DIY 4x12 3500K/5000k lm561c two channel board

amyg88

Well-Known Member
@amyg88 , @rayuki It's only a few people who immediately play the victim role when someone doesn't agree (like the starter of this thread). Unfortunately it's a tight nit group which always upvote each others posts and pretend each others word is the ultimate truth even though it's usually clear that it's nonsense.

Unfortunately the people with the real knowledge like SupraSPL, Alesh, SDS etc don't come around too often anymore (if at all) and a few others have turned to sellers and apart from COBkits and Rahz they now mostly advertise/discuss their own products.
I see your point but at the end of the day, caveat emptor applies here. If people want to go ahead without every piece of empirical data that could be generated with a lot of time/money then that's up to them.

VW has put it out there, if people want to go with it with the info they have then that's their decision. That's DIY.
 

wietefras

Well-Known Member
I see your point but at the end of the day, caveat emptor applies here. If people want to go ahead without every piece of empirical data that could be generated with a lot of time/money then that's up to them.

VW has put it out there, if people want to go with it with the info they have then that's their decision. That's DIY.
He doesn't just "put it out there" though. He spams in just about every thread on the forum that he reinvented the wheel and that people should stop using COBs, strips or boards from other vendors with a whole slew of complete nonsense as reasons why. For instance the other day he posted that we can only see half the light that plants use and that this "invisible light" is somehow super important. Complete nonsense since the visible light spectrum (or even narrower the light emitted from these SMDs) pretty much overlaps with what the plants use. Besides, these SMD's emit exactly the same spectrum as the same SMD's on other boards/strips and COBs.

Also he screams bloody murder at people who point out obvious design flaws. It's the over the top aggressive way he responds to people who try to help him while he is trying to get to grips with an obviously brand new field for him.

It's the spamming of his imagined "science" and the poor way he deals with corrections on his beginner projects that sets bad blood. Not the fact that he does something "DIY".
 

amyg88

Well-Known Member
As you yourself said right at the beginning of the thread:

Ah well, we all build amateur stuff in the end. Who cares. In the end it does what we want it to do. Only if he intends to sell this crap then it would be sad, but I'm afraid that "if" is more like a "when".
I dunno man, it doesn't appear like he's making any money on it thus far... maybe it's easier just to ignore it and say who cares... life's too short right?
 

wietefras

Well-Known Member
As you yourself said right at the beginning of the thread:



I dunno man, it doesn't appear like he's making any money on it thus far... maybe it's easier just to ignore it and say who cares... life's too short right?
Like I said, it's much more than that. He's barfing his made up "science" on just about every thread here.

Still, when you post a DIY project, you can expect people to offer help when they see you are making mistakes. Why go apeshit everytime someone tries to contribute?

He did it just again on another thread. He posts something incorrect and someone offers a correction plus a thorough explanation of what's going on. Then VW responds like an ass and pretends like it's an insult that someone tries to help and that he knows everything already. Plus the ensuing drama queen barrage of posts which he produces when he's "insulted"/"picked on"/"singled out for being a revolutionary".

Even though what he said was clearly wrong to begin with. Either just stop spouting nonsense to begin with, or at least learn from your mistakes and try to make less and less. He just doesn't get it. That's what makes it so annoying. And he barfs on just about every thread here.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Like I said, it's much more than that. He's barfing his made up "science" on just about every thread here.

Still, when you post a DIY project, you can expect people to offer help when they see you are making mistakes. Why go apeshit everytime someone tries to contribute?

He did it just again on another thread. He posts something incorrect and someone offers a correction plus a thorough explanation of what's going on. Then VW responds like an ass and pretends like it's an insult that someone tries to help and that he knows everything already. Plus the ensuing drama queen barrage of posts which he produces when he's "insulted"/"picked on"/"singled out for being a revolutionary".

Even though what he said was clearly wrong to begin with. Either just stop spouting nonsense to begin with, or at least learn from your mistakes and try to make less and less. He just doesn't get it. That's what makes it so annoying. And he barfs on just about every thread here.
So do you.
 

