Guide me to the Light....

[DukeFluke]

@Rocket Soul
You mean like this

 

[DukeFluke]

I should have said ignore the driver on the left.

Orange wires are making series in the middle, and then linking parallel from the spare slots to the one below.

Is that kind of what you mean?

 

[Rocket Soul]

@Rocket Soul
You mean like this

View attachment 4586096

Thats it. After that you do another copy of this and commnect to anoother wago.

At this point you can either daisy chain the second wago to the first group wago. Or you can connect both wagos to a third that then goes to driver. Second solution woould be my favorite if you got plenty of wagos. Again, ive never done this exact config but it should work as all sides gets connected to the same + and -, even the "slave" strips that kinda look reversed. You may have slight voltage drop but youre doing this with CV driverrss should should be able to compensate.

 

[DukeFluke]

I was gonna ask about voltage drop because of the connections from strip to strip.

So, we're sure this way works, or you wanna wait for @cobshopgrow to chime in?

 

[Orb]

No that's not right, how many strips total are you aiming to use?

 

[cobshopgrow]

Ok, heres my solution for 12, just do this twice and the second set "wire to driver + and -" go in the spare slot in the first 5way wago.
View attachment 4586043View attachment 4586048

So check out the top bit which looks like 3 strips: theyre actually 12: first every horizontal line is 2 strips in series. You see 6 lines in 3 pairs,
Top line in each pair is one 2 strip series, line underneath that is another set of 2 strips in series:
You will use the extra set of connectors on the first stripseries set to connect the second in parallel: on left handside we used the + terminal for the wago, connect the remaining -terminal to -on the series directly underneath. On right handside we used the - terminal for the wago so the spare + to + underneath.

Second pic is this in detail.
View attachment 4586048
After doiing the first set youve filled 4 slots in your first wago and you have one left: this slot is for wireing in another wago with anotther set of 12.

You can also do this by having anotther wago that divides into the wagos of the 2 sets of 12, this would be slightly better i thiink but sppend another wago.

Since i havent tried doing this before id like to ask @cobshopgrow to have a look aswell, he allways catches me when im wrong on something. Cobs, this kinda daisy chaining should work right?

i just see a bit diaisy chaining of the wagos if i am right.
never used them myself, but they have quite high ratings and quite some contact area it looks.
just can give a guess, maybe take some thicker wire when daisy these wagos, just to be very sure.

i normally just drill all wires who need to be in parallel togegther and take one big terminal strip to connect them to the driver.
maybe take the 3 wagos you use for the strips and connect these with a terminal strip, solder etc
edit..... or simply take a another Wago, sry not used to them (not mean theyre bad!)..

 

[Rocket Soul]

I was gonna ask about voltage drop because of the connections from strip to strip.

So, we're sure this way works, or you wanna wait for @cobshopgrow to chime in?

Try to do the first circuit, if you see any diminished light from the "slave" strips then we can rethink. In that case you would have to do this x 4 instead of x 2.

 

[cobshopgrow]

there is just one series conection from strip to strip isnt it?
in series you will see no diminished light output anyway, as every led get the same voltage.
the driver will regulate accordingly.

lets say you have 6 leds each strip running at 2V, makes 12V.
you put 2 of thiese strips in series, you will still measure 12V on EACH plus and minus of EACH strip.
if you measure the plus on one and the minus of other strip you will get 24V, the cables going to your 24V driver.
And if you measure the voltage on each led, it will be 2V.
now you put in a very long wire to create a resistance, your driver will need to push more volts to compensate for it, lets say 25V.
(CC driver, given Ampere, variable Volt)
each led still run at 2V and same Ampere, even the last in the series chain.
it doesnt matter where the resistance is in the LED circuit or how its created, the driver cant "see" that anyway.

you get the voltage drop if you daisy chain things in parallel.
lets say above 2 strips in parallel connected over the onboard connectors., + to +, - to -
12V goes in the first strip but the second may just get 11.9XV or whatever.

 

[DukeFluke]

i just see a bit diaisy chaining of the wagos if i am right.

there is just one series conection from strip to strip isnt it?

Thanks very much for your input cob.

Have a look again at the picture in post #281

Just so there's no confusion, the series strips are connecting to the strips below with a jumper wire, NOT a wago.

The Orange colour is just a wire which connects the spare + to the + of the strip underneath, and the spare - on the other side also connects to the - of the strip underneath.

This is the parallel connection part.

Is this clearer now? And still all good?

Thanks again

 

[Rocket Soul]

Thanks very much for your input cob.

Have a look again at the picture in post #281

Just so there's no confusion, the series strips are connecting to the strips below with a jumper wire, NOT a wago.

The Orange colour is just a wire which connects the spare + to the + of the strip underneath, and the spare - on the other side also connects to the - of the strip underneath.

This is the parallel connection part.

Is this clearer now? And still all good?

Thanks again

Just try it. Its all right, it wont blow up or anything. At worst it would mean you would have to adjust the voltage up 0.1V extra, but the alternative: tons of wagos in a tree or daisy chained would mean the same.

 

[DukeFluke]

Just try it. Its all right, it wont blow up or anything. At worst it would mean you would have to adjust the voltage up 0.1V extra, but the alternative: tons of wagos in a tree or daisy chained would mean the same.

Oh I thought you were asking for @cobshopgrow advice because you weren't sure if it'd work ok this way.

I'll try it this way because it seems the neatest way to do it by far.

But the question I have is; how will I know if the voltage has dropped, and by how much?

Thanks man

 

[Rocket Soul]

Oh I thought you were asking for @cobshopgrow advice because you weren't sure if it'd work ok this way.

I'll try it this way because it seems the neatest way to do it by far.

But the question I have is; how will I know if the voltage has dropped, and by how much?

