"High Lights" - high powered, CRI95 flowering boards made in Australia

welight

Well-Known Member
you would have to be slightly retarded to think about doing a diy led seriously
The average hydro store guy cant move in is store for the amount of HPS TUBES they hold. My experience is they know nothing about current or past led tech other wise they would have stopped pushing the Mars barrow some time back, do a little research before you return
Cheers mate
 

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
Well said. There are "hydroshop guys" and there are hydroshop guys. Most are there to sell you stuff - and they don't really care how they do it. A very few actually know what they're talking about. But the Catch 22 is, they still need to stock what the customer demands, so it really comes down to demand and education.

I had an interesting talk to a hydroshop guy (my emphasis) the other day who said how his customers didn't want to know about CMH lights when they first came out - all they wanted were tried and tested HPS lights - but now they can't get enough of them (CMH) because they have slowly seen the results and been educated. He believes it is the same with LEDs. He's sold on them, but many of his customers aren't. And even those who are convinced aren't comfortable building their own lights, so have to rely on plug-and-play systems that are expensive and don't always live up to the hype.
 

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
Many Thanks @Prawn Connery

Boards arrived today and I love what I'm seeing :clap:...and feeling, they're solid
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Next to a 288 V2 Quantum Board for size reference
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8-)8-)8-)8-)
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My lights don't come on until later but the plan is to put 1 High Light per 4x4 in the middle of 4 Quantum Boards in the 4 x 8. Looking to drive each High Light 120 - 130w.
Nice one mate. So did they fit the HLG triple heatsinks OK?
 

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
Yes mate, no problem at all. I went with a single slate 3 heatsink for each board in the end, the triple was a slate 1 which was too flexible. Only running the boards at 122w each so...

Boards hung with the Quantums
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Nice complimentary set-up. 120W seems to be a sweet spot for the High Lights, as they hardly warm up. With a heatsink, you'll be able to rest your hand on it all day.

I'm working on a couple of designs for guys who are going to combine High Lights with CMH in their set-ups. One has an 8' x 4' and the other a 7' x 5'. We're going to hang 315W CMH lights in the middle of each quadrant (square) with High Lights in each corner and in-between. The idea is to use the CMH for the added UV (A and B) with the High Lights driving most of the power.
 

numberfour

Well-Known Member
Thanks, quantums are 3000k and are also driven around 115 - 120w per board. Had a little look in before lights out and the plants were happy and the boards were fine to touch.
 

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
Nice complimentary set-up. 120W seems to be a sweet spot for the High Lights, as they hardly warm up. With ha heatsink, you'll be able to rest your hand on it all day.

I'm working on a couple of designs for guys who are going to combine High Lights with CMH in their set-ups. One has an 8' x 4' and the other a 7' x 5'. We're going to hang 315W CMH lights in the middle of each quadrant (square) with High Lights in each corner and in-between. The idea is to use the CMH for the added UV (A and B) with the High Lights driving most of the power.
If you can get the spread right i think this would be a killer setup, maybe even the best combo possible. If you got the time and if these guys allow (every grow has its right to privacy) i would really appreciate a look-see for inspiration. We will be resetting in a new place after summer and doing a full revamp and id love to see so e inspiration. We have quite a few CMH with batwings kicking around.

With leds it seems like the game is becoming white + supplementation wirh targeted frequencies. CMH brings the advantage that it really covers everything, from UV to infra red, and in balanced proportions. I havent really seen definite proof that about what is better:
Adding targeted frequencies or making sure that there is no frequency missing.
Also, with a dimmable CMH ballast you should be able to tune your infra and atmospheric heat to your climate. We have very varying climate and if we could consolidate the setup to one instead of having a winter setup, summer setup, and that inbetween setup it would save so much work.

Edit: also have you thought about the possibility of doing some HIGH-Lights strips?
 

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
With the UV light not beeing able to power off seperately, do you use any eye protection?
No, it's only a small amount of UVA and near UV (mostly 410-415nm), so it's not harmful. It's there to provide a mild stressor for secondary metabolites, including terpenes (namely the beta carotene absorption peak below 450nm).
 

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
If you can get the spread right i think this would be a killer setup, maybe even the best combo possible. If you got the time and if these guys allow (every grow has its right to privacy) i would really appreciate a look-see for inspiration. We will be resetting in a new place after summer and doing a full revamp and id love to see so e inspiration. We have quite a few CMH with batwings kicking around.

With leds it seems like the game is becoming white + supplementation wirh targeted frequencies. CMH brings the advantage that it really covers everything, from UV to infra red, and in balanced proportions. I havent really seen definite proof that about what is better:
Adding targeted frequencies or making sure that there is no frequency missing.
Also, with a dimmable CMH ballast you should be able to tune your infra and atmospheric heat to your climate. We have very varying climate and if we could consolidate the setup to one instead of having a winter setup, summer setup, and that inbetween setup it would save so much work.

Edit: also have you thought about the possibility of doing some HIGH-Lights strips?
I'm not sure what reflectors they have, but in my mind a vertical bulb hanging under a chinaman hat or similar type reflector would provide the best alround coverage. We're not looking at creating PAR maps under the CMH, so my thinking is to hang the bulbs so that they spread their light as far and wide around the room as possible, and then supplement that with LED to get the required canopy coverage. They will likely want to use their own reflectors, so I may have to work in with that. The advantage of having a hand-held spectrometer is we can measure PAR, but also see how the spectrum changes as we get further away from the CMH lights.

Yes, strips have been suggested to me, but we only went into this venture to produce a few boards for ourselves and so that was never considered at the time. However, now that we've sold most of the boards and are still getting enquiries, maybe we should think about producing a few more. I dunno. That kinda means getting serious about things - LOL!

But even if we went down that track, I'm not that sure about strips. There are plenty of major manufacturer (Samsung, Bridgelux etc) strips out there, and Cutter does a huge range for good prices, too. He even offers the same LEDs we use in our own boards. The whole idea of producing boards was so we didn't have to fiddle around with strips, which can be a pain to mount and wire.

Plus, if we can get a nice, full spectrum on one board, then the only reason to add strips would be for initiators on separate drivers, or possibly a full UVA/B strip - though fluoro is cheaper. Hell, I'd probably even look at mercury lamps before LEDs.

That's not to say UV LEDs won't catch up, but they have a little way to go when it comes to cost and longevity from what I've seen.
 

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
Just finished three builds for a hydro shop customer. Each double heatsink has two panels wired in parallel driven by a HLG-320H-48A driver. I've adjusted them all down to just over 240W at the boards (270W at the wall)

These will be going into an 8x4 with two 315W CMH bulbs. The CMH will hang in the middle of each 4x4 quadrant, while the High Light panels will hang at either end, with one in the middle. The panels at either end will be angled in towards the middle of the grows slightly. The idea is to blend the LED and CMH spectra.

The outer two panels have UV boards, while the middle panel is a straight 2700K board. I figured the CMH will blend better in the middle than on the edges, as UV and shorter wave blue light tends to scatter more once it hits the walls, while the light in the middle will be direct light from each CMH bulb, so should have slightly more blue/UV in it. I guess the spectrometer will tell me if I'm right or not, and we can always swap panels.

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min444

Active Member
I saw an interessting documentation about the research of intelligence of plants. Like they have a sense of feeling on the molecular basis, which can start the defense system.

One other part and more related here is the production of the uv-receptor 8 to protect against the UV light. That are flavonoids on most plants and is a natural sunscreen.

When my lights arrive tomorrow (finally I hope), I wonder if it is a good idea to use them right away on my flowering week 7 plants as they are not used to uv light at all and have no protection against it.
 
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