Those little plants are looking very happy and sturdy.

Nice! I’m not familiar with those lights; read up on them just a little last night. Curious as to your cost?

That's awesome. Would it be possible to post the instructions, and list of things to buy? ....or point us in the right direction. Thanks, Ed

Those COB lights are 12vDC, no? So you need a power supply for them. That's what's on the back of yours, I guess. You need a couple of fans for each set? If you're removing a lot of heat with those fans, this setup can't be very energy efficient.

Those are in fact 110VAC LEDs (Also available for 220VAC), therefore there is no need for drivers or DC power supplies. Since they are AC powered, so construction gets very easy. Wire them up with a switch and you are done. Unlike DC devices, which you have to be very careful with polarities.

In the design and construction of all 110v LED lights, the most important consideration is heat dissipation. Heat kills LEDs.

To get rid of heat you will need heat sink and if the heat sink is not big enough, then you need a fan to help out.

A 150W COB LED is big. In my design I had a lot of trouble finding a big heat sink for two LED chips.

The cooling fans are very low powered. They are rated for about 50,000 hours. Still, I don't want to take a chance. I used two fans even one should be good enough.

150W LED $7.99 each

Heat sink - $15 each

Fan - $5.50 each

Silicone thermal grease (to attach LEDs to heat sinks) - $7.00

Switch - $1.50 each.

Shopped around on ebay.

----------------------------

For comparison, my MH 400W system costed $250 each, and the bulb ($25) needs to be replaced every couple of years.

dcarch

But to Dan’s point, 1200 watts of light+heat. ;)

Great project, looks like you saved a lot of money.

That's nice, and pretty striking. The commercial big-box LED ceiling lights are pretty pricey. So you're really just cooling the LEDs. That's kind of amazing that people sell LED illuminators that will burn themselves up. That's smart to use two fans, in case one burns out. But all the COBs I've seen are 12vDC. Where do you get the 115vAC versions? What do you search for on eBay?

Ah, I get it. You can specify 115v when you do the search for COBs on eBay. But what I see are 20 30 50 100W versions. What does that mean? You can select, on board, the brightness you want? No instructions on eBay stuff!

I just want to say you started your tomatoes too early! lol! What's up with that? You're not that far south of me and I won't start mine until April. :)

Oooh... eBay LEDs. You're a braver man than I.

Nice set up. I grow year round and started tomatoes in September and again January 1st. (micros and dwarfs I'm breeding). Other compact multifloras will go outside March-April and set fruit well ahead of indeterminates that go in the ground mid May.

I'm just advancing a breed line so I don't need tomato fruit for food. (freezer still full of that). I just need some seed to hunt.

Non fruit bearing greens just need a simple led shop light.

That setup would grow melons! Just one of those would really kick my breeding project. (I do have one single that gets a rotation of my toms)

FOAS, 1200 watts is what they say. Probably much lower. I don't have an amp clamp to check actually wattage. For MH systems, if they say 400 Watts, they don't include wattage used by the ballast.

daninthedirt, yes, include 150W in your search. 150W two choices, cool white or warm white.

Party_music, but you did not notice one detail. I have the lights hung very high. With such bright lights, I expect the seedling to grow very tall before transplanting. Many of them will be blossoming and some fruiting.

MH system is very big, light fixture plus ballast. Takes a lot of room to store.

LED system is very compact. My entire seed start operation, 4' x 12', including reflective walls, can go into a box after seedlings are transplanted.

dcarch

sleevendog , I do my salad greens and micro greens in my greenhouse. Too cold to start seeds in the GH.

For some reason, Dwarf tomatoes have not done well in my garden. Except Lime Green Salad. I like Lime Green Salad, Very early and productive.

dcarch

dcarch, I noticed the height of the lights, but when those plants are taller you're going to need much larger pots!

Party_music, absolutely. At some point, they will be in 5" x 5" x 8"H nursery bags (3/4 gallon?). I have 100 bags.

Also, I use BBQ bamboo skewer sticks. Strong, 100 36" long from Amazon.

dcarch

FWIW, you should get "warm white", the "cool white" doesn't have much emission in the red where one of the peaks of the photosynthesis phosphors is. But if you don't have a choice, either will work.

What I was asking is that when a COB bulb is listed as "20 30 50 100W", what exactly does that mean?

COBs aren't exactly "bulbs". It stands for "chip on board" - it is literally a whole bunch of very small LED chips attached to a board, right next to each other, to produce 1 single large light emitter.

The "20 30 50 100W" refers to wattage, similar to a lightbulb. "100W" refers to 100 watts. I believe it refers to the total wattage of the LED chips used.

I could be reading the question wrong but I think it means if you click on the link there will be choices for what wattage you want to buy.

"---COB bulb is listed as "20 30 50 100W", what exactly does that mean?---"

It means that the seller has LEDs in different wattages. He has 20w LEDs, 30w LEDs, 50w LEDs, etc.

dcarch

Yes, that was stupid of me. That is in fact the case that "20 30 50 100W" just mean units that are offered in that range of wattage. Thank you.

Now, I should say that two axial fans will add about 40W to each unit. So if each unit is 150W equivalent, the electrical efficiency is about half of what the bulbs themselves would be. Why are these things getting so hot? 100W A21 LEDs sure don't get hot. Are the COBs engineered in such a way that they get hot? Are COBs really a different breed of cat?

Looks great! I've never heard of COB LEDs.

This looks like an economical way to make photo lights, studio lights, workshop lights!

No! No! No!