VegasWinner

Well-Known Member
I make no money. Shipping costs more than the $20 average with packing materials boxes to fit a 4x16 board. I get dms for reduced boards but if I did that and wrote off costs it hurts both the coop and my pocket. I am lucky to break even after shipping and paypal fees.
I wanted some of these boards and I read on various sites folks were interested in this style board inexpensive like me. The only reasonable solution I could arrive at is a COOP everyone shares in the risk gain and loss.
I have not had the boards sphere tested but I have grown bell peppers to the side of the light. 2' over and another pepper plant directly under the light and I am harvesting bell peppers regularly. The average distance is 12" to 18". That is good enough for me. Oh yeah they veg and bloom as well for cannabis as well as peppers. I am happy and no one else seems unhappy.
200w $60 comes to around $0.35/watt which makes me even happier. I hope other folks feel the same at the end of the day like I feel COOP
 

VegasWinner

Well-Known Member
I don't place an order until I collect 80% of the required fee. I send the mfg half his fee up front and the other half after production complete. Between the order placing and delivery I try to get the last boards reserved so I don't have to buy them myself. If I buy them I maintain the same price from COOP to COOP to keep it fair and wait for enough interest to repeat the process.
 

VegasWinner

Well-Known Member
My focus is on my family of controllers. I have GrowGreen DMX and other Arduino based applications. Light engines is just a fad everything has a life a birth a period of growth and eventually death nothing lasts forever. All life is impermanence constant change nothing remains the same.
 

VegasWinner

Well-Known Member
Simple wiring technique. Using 22 gauge solid use one wire one end connected to negative of one channel other end connected to positive of opposite channel. Connect driver v+ to only positive on board and connect driver v- on only negative on board.
 

VegasWinner

Well-Known Member
A person commented without knowledge the capability of the GrowGreen board 200w. Here are two different drivers one a 240h the other a 185h the185h reads 1.81 amps with 208w while the 240h reads 1.94amps with 228w. The diodes in both cases are being driven at optimum efficiency the difference is in the voltage.
 

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wietefras

Well-Known Member
A person commented without knowledge the capability of the GrowGreen board 200w. Here are two different drivers one a 240h the other a 185h the185h reads 1.81 amps with 208w while the 240h reads 1.94amps with 228w. The diodes in both cases are being driven at optimum efficiency the difference is in the voltage.
Efficiency of leds is determined by the combination of voltage and current (ie watts). Not just current alone. Better add that you your "knowledge".

What do you assume is "optimum efficiency" anyway?
 
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VegasWinner

Well-Known Member
According to calculations based on 1.81a draw in 6 parallel strings times two channels comes out to 150mA per string and all 32 diodes per string. Just like designed. I am sure the intensity is close to a chilled board at 2.7um/j as that is the ONLY other board out there with 384 diodes driven at 150mA for max efficiency. The diodes are drawing about 3v which is top bin excellent
 

amyg88

Well-Known Member
Efficiency of leds is determined by the combination of voltage and current (ie watts). Not just current alone. Better add that you your "knowledge".

What do you assume is "optimum efficiency" anyway?
Would you mind explaining this further please? Thanks very much
 

VegasWinner

Well-Known Member
Sure.
Samsung LM561C is designed to provide optimum intensity between 150mA and 165mA. There are a number of ways to achieve this result using constant current or constant voltage. Constant voltage is easier because you can establish a constant voltage circuit voltage using resistors and diodes. Diodes themselves are resistors and have to be taken into account to create a balanced constant voltage circuit. Less efficient than constant current.
Constant current you design the circuit for a target amperage. In a series circuit volts are addative and current is constant. In a parallel circuit voltage is constant and current is additive. The trick is to design a combination series parallel balanced circuit, not simple or easy, without using resistors but the resistance of the diodes only.
Approaches for circuit design are lower voltage lower amps, higher voltage lower amps, lower voltage higher amps and higher voltage higher amps. The most efficient is lower voltage lower amps. The second most efficient is higher volts lower amps.
The second trick is using lower amps to reach that target amperage of 150-165mA per diode. I chose higher voltage lower amps by creating two channels with a forward voltage of 92v at 1050mA 100w. I could have made four channels instead of two at 46v per channel but running them in series would all be the same electrically.
So the GrowGreen 200w board is very efficient runs just as designed delivering 150mA to each of the 384 diodes driving them at or around 200ul/m or PAR of 76,800 per board which is quite high and efficient
 

