Lighting Project Cheapo LED Grow Lamp

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Live and learn. Your in the UK, right? You should have many choices. Been using Mephisto and Nirvana. Both have amazing genetics and I've had a 100% germ rates from both. I am on the middle of my first all led& first all organic grow, fucking up alot too! Oh yeah, it's my first tent grow too. Keep on keeping on! It's worth it. Good luck!

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Nope, sleepy and boring Belgium, where nothing of interest happens and nobody cares, but the beer's fantastic.

I live just south of the border with Holland, and getting seeds from reputable seed banks is hardly an issue when you're a 2 hour train ride from Amsterdam, never mind mail order direct from Amsterdam (maximum 10 seeds per online order as per Belgian law, supposedly an attempt to hit commercial growers buying hundreds of seeds at a time. Like that's going to help since most of the illegal crops are north of the border)
 
Been thinking of what to do with the first panel, the one that didn't do much, and that little switch with the "What could possibly go wrong" warning suddenly flipped on.

Pot Noodle/solo cup grow.

@archie gemmill I may need your advice, after I force myself to eat a pot noodle...
 
whatcha mean sleepy boring Belgium ? belgium is the best dontcha know.

i think you doin great,that 5gram guesstemate is well within reach.and we only need to grow a smidge more than what we can smoke.
:pighug:
 
Well, the first one barely made that, various factors but mainly light.

Second one looks quite a bit better, shall we say

Edit:

As I say, the Acapulco is doing a tad better, she's roughly 3 weeks into flower and the flowers have grown visibly in the last day. Don't ask how many flowers there are, I keep losing count above 20 because the missus gets upset at me dropping my shorts. Here's some piccies
 

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I'm not bothering with pictures as we all know what healthy plants look like, and mine is definitely such a creature. More flowers appearing, the ones there still growing, all is trotting along nicely.



No, this post is about the LED panel as I got my lux meter today and, well, even though I haven't checked the calibration yet (will figure that out using a known light source at a specific distance) I think I can assume that the lux meter app on my phone is about as accurate as Joe Biden's calculator.



The phone says 24k lux, which you would think is reasonable for a home made light. The new meter, claimed to be calibrated at 2856K with less than +/-6% accuracy, unfortunately gives me a different figure.



45000 lux at the top of the plant with the panel 5" from the top of the plant.


A slight difference.


Using the PAR/PPF/DLI calculator I found online, http://dev.edman007.com/~edman007/pub/par-dli-cal.html , then provided I have filled it in properly that's giving me 155W/m² flux density, PPFD 615.7 μmol/s*m^2, and a DLI on a 12/12 schedule of 26.598 mol/day using only the 3000K colour and not including any figures for the "blurple" wavelengths as they are swamped by the white completely. If I go for autos on the next grow, then that's a DLI of almost 40 mol/day on an 18/6 schedule


I bring the panel less than an inch closer, I clear 50k lux with ease.


Not bad for a home made light that cost less than $50 pulling circa 170 watts from the driver.


I'm chuffed as a muppet with that, je suis heureux comme un cochon dans la merde. Just think what the next panel, which will be a similar size and design using 9.8m of 3000K SMD5730 Superbright LED strip instead of the 3000K and SMD5050 blurple will do.



Get in there!!



PS. No issues with the distance as I look at the plant, there is not the slightest hint of "bleaching" or anything, she's seriously loving it. Of course, this is being monitored VERY closely, for obvious reasons.
 
For info purposes, I decided to get the multimeter out.

I'm not vouching for accuracy, but the indicated value is 0.6A power draw, translating to 138W or 1.656kWh per day based on a 12/12 cycle on the Belgian 230vac system.

That costs me €0.30 in electricity, including taxes and transmission costs, per day, or €9 per month based on 30 days in the month given most months are 30 days long.

Not bad at all.
 
Dude post pics .. who likes to read lol jk but it's cool..i was wondering what would happen if you cut off the thick white plastic bulb part and let raw led show?
 
Dude post pics .. who likes to read lol jk but it's cool..i was wondering what would happen if you cut off the thick white plastic bulb part and let raw led show?

Post pics of what? The panel or the plant?

You can see more here, https://www.autoflower.org/threads/hoping-to-go-loco-smoking-acapulco.62969/page-2 , if you want, and you can see the result if you take the plastic off the blurple when you look back at the pics of the first panel because that did have all the plastic stripped off. Will take a few more pics in a couple of hours when the lights come on, but I reckon she's coming on ok, better than the last two and I ain't complaining with what I see for only my third ever weed plant.

Bottom line is stripping the plastic doesn't do much, the cheap blurple was a huge mistake as the second panel should have been pulling the best part of 170 real watts, not 138, and given the way the white swamps the blurple completely it does look very much under powered. We all make mistakes, and the fact that the one that was under panel 1 just stretched like hell, so badly I would have been better using a single led replacement instead of 5m of strip, the bugger shot up to around a foot and a half in height but with very little growth "outwards" growth and a seriously thin stem less than half of what the Gold has, says that you don't waste time with the stuff. As people told me when it was too late.

Meh, that blurple strip cost me €10, nothing in the grand scheme of things. You live and learn

Edit. Had a thought, I wonder if it's actually 24v blurple strip and not 12v as said by the "shop" on AliExpress as that would explain a lot.
 
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can some 1 help me pls look my post and pics

If it's the thread I think it is, all I can say is that I wouldn't have been giving them any feeding at that stage because there should be more than enough food in the compost for them at that age. As DAB said in that thread, just give them water and no feeding, not too much as you don't want the soil soaking wet when they're that age, better to water a little and often than to flood them, and with a little time they'll likely bounce back.

Remember that they are babies, and if you put too much food down a baby's throat it'll puke on you. If a baby drinks too much, it'll puke on you. You keep doing the same even though you get puked on every time, your baby will die. Your plants are doing the equivalent of puking on you, telling you to wind things back a little, imo.

And I may not know much about growing weed but, as said, I'm from an era where everyone had greenhouses, cold frames, tomatoes on the windowsill, etc, so I grew up growing all sorts of things and that's helped me quite a bit as basic plant growing is basic plant growing, you just have to fine tune the details and you only do that with experience. I'd also say to look at some of the free books on growing that are out there, have a good read, understand the basics and, if necessary, start over. The good thing is that you're not too far in with your plants so you won't lose much time if you do lose the plants, pop some more seeds and you're only going to be a couple of weeks back.

We all make mistakes, and, boy, did I make a couple of howlers. But don't let it get you down, be patient, do your research, and know that you will bugger something up but just make sure you don't make the same mistake twice.
 
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