Bluetooth or analog LED controller survey!

Growroom Design
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#1

So I’ve been working with a Chinese based LED company for a few years now (I know, commie bastards and all) because they genuinely take my hard earned knowledge and research into account when making products and want to build what we as consumers are going to use (because profits, right?) and they’ve been 100% responsive, and quickly at that, for multiple years for me now. They developed the LF2000s I run with my input on them.

They sold me this analog LED controller that I wired up and use for my sunrise-sunset for 85$USD, plan on selling it for 100$. Pics will be below. Can use it for any dimmable lights realistically.

It wasn’t hard to wire, anyone who’s done a car stereo could easily do it and I wrote the installation instructions myself, they’re as indepth as you could ever want. Downfalls are it only has 3 channels, so unless you splice two sets of dimming wires into one channel you’re only supposed to run 3 lights, so if you have more than 3 lights you need more than one controller, price goes up every set of lights you need to wire etc. Also programming it was like programming a sprinkler timer or any old school analog timer, tedious as all shit and complicated until you learn the muscle memory of 10s and 1s you need.

Bluetooth controller is 200$USD and will have an app to connect to your phone and monitor/control from there. I don’t have any pics or info for the bluetooth so idk how many channels, I asked for them for specs and pics but it’ll take a day or so till I can update with their response.

Either way it’ll need to be wired into preexisting lights so a lot of the previous stuff applies to it as well but it should work with ANY dimmable driver/led setup, so you can use it with more than just Lenofocus lights. I would assume it runs more than 3 channels but won’t know until they get back to me

Question they want to know is what is more appealing, the analog LED controller or the Bluetooth LED controller, which would economically make sense for consumers and which do you think you’d prefer to use more?

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#2

Hmm… well the solution (BlueFish) I use is a similar price, and has similar features, but can do six channels.

The $100 analog version would probably sell well to the Bridgelux crowd here.

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#3

So this is a PMW dimming device :thinking:?

Can your controller have wifi to simulate sunrise and sunset, thunderstorms in real time?
Maybe even have some preset timming for 12/12 or 18/6 ect?
Can it be used on ANY dimmable led unit via universal jack?
Can it email/text you via wifi when a pre programed setting has been reached like “lights off/on” or something?

As @ReikoX mentioned Bluefish has been out for a long while and works very well. There are also a bunch of controllers on the market already that can do exactly what I described above.

What exactly makes yours different? :thinking:

I’m not poo pooing your idea At all, Just wondering how you plan to compete in a automatic market with a manual device…

For me personally, if it can’t blow bluefish outta the water or do something major differently from what’s already on the market, I’m not cutting the wires on my costly led lights to have it dimm the lights for me… esp since most lights now come pre-installed with manual pmw dimming knobs already.

What I want to see for Cannabis is this;

Build this bigger.

Features:

Channel 1 - XT-E Warm White 2700K (16V @ 1500mA)

Channel 2 - XT-E Warm White 3200K (16V @ 1500mA)

Channel 3 - 3x 660nm Deep Red 2x XT-E Royal Blue (13V @ 700mA)

Channel 4 - XT-E Cool White 5000K (16V @ 1500mA)

Channel 5 - XT-E Cool White 6000K (16V @ 1500mA)

Then use this controller;

Features

  • 16x2 Character LCD Display
  • 16-channel 12-bit PWM (0-5V)
  • 4096 Dimming Levels
  • Real-Time Clock Module
  • Manual Sunrise/Sunset Time
  • Geolocated Sunrise/Sunset
  • Staggered Sunrise/Set Delays
  • Moon/Lunar Phase Simulation
  • Intuitive Wheel Interface
  • SmoothRamp Dimming
  • SmoothRamp Clouds
  • Cloud Channel Clustering
  • Lightning Storm Effects
  • Upgradeable via FTDI
  • Arduino Compatible
  • PC Fan Control
  • Auto-dimming LCD

Combine these two items and you will have a line up around the block to buy it.

3 Likes
#4

I hadn’t seen that controller before honestly, I’m hoping theirs is more geared towards horticulture and has a panel with push buttons or something, I’ll update with the specs tomorrow hopefully so we can do a better comparison.

Hopefully more people roll in with insights as to whether it’s viable and anyone has a use for them or not.

1 Like
#5

Yes they’re both PWM dimming devices, you cut your pre existing dimmer knob off and wire one of these in, analog is essentially a fancy timer you can set 8 time/brightness settings per channel on, so you can mimick sunrise-sunset. They did have presets but I highly doubt they had enough horticulture knowledge to accurately do flower/veg schedules and then you’d have to set the master time to line up with the presets, not the true time like with the custom program option I used.

I assume it can be used for anything with a positive and negative dimming wire, definitely is interchangeable between lights. I’m running 2 of my 250$ 200w Lenofocus and 1 250$ 100w OpticLED Slim 100w bloom enhancer off it right now, hell I could put the knobs back on if I wanted to it’s just two wires…

The analog one doesn’t do shit but be a fancy timer, waiting on Bluetooth specs

I can see the appeal of adding the latter two together though I feel that wiring would take a professional to not fuck it up, not something I’d be comfortable doing just by looking at the parts lol, might even need to solder onto those prongs.

