Lighting Kushdog needs COB

KushDog

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Hi AFN, been lurking here for a year and finally decided to get involved.

About 1.5 years ago I decided that I'd like to try cannabis. As a kid I'd had really bad asthma, even a hint of cigarette smoke could trigger me off, so canna was never really on the cards (didn't know about edibles then). Fast forward twenty years and the asthma is long gone and for some reason I can't explain the herb started calling out to me (middle age crisis perhaps:biggrin:) but I didn't know how to get any. After a bit of pondering I figured the only way would be to grow it myself, and spent a couple of weeks immersed in grow forums online. That was slightly off-putting because so many of them seemed to be populated with a lot of aggressive and argumentative people, which is the opposite of what I thought stoners were supposed to be! Luckily I came across AFN and saw the great people here. Reading AFN obsessively gave me enough confidence to set everything up. So last November I converted a cupboard (Mrs Kushdog thought I'd gone mad), bought a mars hydro, and popped some beans. I got five beautiful plants (3 DP Blackberry and 2 DP Euphoria), and after curing them bought a vaporizer and had a try. Turns out I like the stuff! Like, a lot. Since then I've grown a DP White Widow, some Mephisto Bubbly Blues and Sour hound x Heisenberg. So many strains to try, only so much canna me and Mrs Kushdog (who it turns out also likes the stuff) can get through! But for some reason I can't stop growing and tinkering with the setup, it's just too much fun. Next one, which I hope to do under my swanky DIY COB, is going to be FB Mexican Airlines and Dinafem Haze CBD.

So now, a year later, my Mars Hydro II 400w is running too hot (was fine to start with but has deteriorated with each grow), and I'd like to jump on the DIY COB express to craft something just right for my space. So here's what I've got:

A cupboard with a grow space of 90cmx60cm with a height of 1.5m which I'm in the process of raising to 2m.
About to upgrade my fan to a TD silent (thanks to @Corgy for that), which will be pulling air in from the room and exhausting back out.
Temps in the space without any light on stay the same as the room itself, around 20c in winter, bit higher in summer. Heat is the real issue, the last grow was running at 30c which meant I had to crank the fan up to jet-engine sound levels.

I'm going to spend some time over the next week trying to get my head around what I really need for that space and then I'll post a list of what I've come up with in the hope of some guidance. If anyone in the meantime has some thoughts in which direction I should be looking then do let me know!
Cheers:pass:
 
Hey kushdog im currently in the process of researching cobs for my set up.
You in eu or usa? Parts are much easier to get state side.
 
EU, so probably harder and more expensive too! What sort of space are you trying to light up?
 
I've been keenly following the LED DIY efforts, and just like you guys have concluded, it seems so much harder to get the bits and bobs here in the EU, but I'm game to give this a go. I'm in the Netherlands, dunno if sourcing parts is easy from here, I had a look and only found vendors like Mouser....minimum 300 COB orders......

@KushDog, regarding the S+P fan, I think a TD 500 is way overkill for the size of your grow space. If you extend to 2 m in height, you will have a volume of 1,08 m3........allowing for resistance and back pressure, that will be say 300 air exchanges per hour when running a TD 500 in low speed, yes, there's a 3 step version now https://www.ventilatieshop.com/vent...-td-500-150-160-aansluitdiameter-150mm-160mm/ or you will need a speed regulator.....the TD 500 I run is handling a grow space of 8,4 m3 in low speed for nominal 35 or so air exchanges per hour. Don't forget you'll also need a filter to match the fan. I think a TD 160 is plenty.
If possible, you may want to consider placing the filter and fan outside the grow space, that's what I do, i.e. I'm pushing the air through the filter rather than sucking it through, that way there's no annoying ducting, filter and fan taking up space inside the grow room and getting in the way of hanging lights and stuff.
 
I run 4 plants in a wilma so roughly 4 x 4 areas.
Im trying to get a price from alibaba now for
8 citizen 048 1212s 4 of them at 3500k and 4 at 4000k pin fin heat sinks to suit and a couple of meanwell hlg 185s then all i need is wiring and to make a frame.... i think!
So im aiming for about 400w draw for 4x4.
Im sure half of that would do you just fine
 
Hi AFN, been lurking here for a year and finally decided to get involved.

