Pictures of your DIY lights - Post your pics!!!

nfhiggs

nfhiggs

Well-Known Member
[]D[][]\/[][]D said:
4/5 lights are wired in parelell and are powered by a single cheap "600 watt" CV/CC power module, running at 34 volts.
Which is powered by a cheap 24v DC power supply.
Click to expand...
Seems kinda wasteful since you can get cheap 36V regulated supplies for about the same price as 24V supplies - unless of course you already had the 24V supply.

I used warm white 100W COBs that cost just under $2 each if I buy ten. I still have 7-8 of them laying around unused, since I've been moving towards strip builds. Gonna assemble my Samsung F strips here pretty soon, I just got the heatsinks in today, now I just need to pick up a piece of 80/20.
 
[]D[][]\/[][]D

[]D[][]\/[][]D

Member
nfhiggs said:
Seems kinda wasteful since you can get cheap 36V regulated supplies for about the same price as 24V supplies - unless of course you already had the 24V supply.

I used warm white 100W COBs that cost just under $2 each if I buy ten. I still have 7-8 of them laying around unused, since I've been moving towards strip builds. Gonna assemble my Samsung F strips here pretty soon, I just got the heatsinks in today, now I just need to pick up a piece of 80/20.
Click to expand...
hehe yes the power supply is re-used, there is probably a 5-10% electrical loss at the boost converter :(
 
whytewidow

whytewidow

Well-Known Member
10 Samsung F-series Gen 3 560mm 3000k strips. 4 custom reds strips. Made up of 60 deep red diodes and 60 HE red diodes. All controlled wirelessly from my phone. I have total control of each channel. Reds and whites. I can turn each one on or off anywhere as long as I have cell service....

mir_20180305_190051.jpg 20180307_195858.jpg 20180307_230115.jpg mir_20180307_235528.jpg 20180311_111410.jpg
 
wietefras

wietefras

Well-Known Member
For people like me who still have old and inefficient COBs laying around. You can improve efficiency by driving them a lot softer. Doubling up the COBs can improve efficiency by 10%. My old CXB3070 AB bin COBs run at about 2umol/s/W at 1400mA. If id double them up twice, efficiency improves by about 20% and I end up at a more 2018 relevant 2.4umol/s/W

So I quadrupled the AB bin COBs, but I also had 16 AD COBs of which 12 were "3-upped" and the last 4 were "2-upped" (within constraints of what the two HLG-185H-C1400 drivers can deal with and the number of COBs I had laying around). In total 24 CBX3070's were crammed together on 4 aluminum bars. 6 COBs per bar spaced out according on their individual wattages.

I ran a simulation of the fixture over a 100x100cm area. At 5cm height (left) you can see the distribution of the 3 different wattages (8x11W,12x15W and 4x23W) and at 15cm (right) I feel the distribution is good enough to use:
Distribution_AB+AD_5cm.png Distribution_AB+AD_15cm.png

The blue areas denote the areas where there is less than 80% of the average light intensity. ie the dark spots.

Some pictures of the fixture running it's first test:
24X_CXB3590_Bottom.jpg

24X_CXB3590_Top.jpg

In total this setup should produce 900umol/s (well up from the 780umol/s which the 8 CXB3070 AB bins produced) while power usage went down from 395W to 367W.
24X_CXB3590_Watts.jpg

Based on datasheet figures, the efficacy for the whole frame went up from 1.98umol/s/W to 2.45umol/s/W. Efficiency went up from 42% to 52%

Wiring this up was a bit of a nightmare due to all the different clusterings of COBs and the parallel wiring, but still, it felt a waste to throw away the old COBs and replace them by strips. I sort of made my own strips :)

I was a bit worried if the bars would adequately get the heat away from the COBs, but that seems to work just fine. COBs are running a lot cooler than they did before. Which of course also make sense since they are running much softer than before. That might also increase efficiency and light output a little pulling this new fixture even more ahead.

Wiring for the fans is still a mess, but I couldn't get myself to snipping off those leads. Wiring for the COBS could have been cleaner too, but I was glad I got it right the first time.

Metal wires for hanging it are ordered. For now the bit of rope will do.

I took some FLIR shots to check the temperatures.

The drivers are at around 34C. Somewhat less than before when I had them outside the tent. I placed them on the frame since I really need more heat in the tent anyway.
FLIR_Top.png

COBs were running at 50C to 55C before (@48W).

15W at 36C:
FLIR_CXB3070_AD_3-up=15W.png

23W at 46C:
FLIR_CXB3070_AD_2-up=23W.png

All seems to be running fine, so I put some plants under the new fixture. Doing a test of nutrients specifically tailored to LED light. Sold by GPleds and created by Hy-Pro.
 
D

Dave455

Well-Known Member
wietefras said:
For people like me who still have old and inefficient COBs laying around. You can improve efficiency by driving them a lot softer. Doubling up the COBs can improve efficiency by 10%. My old CXB3070 AB bin COBs run at about 2umol/s/W at 1400mA. If id double them up twice, efficiency improves by about 20% and I end up at a more 2018 relevant 2.4umol/s/W

So I quadrupled the AB bin COBs, but I also had 16 AD COBs of which 12 were "3-upped" and the last 4 were "2-upped" (within constraints of what the two HLG-185H-C1400 drivers can deal with and the number of COBs I had laying around). In total 24 CBX3070's were crammed together on 4 aluminum bars. 6 COBs per bar spaced out according on their individual wattages.

I ran a simulation of the fixture over a 100x100cm area. At 5cm height (left) you can see the distribution of the 3 different wattages (8x11W,12x15W and 4x23W) and at 15cm (right) I feel the distribution is good enough to use:
View attachment 4111892 View attachment 4111893

The blue areas denote the areas where there is less than 80% of the average light intensity. ie the dark spots.

