Hi all,
Some of you who have been reading the finnish forums might be familiar with my DIY project. It all started with a forum post back in july of 2009 on a forum called Greenpinelane http://www.greenpinelane.com/yaf/default.aspx?g=posts&t=269 and the intention to start a collaborative plant research project. The idea was to develop an affordable, high-quality, no-bullshit modular LED light for horticulture that would enable to conduct this horticultural research project.
I had then studied all this LED stuff for quite a while, and decided to build a prototype to get acquainted with LEDs. The first prototype looked like this:
It was built using Osram GD LEDs (Red, Blue and Neutral White (top bins)), kapton tape, copper tape/track, aluminum heat sink, and two chinese 450mA constant current drivers.
That prototype failed due to mounting the Osram GDs heat slugs to the heat sink using Arctic Silver Epoxy. The epoxy was not as good an insulator as advertised, and I ended up getting an electric shock of 90V from the heat sink. I also managed to fry some LEDs as the thickness of the epoxy was very hard to control.
I then did another similar prototype, that used double sided copper tape for the heat slugs. That worked better (still burning, 55°C heatsink temp). I'm yet to conduct growing experiments with that one.
Throughout this process I've been designing and iterating the original idea for a low-cost DIY light module, and I think it's almost ready now. I expect to have the prototype ready by march. I'll be posting about it here. Meanwhile.. happy sowing! Oh, and one more thing.. A small teaser:
Some of you who have been reading the finnish forums might be familiar with my DIY project. It all started with a forum post back in july of 2009 on a forum called Greenpinelane http://www.greenpinelane.com/yaf/default.aspx?g=posts&t=269 and the intention to start a collaborative plant research project. The idea was to develop an affordable, high-quality, no-bullshit modular LED light for horticulture that would enable to conduct this horticultural research project.
I had then studied all this LED stuff for quite a while, and decided to build a prototype to get acquainted with LEDs. The first prototype looked like this:
It was built using Osram GD LEDs (Red, Blue and Neutral White (top bins)), kapton tape, copper tape/track, aluminum heat sink, and two chinese 450mA constant current drivers.
That prototype failed due to mounting the Osram GDs heat slugs to the heat sink using Arctic Silver Epoxy. The epoxy was not as good an insulator as advertised, and I ended up getting an electric shock of 90V from the heat sink. I also managed to fry some LEDs as the thickness of the epoxy was very hard to control.
I then did another similar prototype, that used double sided copper tape for the heat slugs. That worked better (still burning, 55°C heatsink temp). I'm yet to conduct growing experiments with that one.
Throughout this process I've been designing and iterating the original idea for a low-cost DIY light module, and I think it's almost ready now. I expect to have the prototype ready by march. I'll be posting about it here. Meanwhile.. happy sowing! Oh, and one more thing.. A small teaser: