My experience with the Chinese LED lamps is longevity....very bad. Several reasons for this. First is they "overdrive" the LED. LED's have several power ratings. These chip types in the lamps I bought were rated at 1/2 watts continuous use and 1 watt peak. When driven at peak power the average life goes down. I purchased 2 types 20 of each and less that 20 are fully functional 6 months later. The second is the quality of construction of the drivers, cheap capacitors failed.   Who knows mabe the Chinese stuff is getting better. My fig cuttings and Alpine Strawberry seedlings show NO difference in growth with the RED/BLUE LED's and the cheap HD 40 Cool White lamps. And only 1 in about 50 of those have failed.

Can't wait to see how it goes, I want more light!

100 watt chips are not built like 1/2 watt LEDs.
If I blow a 100 watt LED, it's $6 to replace.
I have not had one burn out yet.

Doug

Just about everything is made in China. Even Cree has plants in China so....

SCfigFanatic........There is no such thing as a 100W LED, 100W lamps use many LEDs. The device on this post is a 10x10 matrix of 100 individual white LEDs according to the listing. On top of that each "white" LED has three LEDs inside. One each red, green and blue. So the device in this post actually contains 300 LEDs. LED are low voltage devices, typically 1.2 volts....so a white will require 3.6 volts to light the three inside the "white" LEDs. 

If life like my previously experience they used 1/2 Watt LEDs driven at 1 watt they will also have a short life.  Hence the high failure rate. This listing does not say which Chips are being used so it is a gamble until someone tries them out. As I stated these MAY actually be legit.......but my experience in electronic (40 years teaching Electronics, writing training courses and videos before retiring along with building custom amps and speakers.) has been that cheap Chinese electronics uses the least expensive parts and out of tolerance parts. Not to say that ALL chinese Electronics are bad...Apple, Samsung  and such are a different level than theses lamps. But keep in mind the Samsungs that have been discontinued due to flames in the past week. Why? The batteries were made in China........ junk! Over rated and overcharged they shorted and caught fire......they were specially made so Samsung had to discontinue the the phone as no batteries were available to replace the junk they bought! The Chinese rate their batteries as 300-400% over capacities. If you buy one of the external phone batteries you will find when you open the case the battery is nowhere near the advertised capacity.  A 5000 mah rating will have a 1200 mah battery in the large case. All kind of videos on the net showing this. And Samsung will lose they are guessing 600 million on bad Chinese product quality. I could go on for a long time about the Chinese electronics market.....we attempted to have some products made for us from multiple merchants........what we got was junk samples.....nowhere close to what we specified from the six companies we tried. 

LEDs are rated at an average power level. A 1/2 W LED will run for is normal life at 1/2 W. If you pulse it on and off for a 50% duty cycle(half the time on and half off) you can run it at a 1 Watt level. It can also be pulsed at a very high level briefly. Think of the flash on your phone. The chips on the lamps I purchased are type 5730.....1/2 W chips. The lamps use 18 and the Chinese rate the lamp as 18 watts. Again the answer to the short life. So without knowing what chip the device on this post uses it is a gamble that you will actually get what you pay for. The simple fact they do not tell you is suspicious. The Chinese also rate their batteries as 300-400% over capacities. If you buy one of the external phone batteries you will find when you open the the battery is nowhere near the advertised capacity.  All kind of videos on the net showing this.

Per their website Cree LEDs are made in the USA, packaging the LEDs is done at the China Huizhou plant wholly owned by Cree.  But if you price a Cree 1W LED you will pay several bucks each so how can the Chinese sell lamps with 18 of these chips, a built in driver and packaged to fit a standard base socket at $2.24 shipped per lamp?  Easy if they use out of spec junk Chinese LEDs.


 The 5730 chips in the two types of cheap lamps I purchased were Chinese made 5730 chips. I do not doubt the LEDs were good but it you run an incandescent lamp rated at 120vac 100 Watts at 240vac 200 Watts how long do you think it will work? 



I hope these LED lamps work as advertised. But I will wait to see what happens before sending more money to China for more junk. I will not use ANY Chinese components in our handmade tube type audio amps,  I will not risk our reputation on junk parts. Extensive testing has shown Chinese parts in general seldom meet specs. We only purchase NOS US made products for our tube amps which include the tubes, transformers and capacitors. Precision resistors we are forced to use Taiwanese  products. 

