Bridgelux Gen2 BXEB-L0560Z-30E2000-C-B3 First Look
- Thread starter GrowLightResearch
- Start date
WeedSexWeightsShakes
Well-Known Member
I guess for me personally at the time qbs seemed like the best easy option and reasonably priced.
I am obviously not a big diyer otherwise I would have built my own fixture and not bought some kits.
I figured it was a good option judging by results that guys were getting. Hard to say something getting 1.5+ g/w is bad lol
For me personally I am more into growing than building lights.
I do enjoy reading and learning from you guys tho!
I have 3 260watt qb kits in my 5x5 and a 320watt kit in my 4x2.5 and am very happy with what’s in there.
I am obviously not a big diyer otherwise I would have built my own fixture and not bought some kits.
I figured it was a good option judging by results that guys were getting. Hard to say something getting 1.5+ g/w is bad lol
For me personally I am more into growing than building lights.
I do enjoy reading and learning from you guys tho!
I have 3 260watt qb kits in my 5x5 and a 320watt kit in my 4x2.5 and am very happy with what’s in there.
Humple
Well-Known Member
HLG has certainly lowered the barrier to entry for DIY.
GrowLightResearch
Well-Known Member
HLG has good products that beat nearly every eBay and Amazon charlatan. HLG is honest where the others are huge liars. It's easy to lie becasue almost no one knows if they are or not.
It is not easy for HLG to compete with Samsung. Samsung gets a better price on the LEDs. Samsung has an economy of scale. PCB vendors will give Samsung their best price. Samsung has their own PCB manufacturing facilities.
So how can HLG compete? One way is to differentiate. Panels instead of strips. This is also another disadvantage. PCB price is based on square inch. Panels are a very inefficient use of PCB real estate. If HLG were to make strips there is no way in hell they could ever compete with Samsung. I doubt Bridgelux can compete with Samsung strips. Bridgelux profit margin on strips is very low or non-existent. HLG could not sell a strip if they sold it at cost.
It seems to be there is an opportunity here for someone to make kits and fixtures using off the shelf strips.
The horticulture market is a small niche in the LED lighting market. There are many here that do not have the expertise and or the tools to build a DIY project. Think, if you had to buy every tool you used to build you fixture, how economical would it have been? For those HLG provides a superior product. HLG is a value add vendor.
HLG should sell fully assembled fixtures using F-Series and or Bridgelux Gen2 strips. Their cost to manufacture a panel is too high. Their panels are still a great value compared to the plethora of charlatans.
As growers get educated on LEDs the charlatans will drop like flies. One of the things that drives the charlatan market is the wall watt misconception. It even helps the charlatans. They can use inefficient drivers, horribly inefficient LEDs and make more money for it because because the cheap inefficient parts drives up the wall watts which gives the perception their product is worth more becasue it draws more electricity. The wall watt myth must be stopped. That will help HLG remain in business with growth.
There is no better DIY LED component better than a strip. Once upon a time, it was CoBs. Now strips cost less than most CoBs. A few of Bridgelux CoBs can still provide more lumens per dollar than strips. Throw in the cost of heatsinks and lack of uniformity, and the CoB is not competitive.
Last edited:
nfhiggs
Well-Known Member
I've actually been thinking along this line myself.
wietefras
Well-Known Member
You'd have only half the area covered with lights though. Which means that in one direction you'd still have massive problems getting the light uniform in the area where no light is overhead. You would still need to raise the lights close to 18" to get the whole area covered reasonably uniformly. To really be able to cut the height in half you'd need to use 4 QB's. Four QB120 would probably be a much better fit.
Ledgardner also has PPFD maps for two QB288 in a 2x2 actually. 12" looks unusable and 18" would be doable, but still rather poor.
I could simulate that scenario if you'd like and see what the correct height would be, but 8 strips (or 4 double row strips) would completely blow that setup away anyway.
Strips have the same problem though. It's all fine and dandy if you are filling a 2x2 with 56cm strips or a 4x4 with 112cm strips. When the sizes don't match up to the strip lengths it's much harder to get correct uniformity. For instance when you want to cover 80x80cm.
Last edited:
wietefras
Well-Known Member
And more people would have. I'd say that if QB's hadn't undeservedly taken the spotlight so much then led strip fixtures would be much more advanced by now.
Schalalala
Active Member
LOL. Lets get ready to rumble!
wietefras
Well-Known Member
True, they work fine. Not trying to make people feel bad about their purchase either, but I sincerely feel things could have been better if strips had been adopted instead of boards.
I used to get 1.5g/W with my (by now) two year old COBs too (CXB3070 AB bin). I have put all my old low efficacy COBs on one fixture now though. 24 CXB3070 AB/AD bin COBs together @350W still produce a reasonably impressive efficacy.
Last edited:
Very good point. My 50 x 90cm was a pain. To fit the 90cm dimension, I used 3 x 280mm strips end to end. 18 of them in six rows.
wietefras
Well-Known Member
Yeah the more the merrier. Those old CXB3070's only produced 2umol/J. Tripling their count at least should get them back into modern day efficacy figures. Planning a grow-off between vertical HPS, 12 led strips and those 24 old COBs
wietefras
Well-Known Member
I gave up trying to make it fit and got a bigger tent
GrowLightResearch
Well-Known Member
I think you should too. There is a lot to be said for making money doing what you enjoy doing. I think you would be good at it. The opportunity is there. Capital up front cost is low if using off the shelf strips.
There is a market for other strips. Samsung and Bridgelux don't have a whole lot of strips for horticulture.
What is really needed is a deep red strip. The problem there are no low power 660nm LEDs. But there are some great spectrum for flowering. The Lumiled LUXEON 3535L HE Plus has a, IMHO, a fantastic spectrum for flower. Priced in the the same ball park as the LM561. Lumiled has some highly efficient (HE) red phosphor.
