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Apr-17-2008, 09:32
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any questions about 630s being good? see thread in signature...lol
WT
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Apr-17-2008, 10:30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SnSstealth
any questions about 630s being good? see thread in signature...lol
WT
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Hey WT;
I think you are doing a great job with the Procyons- I'm impressed... and I use them. Just not for bloom. But it was Ryan who convinced me to go the 630 route in my light....mostly for cost att.
Just don't over sell or size them in your euphoria; I think you can make a case for replacing one 400w MH/HPS with one Procyon.
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Apr-17-2008, 17:02
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Apr-17-2008, 17:04
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Apr-17-2008, 17:13
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Just a little jealous over here. I wish I was that far along. I've got some parts and I'm fiddling around, but I still don't know my overall design. That's some crazy stuff with the antifreeze and radiator. Do you really need that much cooling power? Great job, and keep on keeping on. Really looking forward to the end product and the resulting results.
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 Everything I say in this forum is completely true, and should be construed as fact. I do smoke weed, and sometimes I eat it. Not only that I sell it, along with every other drug known to man and a few that aren't. Everything I do is 100% illegal, and I condone others breaking the law. All pictures that I post are not taken from the internet, but are of my own illegal operation. Also, I speed and don't come to complete stops at stop signs. |
Apr-17-2008, 17:14
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those big fans are 120mm computer fans that make 110 CFM, each!! 3 of those are going on the cooling radiator for the LED array. the smaller single fan is a 80mm PWM fan that im gonna use for exaust and temperature control.
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Apr-17-2008, 17:15
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Opie i think the LED array would of been fine with a large heatsink and 3 or 4 fans. and the cooling plate could fit two or three 300W LED array and dissipate the heat fine. so ya its a little much but i plan to extend the lighting more
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Apr-17-2008, 17:17
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here is a picture of the 80mm PWM fan
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Apr-17-2008, 17:28
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I hear ya. I'd much rather overbuild than under do it. An ounce of prevention and such...
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Everything I say in this forum is completely true, and should be construed as fact. I do smoke weed, and sometimes I eat it. Not only that I sell it, along with every other drug known to man and a few that aren't. Everything I do is 100% illegal, and I condone others breaking the law. All pictures that I post are not taken from the internet, but are of my own illegal operation. Also, I speed and don't come to complete stops at stop signs.
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Apr-17-2008, 17:44
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lookin good physics!....we have to get together again soon so we can see this...get the board finalized?...cant wait to see what your LEDs do...I am glad i did these before you...LOL, j/k...you'll probably blow us out man....
oldmac...looks like your about on it in comparisons....I would agree our room is about equal to 1200 HIDs...and i wouldn't say i am over selling in my euphoria...our experiment was to see if LEDs COULD produce quality nug, at a decent yield...i understand we may not have the "Perfect LED light" but this first run was to see what the procyons did by themselves...
whiskeytango
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Apr-17-2008, 21:04
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Ok pulsing LEDs with the circuit from instructables....
The only limitation that I can see for pulsing the circuit is from Q2, the N-channel MOSFET, as it takes time to turn on completely an to shut down completely.
FQP50N06L 60V LOGIC N-Channel MOSFET:
Switching Characteristics:
Turn-On Delay Time- 20 to 50 ns (.02us-.05us)
Turn-On Rise Time- 380 to 770 ns (.38us-.77us)
Turn-Off Delay Time- 80 to 170 ns (.08us-.17us)
Turn-Off Fall Time- 145 to 300 ns (.145us-.3us)
so the MOSFET can be pulsed at relatively small intervals (2us on, 1us off) and still fully turn on and off. We want to pulse the LEDs at a max of 100us (1*10^-4 s) on time and 9.9ms (9900us) off, which the MOSFET and other circuitry can handle. The picaxe actually has a PWM command built in, and it can create a 5kHz 1% duty cycle pulse for pulsing the LEDs.
