Rider's first foray into LED strip lighting - Samsung H Series GEN3

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
That's a bloody great idea. Creating your own heatsinks by attaching small U channels inside each other - nice!
Yeah!
A lot cheaper as heatsinks and works really well, especially with strips. The heatsink below is made from 3mm alu sheet(350x 600mm) and 8 C-channels and was used with 6 COB's at 24w each(CXB2540±HLG-120H-C700B). I've removed the COB's for now and will add eight 2ft. F-Series strips and a HLG-185 for a total of 200w.

Selfmade LED Heatsink for 6 COB's at 25w each.jpg
 

Dave455

Well-Known Member
Yeah!
A lot cheaper as heatsinks and works really well, especially with strips. The heatsink below is made from 3mm alu sheet(350x 600mm) and 8 C-channels and was used with 6 COB's at 24w each(CXB2540±HLG-120H-C700B). I've removed the COB's for now and will add eight 2ft. F-Series strips and a HLG-185 for a total of 200w.

View attachment 4040427
Nice ! Color temp 3000 or mix ? What is fixture size 2 x 2 ?
 

Rider509

Well-Known Member
Hey Rider, a couple of questions if I may.....I cannot for the life of me decide whether I should run 2 FB24B's in series or parallel and so I'm not sure which driver is best?
Parallel, for the simple fact that it allows full use of the drives capabilities. Driver choice depends on how much headroom you want. The FB24B is spec'd at 2240mA for 103W but it can be run at 3600mA for 165W, albeit with increased heat output.
Running parallel the 240H-48A or the 320H-48A for two strips give you optimal output or optimal plus safe headroom, respectively.
Looks like heat dissipation has been covered pretty well. I dig the channel in channel idea. But if you want to drill holes to increase surface area it should be in the vertical risers, not the area in which you want full contact with the strip. If the Al channel is wider than the strip then drilling holes along the sides of the strip might help, but then I start wondering how that affects thermal transfer away from the strip. We need a thermal design engineer to step up! LOL
 

Stone_Free

Well-Known Member
Parallel, for the simple fact that it allows full use of the drives capabilities. Driver choice depends on how much headroom you want. The FB24B is spec'd at 2240mA for 103W but it can be run at 3600mA for 165W, albeit with increased heat output.
Running parallel the 240H-48A or the 320H-48A for two strips give you optimal output or optimal plus safe headroom, respectively.
Looks like heat dissipation has been covered pretty well. I dig the channel in channel idea. But if you want to drill holes to increase surface area it should be in the vertical risers, not the area in which you want full contact with the strip. If the Al channel is wider than the strip then drilling holes along the sides of the strip might help, but then I start wondering how that affects thermal transfer away from the strip. We need a thermal design engineer to step up! LOL
Awesome! Thanks a lot for your response. I'm gonna go with the 320H-48A. Better to have the option to turn up the power.
Yeah could do with a thermal expert!
Gonna check out that site now...I did look before but that was when I was planning to run the strips in series so it wasn't useful at that time..
:peace: (:
 

Rider509

Well-Known Member
eight 2ft. F-Series strips and a HLG-185 for a total of 200w
I'm not sure you'll hit a full 200W because as the drive current drops so does the forward voltage. Looking at the graph on the Samsung specs it looks like forward voltage at that current is about 44.5V so I'd expect to see about 174W. But I could be wrong! Someone care to chime in here?

edit: I suppose you could always slightly overdrive the strips because what the hell do we care about a 5.7 year lifespan! We'll all be onto whatever the new toys are by that time. :)
 

Rider509

Well-Known Member
I have a hard time putting full blind faith in LEDGardener's calculator because I can't see what's happening in the background of his protected spreadsheet.
 