Some pictures of the fixture running it's first test:
View attachment 4111889

View attachment 4111890

In total this setup should produce 900umol/s (well up from the 780umol/s which the 8 CXB3070 AB bins produced) while power usage went down from 395W to 367W.
View attachment 4111878

Based on datasheet figures, the efficacy for the whole frame went up from 1.98umol/s/W to 2.45umol/s/W. Efficiency went up from 42% to 52%

Wiring this up was a bit of a nightmare due to all the different clusterings of COBs and the parallel wiring, but still, it felt a waste to throw away the old COBs and replace them by strips. I sort of made my own strips :)

I was a bit worried if the bars would adequately get the heat away from the COBs, but that seems to work just fine. COBs are running a lot cooler than they did before. Which of course also make sense since they are running much softer than before. That might also increase efficiency and light output a little pulling this new fixture even more ahead.

Wiring for the fans is still a mess, but I couldn't get myself to snipping off those leads. Wiring for the COBS could have been cleaner too, but I was glad I got it right the first time.

Metal wires for hanging it are ordered. For now the bit of rope will do.

I took some FLIR shots to check the temperatures.

The drivers are at around 34C. Somewhat less than before when I had them outside the tent. I placed them on the frame since I really need more heat in the tent anyway.
View attachment 4111880

COBs were running at 50C to 55C before (@48W).

15W at 36C:
View attachment 4111881

23W at 46C:
View attachment 4111882

All seems to be running fine, so I put some plants under the new fixture. Doing a test of nutrients specifically tailored to LED light. Sold by GPleds and created by Hy-Pro.
Click to expand...
what kind of heatsink on new fixture ?
 
wietefras

wietefras

Well-Known Member
Dave455 said:
what kind of heatsink on new fixture ?
Click to expand...
Well the one in the photo's is the "new fixture". So the standard Arctic Alpine 11 Plus CPU coolers everybody was using a few years ago.

I increased the voltage from 5V to 9V though. Produces a bit more of a breeze around the fans. Thought it would be good for the plants to have some warm air blowing around them.
 
MasterpieceNutes

MasterpieceNutes

Well-Known Member
Have built a lot of these bad boys.. 300+. Standard 4x cxm22 and hlg-185h-48a. 272w of light, 16 for fans. Covers a 2x4 flower solidly.

Over a LOT input obviously: average about 1.1-1.2 gm/w. I've gotten as high as 1.7 with big pots, long grow time, hydro, co2 and big yielders. Not that i use that as any real baseline.. But its an appreciable range.

Those active coolers simply work better than passive. The Aluminum runs close to ambient air temp. Intel makes great cpu coolers. Chinese ones you see in my profile pic.. not so much, lol.

Shout out to CobKits for stellar service.

I list these on Boston Craigslist @ $260. Pretty good pricepoint.
 

Attachments

thetr33man

thetr33man

Well-Known Member
MasterpieceNutes said:
Have built a lot of these bad boys.. 300+. Standard 4x cxm22 and hlg-185h-48a. 272w of light, 16 for fans. Covers a 2x4 flower solidly.

Over a LOT input obviously: average about 1.1-1.2 gm/w. I've gotten as high as 1.7 with big pots, long grow time, hydro, co2 and big yielders. Not that i use that as any real baseline.. But its an appreciable range.

Those active coolers simply work better than passive. The Aluminum runs close to ambient air temp. Intel makes great cpu coolers. Chinese ones you see in my profile pic.. not so much, lol.

Shout out to CobKits for stellar service.

I list these on Boston Craigslist @ $260. Pretty good pricepoint.
Click to expand...
Your getting 272w out of a hlg-185?
 
P

PurpleBuz

Well-Known Member
MasterpieceNutes said:
Have built a lot of these bad boys.. 300+. Standard 4x cxm22 and hlg-185h-48a. 272w of light, 16 for fans. Covers a 2x4 flower solidly.

Over a LOT input obviously: average about 1.1-1.2 gm/w. I've gotten as high as 1.7 with big pots, long grow time, hydro, co2 and big yielders. Not that i use that as any real baseline.. But its an appreciable range.

Those active coolers simply work better than passive. The Aluminum runs close to ambient air temp. Intel makes great cpu coolers. Chinese ones you see in my profile pic.. not so much, lol.

Shout out to CobKits for stellar service.

I list these on Boston Craigslist @ $260. Pretty good pricepoint.
Click to expand...
hlg-185h-48a maxes out around 210 watts.
 
justsmokedope

justsmokedope

Well-Known Member
this is my cree horticultural based led light im also building a case to tidy up the light. This light runs at 1050ma it is wired in series / parallel
every thing is attached with kapton tape as i haven't got round to drilling and tapping yet and also this depends on the case im designing.
IMG_1090-28-03-18-05-49.JPG IMG_1089-28-03-18-05-49.JPG IMG_1078-28-03-18-05-49.JPG IMG_1075-28-03-18-05-49.JPG IMG_1072-28-03-18-05-49.JPG IMG_1082-28-03-18-05-49.JPG IMG_1084-28-03-18-05-49.JPG
 
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justsmokedope

justsmokedope

Well-Known Member
this is my vero29 3000k with 1750k im also building a case to tidy up the light as with my other build. This light runs at 1400ma and has wifi timer and on and off with sonoff basics. It is wired in series. every thing is attached with kapton tape as i haven't got round to drilling and tapping yet and also this depends on the case im designing.
IMG_1107-28-03-18-05-49.JPG
 
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