Testing Growlight Australia Gen 3 strips (and maybe side by side?)

[Rocket Soul]

So these just arrived today! @Grow Lights Australia and @Prawn Connery graciously offered these for some testing and i decided to pick up another bunch of them just in case.


First impressions:
- GLA was really easy and nice to deal with. Always a pleasure to deal with companies born out of RIU posters taking their idea to reality.
- build quality seems nice on inspection. 96 white nichias and 12 monos spread over near uv, 660/730nm. Compare to standard qbs (HLG or aliclones) 16 monos / 288 white midpowers: theres over twice as many monos per white diode in these strips.
- waterproof seal: its almost invisible but you can see its there, especially at the ends of the strip. Great, thin seal means less light loss for same waterproof.

Also note in the photo, very clean soldering (lightyears better than me...)

Im looking for heatsinks locally, not sure if go for t-slot or just standard alu u-channel which i can get fairly cheap.

It will be a while until i can get building with these, maybe 3 weeks or so.


Hopefully i can get a 6 plant side by side going but its not quite clear what the grow will look like come next round since we are updating a lot of stuff, but the idea would be to run these against a similar wattage of just plain samsung white diodes. I also need to convince my growbuddy, he is very risk averse and doesnt like photos on the net. Another thing were looking at doing is some cannabinoid testing, GLA has had some tests done which indicate higher thc with only adding uva, beating out uva+uvb (solarcures). Side by side would take even more time though, maybe 6 weeks or so before that growspace is cycled.

Is anyone else looking at building with these? Or just wanna talk about them?

 

[Prawn Connery]

Hey mate, good to see! I think we have some pre-drilled aluminium ready. I'll ask GLA to post some photos from work next week, but it will be this: https://www.item24.com/en-de/profile-6-60x12-light-natural-45165#technical-data

 

[MidnightSun72]

I

So these just arrived today! @Grow Lights Australia and @Prawn Connery graciously offered these for some testing and i decided to pick up another bunch of them just in case.
View attachment 5343983

First impressions:
- GLA was really easy and nice to deal with. Always a pleasure to deal with companies born out of RIU posters taking their idea to reality.
- build quality seems nice on inspection. 96 white nichias and 12 monos spread over near uv, 660/730nm. Compare to standard qbs (HLG or aliclones) 16 monos / 288 white midpowers: theres over twice as many monos per white diode in these strips.
- waterproof seal: its almost invisible but you can see its there, especially at the ends of the strip. Great, thin seal means less light loss for same waterproof.
View attachment 5343984
Also note in the photo, very clean soldering (lightyears better than me...)

Im looking for heatsinks locally, not sure if go for t-slot or just standard alu u-channel which i can get fairly cheap.

It will be a while until i can get building with these, maybe 3 weeks or so.


Hopefully i can get a 6 plant side by side going but its not quite clear what the grow will look like come next round since we are updating a lot of stuff, but the idea would be to run these against a similar wattage of just plain samsung white diodes. I also need to convince my growbuddy, he is very risk averse and doesnt like photos on the net. Another thing were looking at doing is some cannabinoid testing, GLA has had some tests done which indicate higher thc with only adding uva, beating out uva+uvb (solarcures). Side by side would take even more time though, maybe 6 weeks or so before that growspace is cycled.

Is anyone else looking at building with these? Or just wanna talk about them?

I am totally jealous. And slightly offended its not me testing them.
Looking forward to seeing your build though.

 

[1212ham]

I ordered 2 weeks ago but the shipper lost track of the package. No worries though, great service from GLA and they are taking care of it. I didn't really need them, but it seemed like a great xmas gift to myself.

Since then I realised I may indeed need them as there's an issue with my Bridgelux strip light, it's dimmer than the strips I added for side lighting. I'm guessing the diodes are degraded from use and abuse, I pushed them hard on occasion.

Anyway, 4 GLA strips will sure cover the little 50 x 90. It will be interesting to see the power needed to achive the same PPFD. I don't have a 48v driver so I'll just use one of my cheap little dc-dc converters to start with. It will add something like 10% inefficiency, but it's cheaper than a driver.

I like the 480mm length of the GLA strips, it's good for a 60cm / 2 foot tent dimmension that seems to be becomming a standard building block dimmension for lights.
One row for a 2x, two rows for 4x and so on.

 

[Prawn Connery]

I

I am totally jealous. And slightly offended its not me testing them.
Looking forward to seeing your build though.

