I think it is an excellent excellent white channel and planted tank light. sadly only 3030 and no COB for now unlike the other H6 products

 

[oreo54]

part of the H6 series that uses KSF phosphors for pure red wavelength spikes, the new Nichia Clear White is essentially the first high CRI and cool CCT (7800K) below the BBL (less yellow) product on the market

its meant for elderly dwellings to help with poor blue light sensitivity and white rendering, but I think it is an excellent excellent white channel and planted tank light. sadly only 3030 and no COB for now unlike the other H6 products

Geeky followup on the trigain phosphor pack

 

[Lingwendil]

Long time no post in this thread, but thought I would drop in with something interesting I found.

I'm not sure how long they have been available, as I did not see them two years ago when finishing up my last round of fixtures, but LEDsupply has the Luxeon "C" Violets available pre-mounted on stars, with both 1-up and 3-up available. To my knowledge no other retailer has these available at the consumer level for purchase without reflowing your own off of base diodes from a place like Mouser or Digikey.

Look at the spectrum compared to the other "C" diodes-

Here's the other relevant graphs-

Interestingly, they are very close in output to the Royal blue diodes, very nice from an efficiency standpoint!

Very nice performance thermals too, if a little less good under heat then the Royal blues.

The interesting thing- is that these can be driven up to 1225mA! unlike the SemiLEDs that are only specced up to 800mA or so and usually driven around 600-700mA for longevity, so i would have no issue driving these with typical LDD-1000H drivers.

I have two 3-ups on order, so I will see how they look here in the next week or so.

 

[Steven Garland]

@Lingwendil

Quick question,so I have an old on/off NanoBox which pretty much all white leds,I am assuming since the Rebel ES can handle the voltage without the ldd drivers that the C's can to ?

I just want to swap the 3ups out for right now with all royal C 3up's until my bigger tank is ready.

 

[Lingwendil]

I'm not sure what the driver scheme is on the on/off nanobox setups- but the c is basically a smaller rebel with very similar characteristics- i bet it will be just fine.

 

[Steven Garland]

I'm not sure what the driver scheme is on the on/off nanobox setups- but the c is basically a smaller rebel with very similar characteristics- i bet it will be just fine.

It has no drivers,literally just the psu connectes right to the leds.

 

[oreo54]

It has no drivers,literally just the psu connectes right to the leds.

Well that would make it tricky .
The v(f)'s maybe different and if lower could cause an issue if cumulative

What weird setup is driverless..even no resistors?

I've heard if a few people doing this as diy but highly unusual.

Power supply voltage and # and type of LEDs in series would be interesting.
And if the voltage output is adjustable.

Might be able to "fix" it with some resistors or add an ldd.

 

[Steven Garland]

Well that would make it tricky .
The v(f)'s maybe different and if lower could cause an issue if cumulative

What weird setup is driverless..even no resistors?

I've heard if a few people doing this as diy but highly unusual.

Power supply voltage and # and type of LEDs in series would be interesting.
And if the voltage output is adjustable.

Might be able to "fix" it with some resistors or add an ldd.

As far as I can see,its a barrel jack connector that just connects to the psu and its 3 luxeon rebel 3ups in series. I do have tons of ldd drivers and boards but really just wanted to keep it simple and connect it to my timer.

 

[oreo54]

As far as I can see,its a barrel jack connector that just connects to the psu and its 3 luxeon rebel 3ups in series. I do have tons of ldd drivers and boards but really just wanted to keep it simple and connect it to my timer.

Soo all 9 in series?
With rb C's from the spec sheet it will pull roughly 800mA at 2.85v well over 1000mA at 3v (27v ps).

Ps would need rock hard stability at 25.65v to keep the string at 800mA NOT considering current vs voltage will increase with led heating.

The right power supply and a well chose resistor can fix this though.
Adding ldd's have the drawback of the list voltage

 

[Steven Garland]

Soo all 9 in series?
With rb C's from the spec sheet it will pull roughly 800mA at 2.85v well over 1000mA at 3v (27v ps).

Ps would need rock hard stability at 25.65v to keep the string at 800mA NOT considering current vs voltage will increase with led heating.

The right power supply and a well chose resistor can fix this though.
Adding ldd's have the drawback of the list voltage

Correct yes,worst case scenario I will send all my 3ups to Steves and have them reflowed to my likings.

 

[oreo54]

Correct yes,worst case scenario I will send all my 3ups to Steves and have them reflowed to my likings.

Pretty sure the Rebel and the C have completely different footprints.

 

[Lingwendil]

Yes, 2mm square on the c.

 

[braaap]

Long time no post in this thread, but thought I would drop in with something interesting I found.

I'm not sure how long they have been available, as I did not see them two years ago when finishing up my last round of fixtures, but LEDsupply has the Luxeon "C" Violets available pre-mounted on stars, with both 1-up and 3-up available. To my knowledge no other retailer has these available at the consumer level for purchase without reflowing your own off of base diodes from a place like Mouser or Digikey.

Look at the spectrum compared to the other "C" diodes-

Here's the other relevant graphs-

Interestingly, they are very close in output to the Royal blue diodes, very nice from an efficiency standpoint!

Very nice performance thermals too, if a little less good under heat then the Royal blues.

The interesting thing- is that these can be driven up to 1225mA! unlike the SemiLEDs that are only specced up to 800mA or so and usually driven around 600-700mA for longevity, so i would have no issue driving these with typical LDD-1000H drivers.

I have two 3-ups on order, so I will see how they look here in the next week or so.

I have flowed these Luxeon C Violets onto my new NanoBox arrays. They are great. I have been driving them with LDD-1000s with no issues.