Blurple Cobs?? Anyone?

Airwalker16 said:

Could you post some pics of the Thomas Strips? I saw those months ago on DigiKey. Wanted to see real life pics of them. Lit up preferably too if you can?

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These have been in a box since i tested them. Never got around to using them for anything.
Plugged em in for the pic and one strip had the string of reds out. Guessing it got bounced around in the move.
Anyways, here they are.

Middle pic is to give an idea of the size of the diodes.... Very small

Boatguy said:

These have been in a box since i tested them. Never got around to using them for anything.
Plugged em in for the pic and one strip had the string of reds out. Guessing it got bounced around in the move.
Anyways, here they are.
View attachment 4448341View attachment 4448343View attachment 4448344
Middle pic is to give an idea of the size of the diodes.... Very small

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Ya those are so interesting... The boards got a cool form factor. Thanks a ton for taking those. The entire thing including the diodes is much much smaller, tinier actually then I thought they would be.

Airwalker16 said:

Ya those are so interesting... The boards got a cool form factor. Thanks a ton for taking those. The entire thing including the diodes is much much smaller, tinier actually then I thought they would be.

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I think they are 12 x 3/4" ...
Still not pleased about the string of reds being out.
I did wind up adding a luminous rose cob to my fixture, no idea if it made any difference. Got it on its own driver and usually crank it up at the last half of flower. Fun to play with the spectrum.

Probably one of the least efficient diy builds out here. Its all mine though

Boatguy said:

I think they are 12 x 3/4" ...
Still not pleased about the string of reds being out.
I did wind up adding a luminous rose cob to my fixture, no idea if it made any difference. Got it on its own driver and usually crank it up at the last half of flower. Fun to play with the spectrum.

Probably one of the least efficient diy builds out here. Its all mine though
View attachment 4448382

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If you're using MeanWells and COBs from Cree, Bridgelux or Citizen , you're probably more efficient than 90% of growers out there.

Airwalker16 said:

If you're using MeanWells and COBs from Cree, Bridgelux or Citizen , you're probably more efficient than 90% of growers out there.

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Maybe. I went actively cooled because i dont like the idea of buying twice as much and running at lower amps.
The cree cmt's and cma's are around 45% more efficient than earlier cobs at higher drive currents if you can keep em cool.

Boatguy said:

Maybe. I went actively cooled because i dont like the idea of buying twice as much and running at lower amps.
The cree cmt's and cma's are around 45% more efficient than earlier cobs at higher drive currents if you can keep em cool.

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Keeping any LED at a cooler temp will increase Lumens per watt. So it ain't too bad actively cooling. The only thing you wanna steer away from is RELYING on active cooling to run your light. That's why I passively cool and just blow fans over my fixtures. I don't wanna have a fan shit the bed and have a COB burn itself out.
One of the advantages to boards and strips I guess. Fans are completely unnecessary. They can help with efficiency, but are not necessary.

Airwalker16 said:

RELYING on active cooling to run your light. That's why I passively cool and just blow fans over my fixtures. I don't wanna have a fan shit the bed and have a COB burn itself out.

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That said, a cpu or gpu cooler is protecting something much more expensive than a cob. And failure really isnt that common.
Build dependent, loss of a single cob wont bring down the whole rig.