Stone_Free

Well-Known Member
I have a hard time putting full blind faith in LEDGardener's calculator because I can't see what's happening in the background of his protected spreadsheet.
I know what you mean. He does seem to know his stuff though. I just checked 2 strips running at 75% gave me 42,600 lumens. I converted that to lux, divided by my 8 sq feet then divided that number by 69 - which apparently is the conversion factor for white led's - and got a PPFD of 813. That seems about right......Hopefully next week my lights will be up and running so I can post some pics :)
 

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
Awesome! Thanks a lot for your response. I'm gonna go with the 320H-48A. Better to have the option to turn up the power.
Yeah could do with a thermal expert!
Gonna check out that site now...I did look before but that was when I was planning to run the strips in series so it wasn't useful at that time..
:peace: (:
Man, and here I was thinking about running two of those 320s (or a 600) in a 4'x2' space. I will definitely be running a minimum of two 240s or a 480, as I'm already running one 240H-48A with four 2' F Series strips (equivalent to your two 4' strips) in my 2.5'x2' cloning and veg chamber, and it seems about right (currently running at 65%, or about 210w).

Maybe it sounds like overkill, but - being new to LEDs - I'm using a 600HPS as a yardstick for an 8 square foot area, and a decent single ended 600 is rated at 85,000-90,000 lumens (new, probably falling back to about 80,000 after a few cycles) which is similar to running 4x4' or 8x2' F Series in the same space . . . though maybe not quite a direct comparison, as the 600 would probably only be about 80% efficient under a hood (most light is reflected) - though I never used hoods, as I always grew bare bulb vertical.

Rider, didn't you measure something like 1000 PPFD over a 4'x2' space under your 4x FB24Bs? I think I saw that in another thread . . .
 

Sour Wreck

Well-Known Member
Okay, you did not ask me, but I still try to answer...
If you want to enlarge the surface area for better cooling, I recommend sand- or glassblasting or simply brushing with a wire brush. (Hope the terms are correct, language barrier)
Both would effectively increase the cooling surface. In brake discs, the holes serve several purposes, not just increasing the cooling. Anodizing is also an option, but not so easy. You let have to do that by a galvanizer, no idea what it would cost, but probably more than they are worth.
You could also glue a second, smaller profile inside the big one, that looks like this:
View attachment 4040381

This is probably the best way to increse their cooling capacity.

Whether you drive them in parallel or in series does not really matter as long as they get the same current. Parallel is safer because of the lower voltage, but CC drivers are 1% more efficient. I would always prefer the safer solution!
Thanks for sharing, I may use this.

What kind of glue did you use?
 

Rider509

Well-Known Member
I tried to replicate the Samsung specs using an HLG-600H-48A driver with four FB24B strips. That would be 46V at 2240mA per strip, or 8.960A for the whole. I set the driver to 46V but at max the driver was only hitting 5.96A. So I took the current to 8.96A and the V hit 48. 48V x 8.96A = 430W. This is where I tested it. 12” from the whiteboard surface.
453BC5EA-DF8B-48FB-804A-A32576A5DC96.jpeg 4C5AC289-F33C-4B1C-B60A-7E94907A1E9F.jpeg B35F8D0E-CDD8-4B33-8405-F3E5E6EA0CC7.jpeg 19C7D2CA-AB24-479B-80E4-7DDB48F682E4.jpeg
 

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
So if I follow correctly, a HLG-480H-48 would provide the same results? The design I have in mind is a straight-up copy of the one I've already built below - which is a half-scale copy of yours - but with 3000K strips and two separate frames (2x frames, each with 4x2' F Series 3000K, each driven by a HLG-240H-48A). The reason for wanting two frames in a 4x2 (one per 2x2) is that I could conceivably grow different height strains on each side and raise/lower each frame as needed. I also have plans to go vertical at some point, placing each frame at either end of the tent facing in towards the plants in the middle. I mounted my driver remotely (outside the tent on a chord) to reduce heat. I'll do the same with the flowering frames. It's just as easy to wire a remote driver as it is to mount it on the frame (probably easier) and it saves a significant amount of heat.

Vegstripfront.jpg
 

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
Sorry for the turbo post, but the other design I'm thinking of using is 12x 2' H Series strips on six U-channels (two per channel) with the same drivers instead of 4x 2' F Series on four U-channels. The F Series have 3x the diodes, but the H Series might have the advantage of spreading the light more evenly for the same wattage. 3x H Series strips can be bought for roughly the same cost as 1x F series (coz Arrow doesn't have any F Series - Digikey is more expensive - but it does have the H Series).

EDIT: Sorry, stoned moment . . . what I meant to ask was, how do you find the comparison between the H Series and F Series strips in terms of light coverage/heat dissipation etc?
 
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