I guess right off the bat there’s ease of installation and use, price is average and you can use it for any lights you like, should one be in the market for a controller. Anyone with a head on their shoulders can follow the manual I wrote (possibly a really well trained monkey but don’t quote me on that). As previously stated I can’t speak to the exact specs of the Bluetooth but I’d assume it’s geared toward horticulture and ease of use/installation (your AVERAGE American has to be able to make it work).

I’ll be honest I’m not the biggest fan of the analog controller but it does what I want it to, sunrise-sunset and keeps my UV at 25/50% periodically so it doesn’t cook things. Saves me probably 30% on my daily electrical usage for my lights which wasn’t too high to begin with.

Personally I don’t think the bluetooth going to be anywhere near as fancy as the two you’d like to combine but I can’t imagine having/taking the time to even bother setting up moonlight and thunderstorms and all that crazy shit, I guess maybe if I owned a commercial grow or something but realistically we’re purposely avoiding those conditions by growing indoors, aren’t we?

#6

All depends on what the consumer wants to consume. Classic supply & Demand.

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#7

Sounds like an electrical fire waiting to happen for the “Average American” :confused:

#8

those with AB drivers can run a PWM controller for them so… likely cheaper and many other options out there

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#9

I understand what you’re saying I’m just defending and explaining what I can with what I have right now, some people these items will make sense for some people know the game well enough to know there’s better products that make better sense for them

If you ever do get a ton of money and get that crazy shit set up on a large enough scale to grow some ganj… I do think it’d be cool as shit to see a simulated thunderstorm from LED lighting if you’d post a video

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#10

I don’t think there’s enough juice flowing through the dimmer wires to get hot enough to melt anything but yes, I agree. I asked em to precut wires cause I’m a foreman and know the hundreds of guys we’ve gone through and can’t trust em to do something that simple…

I think eventually they should rig it all up before sale so there’s no guess work for people but I don’t run the place, just some asshat they ask for advice occasionally

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#11

Plug n play baby

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#12

My goodness!

Somebody has been doing his supplementary studies… :nerd_face: :vulcan_salute:

I’m impressed, that’s all singing all dancing. Does the Arduino have full control?

Cheers
G

2 Likes
#13

Meh. I was big time into Reef Aquariums Big & Small for years. Even had a “Pico Reef” …
Kinda just goes with it. I belive the Arduino has full control since that’s the operating system, so if you know how :thinking: could just rewrite the programs it’s open source stuff .

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#14

If you’re ever bored I came across this US government sanctioned study on different light spectrums, you seem like you’d enjoy it like I did honestly.

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#15

Thanks @TestOfOath I’ve studied this kinda stuff for several years though … it was really interesting for sure.

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#16

I knew I’d like OG for stuff like this :grin: you know how much reading you have to do to fully (or begin to) understand light spectrum and it’s different benefits at different wavelengths cause you also spent the time learning all of it.

You are literally the first other person I’ve come across who’s dedicated that much time to knowledge to only one aspect of indoor horticulture since I started growing and looking for places and I understand more now why you want the wizard’s magic lighting setup where you can control individual spectrum ranges on any channel over 16 channels, you’d probably be badass with it on top of it.

After the responses I got last night I’m not sure they’ll be able to compete in the market with specifically what they’re trying to do with the controllers, the profit margin isn’t there for them and the convenience of only having 3 channels for a 200$ Bluetooth controller isn’t going to be appealing for many if any. I’ll give it a little time and update when they get the specs over to me, see if anything changes but they might just end up being disappointed with where the market is at right now.

I’m going to see if they’ll integrate the controllers into their lights as part of the base of their fixtures, put the added cost into the final price so it’s not such a “holy shit I have to pay THAT for THAT?” and see what their response is, that is seeming to be a more viable business venture than the controllers themselves

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#17

Just ask China to build the Storm X led controller.
It seems that the place I linked doesn’t sell it anymore. :confused: :laughing:

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#18

Wanna get rich with me while building the most badass custom lights anyone has ever used? :joy:

Buy the equipment to produce PCBs ourselves, buy lm301b diodes in every available spectrum ourselves, customize bars/boards/build fixtures with customer specific (or “preprogrammed”) spectrum and wattage ourselves, controller for each diode spectrum to be able to brighten/dim any color range individually.

Fully controllable and customizable artificial suns in every grow room across the world.

You wanna talk about changing the game? I almost don’t even want to make this comment cause there’s literally no one out there doing it yet

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#19

Haha :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: no thanks :rofl:… I’ve already tried this once. Not enough time left in a day for something like this. Besides Reef lighting is already on top of it for the last 10yrs atleast.

Buy an expensive reef light & grow Cannabis with that full spectrum…

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#20

Maybe one day down the road, they’re crazy expensive and I’d have to build a fixture for them, couple thousand to build what I’d want with those from what I can tell.

They are pretty sweet though and the efficacy is right on par with the best Samsung diodes and I love the fuller spectrum, I’d want 2 UV diodes though, 365nm, and 315nm, I didn’t realize Cree had advanced that far now

1 Like