The point being there is a niche market for horticulture targeted strips. The problem is the up front manufacturing cost and having the expertise. The cost is in buying the inventory of strip PCBs. You have to assemble a lot of boards to get an economically feasible price on assembly.
I'm too old for a new business venture but still I'm considering it. I have 20+ years electronic manufacturing experience. I would be glad to help someone else get it going. Free. I've been looking at a DIY pick and place robot (PnP) to place the LEDs on the PCB. A PnP to do 22" boards is expensive. Forget 44" boards.
This phosphor was developed by Lumiled: https://www.nature.com/articles/nmat4012
LUXEON 3535L HE Plus SPD, 154 lm/W
Last edited:
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
That's the reason I wrote "if". No need to simulate that, but thanks for the offer.
I already own 26 2ft. single row F-strips and 8 CRI90 COB's for two new lights.
With a bit luck I get further 14 2ft. strips designed like F-Series(8s9p) but in 3000°k/CRI90.
osram
https://www.osram-os.com/osram_os/en/products/product-catalog/leds-for-general-lighting/duris-s-5/gr-pslr31.13/index.jsp
available on digikey
But the real question:
Is it better to supplement with deep red monos or with a red phosphor chip ?
I believe cree photo reds or osram hyper red will smoke red phosphor chips for electrical efficiency.
fixed the hyperlink
Last edited:
Schalalala
Active Member
The broader SPD is the only advantage the phosphor-converted red LEDs have.
tomate
Well-Known Member
Interesting, but sadly "only" 2.63 µmol/J @100mA. Funny thing is, that this diode is more efficient than any of their special horticulture sunplus series chips.This phosphor was developed by Lumiled: https://www.nature.com/articles/nmat4012
LUXEON 3535L HE Plus SPD, 154 lm/W
The LM561C S6/A1 for example is doing 2.75 µmol/J @100mA.
GrowLightResearch
Well-Known Member
By far the F-Series and BXC Gen2 are the most efficient and lowest cost source of light.
I would like to see white strips with a high CRI so supplementing these cheap lower CRI LEDs with deep red is not necessary.
The reason I mentioned the HE red is becasue due to the lack of an inexpensive low power deep red (≈660nm) to combine with the inexpensive strips, a strip could use a 14¢ Luxeon 90 CRI in place of the 9¢ LM561C. Samsung does not have an LM561C with a 90 CRI.
The Luxeon 90 CRI does not have a CCT probably becasue it is too red off the chart on the low side. Only the Vero Decor and Luxeon Fresh Focus Red Meat are the only LEDs I know of that have a "white" LED with a very noticeable red tint.
The below was written before the above. Right after I started my Adderall kicked in. Below is how LEDs work and why there are no (or very few) red PC LEDs.
The red phosphor is currently (almost?) only used in white LEDs. There are PC Amber phosphor LEDs.
White LEDs are like black light posters. When the UVA (black light) strikes the phosphor on the poster, the color is changed (wavelength converted) by the phosphorescent ink. It's not a reflection, the photons are absorbed and a few nanoseconds later are emitted. When you turn off a white LED in a dark room it may look like it is still dimly lit. that is the phosphor still emitting photons.
Most all of the R&D goes into the 450nm deep blue LED. That's why it is the most efficient LED at converting electrons to photons. There are very few uses for green other than a stop and go light. Green is the most inefficient LED only because very little R&D is spent on green phosphor.
The way an LED works is there is an anode and cathode. Both are made of a silicon
but they have different elemental "impurities" added. The anode impurities create a donor material and cathode acceptor material. The impurities are typically aluminum, indium, and gallium in the form of nitrides, phosphides, and arsenides.
Electricity flows from the donor anode to the acceptor cathode. Where the two materials meet, is called the band gap. It's not an actual gap between the materials it's just the "region" where the two material meet. When voltage gets high enough (≈2-3v) electrons start moving from anode to cathode crossing the band gap. As the donor electrons cross the gap and hit the acceptor holes a photon is created. It's the elemental impurities that determine the color along with the amount of energy required to jump the gap.
The impurities used have a color where crossing the gap is most efficient. Those colors are deep red (≈450nm) and far red (≈720nm). Deep blue impurities are indium and gallium nitrides. Red indium and gallium arsenides and phosphides.
Blue photons carry more energy then reds so it take more energy to create a blue. That is why blue LEDs are ≈3v and red are ≈2v. Far red are about 1.9v and deep red about 2.0v, and red about 2.1v. Far red has a narrower band gap. As the band gap region is made wider the color shifts due to the amount of energy required to cross the gap. In the visible wavelengths far red carries the least energy and violet the most. And the forward voltage are respective.
If there were a red phosphor converter (PC) it would have a forward voltage over 3v. If it's a native red it voltage will be around 2v.
If you want a pure red LED the red impurities have an advantage over PC that the Vf is 2v or one third less than deep blue. It's not likely there will be a PC red.
The phosphors in a white LED are a combination of RGB phosphors. When the wavelengths are converted the larger the difference between deep blue and the re-emitted color the less efficient the conversion becomes.
In lighting, a high CRI is closer to the light emitted from the sun than a lower CRI. Red is the least efficient phosphor being furthest from blue. Red is also the color most needed to achieve a high CRI. People naturally prefer high CRI. Lower CRI is cheaper. People are cheap. So a high efficient red is one of the most sought after phosphors. This is how Bridgelux markets their 97 CRI Decor Ultra Line.
Décor Series Ultra products provide a high CRI of 97, befitting of the most luxurious retail shops and world renowned museums.
GrowLightResearch
Well-Known Member
Where did that spec come from?
Is that µmol PPF µmol/s or PPFD µmol/m²/s?