Pictures of your DIY lights - Post your pics!!!

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
I'm not 100% on this but it sounds like you will be o.k. passively cooling 3 cobs with a 66' heatsink. I have a question of my own. Anyone who orders from Kingbright get confirmation or shipping/shipped notice from them? I've been waiting patiently for a little while but everywhere else that I have made online purchases have sent me at least an order confirmation.
Hey MrEus1
Sometimes yes and sometimes no! At last I also got no confirmation, but I'm sure they will arrive soon. I have ordered my cxb's with china airmail, but he upgraded to dhl shipping for free for some reason. Shipping on Monday arrived on Wednesday. 8.500miles!!
 

CDiablo

Active Member
@CDiablo great DIY:bigjoint: congrats RIU graduate.
Is following correct.
66"x6"x1" passive heatsink For 3 cobs
How is the heat distribution on heatsink. Is it not too hot touch? Warm in middle and hot near COB?
Cxb3070 with ledil reflector
HLG-120H-C1400B
@robincnn : You are correct about my setup. The heatsink is about 79 degrees where each COB is and 74 in the very middle between the COB's. I honestly don't know how good that is, but I have no issue holding the heatsink at any time.

@MrEus1 : When I ordered from Kingbright they emailed me after I sent money. They didn't get me a tracking number for a week and when I inquired it was because one of the parts I ordered was on back order. They send a tracking number when your items are sent.

@PurpleBuz : What do you mean by snapback.......now you have me worried haha.
 

robincnn

Well-Known Member
@robincnn : You are correct about my setup. The heatsink is about 79 degrees where each COB is and 74 in the very middle between the COB's. I honestly don't know how good that is, but I have no issue holding the heatsink at any time.
74F in between is very low. What is ambient temperature?
79F near COB. It is as good as active cooling numbers.

To check temprature did you use a IR temperature gun with default 0.95 emissivity without black tape on heatsink.
Or thermocouple.
 

CDiablo

Active Member
74F in between is very low. What is ambient temperature?
79F near COB. It is as good as active cooling numbers.

To check temprature did you use a IR temperature gun with default 0.95 emissivity without black tape on heatsink.
Or thermocouple.
@robincnn : Ambient temp is right around 80 degrees at the moment. I am using a temperature gun with .95(fixed) emisivity(I dont know what this means but the product description says). The only tape(white) on the heatsink is to keep the wires from hanging but it is not black nor did i scan the areas with tape on them. I scanned the heatsink from both above and from the side and took the highest temperatures(which was the base plate of the heatsink, not the fins) for my examples. I did not do anything fancy to the COB's just used Arctic Silver paste between them and the heatsink.

edit: I also have a fan in the room for the plants but this is not directly pointed at the heatsinks.
 

PurpleBuz

Well-Known Member
@robincnn : Ambient temp is right around 80 degrees at the moment. I am using a temperature gun with .95(fixed) emisivity(I dont know what this means but the product description says). The only tape(white) on the heatsink is to keep the wires from hanging but it is not black nor did i scan the areas with tape on them. I scanned the heatsink from both above and from the side and took the highest temperatures(which was the base plate of the heatsink, not the fins) for my examples. I did not do anything fancy to the COB's just used Arctic Silver paste between them and the heatsink.

edit: I also have a fan in the room for the plants but this is not directly pointed at the heatsinks.

problem is the silvery aluminum heatsinks confuse temp guns because of color\reflection. My heat gun has an optional probe, and I usually see several degrees difference (probe being higher). some people black out the measuring spot with tape or whatever to get a more accurate reading.

nonetheless sounds like your running nice and cool.
 

robincnn

Well-Known Member
@CDiablo your heat emissions test is not correct. The heatsink(74F-79F) cannot be cooler than the Ambient 80F.
This is a common mistake with IR temperature Gun. I think since you can touch the heatsink and feel its cool, so it should be fine. Nothing to worrk about. Great DIY :clap:.
But incase you would like to know real temperature of heatsink then put a black tape on heatsink on the other side of COB. If you can find black tape then use a black sharpie highlighter to color it black. Then point IR gun close range to get accurate reading. Note Laser and sensor are 15mm-25mm apart so make sure sensor points to black area and just laser.