Mate, I've seen your room. You would send us broke if we had to fill that!

But seriously, @Rocket Soul and I have been discussing things over the years and I know he already runs UVA and UVB in his set-up, so I offered him some strips to try and he offered to buy a few more to make it worthwhile.

@1212ham I can chase the missing order up for you if you like if @Grow Lights Australia hasn't already taken care of it for you.

And yes, the idea behind the 480mm strips is they fit metric and imperial dimensions. Most metrics go by the metre (1x strip per half metre, or 50cm) and imperial dimensions are usually by the foot (1x strip per 2' or 60cm).

 

[Rocket Soul]

Mate, I've seen your room. You would send us broke if we had to fill that!

But seriously, @Rocket Soul and I have been discussing things over the years and I know he already runs UVA and UVB in his set-up, so I offered him some strips to try and he offered to buy a few more to make it worthwhile.

@1212ham I can chase the missing order up for you if you like if @Grow Lights Australia hasn't already taken care of it for you.

And yes, the idea behind the 480mm strips is they fit metric and imperial dimensions. Most metrics go by the metre (1x strip per half metre, or 50cm) and imperial dimensions are usually by the foot (1x strip per 2' or 60cm).

@MidnightSun72 Prawn and GLA have had some problems re cannabinoid testing iirc. Im not sure if someone got busted. Here in Spain all this is easy so it seems like a good solution.
It also gives me an indication of how well my china uva does.
However i did pick up another 10 strips on top of the test strips. Ive been wanting these for a while and its almost xmas

 

[Prawn Connery]

Yeah, the guy who used to do our canabinoid testing was busted, and he had a proper lab that could test full-spectrum cannabinoids using liquid chromatography. We've been looking into buying our own testing equipment, but it's not cheap and most of the retail testers can only test THC, CBD and moisture, as they use light (IR) reflectance.

 

[Grow Lights Australia]

Hi @Rocket Soul it looks like the strips got to you in very good time. I hope there were no issues with customs or duties. I really look forward to seeing what you do with the strips. Thanks to you and @Prawn Connery for organising everything when all I had to do was pack and send. If you have any questions about anything you can ask them here or contact me or PC direct.

@1212ham I am sorry that your package seems to have gone "walkabout" as we say here in Australia but we will solve your issue as soon as we can. I am just waiting on Australia Post to respond to my enquiry but I have some standby strips ready to go. It is unfortunate that the postal service is not as reliable as the courier I used to send @Rocket Soul his delivery. We try to use couriers now but for international deliveries the costs can be quite a bit higher than the postal service so that is why we still offer it as an option. It doesn't happen very often and on a positive note the last delivery that went missing was eventually returned to sender so I am hopeful Australia Post will be able to track it down. Thank you for your understanding.

 

[1212ham]

@MidnightSun72 Prawn and GLA have had some problems re cannabinoid testing iirc. Im not sure if someone got busted. Here in Spain all this is easy so it seems like a good solution.
It also gives me an indication of how well my china uva does.
However i did pick up another 10 strips on top of the test strips. Ive been wanting these for a while and its almost xmas

Everyone deserves xmas lights!

 

[1212ham]

Hi @Rocket Soul it looks like the strips got to you in very good time. I hope there were no issues with customs or duties. I really look forward to seeing what you do with the strips. Thanks to you and @Prawn Connery for organising everything when all I had to do was pack and send. If you have any questions about anything you can ask them here or contact me or PC direct.

@1212ham I am sorry that your package seems to have gone "walkabout" as we say here in Australia but we will solve your issue as soon as we can. I am just waiting on Australia Post to respond to my enquiry but I have some standby strips ready to go. It is unfortunate that the postal service is not as reliable as the courier I used to send @Rocket Soul his delivery. We try to use couriers now but for international deliveries the costs can be quite a bit higher than the postal service so that is why we still offer it as an option. It doesn't happen very often and on a positive note the last delivery that went missing was eventually returned to sender so I am hopeful Australia Post will be able to track it down. Thank you for your understanding.

All is good, I just discovered the strips on my front steps!

 

[Grow Lights Australia]

All is good, I just discovered the strips on my front steps!

Got the message. Great news! Let us know if you need help with anything else.

 

[coreywebster]

Look forward to seeing what you do with them @Rocket Soul

So how many are you working with, over what area?
What's the dimensions, 480mm x ?
What current you thinking?