amyg88

Well-Known Member
Sure.
Samsung LM561C is designed to provide optimum intensity between 150mA and 165mA. There are a number of ways to achieve this result using constant current or constant voltage. Constant voltage is easier because you can establish a constant voltage circuit voltage using resistors and diodes. Diodes themselves are resistors and have to be taken into account to create a balanced constant voltage circuit. Less efficient than constant current.
Constant current you design the circuit for a target amperage. In a series circuit volts are addative and current is constant. In a parallel circuit voltage is constant and current is additive. The trick is to design a combination series parallel balanced circuit, not simple or easy, without using resistors but the resistance of the diodes only.
Approaches for circuit design are lower voltage lower amps, higher voltage lower amps, lower voltage higher amps and higher voltage higher amps. The most efficient is lower voltage lower amps. The second most efficient is higher volts lower amps.
The second trick is using lower amps to reach that target amperage of 150-165mA per diode. I chose higher voltage lower amps by creating two channels with a forward voltage of 92v at 1050mA 100w. I could have made four channels instead of two at 46v per channel but running them in series would all be the same electrically.
So the GrowGreen 200w board is very efficient runs just as designed delivering 150mA to each of the 384 diodes driving them at or around 200ul/m or PAR of 76,800 per board which is quite high and efficient
Thanks very much for that, makes sense. Wietefras: Your post kind of implied that you needed to modify both (I & V) however one determines the other, no?
 

wietefras

Well-Known Member
Thanks very much for that, makes sense. Wietefras: Your post kind of implied that you needed to modify both (I & V) however one determines the other, no?
Yes, he's working off current alone, but of course that's not how it works. When the voltage goes up or down the wattage changes and efficiency works on that.

Obviously when you push 230W through the same number of leds you get a lower efficiency than at 190W. It's nonsense to suggest that if the voltage increases the led is just as efficient since the current is the same. Otherwise everybody would be running 72V CXB3590's instead of 36V ones.

Besides he's using 25C data which is wrong too. You need to correct for actually running temperatures. Which means that his boards are comparable in efficiency to a CXB350 running at 61.5W when the board is at 190W and more like CXB350 running at 75W when you push the board to 230W.

If at all, because he offers no proof what SMDs are actually on those boards. Could be genuine Samsung lm561c s5's or whatever.
 

wietefras

Well-Known Member
Samsung LM561C is designed to provide optimum intensity between 150mA and 165mA.
The problem here is that you don't understand what the word "optimum" means. First of all you probably mean "optimal" since there is no single optimum. An optimal value is a "local optimum" optimized to match a certain set of conditions.

So then this set of conditions needs to be noted for such a term to be meaningful at all. For one person optimal could mean as high an efficiency as possible. Yet for someone else who pays only a few cents per kWh looking for an economically optimal current to use as few SMDs possible for the amount of light needed.

In this case you clearly pulled that "optimal" value from ... well ... somewhere dark
 

VegasWinner

Well-Known Member
I was looking at a YT video by LEDGardner.

He is reviewing a QB 288 2 board 240H-C2100B driver at 260w. At 24" he was measuring 500 PPFD . I measured ONE 200w GrowGreen board with a 185H-C1050A driver and measured at 24" , the one I just uploaded a picture of, at the same 24" center I measured 430 PPFD.

Two QB288 boards are 260w and one GrowGreen board is 200w, and only 70 PPFD between them and the cost priceless.
namaste
 
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