Lighting final grow results with screw in DIY lights

[Olderfart]

Hello all,

Just completed the grow I did with my screw in LED setup.

Here is a pic of the lights:

The bulbs are all 100 watt equivalent, and drew about 17 watts per bulb total from the wall, for a total of a bit more than 500 watts for the 9 square feet in the growdrobe. Half of them are 2700k, and half 5500k. 500 watts proved to be significant overkill in my 9 square feet. I fought light excess for much of the grow as a result, and concluded by the end that even half this power would have been sufficient. OTOH, I can use the lights in a bigger space if I choose, and the extra bulbs allow me to adjust spectrum without actually removing and replacing bulbs. Power is easily adjusted by loosening bulbs.

Cost wise, this setup was cheap at ~$0.50 Cdn per real watt, and worked well. Since all bulbs are independent and easily replaceable, ballast or led failures are not a threat, especially not in the middle of a grow.

In the end, I got close to 11 oz from 3 plants in a ~2x4 growdrobe in spite of screwups with both light intensity and nutes. Further details and pics in the completed grow thread.

Bottom line here is that if someone is interested in a cheap and effective DIY led option, screw ins work fine. Maybe not as well as some of the higher end alternatives, but for a small grower interested in some personal bud, the differences in yield efficiency may not be important enough to warrant the higher cost.

Happy growing everyone.

 

[420Forever]

screwinz for the win! ppp

 

[hecno]

That is a good yield , Good on ya for showing ,

 

[Olderfart]

That is a good yield , Good on ya for showing ,

Thanks Hecno. If I had me druthers though, I'd rather grow it the way you do - I just love the color of your wormy soil!

Not gonna hoppen though - wrong climate, and not around home enough in the summer. If I manage to get older and less mobile however...

Keep feeding those worms!

 

[Olderfart]

I have a further perspective re. the yield I managed. I got just over 300 grams of dried bud and assumed an average of ~300 watts during the grow, for 1g/watt total. The 300 watt assumption if anything may be a bit high, so 1g/watt is likely a tad conservative for my grow. In any case, as I mentioned, I was fighting light and nute problems for a lot of the grow, and believe that I would have had higher yield had I lowered light intensity throughout and got the nutes sorted right from the start. If I assume that yield could go up by 20% or so, and that 250 watts would be good, the yield would be 360 grams/250 watts, or a bit more than 1.4g/watt, which is getting pretty close to the ~1.5 g/watt listed for the Mars Hydro TS series.

So, I think potential yield seems similar to other more expensive LED alternatives, and easy local availability of components can be advantageous. No doubt differences are there, but the question is how important they are to a small scale personal grower. I figure my power costs for lighting at 250 watts would be less than ~$30Cdn, so an increase in yield efficiency of 30% would save me something like $9 per grow, or less than 3 cents/gram. At that rate, it would take a fair number of grows to make up for higher cost alternatives even with a 30% improvement in yield efficiency, which I suspect is unlikely.

Sadly, I can't add much to the argument about quality as I just don't have enough experience. What I can say is that the bud that I got was frosty, smells really nice to me, especially the CQ, and they both hit me hard and pleasantly when used in my Arizer vape. Even this early in the cure, I think they are the easiest on the throat of anything I have had my mitts on so far, and I expect them to improve for a while yet.
Just food for thought for anyone on the DIY fence or trying to select DIY alternatives.

Happy lighting all.

 

[420Forever]

I have a further perspective re. the yield I managed. I got just over 300 grams of dried bud and assumed an average of ~300 watts during the grow, for 1g/watt total. The 300 watt assumption if anything may be a bit high, so 1g/watt is likely a tad conservative for my grow. In any case, as I mentioned, I was fighting light and nute problems for a lot of the grow, and believe that I would have had higher yield had I lowered light intensity throughout and got the nutes sorted right from the start. If I assume that yield could go up by 20% or so, and that 250 watts would be good, the yield would be 360 grams/250 watts, or a bit more than 1.4g/watt, which is getting pretty close to the ~1.5 g/watt listed for the Mars Hydro TS series.

So, I think potential yield seems similar to other more expensive LED alternatives, and easy local availability of components can be advantageous. No doubt differences are there, but the question is how important they are to a small scale personal grower. I figure my power costs for lighting at 250 watts would be less than ~$30Cdn, so an increase in yield efficiency of 30% would save me something like $9 per grow, or less than 3 cents/gram. At that rate, it would take a fair number of grows to make up for higher cost alternatives.

Sadly, I can't add much to the argument of quality as I just don't have enough experience. What I can say is that the bud that I got was frosty, smells really nice to me, especially the CQ, and they both hit me hard and pleasantly when used in my Arizer vape. Even this early in the cure, I think they are the easiest on the throat of anything I have had my mitts on so far, and I expect them to improve for a while yet.
Just food for thought for anyone on the DIY fence or trying to select DIY alternatives.

Happy lighting all.

hey, i too belong to the screwin led/t5 combo camp, and as i sit here, totally stoned from a salad bowl of me two latest harvestz, i for one can personally attest to the fact that ya def don't need million dollar lightz to grow decent weed for urself, plain & simple ppp

 

[Vegasbear87]

Interesting. Do they make screw in blue/far red bulbs, I wonder? Would be cool to be able to run 2 far red and two blue spectrum per side during flower.

 

[Olderfart]

Interesting. Do they make screw in blue/far red bulbs, I wonder? Would be cool to be able to run 2 far red and two blue spectrum per side during flower.

Agreed. I haven't searched hard, but I haven't noticed any. If you happen to find some, let us know. I could easily replace a couple of my existing bulbs, now that I realize that I have more than I need in the 2x4.

 

[WildBill]

Very interesting!

 

[karlkutta]

Interesting setup, I'm all for diy lights. Can you link your grow journal, I took a look around but couldn't find it quickly. Would love to see that this produced.