If it is obscenely cheap and Chinese in general STAY AWAY! Chinese business ethics are non existent......it is a seemingly normal business practice to first attempt to shaft a customer but if you battle long enough they will comply with your standards. And their excuses are the same every time.....their suppliers screwed them with bad parts........I just have better things to do than fight tooth and nail to get what I paid for.

Brandon.....A "driver" is functionally the same as a "ballast". It provides the correct voltage and current for the device. A fluorescent lamp "ballast" provides a high AC voltage and low current to drive the lamp and LEDs require a low DC Voltage and high current to drive them.  The home type LED lamps have the driver built in the lamp. The "dimmable" LED types use a more expensive driver which is why they cost more.

I prefer LEDs to fluorescent lamps due to the lethal voltages that they require in a damp environment like grow lights. Just my personal preference but then I have been fried once or twice in my career! And did not like it! Please be carefull with DIY projects using lethal voltages. Even 120vac household current will kill you, I lost a very dear friend to 120 vac house current. 

jmrtsus, I have bought many 50 and 100 wait LED's from china that have lasted 4 years so far.
I am no expert at electrical, if a led is being over driven simply add a cooling fan running the same or slightly higher voltage.
No more over driving the led. Many power packs I use have adjustable pot to let me set the current where I want it.
I do not like buying from china, it is the cheapest option. Even if I do get a burnt out LED it's like $7 to replace.
If someone else has more experience than I, feel free to finish this thread.


Doug

"Just my personal preference but then I have been fried once or twice in my career! And did not like it! Please be carefull with DIY projects using lethal voltages. Even 120vac household current will kill you, I lost a very dear friend to 120 vac house current. " (was a quote from jmrtsus but got edited out)


Had you shared your knowledge with your close friend, maybe he would not have got electrocuted??

Your right, I do not want some idiot messing with 120v.
Sorry for starting this thread.
It was not for my benefit.
I do not want to risk someones life.

Sorry all.....


Doug


edit
I will delete this thread tomorrow.

I bought lots of electric stuffs from China and I totally understand their quality, It is even worse than dollar store, However, it is very inexpensive.

For lower power LED 3730, I do agree that overpower can shorter their life but regarding about this LED kits, It should be fine, Most of those LED drivers are slightly under power, and High power LED are reliable with proper heatsink/fan , However, This kit is for someone with some electronic skill because it does not come with good instruction and support.

Please do not delete this thread there is much good info here, all it needed was a warning to people to not take wiring lightly. My friend was a long time family friend, we called her "Coonie" short for "coon ass" or "cajun". She died due to a bad DIY wiring job by her husband. He wired the pump for a small in ground goldfish pond in their yard. But he wired the neutral to the switch and the hot direct to the pump. So she had switched it off when she was cleaning the pond but somehow in moving the pump touched the hot wire.  

As to the project let us know how it works out. There are several sources for overstocked and discontinued DC power supplies. I am sure we could find some that are DIY safe for others to use. As to your fan get a 12V and add a resistor and run it on the power supply for the lamps. Get me the specs on the fan and I will tell you what value resistor you will need if you want to save on another power supply. The LED matrix is what is important......are they truly 1 Watt LED's or over driven 1/2 Watt devices? Even if they are 1/2 W devices a single resistor would reduce the drive to provide a very long life. You will simply have to use two of them for 100W. $13 for a TRUE 100W white LED is still dirt cheap and should provide about 80 Lumens per watt so 8000 lumens. That is the equivalent of ten 40Watt incandescent lamps  but 1/4 of the electricity to power it. So keep up the thread a let us all gain from your experience. 

Thanks, I understand the option of using the resistor.
I was going to keep the build as simplistic as I could think of for first
timers. Keeping the soldering to only the led. The 12v 2a power source I was going to use
has 2 screws to attach fan wires in to. Wire nuts could be used elsewhere.
I need to test the driver to see if I want to draw fan power from it.
Chances are it's already under driven.
Parts have not arrived.

Doug

Those LED driver are designed on constant power source, It has only range voltages and range of current, it will maintain it rated value of 100W.

Those High power LEDs are confusing, question is that, Do they need Len? If so why? For me, I don't think that it needs Len.

Also, I need to know which wavelength of light kill mold, I need light in this wavelength.

Hi Doug, It will take few weeks for them to arrive, In Canada, It takes about 2 weeks to arrive here and few days for Customs service, then it will sit at post office from 1 to 10 weeks before I can get it.

