HCl is less than ideal because of the chloride
H3P04 (phosphoric) or HN03(nitric) or C6H8O7 (citric) are more ideal for your purposes and are commonly available
no update. post was from well over a year ago. cant even remember what i did with that.
like 90% of stuff people say you "need" for hydro, you really dont. less is more.
depends. some cheap cobs may never get to the same efficiency level of good cobs. in either case your post explains why these arent the bargain they are cracked up to be when you are buying and mounting 5-10x as many components *in hopes* they will perform as well
the amount of heat dissipating out thru the terminals into the conductors is so nominal its likely not even measurable. all the little "advantages" you are attempting to leverage still wont put you close to the efficiency of good cobs and drivers
got pricing today. more expensive than the gen 6s
i need to do a test to see if they are worth the higher price they are asking. its possible they have little to no advantage in our typical low-current application
you can hinder the efficiency of good cobs with poor design, but it is literally impossible to add efficiency to cobs that dont have it in the first place. no amount of bells and whistles you add on will get over their fundamental limitations
sounds like you could do a lot of experimentation like cap one end and blow air in, cap one end and suck air thru with fan
probably wont make a ton of difference as conductive as aluminum is its all one big heatsink any airflow is good airflow!