Well here is the more mathematical part. We want a total integrated flux density of the pulsed light to be the same as continuous flux density (all this means is since we pulse the LEDs and thus have shorter time to emit photons, we must provide lots more photons in those short pulses to keep the same amount of energy available for photosynthesis.) The paper and researchers ( https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/tsharkey...ght%201995.pdf) based their photon flux requirement to be 50umol/s/m^2. Now I dont know if this figure is right, as i thought we wanted about 600umol/s/m^2 for optimum growing. So I am going to now hook up a breadboard with the driver circuit and some LEDs and 1) make sure the circuit works 2) see operating conditions (voltage, current, temperature) and 3) to test the LEDs with different currents and read their corresponding PPF readings, and determine how much current i have to provide for the LEDs to reach a higher PPF since they are going to be pulsed.
Found this in that paper about pulsing:
"Light was provided using lamps made from LEDs with
peak photon emission of 658, 661, 668, 676, 690, and
698 nm (22 nm half band width) custom manufactured
by Quantum Devices, Inc. (Bameveld, WI)."
So I am definately gonna give them a call about making ultra-perfect wavelengths (665, 730 and 425nm) for us 
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Apr-18-2008, 21:29
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Good day today. got the CO2 sensor and the server tower!!! the tower dimensions are 16.5" tall by 21" long by 7.5" wide. Since I have the radiator and the cooling plate transferring the heat from the LED array to outside the tower i can make the LED array height only an inch or two on the top so there should be plenty or grow height.
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Apr-18-2008, 22:42
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ATX mid tower? I think I still have a black AT full tower around here. Hmm.. too bad it's one of those old ones where the whole cover comes off (top and both sides) as one piece..
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Apr-19-2008, 12:27
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ya its a huge "server" tower as they called it on ebay but i dont think its a full server tower, but it sure is big enough!! on the front where the cover opens up i want to have a piece of plexiglass or something (maybe a sealed door??) so I can open the front cover and see how the babies are doing. I also want the same thing for the bottom so I can see root development and catch any early signs of root rot or whatever (will keep the root box dark tho  ). I also want to hinge the side cover for easy access to the res and pump and stuff for check-ups.
calling all electrical engineers!!! this is my "proposed' power supply for my grow box. 110AC in, have a transformer take the voltage down to 39V, then add a rectifier, then have 2 8200uF capacitors to filter out the unwanted ripple voltage from the rectification process. the capacitors alone should be enough to "smooth" out the DC voltage, but....should I add an inductor???? That would help eliminate AC current and pass DC current, making the circuit more stable. The inductor the procyon uses (triad CMT-908-H1, thanks kutchc!!!) is rated for enough amps for my circuit so I could use one of those, just have to make sure the inductance is right with the capacitance and such (maybe a little help there???)
If i add an inductor I will have to go back and completely re-work my circuit and strings since the voltage will be a little lower since the inductor will now take a little. but if its worth it than i will. however looking at alot of example power supply circuits, almost none of them have inductors so i think i can get away without one. im just stuck about this point cause i can "theoretically" make a circuit that should work, but i want some feedback from someone who has much more experience than i do.
I dont have any problems with the circuitry really, like making the traces connect and such cause the PCB CAD software im using is really fairly simple. im just wondering if i should wait until i get my power supply built and then test it, to confirm the voltage and currrent that it provides. i need tose numbers to calculate the number of LEDs in the series (really the only thing the voltage difference will change).
Oh also im going to buy 6 more 660nm red so I will have 13 total 660nm and also buy like 5 more luxeon rebels (just so the forward voltage of the strings is closer to the supply voltage, making it more efficient). so so far my array is looking to be about 400W (wooh!!!)
Last edited by physicsnole; Apr-19-2008 at 12:28.
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Apr-19-2008, 13:12
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nvm gonna use an inductor. found some circuits online for power supplies. updates soon hopefully!!!
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Apr-19-2008, 13:32
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I realize this question isn't entirely on-topic, (same as the last one) but:
How much power, if any, is wasted stepping down from 110v to 39v or whatever everyone else plans to drive these LEDs with?
If that power waste is significant, does that make it even more advantageous to make a solar+battery powered LED setup? I found some 180w peak/24v (I think) panels the other day. Would it be more efficient to set a few of those up with some deep-cycle marine or car batteries at 48v and step it down only slightly to 39-40v from there? (maybe made even easier once cars switch to 48v electrical systems?)
