200w chinese cob lights, Can I upgrade these? Also need some build advice

So Ive always used hps and the sun and had great results, but the heat and power issues of hps got me interested in LED. My cousin who I no longer talk to convinced me to try these 200w Cob grow lights from aliexpress. It didnt take long before i figured out the chip quality was crap, 2 of them had half the matrix burn out in just a few weeks. They sent me replacement Cobs, but Im not really impressed with the performance and they seem inefficient. I bought some mars leds to replace them and had decent results but wasnt impressed with the efficiency as far as gpw. I sold the mars and Im stuck with 4 of these things because no one will buy them lol. There r pics below.... There are two led drivers on each side for the 200w Cob and then a small power supply for the fan....Can I upgrade these and make them useful?


My second question is that I have three 30"x30"x48" tents and one 4'x4'x6' grow tents and I am looking to build some DIY Cob lights for each tent. My 4x4x6 tent will be used primarily for flowering and the 30x30x48 tents will be used for both veg and flower. One will be didicated for veg, One will be used for flower, and the other may be for flowinging/mother keeping/ raising clones depending on my growing goals at the time. I realize this will be expensive to do all 4 lights at once so Id like to start with a veg light for 30"x30" secondly the flowering light for the 4x4 tent. Please keep in mind I have those 4 lights I could possibly use for this too and I figured maybe I can spend a few bucks to improve them and save money and time building. Im looking for max efficiency and production, while keeping the bud quality high.


I saw growmau5 built some nice lights and got a pound from 285w in a 4x4 area.....Im looking for similar results. I am on a budget but I dont want to sacrifice quality and efficiency. I was thinking once I have a game plan Ill buy what ever Cobs I can in bulk first to save, then heatsinks, drivers as I can afford them.


Also I have to give full disclosure that I really am super new this, I have very little understanding of the ways of powering the Led and various drivers, currents, I do understand you can run Cobs at lower watts to get better efficiency. I also dont understand much of this talk about CRI and BIN. My experience with LED is limited to 50/50 smd led strips, I do know how to soldier as well. Im sure someone has already posted a full tutorial on understanding COB terms and specs as well as powering them, but I havent been able to find a simple explanation. Also is there a way to figure out efficiency without testing the cob under different currents?

you can upgrade with a new heatsink, cob, and driver. I almost upgraded a bunch of similar lights that died,
but realized its not worth the effort, since all your really gaining from the upgrade is the case and a reflector. Biggest issue I had was to find a heatsink that fits the case. both width and thickness of the heatsink had to match perfectly.

Instead I got a 40" long heatsink for 5 vero18s. The drivers from the Chinese lights seem to be reliable enough to reuse for low load situations, veg lights or some monos.

Thanks for the input, Ill probably toss those when they die out. Since I wont be using those any suggestions for lighting those areas as best as possible?

Not sure what the efficiency of the driver is, but it seems like a CXB3590 72v cob might run run pretty efficiently on that driver at 520ma. Not sure if the 3590 would fit on the existing heatsink, but if he removed the old cob and sanded the crud off it, it might work (assuming it fits).

I have tried upgrading similar Chinese light
Take the COB out and and there will be a surprise behind it. A round chinese fu##### hole in heatsink just below COB.

The enclosure is too small for a meanwell driver
Try a diy .lots of ideas. Find this thread
Pictures of your DIY lights - Post your pics!!!
https://www.rollitup.org/t/pictures-of-your-diy-lights-post-your-pics.871625/

For efficiency. Go to my favorite thread.
https://www.rollitup.org/t/cob-efficiency-spreadsheets.865238/

Study the sticky threads for a few days. Read how to power them thread. People here will help you as long as you do some research and self study. Good luck

Thanks for the heads up, I will save myself the trouble with these chinese cobs, I think I will salvage the power cords switches and maybe the fans though.

I can honestly say I don't completely understand those efficiency charts :/ Is there any hope for me lol

If anyone who really knows this inside and out can point me to what I need to read exactly to understand all of this, I would be extremely grateful.

Also I need to build my first light to cover the 4x4x6 ft tent, if anyone knows there stuff wants to tell me what to get and how to run it, that would be awesome as well. Id like to pull off the most efficient light, I would love to hit the 2 gram per watt mark if possible, I want to produce a pound or more from this tent, balanced spectrum, I want the best quality parts and bud. Im willing to spend around $600 give or take. I prefer to keep it clean and simple and cost effective but I dont want to sacrifice quality and functionality.

Here are some pics of my first led grow, I had decent results with the Mars 2 900w for the 4x4 and the 700w for the 30"x30". The tent all the way to the left was the veg tent with the chinese cobs. I got around 1.5lbs or so from two mars lights, It may have been a bit more im not 100% sure. I want to get the same or better quality while increasing the yields and decreasing watts. I probably could have gotten more but it was a new strain and new lights, I could have grown them bigger but I had time constraints. The strains were hippie killer and time wreck incase anyone wanted to know.