 

[Rocket Soul]

Look forward to seeing what you do with them @Rocket Soul

So how many are you working with, over what area?
What's the dimensions, 480mm x ?
What current you thinking?

We grow in aisles, over 1.10m trays, cannopy is around 1.3-1.4m wide. Im using 300w to cover a 2x4.5 feet space more or less. We wanna use the same drivers that used to cover this space for comparison, its 2x MW xlg150-m so using 8 strips, 2 in series 2 parallel strings per driver. That should do approx 800mA per strip or so.

 

[MidnightSun72]

Mate, I've seen your room. You would send us broke if we had to fill that!

But seriously, @Rocket Soul and I have been discussing things over the years and I know he already runs UVA and UVB in his set-up, so I offered him some strips to try and he offered to buy a few more to make it worthwhile.

@1212ham I can chase the missing order up for you if you like if @Grow Lights Australia hasn't already taken care of it for you.

And yes, the idea behind the 480mm strips is they fit metric and imperial dimensions. Most metrics go by the metre (1x strip per half metre, or 50cm) and imperial dimensions are usually by the foot (1x strip per 2' or 60cm).

I know I know. I was only kidding around, sort of.

Is there any reference chart for amperage vs efficiency? Let me price out how much to do a 4x4 with decent efficacy and maybe I'll treat myself to Christmas gift as well.

 

[Prawn Connery]

We got a report from Teknik a couple of months ago. This one was 2.87 umol/j at 1.05A and 46.9V for around 50W per strip. That's very good efficiency for this spectrum at that wattage because you pay a penalty for Far Red and UVA. I'll PM you about the Christmas present.

 

[loco41]

These strips look awesome and I look forward to seeing what these things can produce. Looks like you got some knowledgable guys working with them already.

Still rocking my original highlights and will continue with them til the wheels fall off.

 

[Grow Lights Australia]

These strips look awesome and I look forward to seeing what these things can produce. Looks like you got some knowledgable guys working with them already.

Still rocking my original highlights and will continue with them til the wheels fall off.

Great looking plants mate. Yes those original High Lights were something else when Prawn first designed them. I believe most of them are still going strong.

 

[loco41]

Great looking plants mate. Yes those original High Lights were something else when Prawn first designed them. I believe most of them are still going strong.

Yea, I got excited following along when you guys were first releasing them. Actually got my hands on a few Seoul sunlike strips a while back that I look forward to throwing up in the next tent upgrade. Wish I would've held out and just bought some of these newer strips when the time came, but should be fun to finally try my hand at a larger tent with different components to play with. Highlights will still be the king in the 2x2.5ft tent though.

Best of luck as always and wish you guys success moving forward.

 

[Rocket Soul]

@Prawn Connery @Grow Lights Australia
Have either of you got any idea what is the lux to ppfd conversion rate on this spectrum? Any ways of asking TEKNIK?
Checked the report and it says 145 lum total with 141.2 umols ppf output. So i tried dividing lums with ppf but that dont seem right; about 1 to 1 cant really be right. I know theres a lot added reds an uv which wont show up very well in lux but this would be too extreme.

Asking cause we dont have a decent parmeter for tests but we can measure lux.

Also, any idea on temps when these strips are paired with those t-slots you recommended? Ill probably go with u-channel anyways since its a lot cheaper and has more surface area. But im sure people would like to know

 

[Grow Lights Australia]

@Prawn Connery @Grow Lights Australia
Have either of you got any idea what is the lux to ppfd conversion rate on this spectrum? Any ways of asking TEKNIK?
Checked the report and it says 145 lum total with 141.2 umols ppf output. So i tried dividing lums with ppf but that dont seem right; about 1 to 1 cant really be right. I know theres a lot added reds an uv which wont show up very well in lux but this would be too extreme.

Asking cause we dont have a decent parmeter for tests but we can measure lux.

Also, any idea on temps when these strips are paired with those t-slots you recommended? Ill probably go with u-channel anyways since its a lot cheaper and has more surface area. But im sure people would like to know

Hi Rocket Soul I received some updates from Teknik today and have attached the latest goniometer reports for the strips for you to look at. The Lux to Lumen conversion is about x0.021 but it changes slightly depending on the current which affects the colour temperature a small amount.

I got the machined T-slot back last week so I am going to do some temperature readings on the mounted strips at 50W and let you know shortly. It is a warm day today and the ambient temperature is about 35C.