"High Lights" - high powered, CRI95 flowering boards made in Australia

Or_Gro

Or_Gro

Well-Known Member
Or_Gro said:
Here ya go:

View attachment 4325695
Click to expand...
Those tcp nums are colortemp (top one is HL). Pretty fuggin close dude!!!

Stick 3-6 fr diodes/pair of bds in the grow for initiator effect, and run em lightson plus 5 to 15 mins, and you leapfrog hlg completly!

I’ll take comparative pic of HL vs HL + extra fr.

Add fr to v2, for lightson part, maybe?

016024C2-E0A3-4956-86FC-4263F41C31DA.gif
 
Last edited:
hybridway2

hybridway2

Amare Shill
Prawn Connery said:
The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and so of course all the claims in the world are just that - claims - until put to good use. To that end, these boards are being scientifically tested as I write, and we will have accurate umol/j figures for them soon. No speculation, just real figures.

Some of these boards have already gone out to test growers - some of whom are using supplemental UV and some of whom aren't. Preliminary PAR mapping has been promising with 1000 PPFD at 24" using eight boards in a 4'x4' with even coverage throughout the canopy using a total of 670W.

You can see the results here: https://www.rollitup.org/t/the-monumentally-epic-knockdown-dragout-take-no-prisoners-slapdown-aussie-high-light-vs-hlg-288.988144/page-4

In a 3'x3' open configuration (below), two boards running at 345W total is giving a fairly even 950 PPFD at 18" without the aid of reflective walls (and tested with no overlapping light from the next station).

In addition to @Or_Gro's head-to-head against HLG's QB288 + red supplement, and QB96 boards, we're also running them against HLG's QB324 V1 (mixed CRI 80/90 3000K LEDs).

In this configuration, you can see two High Lights running at 345W (360W at the wall) vs two HLG QB324 V1s at 400W (420W) at the wall for the same PPFD figures at 18" - however, the HLGs obviously don't have the same even footprint, as the boards are smaller.
View attachment 4325480

High Light vs HLG QB324
View attachment 4325481

The boards and heatsinks are easily connected to each other using existing holes and T-bar or L-bar extruded aluminium with 3/16" screws. Push-in connectors are designed for use with solid wire 18AWG.
View attachment 4325482

The layout of the UV LEDs is restricted by the circuitry (the LEDs are not typically connected in series, but are grouped together in parallel/series strings), but testing has shown a very even spread with no spectral change from one end of the board to the other at 12".
View attachment 4325483

I guess one question that hasn't been answered yet is, are these available and how much?

There was an initial production run of 75x 3-colour and 21x 2-colour boards and about a third of these went to existing growers who were part of the research and development. Boards have gone out to the US, Germany and locally here in Australia.

Yes, there are boards and heatsinks available. But at the moment, this isn't a commercial venture - the boards were specifically designed and built for local growers who wanted them (myself included) with sales of any left-over boards going to offset the cost of development and production. If there's further interest, there may be other runs.

If you are in the US, then the bad news is shipping will be the killer. If you are in Oz, NZ or possibly Europe, then I'm happy to receive PM enquiries and I can get you a price on boards and shipping (they will be cheaper than other offerings from OS).

As I said, this isn't really a commercial venture - we just built a run of boards that we wanted for ourselves, and there are some left over for anyone else who is interested in trying them. I just thought it was time I explained what they were as other growers are starting to showcase them at RIU.

If anyone has any questions, I'm more than happy to answer. Just bear in mind I am not an electrical engineer - I am a grower - and I may need to refer in-depth technical questions to our engineer. Everything else I can pretty much answer.
Click to expand...
Very Cool Stuff Prawn!. Been interested in the UVA based diodes since i first heard of them. Always felt the closer we can get to the full 380-740, the better.
Staying tuned, goodluck!
 
hybridway2

hybridway2

Amare Shill
Prawn Connery said:
Yes, that was one of the aims - producing a board that could run hard (up to 150W) without heatsinks. As FC can attest, the boards are very robust and will stand up to a lot of punishment.
Click to expand...
But the real question is, Can they beat an HGL panel? Haha! Bustin Chops, sortve.
These basically eliminate the need fir any mono supplements. Interested to see eff levels? Can't be that low if they're beating out QB'S in ppfd. Bigger board i know but still .
 
