New style Samsung LM561C Board

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
Got an email from Jeff. New boards will ship in the next few days. He attached a picture of the new boards. Like that means anything. But here they are. I'm going to build another 4x4 light to place on the other side of the 4x8 tent. I'll post PPFD results from both sides.
View attachment 4061248
Haha! He's crapping himself. I reckon he's got a whole pile of those "LM561C S6 Bin" boards with B chips in them he wants to flog off to unsuspecting hobby growers - which he's probably already done - but has been caught out and realised that word of mouth spreads far and wide on the internet . . . Far and wide enough to affect his future business.
 

legalcanada

Well-Known Member
yes i have a feeling that's what it is - they probably have piles of these 561b diodes or boards already made and now no one wants them anymore, and soon enough people won't want the 561cs either it'll be the 301bs or whatever. ha ha ha. a friend was considering purchasing these boards off ebay, 2x 308 boards for $150 euro ... i think they are the wrong type and told her i hope she hasn't already purchased ...



@chuckduck i really look forward to following your progress - it will be interesting to see if there is much difference between the 2 sides of your tent. i guess it'd be hard to gauge unless you were monocropping the same clones or something, and there will be quite a bit of overlap near the center. a lux/par meter will be interesting to see as well.

either way i'm sure they both will produce great, so i guess you can look at it like you paid full price for the lm561c and got the lm561b for $17.50 a board... not too bad! maybe i'll ask him if he'll sell the 561B boards for $20 each :D after seeing some par numbers hopefully :D
 

legalcanada

Well-Known Member
Are the boards from Jeff build to order though?
i'm not sure, i know you can have boards custom built on order but he probably also does have some boards prebuilt as they sell them on their website too. either that, or he just has a pile of lm561b diodes

we still don't even know if they are actually samsung diodes or epistar or something else, i guess the comparison test will answer some questions, but still don't know what bin etc they are. i guess cobkit will be comparing to a QB with top bin 561c, that will be interesting
 

legalcanada

Well-Known Member
yes i just went to the domain his e-mail address uses, there is zero information on the boards listed

it's tophspcb.com
 

OLD MOTHER SATIVA

Well-Known Member
old mother sativa

>..my guess is zero %..and i will be up next..Merry Christmas

chuckduck

"You have some of these coming? Good thing we have this place to police what he's selling."

>i am still waiting for actual 561 c's...they had to be ordered last month and will here early jan
i expect them to be 561 c..and apparently they never have them in stock

>mine are built to order and new designed pcb

BUT..you are correct..about this forum..good thing..

quote
i guess cobkit will be comparing to a QB with top bin 561c, that will be interesting

>>>yes..thanks to him and everyone here
 
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legalcanada

Well-Known Member
old mother sativa

>..my guess is zero %..and i will be up next..Merry Christmas

chuckduck

"You have some of these coming? Good thing we have this place to police what he's selling."

>i am still waiting for actual 561 c's...they had to be ordered last month and will here early jan
i expect them to be 561 c..and apparently they never have them in stock

>mine are built to order and new designed pcb

BUT..you are correct..about this forum..good thing..

quote
i guess cobkit will be comparing to a QB with top bin 561c, that will be interesting

>>>yes..thanks to him and everyone here
is that an e-mail you received from jeff or something? are you saying he doesn't have any LM561C?
 

OLD MOTHER SATIVA

Well-Known Member
i made a decent order.. paid up..it takes a good month to get em..he didn't have any 561's on hand for me

recent reply

"i am sure of 100% that your led will be lm561c S6 AZ bin,accident will not happen again.you can test it when you get it,if it is fake,I will refund you and pay test fee for you.do not worry about it"

i am not worried and cobby will get the first one
 

chuckduck

Well-Known Member
Mine were shipped today and will arrive on the 26th. Not sure if we are dealing with the same manufacturer but Jef initially said he wouldn't have mine until the 20th of January but he did something to make it happen sooner.
 

chuckduck

Well-Known Member
Another issue. I think a couple that I have may be a different color temp. I ordered 3500k and at least two look a little bluer than the rest. Can't really look at the things very long even turned down.
Par readings coming today.

Edit: Found an iphone app that would measure temperature. It sure took a few to find one that worked. Using the app Light Spectrum Pro everything looks like the same K value but a bit higher than I ordered 5000k. The app only has a two stars so I have no idea if it's correct. Any suggestions for an app that works well and is verified reasonably accurate?

Edit Edit: Looks light the meter in the app sucks. These boards are definitely on the red side compared to a known 5000k board that I have in another tent.
 
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chuckduck

Well-Known Member
Also, I have eight of these boards running on four Meanwell drivers. So every two boards have one driver. I have one set of lights that turn off after about five minutes. Doesn't matter if I run them hard or turn them down. Any suggestions?

Also, after having these on for a few hours on full. Boards don't get hotter than 115F without a heatsink.
 

legalcanada

Well-Known Member
Also, I have eight of these boards running on four Meanwell drivers. So every two boards have one driver. I have one set of lights that turn off after about five minutes. Doesn't matter if I run them hard or turn them down. Any suggestions?

Also, after having these on for a few hours on full. Boards don't get hotter than 115F without a heatsink.
have you tried those particular boards with a different driver to test that's faulty? or maybe the 2 boards with a different board each to try determining which one it is?
 

chuckduck

Well-Known Member
have you tried those particular boards with a different driver to test that's faulty? or maybe the 2 boards with a different board each to try determining which one it is?
Haven't tried that. Spent so much time getting them just right I don't have the energy to undo things right now. Heading out of town tomorrow morning and will, for the most part, be gone until after the new year so this project will have to be on hold for a bit. If it turns out I have a bad board I may have to keep the board I had reserved for @CobKits.

It's strange. At low power the boards will turn off after nine minutes and 15 secs. I timed it twice. At high power they turned off after 5 minutes. One tried that once. I gotta get some glasses if I'm going to keep working on these. No chance it could be a bad connection could it? Not something soldering the boards would fix. Gotta be a bad board or driver. They light back up after 30 seconds to a minute. Seems like that would be a driver issue right?
My par map is going to have to wait.
 

chuckduck

Well-Known Member
Also, someone asked this questions earlier and I finally hooked up my Kill-a-Watt. Each driver draws 220 watts after warming up. So this light will be 880 watts. The temps of the boards top out at 120F when driven without a heatsink. I've read that the top of the QBs heatsink hit 70-75C (158F-167F) . Again that's the temp with a heatsink. Crazy difference. How does that temperature affect efficiency?
I'm going to dial my lights back and based on what I'm running my other boards with this diode layout (Photon Fantom) I expect the temps of the top of the boards to hover just over 100F.
 

legalcanada

Well-Known Member
yes my quantum boards are around 75C on top of heatsink and diodes themselves are a bit higher, maybe 77-78C - top operating temperature is 85C - i also don't really have a fan blowing on them or anything though, just on the plants because they're kinda close (12-14")

it could be a board as well i think, i'm not knowledge about electronics though so maybe not
 

legalcanada

Well-Known Member
oh i meant the top rated temp for the diodes is 85c, mine never exceed 78c but i should put a fan on them, i do have an extra clip on fan doing nothing right now lol
 
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