ChunkySkunky said:

It's the COB's that make the difference, I wanted Cree 3070's or 3590's, but they seem to be like rocking horse shit this side of the Atlantic.

The Citizen COB's I bought for £10 each from Estonia via ebay, with free next day delivery. The only way I could get Cree 3070's or 3590's was from the US @ £50 per 3590 with silly postage prices and maybe import duty as well if customs found them.

If THIS WEBSITE is accurate, then 8 3590's @ 50W would give almost 64K lumens, 8 x CLU-48 - 1212 should be giving me 60K lumens, so 4K lumens less, but I spent £80 on COBS rather than £400. No brainer.

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ChunkySkunky said:

It does seem a bit suss. I think it was one of Growmau's video's I was watching and he had a 1212 and a 3950 next to each other, the 1212 is a lot smaller.

I couldn't find the 1818's or the Vero 29's anywhere, next time I think I'll go for the 1818's, I'll just have to track some down. Adding more and more 1212's might be good for coverage, but I don't want (or need hopefully) to go over 800W of lighting in the space I have (14.5 sq ft).

It'll be good to see how the citi's compare to my Mars, I hoping they will beat it up and leave it for dead in the corner. It'll be going on veg duty anyway as soon as I build another COB light.

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dan1989 said:

@sixstring hey dude hope you're well. If I remember correctly, you made your own heat sinks before, right? What gauge steel did you use, any chance I can pick your brains sometime?

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OzyGrow said:

Hey sixstring,

I just read this from page one, just want to say a huge thanks man, and too everyone that had input. I'm still in the planning stages and still trying to work configurations out, I thought I had it all worked out until I seen the quantum board / cob panel. That panel is bloody sweet.

And the progress pics make it very appealing. I was planning on 9x citizen 1818's in a mix of 80 & 90 cri, but those quantum boards I think have changed my mind completely again.

Anyway, nice work, and cheers for the thread, has really helped.

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sixstring said:

well its not 3000w yet but yeah it will be about 60 to 65 cobs when its done depending how i drive the last few bars.costs for cree cobs and meanwell drivers with the round heatsinks runs about 1.50 to 1.60 per watt again depending how you drive them. i spend about 1500.00 on new lamps 2 x a year so theres one thing i wont be doing anymore lol.but you can build cheaper using cheaper cobs and driving harder your cost per watt will go down.i built most of these bars @ 1050 ma for efficiency,and i have a few bars running 1400ma and one set up @ 75w per cob.

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Harley09 said:

Hi new to this site. I have a question between the 1050mA driver and the 1400mA driver do see a lot of gains in weight of the 1400mA vs the 1050 mA drivers? I am planning on two 6 light COB with Vero29 SE's the BXRC-30G10K0-D-73SE , BXRC-35G10K0-D-73SE , and the BXRC-27G10K0-73-SE run on a Meanwell HLG-320H-C1400. for a 6' x 3' space. Any help is appreciated.

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h4ppyf4rmer said:

I just completed my 4x8 bloom tent with 18 BXRC-30G10K0-D-73SE running on 3 Meanwell HLG-320H-C1400. My setup is 6 rows of 3 where each driver runs 2 rows (6 COBs). I have not actually used it yet (need another four weeks of vegging) but I can tell you they are bright... I have a thread going, just go to the end to see the pics of the setup, but it almost exactly what you're planning on doing...

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Toaster79 said:

Put your plants under the lights you've just built and cut that veg time in half.

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h4ppyf4rmer said:

I like the larger plants, I was planning on 6 weeks of veg. I'm only week two into Veg. I just topped them 4 days ago, letting them recover and plan on another topping in another week.

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