If I set up an LED test grow at some point, I'm going to have some power issues that many of you may not have. Even with CFLs everywhere this house still uses a LOT of power, and we may be near the limit of what even the upgraded main power line in the house can handle. Solar would REALLY be in my best interest, if I could set up a few panels on the roof and even just hook up my main PC (600w power supply, 4 hard drives, dual core, all that happy horse-shit) and/or window A/C to it. But I'd rather have a solar setup powering LEDs. Completely off the grid.
(yes, I realize there could be unrelated issues with a solar setup "magically" appearing out of nowhere.. but I'd minimize risk if I ever went through with it)
Oh, and that's definitely around a mid-tower no matter what they call it. (but perfectly fine for what you're doing, don't get me wrong) I may have thrown out that old AT case, but if I find it I'll measure it for you for comparison. It was so big I probably could've fit a second power supply in above the first.. as well as a full AT board, (with all full-length cards added in) four hard drives, two floppy drives, and six CD or DVD drives. I have several towers of the same size as yours laying around gathering dust.. so maybe I should put them to good use.
Last edited by BlueBong; Apr-19-2008 at 13:41.
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Apr-19-2008, 13:59
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theoretically there is 0% energy loss in transformers, the beauty of alternating current. but there may be like 1 or 2% flux leakage from th transformer (which is near nothing).
Ya i also had about 10 of those 24V solar panels the DOT uses. You could connect them in series or parallel, depending on the supply voltage and current you are looking for. of course solar panels are the way to go because its free energy, however in my case they cannot be used as the case is going to be inside and i have no way of mounting solar panels where i live (and where i will live in about a month).
you could easily set up a deep-cycle battery bank so that during the day the sun runs the LEDs and during the night the batteries run the LEDs, and have a charger charging the battereies when the sun is out. did you by any chance get one of the DOT battery chargers that they use specifically for that with their panels??? I got a few  and was thinking of the same plan as you however again i cant go solar as of now.
ok some questions......if you have 2 panels in series thats 48V, why don't you run your array at 48V, then you would not waste any energy stepping it down to 40V or so, design your array around your power supply!!!! if you have four of the same 24V panels, put two in series and two in parallel, that should give you enough voltage and current for a nice size array (180Wx4=720W!!). With a 48V supply voltage you could run 14 455nm luxeon rebel LEDs in a single string at only .7A. that would make your forward voltage of your LEDs about 47.6, so about 99% efficiency (prolly turn out to be a little less).
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Apr-19-2008, 14:02
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man solar panels would be awesome cause i wouldnt have to worry about ripple voltage and inductors and rectifiers and all that other shit. just pure DC voltage....now i wish i could use them.... 
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Apr-19-2008, 14:28
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I don't have any solar panels yet. I'm still in the planning stages until the winds of personal finance blow in another direction. I have the link saved somewhere, for the 180w stuff. Suppose I could set up a solar array in the back yard, made to look like it powers either stuff in the shed or my PC. (which is visible from the window I'm sitting next to, so it wouldn't look too suspicious) There's also a window A/C and two other PCs here, so any power lead running into this area would probably look like it was meant for these. Only problem is, I want to start a regular garden in that same space.. so I may have to do a roof mount, if I ever did this.
There are some worries about things like permitting, but we've probably done far worse than a few solar panels on "a Saturday permit".. and if I do it, I wouldn't want it hooked to the mains anyway. I'd want no trace of the power made and power used, if possible. I am EXTREMELY paranoid. (I'm even worried about having this conversation with you.. heh) I need some JH or something good for anxiety.. but after I'm done setting up. This paranoia shit can be useful when harnessed. I've already harnessed weed-paranoia to help me lose almost 20 lbs... (and still going) but that's a story for another time.
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Apr-19-2008, 15:50
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueBong
This paranoia shit can be useful when harnessed.
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Can you please elaborate?
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Everything I say in this forum is completely true, and should be construed as fact. I do smoke weed, and sometimes I eat it. Not only that I sell it, along with every other drug known to man and a few that aren't. Everything I do is 100% illegal, and I condone others breaking the law. All pictures that I post are not taken | |
