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results from my CREE XM-L2 LED grow light kit

i purchased these two together and assembled it in my old fixture made originally for a 125w compact flourescent bulb.

http://www.rapidled.com/12-led-plug-n-play-retrofit-kit-dimmable/
http://www.rapidled.com/6-x-12-premium-heat-sink-and-enclosure/

i had them send me 6 Warm white 4 neutral white and 2 cool white. heres the fixture and the kit together and some other pics of it being put together. This kit is extreemly tedious to put together because of all of the little screws which dont seem to fit well to the LED boards










You can see here how the pc boards dont fit quite right to their intended slots.

the lenses are really neat


i was able to determine before hand whether the heatsink would fit into the flourescent lighting hood. we are good to go :D


useing a drill and a bit of brutishness i was able to get the light socket removed and installed the hardware to run the LEDs


everything plugs in and fits perfect


fully assembled and working!
 
ok so we've got that part out of the way. I had read RSS's thread earlier about his great results using these which is what prompted me to get my own. Here's his thread: http://www.terraforums.com/forums/s...uild-a-Cephalotus-grow-space-would-love-input!

at first when i lit up the lights i was very impressed by the spectrum. A flourescent light is very blue. These, since i got a mix of whites, seemed like a very bright sunset. It's pretty pleasing to look at and not harsh at all. right away you can tell theres a fuller spectrum there because it looks like REAL daylight

I took photos, once a week, for the first couple of weeks. These are from day 0, day 7, and finally day 14. I will let the results speak for themselves.




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The lights were running at full capacity for the first 3 weeks or so. after the initial explosion of growth it started to seem like they were stalling and just turning more and more red. I turned the dimmer down to almost the lowest setting. I THINK it is running at about 1/3 of max power now. I've kept it at that setting for the past couple weeks. The plants are still doing just great and don't grow as compact or red. It seems about right to me. I took this picture on thanksgiving day:
 
Plants look great!
 
Thanks for posting this, Millepede. It looks to be a great setup. So, it is powerful enough that it needed to be dimmed. Do you think this kit would work with the LEDs more spread out for a larger area?
 
Seriously impressive results. Thanks for sharing.All the plants have coloured up great, and those pings look as though they are loving it
 
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Looking nice, glad to see some other plant types I don't grow are reacting to them well. Since you are using the XM-L and I'm using the XP-G its nice to see they are both tanning plants nicely.

With the black Friday sale I ordered my next set of replacement LEDs. I'm just ordering the moonlight kits and having them swap out the blue LEDs for a mix of the whites so I don't have to mess around with wiring a dimmer.

Those screws look so wrong for that heatsink...I've always used the thermal pads (special double stick tap). Although the Lenses you have are so much better to attach than the XP-G ones I've been ordering. About 1 in 6 or so XP-G lenses are cut wrong on the inside and need some "help" fitting right. The few XM-L lenses I've used worked so much better.

But to answer the real question, I'm not running ANY of my LEDs higher than 50-60% of the LEDs max power. About 65-75% the heat produced is just crazy. I'm spacing them between 2.5" - 5" depending on the amount of light I'm after, the % power setting, and lense angle. The massive amount of customization with LEDs is the real strength of this lighting. From power settings, color spectrums, lenses degrees, and spacing you can really make what you want.

Please keep in mind...Not all LEDs are created equally...do your homework or you may end up spending a lot of $$$ on a product that does not work well. LEDs are not like T5s, the good LEDs are good, the bad LEDs are bad.

Here is an example of a Ceph growing in the 2.5" 50ish% power rack, I just had them out in some nice slow pouring rain for half the day so they just screemed to have a pic taken.

Cephalotus 'Hummer's Giant' by randallsimpson, on Flickr
 
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Thanks for the info, RSS. Those are the darkest Hummer's I have ever seen a photo of. Very nice.
 
It would definitely work as well if you spread the lights out. I might actually take the lenses off for a wider spread, since even though i got the 80 degree lenses it seems most of the light still aims straight down. The plants on the very sides seem to be slightly less bright than those in the middle and you can also tell by looking at the pic i took on thanksgiving that the Sarracenia on the side are getting less light

BTW The lights sit about 12-16 inches from the tops of the plants, depending on how tall the pot and/or plant is.
 
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  • #10
The lights were running at full capacity for the first 3 weeks or so. after the initial explosion of growth it started to seem like they were stalling and just turning more and more red. I turned the dimmer down to almost the lowest setting. I THINK it is running at about 1/3 of max power now. I've kept it at that setting for the past couple weeks. The plants are still doing just great and don't grow as compact or red. It seems about right to me. I took this picture on thanksgiving day:

So with led's turning down the output reduces power consumption? I am thinking about how some light dimmers do a sort of shunt thing where power draw remains the same. I guess that does not apply?
 
  • #11
Looks like you are getting some solid results!
 
  • #12
So with led's turning down the output reduces power consumption? I am thinking about how some light dimmers do a sort of shunt thing where power draw remains the same. I guess that does not apply?

I have no idea. I'll write an email to them and ask about that
 
  • #13
Well obviously more power equals more light, so less power, less output. That shunt thing sounds very inefficient because that would mean the power that isn't cominng out as light, will be wasted into heat.
 
  • #14
It probably does not apply, and I am doing an apples and oranges comparison. On some lamps for home use the lamp will incorporate a dimmer. If you dim the light the power draw will remain the same, but the light output will drop as the dimming device is just bleeding off power in some fashion. I think they call that a shunt.
 
  • #15
So with led's turning down the output reduces power consumption? I am thinking about how some light dimmers do a sort of shunt thing where power draw remains the same. I guess that does not apply?

I plugged in a power usage meter this morning and ran some tests the results are below. The quick answer is the dimmers increase/decrease power usage.

Ran 2 strips at about 50% power for 2:45 hours using up .06 KWH, turned the dimmers down to around 25% for 3 hours using up .02 KWH. Likely close to rolling up to .03 KWH.

At the power level I'm running these 2 strips at it costs me about $9-11 a year in electricity to light a 6" X 70" area enough to red/purple Cephs. Now setup costs were much higher than T5s.
 
  • #16
Thank you. where can i get one of those meters?
 
  • #17
I got mine off Amazon, but they are just power meters you plug into the wall then plug your normal item into them. They had them at Fry's today, so they might be at hardware stores also.
 
  • #18
I decided to build a light similar to this. I won't be using crees but I'm hoping the diodes I bought are bright enough. Post results when I can.
 
  • #19
It would definitely work as well if you spread the lights out. I might actually take the lenses off for a wider spread, since even though i got the 80 degree lenses it seems most of the light still aims straight down. The plants on the very sides seem to be slightly less bright than those in the middle and you can also tell by looking at the pic i took on thanksgiving that the Sarracenia on the side are getting less light

BTW The lights sit about 12-16 inches from the tops of the plants, depending on how tall the pot and/or plant is.

I'm thinking of buying the same kit you are using. What footprint are you lighting with these LEDs.
 
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