Retrofitting LumiGrow Fixtures

[PJ Diaz]

So, a facility I know has a bunch of old LumiGrow Pro 650e fixtures, which are slowly failing, mainly due to dying fans. This company is no longer in business, and specific info on them is quite limited, so I'm left to open them up and see what's inside.

Basically there are two LED boards powered by a Meanwell HLG-600H-48A driver. It's interesting, as the driver powers two circuit boards, which then power the LED boards. My hope is to replace these boards with something more modern and efficient. The existing boards inside of the fixture are about the size of QB288's, but they only have around 130 diodes. I'm not sure which diodes are used, and whether they are mid-powered 3030 type diodes or high-powered 5050 diodes. My hope was to replace them with something like QB96's which use high-powered 5050 diodes, but those boards are rated for 54volts. I haven't hooked them up with those boards yet, because I need to get the correct molex connector. I think they will work, but only for around 150watts per board max, which leaves me with half of the driver power unused. Does anyone know of any 48v LED boards which use 5050 diodes instead of the typical lm301 mid-powered diodes?

Here's a pic of the fixture taken apart, as you can see there are some nice big heatsinks inside:

 

[welight]

Firstly. The 5050 used on QB96 are not High powered, they are Plastic Mid powered leds, albeit multi dies so more powerful that single die 3030 leds aka 301B
2nd, the leds on your photo are all 3535 High powered leds, no doubt explained but the high powered driver
3rd the connectors on the board indicate multi channel, controlled by the PCB inside

It would seem to make sense to just replicate the boards and use later, more efficient variants of the same wavelengths( or different wavelengths if you want), and replace the fans, that way you should be able to use all the same control gear, which I assume is still functioning. You could go the 5050 route and use more of them and create 48V strings if that is what the strings indeed are, I would test to be sure
cheers

 

[PJ Diaz]

Firstly. The 5050 used on QB96 are not High powered, they are Plastic Mid powered leds, albeit multi dies so more powerful that single die 3030 leds aka 301B
2nd, the leds on your photo are all 3535 High powered leds, no doubt explained but the high powered driver
3rd the connectors on the board indicate multi channel, controlled by the PCB inside

It would seem to make sense to just replicate the boards and use later, more efficient variants of the same wavelengths( or different wavelengths if you want), and replace the fans, that way you should be able to use all the same control gear, which I assume is still functioning. You could go the 5050 route and use more of them and create 48V strings if that is what the strings indeed are, I would test to be sure
cheers

Hmm, I need to do some research, but I thought for sure they were 5050 diodes. Unfortunately I can't remember which brand I thought they were right now.

See the thing is that I want to bypass all of the fancy connectors and annoying extra features, which is the reason for the multi connectors on the boards. I also want to get away from the fans all together. The main issue with replacing the fans is that they use a 3-wire version (I assume pos, neg, and control), which are nearly impossible to get. I can find the 2-wire ones all day, and that could be a possible solution for the fans, but not sure if they will even run without the control. I think theoretically they will just run 24/7 and I'd be ok with that, although I'm thinking why replace the fans, when there could be better boards which don't need active cooling. Also, I'm not sure that I can even get any new boards with those connectors. It seems like a custom thing. I just want to take the good parts (driver, heatsink, and possibly housing), and put it together with a good led board. If it gets so hot that I have to actively cool it, then I think I would set up a separate 12v or 24v dc power supply for whatever fans I pick, and wire them to just come on with the light. Do you know of any LED boards which are roughly the size of QB288's which use high powered diodes? This is for a greenhouse situation as supplemental light, so they're pretty high up above the canopy. I think using mid-powered diodes, the light isn't going to throw quite as well.

 

[welight]

As a point of comparison, if you look at the QB96, it has a combo of 5050 and 3535 High power, if you look closely at the 3535 .
Reds on the Qb and then this board of yours(blown up image) you will see these are the same size.
Your boards could be replicated if you want to do that, but yes its a custom board

So stripping this all back to basics, you could remove the custom control PCB and fans and really just use the heatsinks and drivers. Its likely you will want to understand the thermal capacity of the heat sink with and with out the fans( assumes you have at least one good led board). If these are mounted high in the green house, do they have secondary optics to shape more light downwards to enhance penetration, either way if they are high up I suspect you will need higher power diodes to get photons to the canopy. Do you have actual dimensions of the current board, happy to check if we have an off the shelf solution
Cheers

 

[PJ Diaz]

As a point of comparison, if you look at the QB96, it has a combo of 5050 and 3535 High power, if you look closely at the 3535 .
Reds on the Qb and then this board of yours(blown up image) you will see these are the same size.
Your boards could be replicated if you want to do that, but yes its a custom board

So stripping this all back to basics, you could remove the custom control PCB and fans and really just use the heatsinks and drivers. Its likely you will want to understand the thermal capacity of the heat sink with and with out the fans( assumes you have at least one good led board). If these are mounted high in the green house, do they have secondary optics to shape more light downwards to enhance penetration, either way if they are high up I suspect you will need higher power diodes to get photons to the canopy. Do you have actual dimensions of the current board, happy to check if we have an off the shelf solution
Cheers

Thanks for your reply. I'll get back to you in a couple of days regarding board dimensions. I left the fixture in my office, and have a couple of days off before I'll be back.