Like Purplebuz suggested, the non anodized aluminum has much less emissivity and also reflection screw up the IR gun. Emissivity can be adjusted on IR gun but i have seen more accurate results with black tape .
 

Rahz

Well-Known Member
Depends on what temps you will tolerate. Vero 29 at .7 amps runs low 40s. Vero 18 at 1.05 amps runs low 60's.
 

kliend

Active Member
Following a conversation from a few pages back,

How long are CXB3950's expected to last? Specifically I'll be running the 36v CD bin 3500k at 50w and 1.4a. With the meanwell driver. Should I expect a 2 year life span? 5 yr? 8 yr? I'm optimistic but I don't want to be unrealistic.
 

cdgmoney250

Well-Known Member
Following a conversation from a few pages back,

How long are CXB3950's expected to last? Specifically I'll be running the 36v CD bin 3500k at 50w and 1.4a. With the meanwell driver. Should I expect a 2 year life span? 5 yr? 8 yr? I'm optimistic but I don't want to be unrealistic.
That will depend entirely on how the LED's are cooled. Passive or Active? Size/ Type of Heat Sink? If the Tj is kept low enough, I would imagine these lights lasting many years with 90%> initial output.
 

Quintessence

Active Member
DELL Heatsink Shroud Assembly 0J7109 0G9096 0H9073 0P211D 0Y4574 H7058 is what the ad said.

I found 20 of them on Craigslist for 50 bucks. They have 20 watts of LED on each and only get slightly warm. Thats in a 77° room with no air movement.
I just ordered 4 of these suckers for the 4 3590's I have on order. Looking forward to seeing how they hold up.
 

disengaged

Member
OK, spent more time and money than I thought of course. The copper was scrap so purchased by weight. I picked up an additional 25 heatsinks plus 2 150mm fans and some other parts for $20 cash.
This is a 17" x 11" x 1/16" (about 1.6mm thick) piece of scrap copper. It was very shiny until I tried cleaning it with 1500 grit emery cloth which scratched the surface up pretty bad. Aluminum hollow tubes are riveted to the copper and have the wires routed through them. All pictures so far are from the top of the fixture.


Above is pre-wired for 4x Vero 29's 4,000K on corners of copper, they will be driven by an HLG-185H-C1050b. There will be some unused capacity available, but at 1050mA there isn't much I can do with it other than buy another Vero 29 but don't think I need it at this point. and haven't decided on what to do for a fuse. In the center an unnamed blurple cob on a separate driver, it's a 30W model that's running around 22W, meh, so what, I wasted a little money. There is wiring for blue 20mm star LED's which I don't have yet, and which I don't have a driver for. Maybe 12W Luxeon M, or a pair and some near violet. I started with normal 18 gauge wire but realized fishing it would become difficult so moved to the teflon coated wire which pulls easier, it's just more difficult to strip the ends off.



The heatsinks on the corners have flat bottoms while most have
The blue LED's can go under the 4 heatsinks which are not on the corners.
The corner heatsinks will get thermal grease applied to them at the same time I attach the COB's to the bottom. I have a small amount of arctic silver but maybe not enough for everything. The heatsinks at top center and bottom may be attached with thermal epoxy as well as any other heatsinks I need to attach.
Don't use "hardware store" chinese taps. Go to a machine shop and ask where they buy theirs. For aluminum cutting fluid I use Tap Magic specifically for Aluminum. Drilling and tapping that many holes gets boring. Now that I have over 100 holes on the tap I used it may be time to retire it.
No, I haven't attached the COB's. I want to get a flux pen first, I have a nice 60W soldering iron and good tips, it just takes too long based on the one COB I did attach.
I have a 150mm fan that I will either try to run at 5V or put it on a PWM so there is less noise. No idea if it is necessary. Each of the heatsinks weights about 1 pound (550g?). There is easily room for 6 more heatsinks but that might just be a waste.
This is for a cabinet with 2'x3' interior, height between bottom of fixture and the top of the growing media is 38".
If I add red's or far red they will be on their own light bars, not worried about that right now.
Any tips for finishing this build appreciated.
-90 degree lenses and / or diffusers,
-fuse location and size

-Thanks!
 

BigDoobie

Member
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