John, the 110VAC COB LEDs operate on minimal power regulation and DC step down rectification. As a result, it flickers. Although the flickering is not perceptible to the human eye, but it interferes with many digital cameras.

dcarch

daninthedirt ,

Those are very efficient fans using brushless motors. The two probably take no more than 5 watts.

150 watt in this case is not 150 watt incandescent light equivalent. It is supposed to be actual 150 watt power use. That's why they are extremely bright.

LEDs generates heat because only about 50% of the electricity is used to make light, the other % is turned into heat.

dcarch

Oh, bummer. So LED photo lights must be more sophisticated. Still, these would work for an art studio or workshop, right?

When DD was painting in the attic over the holidays, she set up her photo lights because the room's regular lights were too warm (color). Those lights use foot long high watt CFLs, they were crappy photo lights when we got them and haven't improved - but work reasonably well for painting.

Yes, LED photo lights are very good for photographing.

Others can work well for all other purposes. I have a few COB LED work lights in my shop.

If you have questions, just use your cell phone camera to check the light out. You can see if the light has flicker issues with digital cameras.

dcarch

Sleevendog, what sort of tomatoes are you breeding?

I am imagining a clone army of supertomatoes that will take over the world but I may have read too much pulp science fiction.

John, this is not a joke. Now the scientists can actually have the DNA technology to produce bacon flavored tomatoes.

Which will make BLTs much simpler to create.

dcarch

Bacon flavored tomatoes????.......Lettuce pray ;-)

Wow! What a fantastic masterpiece! Can't wait to see the update when the plants grow up!

OK, update:

I think these green things like my DIY LED lights. Hoping for BLTs around Memorial Day. :-)

dcarch

It's a jungle!

Almost all have blossoms, many are blooming

Ground cherries are blooming

Little okras also have blossoms

I started (or tried to start) a bunch of chili seeds in January, and I have put some of them outdoors now, but I decided to keep a few inside a bit longer as they do not seem to have enough roots, even after two months. I started some lemongrass inside also, and it is growing all over the place. The chilies are fussy. I used a few seeds that I bought plus some from last year's crop. I mainly grow chocolate Habanero chilies, and they require a very long growing season. If I start the seeds in March, I won't get chilies until November. Last season I started them in March and barely got enough chilies to make chili sauce for Christmas presents. A couple of last season's plants are still growing, but I'm not sure I will get any more chilies from them. I'm thinking of planting them in the ground, even though I have horrible soil. Other people plant chilies in their yards in my neighborhood and get plants that look like small trees after a couple of years.

PM, I have tomatoes up, but they're just barely up. I try to get them in the garden right around my birthday, which is May 30. Sometimes I get them out a little earlier with their own little "hotkaps". My set up looks like this right now, but each of these little plants will eventually grow into a larger container, so I'll have 176 little plants, from tomatoes to peppers to eggplant to celeriac, maybe more since I usually plant two plants per starter pot, and then keep the healthiest ones. I run out of garden room way before I run out of plants, LOL. Just plain old flourescent lights, hung with wire on an old baker's rack that Elery cut shelves for. Yes, that's still snow outside those windows.....

These are heirloom tomatoes, Mortgage Lifter. They've been up for 2 days now, although the Great White tomatoes are always the first to sprout and the most consistent to germinate.

Annie

Wow dcarch, color me impressed! Look at those blooms!

Thanks, 2MD.

Annie, my set up in my DIY insulated greenhouse is working out better than I expected.

Extreme Farm-to-table!!

Can't keep up with the production. I might have to become a vegetarian. LOL!

dcarch

Oh. My. Word. Dcarch!! I can't stop smiling and laughing! And I thought my wee little winter sown flower seedlings made me happy - I'd be sitting on that porch just basking in sheer delight at all the babies growing! Naw, I couldn't sit, I be gazing closely at each plant. Yes, you very well might have to become a vegetarian.

These green things want very much to go outside. But I will wait until 4/15 in my zone 6 area.

dcarch

Can't see it here, but every plant is blossoming

And many have fruits

Cute little okra

Ground cherries also fruiting

3 of my 10 Artichokes, 18" tall

Some climbers

dcarch, I am blown away.

Likewise!

I am so very impressed! Jungle food from LED's!

How much power is necessary to grow those crops under the LEDs?

This made me think of all the movies where plants are grown in space. Like Silent Running, or The Martian.

It seems like in a fairly small space, you might actually be growing enough to live on?

How about CO2? Suppose the greenhouse were sealed. Would your plants provide enough oxygen for you to live?

Google "Biosphere 2" :)

Ah thanks. Did some reading. Seems like (very rough) rule of thumb, one person needs a few hundred to several hundred plants to remove CO2 and generate O from light and water. Well, dcarch you might be halfway there! You certainly have food to eat, and thus fertilizer . . .

John, It does take a good deal of power for high powered LEDs. I figure my setup will use about 900 watts. I do plan on setting up my solar panels sometime. That should help.

My greenhouse is attached to the kitchen, so all the CO2 from cooking goes into the greenhouse. Because it is double insulated, it gets very warm even it is freezing outside. With the door open to the kitchen, it actually keeps the house warm and saves a lot of heating cost.

dcarch

Wow! So impressed!

You could have ripe tomatoes year round, if you wanted to run your lights enough, couldn't you?

Thanks John!

Actually, I dream of having year-round home grown tomatoes. But that can be expensive using electric lights. But it can be possible to have almost year round garden tomato supply by having a carefully designed greenhouse.

My small greenhouse that I built has been giving me salad greens all winter the last couple of years.

dcarch

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