DIY LED with COBs - small medium and large grows

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sixstring

sixstring

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that first driver i posted will run 4 of those fans perfectly,and also 2 of them for now and you can add 2 later.now these will NOT be wired in series.you will wire in parallel,so they both get the 12 volts.
 
sixstring

sixstring

7,079
313
i know some people would try it but i wouldnt use it.too much extra amps and not knowing that driver idk if it will overdrive those fans and make them take off in flight lol
 
sixstring

sixstring

7,079
313
you dont have any type of old wall wort/power supply from an old phone charger or power supply from an old school phone ect you can use?
 
L

Lpferris4

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sixstring said:
i know some people would try it but i wouldnt use it.too much extra amps and not knowing that driver idk if it will overdrive those fans and make them take off in flight lol
Click to expand...
Honestly I didn't know it was too much but I've got it hooked to one fan now smaller than this and it's running. Not wildly crazy or anything.
 
P

puregravy

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DGP said:
Yeah, the surplus heat sinks worked but not quite as well as the Arctic 11 plus. So, that is what I am going with. Already ordered a bunch more from NewEgg who happens to be selling them for $7.61 right now so with shipping they are under $10.

I didn't even take formal data on the Arctic 11's because the hottest spot on them never went much above 85F and only about 15F over ambient. The surplus ones were about 25F over ambient.

I completed testing yesterday of the first fixture I built and it is already running some rooted clones in the veg tent.

It seems Cree has always been the gold standard for the industry but I really wonder if these 90 CRI Luminous parts aren't just as good. They seem to be readily available stateside (without having to wonder about what you get from China) and are only $19 for the 50V/150W version.

DP
Click to expand...

Is there a specific reason why you went with the 3000k as opposed to the 3500k cxm22 on cobkits?
 
DGP

DGP

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puregravy said:
Is there a specific reason why you went with the 3000k as opposed to the 3500k cxm22 on cobkits?
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I went with a mixture of 3000 and 3500 because it seemed like I could get away with running them all the way through. The hybrid I am raising right now (CheeseQuake) does not seem to care one way or another during veg. They grow quite full and almost too short and bushy. So the redish color doesn't seem to screw up my veg cycle at all. Before I made the switch to LED I ran HPS all the way through with no real issues.

Sometime in the future I will move my small light bar out of the veg tent to make the grow area in the flower room slightly larger. At that point I might shift my veg light to the blue side when I build another veg light.

D
 
Paldo

Paldo

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Hy, could U just help me a little bit.

I'm going to do some COB light for my 75x110 cm growing area. Growing mainly scrog, sometimes auto. I decide to run 9x cree CXB2530 3500K on 3 120W 3000mA drivers (so 1000mA ech diod) to replace my 400W hps, but I think it's mayby a little bit overkill (ok 360W! on less then 1m2), and also I would like to ad some more redish for flowering, so at the end of a day I decide to do 2 lamps - each on 3diods CXB2530 3500K on 3000mA (1000mA each) and one with 2 CXB2530 2700K on 1500mA (750mA each) for flowering only. Is it a good idea?

1. One lamp on 3x CXB2530 3500K runing on 1000mA each diod will be enought for veg? End 2 lamps for flo?

2. CXB2530 running on 10000mA is it good idea? They are 1600mA max, so 800mA is optimum, I decide to run it a little bit harder for better penetracion and more light, but I have read that runing soft is more efective (more lumens from W), so what do U think? I could ad one diod to every lamps to have 750 mA each, but for me it's going like that - less money spended, more power with 1000mA. Which option would U choose?

3. Also U don't talk much about spectrum (I read15 peges of this conversation). Is it worth to ad this deep red and pacyfic blue to the spectrum, or 3500 will be just fine? I was thinking about that, and hmmm... I think it's better to go with higher efectivity with COB and don't play with normal diods. Better ad more cobs for the money and W consumption. But mayby it's worth to add few red and blue for flowering stage for better flowers? :D
And I'm pretty shure that it will be good option to ad this 2700k diods for flowering period. So 6x3500 at 1000mA and 2x2700 on 750mA - good idea??
And... 2700k or 3000k? I wote for 2700 :D

4. How to set lamps? I want to do 50cm lamp on 50cm radiator and put it horizontaly, I have 120cm long box so one diod will be on the midle, and other two at the end of radiator ok. 25cm from the midle, and 30cm from the wall. Is it ok, or better set it closer/further?
For veg it's going to be one light in the midle for 75cm wide box - is it enought for coverage of this area? How low I can set this lamp to cover 75cm wide area?
For flo two lamps clouse to each others + one with 2x2700 between them so here no problem.
What do U think?

Thanks!
 
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DGP

DGP

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Hopefully someone will chime in with some answers to all the other questions but I have some theories about one thing you mentioned. Light penetration it seems to me is just a function of intensity and angle. I see comparisons all the time about LED's vs. HID or whatever having more or less penetration but in the world of light a photon is a photon is a photon. At a given energy level a photon is a photon and I don't see how the penetration is affected by how you made the photon.

However, with COBs or even better discrete LEDs such as in Quantum boards it would seem to me with all the variation in angle of light, you would have a penetration advantage. So 9 COBs vs one HID would give you more diversity of angle (9 sources vs one rather longish one) hopefully increasing penetration to lower levels of the plant. Also, the consistency of light values would be improved over the area of the grow. The more varied the light sources the better it would seem to me. The reason the sun works so well is it's angle is changing to the plant all day as it moves through the sky. I believe this is what motivated the design of "light movers" for indoor growing.

So, given that using more COBs at lower drive levels would be better but the trade off is it costs more to set up.

These are just my theories from working in the world of optics for many years. Personally I like what I am seeing with the high performance COBs and Quantum type boards and if I were starting over my choice would be between LED and CMH.

D
 
Dan789

Dan789

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Here’s my take, the Rapid Led 3000k Vero 29’s kit I put together is killing it in bloom. Probably a little over kill in a 4x4 tent, you’re proposing to put 9 COBS in a smaller area by about half.
As for what current you want to run at, more current equals more heat to be dissipated, that’s why I opted for the 12 Vero 29’s over the Thunder 6 cob (each respective light was 600 watts) set up, each cob was driven at 100 watts (Thunder light), heat sinks were bigger, but about half the power ends up as heat, in that case 300 watts on a 600 watt total. My tent tops out at 27.22 C, granted ambient is in 15C range, but you’ve got to consider the heat no matter what you’re ambient is.
My opinion is you’d do great (with your stated area) using a smaller amount of cobs, driven at around 50-65 watts each. Good luck with whatever you decide on.
 
Paldo

Paldo

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Ok thanks for replay ;)

So what about spectrum. How much 3500 and how much 3000? 2700 dosen't make a sens? The guy which seals me diods says that 2700 is to hot and 3000 is better, is it true? So 6x 3500 and 2x 3000 is the best way to go? Or mayby more 3000k will be better?
 
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