@Grow Lights Australia
Loving the lights but to tell you the truth I'm kinda disappointed that there wasn't anyplace to bolt my drivers to the heatsinks like my HLG lights. Makes the setup feel janky. Other than that so far they seem good. Now let's see how they grow flowers.
High light flowers coming soon...
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We have never condoned placing drivers on heatsinks, and there's a simple reason for it: of all the places you might need to add warmth in a grow room, the LEDs are the last place you want to add heat to.
Heat kills LEDs. It reduces their useful life and reduces their efficiency. There is no advantage at all to running them hotter than they need to be.
In any case, you are trying to add metabolic warmth to the plants – not the LEDs. Having a driver on the back of a heatsink actually shields that heat from the plants. The heat rises and is usually ducted away. It is not the same concept as infrared heat that radiates down towards the plants from a HPS or CMH lamp (for example). Drivers produce convection heat that rises or is ducted away by other metals (heatsinks).
As others have pointed out, if you need extra warmth in your grow area, you are better off placing the heatsink on the floor or in front of a fan so that the heat can rise or be blown through the canopy to provide additional warmth. If it's really cold, then some growers add CMH or HPS lamps back into their grow rooms in winter to compensate. After all, if you need to add warmth, CMH lamps can also add light and beneficial UV. If you already have enough light, then a small heater at the base of the plants – not hanging over them – is the best solution.
I do understand that other manufacturers have started the trend of adding drivers to heatsinks, and that in some cases it might be convenient to have a driver up and out of the way (if you don't have much room on the floor, for example). But there is absolutely no advantage to it and there are several disadvantages. One disadvantage is that if you do have a hot grow room, you can't remove any more heat from it if all the drivers are bolted to the heatsinks. For many years growers used HID lamps with remote ballasts for this reason.
Also, many of the Mean Well drivers such as the ELG and XLG series have their current and voltage adjustment dials on the bottom of the driver, which means you have to unbolt the driver from the heatsink every time you wish to adjust them (unless you are running a separate potentiometer).
I'm sorry if some growers find it inconvenient, but we really believe there are far more advantages to running remote drivers than bolting them to a heatsink, and so that was a decision that was made during the design stage.
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