DIY watercooled photosynthetic-research LED-Lamp completed build, tell me what u think

l0wbob2016

l0wbob2016

Well-Known Member
Hello all thread-viewers,

i failed to create a good post the first time so i will post this again but better :)

my idea was to build a DIY-LED with COB's and make it kinda special. So i decided to watercool the COB's which some of u alrdy guessed, get pretty warm.
Since the COB's are more efficient when cooled better, watercooling was my only option to go. These COB's are all connected to one dimmer to power them up from 10 to 100% power.

But not enough, i wanted to add some monos which should be dimmable. Since there are so many different wavelengths that could play a possible role
in growing plants i couldnt decide between them and added 12 different wavelengths in total of 60 LED's.These LED's get cooled passive with some
mini heatsinks since they are all capped at 3W and dont need that much cooling. Also they get a lot of flowing air from the watercooling-system of the COB's.
So there are 5 LED's per wavelength which are all connected to 1 dimmer to power up one wavelength from 0 to 100% power.

So in total i got this:

5x COB ( Cree CXB3590 | 4x 3500K, 1x 5000K ) with 90° angelina reflector
5x Watercooling-System ( Alphacool Eisbaer 120 CPU unit including 1x Pump inclusive watertank, 1x radiator, 1x 120mm fan [ in the pack are included 2 fans but i only need 1] )

60x Mono-wavelength LED ( 5x 390 nm, 5x 410 nm, 5x 430 nm, 5x 440 nm, 5x 455 nm, 5x 490 nm, 5x 590 nm, 5x 600 nm, 5x 630 nm, 5x 660nm, 5x 740 nm, 5x combined 400-840 nm )
60x mini-heatsink passive

13x dimmer ( 1x for the big COB's, 12x for the monos )

3x power supply ( 1x Meanwell HLG-240H-C1400B, 1x Meanwell SP-240-24, 1x Meanwell RS-50-12)

Since this is a prototype and i couldnt do any testing up to now, i mounted all of this on a wooden plate and framed it with a wooden frame to stabilize it.
The size of the completed build is about 93x93cm ( 3x3 ft).

Coverage:

I did some testings with thie lamp about 60cm above the ground and came out with approx. 1,2x1,2m (4x4 ft best coverage ) to 1,5x1,5m (5x5 good coverage ).


Lamp from above switched off:
Lamp from top off.jpg
Lamp from bottom switched off:
Lamp from bottom off.jpg
Closer view on COB in center:
CXB3590 5000K center.jpg
Closer view on COB in the corners:
CXB3590 3500K corner.jpg

5x 390 nm,
Mono 390nm.jpg

5x 410 nm,
Mono 410nm.jpg

5x 430 nm,
Mono 430nm.jpg

5x 440 nm,
Mono 440nm.jpg

5x 455 nm,
Mono 455nm.jpg

5x 490 nm,
Mono 490nm.jpg

continued in next post.
 
S

sethimus

Well-Known Member
what are you trying to proof/achieve with all those monos? and why the watercooling overkill if the heat stays above the leds instead of getting moved out of the grow room?
 
l0wbob2016

l0wbob2016

Well-Known Member
sethimus said:
what are you trying to proof/achieve with all those monos? and why the watercooling overkill if the heat stays above the leds instead of getting moved out of the grow room?
Click to expand...
well i dont want to prove anything with these monos, i just want to do some testings with different wavelengths.

the watercooling gets the heat away from the COB's and the passive heatsinks with the airflow of the of the fans attached to the radiators. the air gets pumped against the plate. since every room should have propper air moving and warm air rises to the top of the room where most filters suck out the air, i dont see any problem about this but gonna think about it.
 
Danielson999

Danielson999

Well-Known Member
sethimus said:
what are you trying to proof/achieve with all those monos? It's called 'enhanced spectrum'. Trying to recreate a spectrum closer to what the sun gives in nature. To break it down further, there is added dark blue and violet/uv, infrared and far red. Each of these has very definitive effects with plant growing.
and why the watercooling overkill if the heat stays above the leds instead of getting moved out of the grow room? I'm not sure if you noticed but each water cooler has a radiator and a fan mounted to it. The heat gets drawn from the cob into the water, the water then transfers the heat to the radiator which is then cooled by the fan and sent out into the tent or growing area to be removed by whatever exhaust system the person chooses.
Click to expand...
 
S

sethimus

Well-Known Member
@Danielson999 first: answering in quotes is bad style, when someone tries to answer to that one needs to manually copy the quotes

Danielson999 said:
It's called 'enhanced spectrum'. Trying to recreate a spectrum closer to what the sun gives in nature. To break it down further, there is added dark blue and violet/uv, infrared and far red. Each of these has very definitive effects with plant growing.
Click to expand...
i could follow that but: he's using a big cob with a fixed spectrum, adding just one of each wavelength per cob doesn't changes the spectrum that much

I'm not sure if you noticed but each water cooler has a radiator and a fan mounted to it. The heat gets drawn from the cob into the water, the water then transfers the heat to the radiator which is then cooled by the fan and sent out into the tent or growing area to be removed by whatever exhaust system the person chooses.
Click to expand...
he's investing a lot of $$$ just to move the hot air a few inches away instead of directly out of the grow room if done properly and probably for less dough than buying cpu equipment. there are a few builds on here that done it right
 
l0wbob2016

l0wbob2016

Well-Known Member
sethimus said:
@Danielson999 first: answering in quotes is bad style, when someone tries to answer to that one needs to manually copy the quotes



i could follow that but: he's using a big cob with a fixed spectrum, adding just one of each wavelength per cob doesn't changes the spectrum that much



he's investing a lot of $$$ just to move the hot air a few inches away instead of directly out of the grow room if done properly and probably for less dough than buying cpu equipment. there are a few builds on here that done it right
Click to expand...
well i have to say that at first i thought the same you are guessing here, that adding the mono wavelengths doesnt change the final spectrum that much but after some testing u see a more than expectable spectrum change. It is not like the spectrum changes to mainly that mono u added but it gets a little more power in that wavelength. With the bare eye u can see that pretty good. for example adding any mono from 590nm to 660nm changes the light color to about 2700K to 3000K when using 3500K COB's. Or better said, for me it looks like 2700K to 3000K.

The other thing with the watercooling "overkill" is that the cooler a LED or COB gets the longer the lifetime and the better the efficiency. Sure i use a lot of power for cooling but building this as one fixture, without any tanks or radiators that have to stand anywhere left me no choice but installing it all on the lamp. Also i am cooling the COB's with watercooling and cooling the LED's passive heatsinks with the airflow of the fans mounted on the radiators. So the Fans cool actually both, the COB's and the LED's.

Please keep also in mind that this is my first build of a grow lamp ever. I didnt know if my setup would even work, cause i never tested this watercooling on a COB before. As soon as i saw that the COB's stay rly "cold" but the LED's get pretty warm i decided to use that airflow to cool them too. Also another thing is that here where i live it's pretty cold and between september and april its pretty hard to get right temps in your room. Since the fans on the radiators are moving air right after turning the lamp on, the temp rises slowly ( talking about warming it up via the radiators, not the produced light ) and gets sucked out of the outtake filter.
 
l0wbob2016

l0wbob2016

Well-Known Member
Nugachino said:
I like what you've got going there. Looks like too much effort to me. But, that's just me. I'm a bit lazy.

Keep us posted on how it performs.
Click to expand...

Sure i will keep u updated about the performance.

the only hard part about building it was to make all that monos dimmable haha
 
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