Home-built air-cooled lights

The first frost of the winter arrived as expected, and our houseplants had to come inside. The ficuses grew bigger than we anticipated, so we had to build a couple of powerful lights on short notice. These are air-cooled long Samsung LED strips that use 150W in total. These custom lights will keep our large ficuses, rubber trees, and dracaena happy in our otherwise dim living room until the weather thaws out in the spring.

These air-cooled grow lights provide almost all the light for these trees in the winter in our small, otherwise dim living room. The bright light also helps me wake up every morning.

We used 1.5 foot-long Samsung 4000K LED strips on 2-foot long aluminum U-channels. The LED strips mount with a few quick screws and the aluminum provides enough heat dissipation so the system stays below 50°C (122 °F). Each section is mounted on brackets that allow us to swivel the light. One MeanWell power supply handles all six lights. The only downside is that the lights are a bit too bright when I look up at the trees.

A simple air-cooled design is sufficient for these grow lights.