Build Your Own LED Grow Light

[Mayne]

I respect you Pennywise, ur a great grower, seen your work. But the higher your light, you might be covering more area, but reduction in PAR overall. Now, with QBs, you lower them, gives more reflection off leafs and branches, to GIVE PENETRATION DEEPER, because they greens are zinging right thru the leafs. But then, You even have the "sideLighting Effect" because the diodes are closer, and the angle of light has more of a sidethrow, then a straight down throw, if that makes sense.

Just my opinon, Im a COB fan myself, but used a "Board" before.

 

[PurpleGunRack]

I was confused by your talk about the voltage yesterday because one of the early things I learnt is that voltage requirement drops when you run a board at lower current. This I learned from LED Gardener - he runs a demo in one of his vids with a multi meter and a constant current that shows how voltage drops when lower current goes to the board.

Exactly why my first guesstimate was lower than the actual wattage you supplied.

You ARE putting 50V into each board @ 0,7A, or else there's something wrong with the watt meter, or the driver is putting out more current than stated in its specs.

If you pull 186w from the wall, the boards get: 186w AC * 0,94% driver efficiency = 174,84w DC

175w DC / 5 boards = 35w DC per board

35w DC / 0,7A = 50V per board

Now we've established that you can put a max of 50V and 0,7A (or 35w DC) into each board with the driver you have.

Or if we assume the boards run at 48V the driver MUST put out 0,729 A, this is certainly plausible, but I would definitely put more eggs in Meanwell's spec basket than in that of an unknown board with changing max ratings.

Apparently I could run them as crazily high as 1600ma with really good heatsinks

Max rating has NOTHING to do with heatsink, this is very important to understand.
Again, the producer is obviously not giving you the actual electrical max rating, but giving you a guideline on how to run them.

The max current is fixed, it never changes, and going above it will fry the unit regardless of heatsink/cooling.


The maths just don't add up, so there's a false part somewhere in the eqaution that much is sure, it could be me, I might have calculated it wrong and missed my mistake on the second and third check, but I trust my calculations when they're checked thrice almost as much as I trust Meanwell's HLG drivers.
Now we're down to the board or the watt meter and so far there hasn't been conflicting specs out on the watt meter, so using logical abduction the board is most likely the false part in the eqaution

Look at HLG's QB120 they have 120 diodes and can supposedly be run above 65w DC without heatsink.
Max rating: 24,4V and 2,8A.

 

[Blacksmith]

Hey PGR, love the thread, lots of great information. I recently finished my first DIY light. I thought I'd post some pics here to show it off. It is a 24 strip build, powered by 3 ERP Bluetooth drivers. The strips are made by Cutter, 112 Cree j series chips per strip, currently running at about 650 ma. The light is 1150 x 900. I had to turn it down to 80 Watts to take pictures, but I'm running at 500 at the moment.

IMG_20180908_140332.jpg

• Blacksmith
• Sep 7, 2018

Light

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• Blacksmith
• Sep 7, 2018

Light

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• Blacksmith
• Sep 7, 2018

The girls

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• Blacksmith
• Aug 19, 2018

Light array,

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• Blacksmith
• Aug 7, 2018

Grow light frame

 

[Big Sparks]

Very impressive looking light!

 

[Blacksmith]

Thanks Big Sparks.

 

[GrizzWald]

Man you know your shit... could have told me few years ago, and saved me some $$ So how much money you want and when are you going to build me a light?

 

[Blacksmith]

We'll talk.

 

[GrizzWald]

I could drop off all my panels to you for parts and some frankenstien assembly...

 

[PurpleGunRack]

Very nice clean build @Blacksmith

I have to look the components up Are the drivers remote controlled?

 

[Blacksmith]

Hey PGR. Thanks, took ages to get it that neat. Yes, those drivers are Bluetooth enabled, I use an app called Avi-On to control the drivers as a group. It's quite usable. I'd like to drive the strips harder, but as they are now, the coverage is awesome, even with my hand above an area there is no shading, hopefully the penetration is good too.