About 1.5 years ago I decided that I'd like to try cannabis. As a kid I'd had really bad asthma, even a hint of cigarette smoke could trigger me off, so canna was never really on the cards (didn't know about edibles then). Fast forward twenty years and the asthma is long gone and for some reason I can't explain the herb started calling out to me (middle age crisis perhaps:biggrin:) but I didn't know how to get any. After a bit of pondering I figured the only way would be to grow it myself, and spent a couple of weeks immersed in grow forums online. That was slightly off-putting because so many of them seemed to be populated with a lot of aggressive and argumentative people, which is the opposite of what I thought stoners were supposed to be! Luckily I came across AFN and saw the great people here. Reading AFN obsessively gave me enough confidence to set everything up. So last November I converted a cupboard (Mrs Kushdog thought I'd gone mad), bought a mars hydro, and popped some beans. I got five beautiful plants (3 DP Blackberry and 2 DP Euphoria), and after curing them bought a vaporizer and had a try. Turns out I like the stuff! Like, a lot. Since then I've grown a DP White Widow, some Mephisto Bubbly Blues and Sour hound x Heisenberg. So many strains to try, only so much canna me and Mrs Kushdog (who it turns out also likes the stuff) can get through! But for some reason I can't stop growing and tinkering with the setup, it's just too much fun. Next one, which I hope to do under my swanky DIY COB, is going to be FB Mexican Airlines and Dinafem Haze CBD.

So now, a year later, my Mars Hydro II 400w is running too hot (was fine to start with but has deteriorated with each grow), and I'd like to jump on the DIY COB express to craft something just right for my space. So here's what I've got:

A cupboard with a grow space of 90cmx60cm with a height of 1.5m which I'm in the process of raising to 2m.
About to upgrade my fan to a TD silent (thanks to @Corgy for that), which will be pulling air in from the room and exhausting back out.
Temps in the space without any light on stay the same as the room itself, around 20c in winter, bit higher in summer. Heat is the real issue, the last grow was running at 30c which meant I had to crank the fan up to jet-engine sound levels.

I'm going to spend some time over the next week trying to get my head around what I really need for that space and then I'll post a list of what I've come up with in the hope of some guidance. If anyone in the meantime has some thoughts in which direction I should be looking then do let me know!
Cheers:pass:
Hi Kushdog,
Its my understanding that the multi cob setups that under drive the chips around 50% put hardly any appreciable heat out. Take a look for 2stoned2care's newest light setup and what he has to say about it. BigSmO was talking about this the other day. He recently moved some plants into a tent with this kind of lighting as was only seeing I think a 5 degree difference in temp from room temps overnight. That's pretty easy to work with.
 
Awesome to see you want to expand. I also thought my tent was a little too hot.. then I bought an IR thermometer for a tenner. Turns out it was too cold. I had my thermo/hydro meter hanging at the hight of the light, not the canopy and was reading 3° higher than it actually was. Then I measured the canopy. The leaves are actually a few degrees colder than the air. Who knew.

But I'm still building myself a little 120w cob setup, the mars is nice but doesn't offer the bang I hoped for.

I have all my parts ordered and in the process of machining the rest but if anyone needs to know where to get stuff in the EU I have spreadsheets for everything.

@Corgy have you had a look at digikey, they got cobs galore and also in small numbers

@KushDog for your space 150 watts should be enough but if you want to grow laaarge plants and have the penetration you might have to go up to 200/240. Man I can only imagine 240watts pouring out of 6 diy light engines.. would be blinding :smoking: and if you were to take 200watt cobs, then run em at 40 watts your efficiency would also be crazy good.
 
@Druid can you get pin fin heat sinks in eu for a reasonable price im in the uk?
That depends. I've found 8cm ones, which you could passively run 25watts on, or you slap a fan on em and go full boar.

I've resulted to "old" computer hardware for that. I got myself 4 of these coolers for 7€ a piece
CPU-Kühler-Fujitsu-V26898-B854-V2-ECC-00430-01-GP-TX150-Sockel-775.jpg


Made a cad drawing for a bottom mounting plate (to sandwich the cob & holder with) and ordered them to be cut; Those cost 3bucks a piece to laserCut out of 1.5mm A2
To those I'm gonna attach some really silent 9cm fans (2 per cooler comming in at 2.80 a piece) maxing at 1k rpm at 12v giving me 30odd db .. which I'll run at half speed to make them blend into the background noise quite easily.

So all in all my cooling per cob cost me 18.08€ including cables. Which can dissipate 60watts of heat comfortably. That way, later on, I can just take some 200 watt cobs run them at half strength for added efficiency and use the same coolers (since I don't drill anything to attach them i can just pack any cob in there by using a different mounting plate (3bucks))


So short answer is yes, but not the big ones.
http://www.ebay.de/itm/MechaTronix-...993140?hash=item2a6f4dc134:g:qjEAAOSw5dNWohe4
 
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