You will probably be ok with all whites, especially as you have several types - just won't be as energy efficient as plant specific wavelengths as there will be a fair bit of wasted greens. If you decide to add later then you won't need blues, as they will be well covered in the whites, you'll just need reds.
Just adding the reds would work out really well actually, 4 reds per shelf would be about perfect.
I'm not going to get into any of the skills required to solder as this would not be a good beginner project imo, if you have done a few things in the past it would be a challenge but very doable. Although, since this is not a space shuttle and is not likely to take off at high speeds, vibrating like mad, the need for high reliability soldering is really low
. Gotta love soldering training video's! This is just a dimming unit and there are a lot of prebuilt units out there if you are soldering challenged.
First up is to gather all your supplies, take note of the large coffee cup in the back as its the most needed component this early in the morning. I have replaced 4 of the supplied wires with longer red/black wires for easier connection later on.
DSC_0751 by
randallsimpson, on Flickr
Tinning your wires and terminals is very helpful, if you don't know what tinning is you may want to buy a pre-built unit or practice some.
DSC_0752 by
randallsimpson, on Flickr
I connected all the "inner" wires together first before connected the "outer" wires for one main reason, I did not want to mess with longer wires hanging all around my work space until I needed too.
DSC_0753 by
randallsimpson, on Flickr
And the completed unit, I tested 3 setting (0%, 50%, 100%) with an ohm meter on both channels to ensure everything was working ok. This was the hardest part of this entire build, everything is downhill from here. It took me about 1hr 15m from start to finishing cleanup. I have many years with soldering but I'm getting old and my hands are not as steady as they used to be, really slowed me down some.
DSC_0754 by
randallsimpson, on Flickr
Got the heatsinks last night also. Next on my list is to drill holes for the hanging mounts into the aluminum. For anyone who has never worked with CREE LED or the like, this looks like a lot of metal for such tiny little circuits but its not. I will not be running these at full power for two reasons, LEDs are "supposed" to last significantly longer if ran at cooler temperatures and if I ran 7 of these LEDs per heatsink at full power the heatsinks would be too hot to touch. Yes 7 of those little circuits can and will heat that giant bar of metal hot enough to burn your hand in under an hour if you run them at 100%. Off to drilling!
DSC_0755 by
randallsimpson, on Flickr