Affordable COB LED Build

Cheers bro yer a pal and i recon gaz is a lucky bloke indeed having you build his rig. I know first hand just how much work it takes. I’m lovin my combined rig and would not change it but if i build another for a pal it will need to be all strips :grin:

btw got the meter already, just need to get an enclosure for it to go in now :thumbsup:

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What size is the carbon filter in your picture mate?

That was a wee 4" filter a friend got as part of a kit but didn’t use so we found a use for it. It’s quite a bit smaller than the 4" rhino hobby that’s in there now.

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I’ve got the rhino hobby one too, I ordered it thinking it would be as small as the one in your picture but as you say it’s a canny size bigger.

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Aye it’s almost twice the length and a lot heavier too. Did you know you can swap ends across on the Rhino? supposed to get longer life . I usually cant be arsed though :grin:

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Aye mate, a read it on the site a got it from.
I was thinking earlier on I wonder if I could chop it in half nd mcgyver it up :wink:
I’m using the one I built with the pencil cups for now which is working great.
I only have a couple of Blue mystic growing which is low odour anyways but I’m a bit dubious whether it will work with some super stinky stuff :confused:

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Fetch it to mine and we’ll stick it on my tent for an hour. If it manages to stop the smell from the AK I’ll fund a production run :laughing:

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Have a look on alibaba.com you can get a quantum board kit you put together yourself for about £120 everything included.

Yeh been there it was the postage costs that put me off. Got Solstrip racks now anyway so well sorted :thumbsup:

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I’m in the market to diy my own light soon.
Can someone guide me to what I’ll need?
I’m terrible at searching it as I can’t find the right keywords

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It’s a broad subject so you need to narrow it down. If you can afford Solstrips and can do fairly basic diy i’d go with them. If you have a low budget but have good diy skills cobs might be worth considering. You need to start with the area you want to light and aim for around 35W per sq/ft. How you get that depends on your budget and skills :thumbsup:

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SolStrips are what I’m going for, but cobs work as well. I just need to know what I’m in for for each as a SolStrip build costs me around 180-200, but it’s worth it. Cobs I can make even cheaper, but in both cases my buddy wants to make one with me and he fixes electronics for a living, so he’ll be the one soldering everything.

I personally have a low budget, but I can save if I have to. His budget is around 200. I’m just trying to figure out what I want as to achieve 35w per square foot I don’t need a lot.

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I’ll be putting it in a box that’ll be no more than 4’x5’x7’ to fit in the room I’ll be using. I believe I should be able to use a 150-200w with those dimensions. I realized I didn’t add what I’ll be using when asking for help

I can also make a SolStrip like light from scratch if I had to. For my purposes it might be better if I make it from scratch with the LED strips and all the parts needed. If I can have someone point me to what I’ll want to order I’ll make a list and once it all comes in I’ll post the progress updates here

4’ x 5’ is 20 square feet! if you build a 200W rig you would have 10W per square foot in that space. You could start seeds with that…you could probably grow mushrooms but ganja is out of the question :laughing:

You’d need 700W to get 35W per square foot in a 20 square foot space.

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Good to know. I was being stupid and forgetting to calculate height in that math🤦🏻‍♂️

What would I want for a box dimensions and wattage combo?

Height doesn’t factor bro. You need the floor area of your grow space (the lit area) in square feet. You said 4 x 5 x 7 so that normally means it’s 4 foot by 5 foot by 7 foot high. Ignoring the height you have a floor area of 20sq/ft (4 x 5 = 20) To light an area of 20 square feet at 35W per square foot you need 700W of led light (20 x 35) this is never done cheaply so your budget will need to be a lot higher or you can reduce the size of the space. A 2’ x 4’ space can be adequately lit with 280W which might be closer to your budget.

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You can also count on about $1-$2 per watt to build a light.

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If I went the cob route I’m asking about 100w 4000k 80Ra CRI cobs at about 14 per cob.
About the same to buy a SolStrip, but I still haven’t factored in the heatsink cost yet. As it stands rn I’m in the process of of ordering 10 of them once I get the spectrum graph and efficiency rating

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It’ll cost me about 600 for the 10 100w cobs and the 100w drivers, but I already know that that combo will be bad. I’ll need at least 1250-1300w total for all LEDs to run safely at 80% load in the driver and to my knowledge 100w each for 100w drivers is a fire waiting to happen. Thermal runaway is very likely to my knowledge using 100% load at all times.

Can someone help me choose a driver(s) I’ll need to power this setup? The LEDs alone will only cost me 150. The drivers seem excessive at 1 per light

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Research much my friend. Have you checked out a site called led gardener?

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