TEKNIK

TEKNIK

Well-Known Member
I only have Monday or Thursday free at the moment so hopefully it will happen on Monday, if something comes up and I can't do it then it maybe delayed until next weekend when I am definitely free. Do not expect this to be ultra high in efficacy as it does have spectrums that fill in the gaps and that always comes at a cost in overall efficiency, Prawn has done a very good job at the first attempt at building his own boards, he did not cheap out on anything and that's a good sign for the future. Good shit costs and that's something that people miss understand at times.
 
Prawn Connery

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
Yes, I'm not sure if I mentioned this already, but the Nichia Optisolis and Seoul Semiconductor Sunlike LEDs cost about twice as much as Samsung's CRI80 LM301B LEDs used on most other boards. The Nichia NF2W757GT-V3F1 LEDs that make up 2/3 of the board are about the same as the LM301Bs in terms of cost and efficiency, and we have secured the highest Flux bins available for each type of LED (and paid a premium for the privilege). The PCBs are a large diameter and 2mm thick, so are very sturdy. The copper tracks, traces and connectors are built to handle twice the maximum rated current for each board.

The boards were assembled in Australia to ensure quality control as well as ensure the LEDs we paid for went on the boards (and weren't swapped out by some unscrupulous factory in China).

We did not cheap out on anything mainly because we built these boards for ourselves. We sat around one day and listed all the things we would like to see in a LED flowering board and this is what we came up with. Then we looked at a matching heatsink that could do the job for a good price so we could offset the cost of the boards, as heatsinks tend to be quite expensive.

Finally, by putting everything on one board/channel, we also realised we could save money on drivers - plus the board was designed to use common 48V and 54V drivers that most of us already had, so we didn't have to upgrade.

It's swings and roundabouts - pay more for the boards, pay less for the heatsinks and drivers. But matching boards and heatsinks still work out around A$1 per watt, which we're happy with. And the spectrum is pretty much what we were aiming for. They may not be at the top of the efficiency tree, but they're not far behind. Preliminary testing shows them beating equivalent HLG QB324 V1 boards using combined CRI80/90 LEDs.

I guess it's like anything: if we were a business venture and producing hundreds of these boards at a time, costs would come down. But for a one-off like this, there are a lot of non-recurring costs that can't be recouped with just one production run for a few keen growers.

Having said that, we've got the boards we wanted and everyone who's seen them has been happy with the results.
 
Randomblame

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
Or_Gro said:
We’ll soon know...when you get your new lights built...and get a new supply of party cups.,,,
Click to expand...

Nah, brother! I've still enough cups for the next few years, lol!.
Don't use them usually, they were only used for the comp to show how it goes..
Next round I'm finally using my new wilma system set up as cocoDTW. Want to push yields to the limit to maybe get away doing only 2 runs per year. No fun to grow in your own apartment ... Like Al Pacino says, "I get pa pa paranoia, you know!?"
I'm not the cool sock as earlier and really need the break to calm down.., lol!
 
Or_Gro

Or_Gro

Well-Known Member
Randomblame said:
Nah, brother! I've still enough cups for the next few years, lol!.
Don't use them usually, they were only used for the comp to show how it goes..
Next round I'm finally using my new wilma system set up as cocoDTW. Want to push yields to the limit to maybe get away doing only 2 runs per year. No fun to grow in your own apartment ... Like Al Pacino says, "I get pa pa paranoia, you know!?"
I'm not the cool sock as earlier and really need the break to calm down.., lol!
Click to expand...
Can’t wait to see that new beamer you’re workin on....it’ll have more wavelengths than a mass spectrometer..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top