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natethebrown · 03-06-17, 08:15 AM

Here is my initial setup. Only 1 LED COB hooked up to power and approx. 10" above the top of the seedling pots.

I was fortunate enough to plant some lettuce seeds for some other experimenting with the grow light, with no plans to plant them in the garden. In essence they were throw away seedlings, which ended up being a really good thing. The lettuce emerged a good 6 days before anything else and really indicated how much luminosity seedlings really need. Early on, I noticed the lettuce was getting leggy and powered a second, then a third LED COB on each consecutive day. You can see how leggy the lettuce was getting even with 3 10W LED COBs.

At this point, I had all 3 LED COBs powered on the right side of the grow light. The heat sink above those three LED COBs was quite warm to the touch and the left heat sink was warm as well. At this point, I knew my other seedlings would be emerging very soon, so I sped up the changes and temporarily installed a CPU fan, powered a fourth LED COB, lowered the grow light to approx. 6" above the top of the pots, and put aluminum foil around the entire light.

It seemed to be helping but I went ahead and connected a fifth LED COB. Here is the growth last night.

You can see on the foreground seedling stems are darkening, which is a good sign. Here you can see my other seedlings are starting to emerge.

I powered the sixth and final LED COB this morning, so the grow light is running full tilt now. I am hopeful that this will be sufficient and am really glad I went with my initial gut feeling of increasing the LED COBs from 4 to 6 on this setup. Also, I obviously had the wrong conclusion that this would be "Overkill," and have been proven otherwise.

03-06-17, 08:15 AM	#10
natethebrown Apprentice EcoRenovator Join Date: Aug 2012 Location: North Alabama Posts: 167 Thanks: 0 Thanked 40 Times in 20 Posts	Here is my initial setup. Only 1 LED COB hooked up to power and approx. 10" above the top of the seedling pots. I was fortunate enough to plant some lettuce seeds for some other experimenting with the grow light, with no plans to plant them in the garden. In essence they were throw away seedlings, which ended up being a really good thing. The lettuce emerged a good 6 days before anything else and really indicated how much luminosity seedlings really need. Early on, I noticed the lettuce was getting leggy and powered a second, then a third LED COB on each consecutive day. You can see how leggy the lettuce was getting even with 3 10W LED COBs. At this point, I had all 3 LED COBs powered on the right side of the grow light. The heat sink above those three LED COBs was quite warm to the touch and the left heat sink was warm as well. At this point, I knew my other seedlings would be emerging very soon, so I sped up the changes and temporarily installed a CPU fan, powered a fourth LED COB, lowered the grow light to approx. 6" above the top of the pots, and put aluminum foil around the entire light. It seemed to be helping but I went ahead and connected a fifth LED COB. Here is the growth last night. You can see on the foreground seedling stems are darkening, which is a good sign. Here you can see my other seedlings are starting to emerge. I powered the sixth and final LED COB this morning, so the grow light is running full tilt now. I am hopeful that this will be sufficient and am really glad I went with my initial gut feeling of increasing the LED COBs from 4 to 6 on this setup. Also, I obviously had the wrong conclusion that this would be "Overkill," and have been proven otherwise.