 

[PSUAGRO.]

Wow, lumigrow is out of business!? Crazy

 

[PJ Diaz]

Wow, lumigrow is out of business!? Crazy

Yep, they still have a website up, but their phone number goes nowhere and no reply from their emails, plus I was told by the person with all the fixtures that they are out of business. I think this facility has somewhere around 80 of their fixtures, which are slowly failing. When I started looking into them, the info was limited, but the umol/j efficiency was really low, around 1.7 as I recall.

 

[PSUAGRO.]

Yep, they still have a website up, but their phone number goes nowhere and no reply from their emails, plus I was told by the person with all the fixtures that they are out of business. I think this facility has somewhere around 80 of their fixtures, which are slowly failing. When I started looking into them, the info was limited, but the umol/j efficiency was really low, around 1.7 as I recall.

Man, they've been around since the beginning. Sad to hear. Hope clw isn't next..

Good luck with your repurposing venture grower.

 

[PJ Diaz]

As a point of comparison, if you look at the QB96, it has a combo of 5050 and 3535 High power, if you look closely at the 3535 .
Reds on the Qb and then this board of yours(blown up image) you will see these are the same size.
Your boards could be replicated if you want to do that, but yes its a custom board

So stripping this all back to basics, you could remove the custom control PCB and fans and really just use the heatsinks and drivers. Its likely you will want to understand the thermal capacity of the heat sink with and with out the fans( assumes you have at least one good led board). If these are mounted high in the green house, do they have secondary optics to shape more light downwards to enhance penetration, either way if they are high up I suspect you will need higher power diodes to get photons to the canopy. Do you have actual dimensions of the current board, happy to check if we have an off the shelf solution
Cheers

I finally got back to the office today, and measured the boards, which are 5 3/4" x 9 1/4". The heatsinks are slightly larger at 6" x 9 3/4". If you can suggest something that would fit those specs, I would definitely appreciate it. I guess the custom board route is likely the way to go, but not sure they would want to order in quantity without proof of concept first.

 

[welight]

cheers, so can I confirm they will want to reinstall back where they had them? just considering the hang height and need for penetration?
cheers

 

[PJ Diaz]

cheers, so can I confirm they will want to reinstall back where they had them? just considering the hang height and need for penetration?
cheers

Yes, that would be ideal. Penetration isn't really an issue of concern, as these are mostly used as supplemental lighting for hydroponic/aquaponic grown leafy greens in a greenhouse situation. I haven't measured the distance, but I believe that they are hung at 10-feet off the floor, above tables which are around 3-feet off the floor, so a long throw is necessary.

 

[Hooda Thunkit]

Will the HLG driver output at 54V? Can't remember off the top of my head. "Constant Voltage" drivers output a range of voltages, not sure the 48V driver you have will do 54V, but worth a look. If they will do 54V, you could fit two QB96 Elite V2's per heatsink, and run each board at 150W, well within spec for the QB96. You've undoubtedly worked through all of that yourself, I apologize for any prevarication about the shrubbery if that's the case.

I aquired 20 Cree brand high bay LED fixtures from work, where they were told by Cree to just throw away these 240W multi-cob high bay LED's because they weren't worth the re-furb. Wanted the heatsinks (300W capacity) for some QB96 Elite builds. Got them home, stripped one down, and Cree had milled "posts" for each of the 10 mini-cobs to sit on, meaning the surface of the heatsink isn't flat; it's flat with islands in between. How pissed was I? Now I'm contemplating contacting machine shops with CNC capability to see what it would cost to have the heatsinks re-milled to flat.

In other words, I feel your pain.

 

[PJ Diaz]

Will the HLG driver output at 54V? Can't remember off the top of my head. "Constant Voltage" drivers output a range of voltages, not sure the 48V driver you have will do 54V, but worth a look. If they will do 54V, you could fit two QB96 Elite V2's per heatsink, and run each board at 150W, well within spec for the QB96. You've undoubtedly worked through all of that yourself, I apologize for any prevarication about the shrubbery if that's the case.

I aquired 20 Cree brand high bay LED fixtures from work, where they were told by Cree to just throw away these 240W multi-cob high bay LED's because they weren't worth the re-furb. Wanted the heatsinks (300W capacity) for some QB96 Elite builds. Got them home, stripped one down, and Cree had milled "posts" for each of the 10 mini-cobs to sit on, meaning the surface of the heatsink isn't flat; it's flat with islands in between. How pissed was I? Now I'm contemplating contacting machine shops with CNC capability to see what it would cost to have the heatsinks re-milled to flat.

In other words, I feel your pain.

Yeah, the 48v driver will crank up to 52v, which is enough to light a QB96, but only like 75watts. Maybe if I crank up the current I can get a bit of extra juice out of them. I need to get some molex connectors to try that out, since I don't want to hack up the wiring prematurely.

 

[NewGrower2011]

fwiw, you mentioned the fans being 3-wire variants and hard to find. I used to do a lot of DIY computer builds and the 3 wire version was pretty much commonplace and standard. If you retain any of the gear that drives the fans and want to replace them 1:1 I'd be looking into PC parts.