Thanks man

If you dont see any difference in output, "slave" strips having weaker light then youre allright.

 

[DukeFluke]

If you dont see any difference in output, "slave" strips having weaker light then youre allright.

Sorry dude I meant if I could see it by eye. Should have made that clear.

Could I use a voltage meter to check these things?

If so, would I connect the pos and neg of the two `slave` ends to the meter to measure the V drop?

 

[Orb]

Could he not just bring the driver + to a 3/5way Wago, split the current there to 2 x 5way Wagos, use the 2 x 5ways to feed 6 + connections each (12+total) by doubling up in two of the Wago ports, then do the same for the - side (12-total) with three more wagos connected with the driver -, do a - to + jumper wire between the two strips that are placed end to end and have 2s12p with 24 strips? Would take just 6 Wagos

I should've said that doesn't look right because I haven't ever seen it done that way before, not that it's not right, I'm happy to learn something here also

 

[Rocket Soul]

Could he not just bring the driver + to a 3/5way Wago, split the current there to 2 x 5way Wagos, use the 2 x 5ways to feed 6 + connections each (12+total) by doubling up in two of the Wago ports, then do the same for the - side (12-total) with three more wagos connected with the driver -, do a - to + jumper wire between the two strips that are placed end to end and have 2s12p with 24 strips? Would take just 6 Wagos

I should've said that doesn't look right because I haven't ever seen it done that way before, not that it's not right, I'm happy to learn something here also

I think so (if im making the right picture inmy mind), but ive never done 2 in one port. Generally these "trees" of connections tend to get messy in pratice, id one like that for vestas and it looked like a spider web until i got some 8way wagos. You would haave to double up in 2 ports per side though, theres only 4 ports left after bringing power in.

 

[Orb]

 

[Orb]

Like that yes, each Wago 5way has a line in from the centre Wago and 6 out so 7 into 5 ports of each of the outer Wagos

 

[Rocket Soul]

View attachment 4587274

Thats entirely possible if you can manage the extra wires in the wago ports. Props for drawiing better than me.

 

[Orb]

I done two per port with 18awg solid core and the Wago 221 3way 0.2-4mm 24-12awg ones no problem, they also do the 221 lever Wagos in a 0.5-6mm 20-10awg version which could take double wires even easier

 

[Evil-Mobo]

Vestas offer 2 channels, one warm white with high cri which means extra red, great for flower.
The other is cold white 5000k 90cri.
These 2 channels run independently but they way i configure them i run them on the same driver in parallel. The way i configure the connections is by grouping the channels so that you can send the power down either one channel or half to both. Hence the comparison to 3 different hids, one vegg centric (in reality could be even to extreme to some short plants), one for flower (have seen it myself out grow standard samsungs 3000k 80 cri, lm561c) and one which is both channels which gives you a well rounded fullcycle spectrum. This mid spectrum also runs both channels on half power together dor better efficiency.

I cant answer all questions on why people chose one thing over another really. General consensus after watching loads of blurple leds fail to give results is that photons>spectrum, that theres no special spectrum that can make up for not enough light. So current thinking is highest efficiency of an acceptable spectrum is whats best. I saw a fair few of tests which led me to believe higher cri works better, and in the end if all i have to do is to provide a bit more power then why not go for the better spectrum.
Vestas arent used much for several reasons: low lum/w. They look shitty on the datasheet but thats in part cause its a spectrum: lower green levels than 80 cri means that most people dont understand that their 129lum/w is equivalent to approx 150lum of 80 cri in photons. After that we have a better red leaning spectrum which also seems to influence flower more than what people assume, at least its what extrapolate out of what ive seen in own tests and in side by sides.

People seem to make their choice based on 2 things: photon count per watt; an easy and trustable measure since its the photons and not lums that plants based their photosynthesis. But only watching this number is no good, it doesnt give a picture of how the spectrum will affect growth. Nor does it say anything about spread.
Pricepoints also come in, where you measure efficiency/amount of actual light/price: you can pay more for either more light per watt or more total light at lower efficiency so youre weighing a lot of things. For me ive liked what i saw of the vestas, the grow i built for said: any new flower lights should be this spectrum (2700k 90cri) after comparing to a few other spectrums and builds. Even if the vestas arguably gave less light per watt.
So that coupled with the extra functionality of stretch control has got be a fan of vestas. For a long while it was the only readily available 90cri pcb. Now there are more.

Another thing re why people buy one thing or another is that people tend to follow the general consensus. A few years ago it was 3500k 80cri. But as far as i can tell that was based around the classifications of brightness of the cree cxb3590. Then when crees went out of fashion people played with 3000k and it worked the same butaybe a bit better in flower. Now red supplementation is the craze. This is atleast partially down to how adding reds can lift your photons/w values. Yes, sure it also grows better but i havent seen the conclusive grows that would have me believe its better than an 2700k 90 cri spectrum with decent efficiency.

As you see there is a huge rabbit hole here, and you can research it forever, most of us here are here because of it. But there really isnt one general answer for everybody. And its so easy to to get stuck, and read and read until youre only getting more and more confused. And suddenly you realize summer is here and the build arrives to late. Or that there was one little detail that you missed when you planned your entire system. So my advice: build something to start with and start small. Try to make it opene ended and small, rather than building 4x4 lights build 4x2s that can both hang together or apart.
Dont throw out your hids. More than likely woth led in an attic in the uk you will need the heat. Leds need around 27-30C which wont be easy to achieve with a strip build.
And once you see how it works continue adding on if you like. Or decide, na, good enough.

I think one of the biggest things regarding all of this is the fact that people get hung up on arguing about different light sources and efficiency of LED lighting and don’t Realize gaining control over your environment and the micro climate in your grow has more of an impact than whether you use an HID or an LED etc.

Excellent post very well written.