 

[Amy Gardner]

with my hand above an area there is no shading, hopefully the penetration is good too.

Gray just posted some nice pics of his light penetration- showing some awesome bud action way down low. you’ll get great buds everywhere with that set up!

 

[dajerm119]

I agree Amy, if he can put his hand out and not cast a shadow... he in great shape!
@Blacksmith you're gonna grow some really great plants with that light, no question!

 

[Blacksmith]

Fingers crossed.

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Hey PGR. Thanks, took ages to get it that neat. Yes, those drivers are Bluetooth enabled, I use an app called Avi-On to control the drivers as a group. It's quite usable. I'd like to drive the strips harder, but as they are now, the coverage is awesome, even with my hand above an area there is no shading, hopefully the penetration is good too.

Those drivers are INCREDIBLE

I do have a question

On the CDB260W-1700-210-W driver
260w is max watts
1700 is ma
What is the 210 and the W, I also see that as 400 or R

The ability to set the timer internally, output, and max watts and Ma is fantastic, and the $$$ appears similar to Mean well drivers

I'm on my phone so will hit the laptop and do more research

Love yer lights, very nice and clean

I need to find some new connections for my drivers to QB lights, try and clean things up a bit fir my next grow in January

 

[Blacksmith]

Hey Chris. I have no idea what the 210 means, I know that the driver is basically dual scale, meaning that you can run it at a max output of 1700 ma for 150 volts, or 1200 ma for 200 volts. I'm running at 192 volts, which is 4 strips in series and then two parallel groups of four. The girls seem to like it so far, and I've got it about 2 feet away from them. That 210 could be max volts?

 

[TheFertilizer]

Hey guys there's a lot to read in this thread and I'm wondering if I could possibly have a simple question answered...

If I wanted to DIY something to draw at max 400 watts, and light up a 4x4 space, how much money should I be trying to save up?

I kind of want to see if it's even within the realm of possibility for me before I start doing all the rest of the homework. If it can't be done under $300, there's no point for me to learn about it because I'd never be able to afford it.

 

[Old Salt]

You'll probably need double that or more...
This was my foray into DIY lights:
Build Your Own LED Grow Light

You can skip everything after Parts Ordered. Don't get the TC421 WiFi LED controller/timer, as it's a POS.

 

[Blacksmith]

Hey Fert, I don't see any reason why you couldn't do a simpler version of my light, mine is a maximum of 720 Watts, and cost me about 700 aud, you could use the bridgelux strips which are half the price of the ones I used and maybe the ZTE drivers, it's not unreasonable that you could do something pretty good for around 350 usd. Have a look at what Led gardener and others have done.

 

[Piña Delores]

Hey all

Long time lurker, here. Great info as always on this site, been researching building a new growlight from ground up for this winters grow. Had a years break, new home, new grow space why not .

Anyway as we all know heatsinks tend to be on the hard to get/expensive side in Europe, but whilst searching I found these......

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0039P998M/?tag=420magazine0f-20

Just under 6 quid each , bargain. I've got mine . Good for Vero 18's at least, not sure about other COB's. I'm sure others can fill in the gaps.

Hope someone else can use them, really good at that price.

Right back to lurking

 

[blazinlow]

So bear with me as I have no experience with LEDs. I have a small 2x2veg tent for cloning/veg that I bought some cob lights for. I got luminus cxm22 gen 3s and a hlg-240h-c1400b driver. I was originally planning 3 lights on this driver but ended up buying a 4th led/ heatsink etc as it was free shipping over 220$ so basically the 4th light was free. I'm confused now what the best route is. I don't think I can run the 4 lights on the driver I purchased but unsure? Any advice? Should I just keep the 4th as a spare? More I'm researching this the more confused I am and thinking I should have chosen different cobs altogether possibly. Thanks