I never have used the lens.
I ordered it only to test it myself.

Doug

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400W-36V-11A-Single-Output-Switching-Power-Supply-AC-to-DC-SMPS-S-400-36-for-LED-/222167566598?hash=item33ba380906:g:TZkAAOSwepJXcPAt

this is the driver I'm most familiar with and use on my other 50 watt and 100 watt lights.

I was looking for a simple way to introduce LED lighting to people so they can
dig into learning more about led lighting on their own.

I build wind generators from scratch, winding my own coils all the way to carving 6-8 ft diameter
blades of wood. I do not know everything about led's, I only know what has worked by reading
and trying.

If this helps anyone who would enjoy a DIY LED light, then Im happy.

I'm not out to be a know it all.
I'm only wanting others to see how simple LED's really are.
If I learn something, great.

Doug

Good thread Doug. I look forward to seeing how this setup works out for you.

I've gotten a few of those type 100W LEDs. I got mine from China to make a DIY "super flashlight". I've tested them but haven't yet put all the parts together in a self contained unit. Those things really are extremely bright! Should make some pretty awesome grow lights. Keep us posted (preferably with pics or video :-) .

JMRTSUS: Very sorry to hear about your friend that died that way. What a tragic accident. AC power is great. But it also is, certainly, to be respected.  

Thanks Saxonfig.
It seems I have a few of your figs in my orchard from years ago when
you offered cuttings.

Thanks again.

Doug

I love to hear that. Glad you were able to make some trees out of them :) . Will have more cuttings available this season (I know, shameless plug).

I thought the discussion was interesting, but for me, I would rather buy a commercial LED grow light. Currently the florescent are much cheaper and throw out a very decent amount of light. Hopefully the prices will come down on the LED's.

Hi,
DC is worst than AC.
DC will contract your muscles and you won't be able move or open your hands.
AC will contract and release your muscles and you get a chance to jump out of the problem.

If you can include a fuse on your montage, it may help prevent problems .

It is the responsibility of each one to have an uptodate electrical installation with all due protections and working fuses.
Some will use tinfoil to replace broken fuses. You can't help such silly (but handy for a short time ) behaviors.
It is the same when adding memory to your pc or removing dust from inside of your pc. Remove that damn power cable from the power unit FIRST !
Even when the pc is off but connected to the power, you can get a serious electrical shock.
Don't even speak of TVs, since they have components to produce higher voltage from the standard power-supply .

As for tanks, one should unplug all electrical devices (heater, pump, lamps) before touching the water. I'll admit that I've never done it ... So far so good ...
I had once a ballast (power-adapter for the lamps) start to heat and almost catch fire. It was 11PM and Madame told me "hey it smells like fire here". And then told me "nevermind, the smell is vanishing" . But I checked all electrical sources, and touched the ballast of a tank just to release it... It was that damn hot.
It was sitting on a wooden furniture and the furniture was getting a roasted color . By luck, we were at home ... and still awaken.
So yes, owning a tank is not as safe as we can think of it ...

This light Im building uses 30-36VDC.
You can touch wires without it doing much of anything to you.
My house has a circuit that runs from 24VDC through a inverter and
powers a 120vac outlet in my living room.

On the fan...the resistor won't be cheap. Or efficient. Going to waste around twice what the fan is actually using.

here is more information on color choices of LED and why I choose warm white for
winter growing.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1150438/


To each, their own. Im just showing what has worked for me.
This is also how I start cuttings in december then plant in ground first week
of march and most all try to fruit their first year.
Figs flowering in winter are my least concern.

Doug

I wish one of the experts would have wrote this thread.
My only purpose to be here is to try to help others.
Critics should show how they build their LED lights, or do they even build them?

Here are some of my LED lights I have played with over the last few years.


http://s298.photobucket.com/user/Southbuck7/library/LED%20lights?sort=3&page=1


Doug

I bought a kit from China today for $10US, It uses CE certify water proof driver, It needs extra heatsink fan, I have couple Computer CPU heatsink fans laying around.
I find that 100W LED is dirt cheap now, less than $2.
https://s14.postimg.org/6o0i1d7k1/LED_kit.jpg
https://s11.postimg.org/413j4bn9v/LED_kit2.jpg

Good, you can show us how you do it.

Doug

Here is some detailed info on LED lights and making your own COB led grow light.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HandsOnComplexity/