Rider's first foray into LED strip lighting: Samsung H Series GEN3

[gotrice007]

Hello

Does anyone have any Thermal Heat Tape to recommend. i don't wanna fry my Led Strip lol. Please attach the link.

Thanks

Rice

 

[Rider509]

Hello

Does anyone have any Thermal Heat Tape to recommend. i don't wanna fry my Led Strip lol. Please attach the link.

Thanks

Rice

Good morning, Rice! Amazon is going to be the best bet for tape. It's all pretty much the same in terms of thermal conductivity, and after running my lights for a month now I can imagine that you could dang near hang them in air with no heatsink and they'd be fine.

You're going to love your lights!
Thermal conductive heat tape: Electronics

 

[gotrice007]

Good morning, Rice! Amazon is going to be the best bet for tape. It's all pretty much the same in terms of thermal conductivity, and after running my lights for a month now I can imagine that you could dang near hang them in air with no heatsink and they'd be fine.

You're going to love your lights!
Thermal conductive heat tape: Electronics

Good morning Rider,

Thanks for the link. I went ahead and order the 20mm x 25m. I'm excited and waiting for all my parts to come in.

2 x HLG 600 48B
10 x Double led strip 3000k

Not sure if this will work out, but my goal is to run them softer. I figure since i run them softer then I would need more strips for the best coverage. Therefore, I was thinking running 5 strips per driver total of 10 strips for a 4x4 space.

Does this make any sense?

Thanks,

Rice

 

[gotrice007]

Ah i found it. Thanks bro

Rider509 - Two Thais & G13
Post #171

"The final iteration for the F Series strips. I stepped up to 3/8” all-thread and used 3/8” ID aluminum tube as spacers. It looks better and is a lot more stable. Now to convert the other one. Oh joy."

Rice

 

[Rider509]

Good morning Rider,

2 x HLG 600 48B
10 x Double led strip 3000k

Not sure if this will work out, but my goal is to run them softer. I figure since i run them softer then I would need more strips for the best coverage. Therefore, I was thinking running 5 strips per driver total of 10 strips for a 4x4 space.

Does this make any sense?

Thanks,

Rice

Rice, that's going to be an awesome system and makes perfect sense. I hope you're as stoked with yours as I am with mine. Run 'em low and slow, or lift them up and turn 'em up. You'll be capable of over 1200W in a 4x4!
"Divert all power to the phasor banks, Scotty!"

I've given some thought to combining my lights into a different configuration that would allow me to run them with a light mover just to reduce the amount of "stuff" in my 4x8, and so I don't keep banging my big head into the lights.

 

[gotrice007]

Wow, DIY Led on a light mover very interesting. More room for the ladies to stretch sideway How will you be doing that, DIY light mover or you going to get it from LightRail?

 

[Rider509]

I've been looking at LightRail but I'm going back and forth on the idea. It's a chunk of change to drop just to see if it works. At least with the lights the investment wouldn't have been wasted because I could use the lights elsewhere. Not many applications for a light mover! LOL.

 

[Derbybud]

I've been looking at LightRail but I'm going back and forth on the idea. It's a chunk of change to drop just to see if it works. At least with the lights the investment wouldn't have been wasted because I could use the lights elsewhere. Not many applications for a light mover! LOL.

I think you would be better spending that money on more strips. Just light it up. These diodes emit light everywhere because there are so many of them. Never a shadow. Just my 2 cents

 

[gotrice007]

I think you would be better spending that money on more strips. Just light it up. These diodes emit light everywhere because there are so many of them. Never a shadow. Just my 2 cents

Yeah, I've always been about adding more lights for better spacing of plants. I'm with Db on this, if you're gonna spend the money for a light rail then adding more lights will be more direct benefits. A light rail is sexy just like a beautiful model but doesn't take care of you and your kids like a good wife would .

Rice

 

[LEDXpert]

Yeah, I've always been about adding more lights for better spacing of plants. I'm with Db on this, if you're gonna spend the money for a light rail then adding more lights will be more direct benefits. A light rail is sexy just like a beautiful model but doesn't take care of you and your kids like a good wife would .

Rice

About me: Hey found this thread by accident. I'm what you might call an expert in LED lighting and signed up to chime in. Expert plus in samsung products.

To answer the last thread: More strips/more point sources will help increase penetration by reducing shadow. I've read through all the pages of this thread and have a million comments but will spare all of you. I'll chime in if there's a technical question that needs answering.

 

[Derbybud]

About me: Hey found this thread by accident. I'm what you might call an expert in LED lighting and signed up to chime in. Expert plus in samsung products.

To answer the last thread: More strips/more point sources will help increase penetration by reducing shadow. I've read through all the pages of this thread and have a million comments but will spare all of you. I'll chime in if there's a technical question that needs answering.

Hey welcome LEDX. Why don't you comment on something that is really off and we'll get the conversation going .

 

[Rider509]

Absolutely! Let's hear it. It'll be a good way to revive a dead thread and see things from another perspective.

 

[LEDXpert]

Well first I have a couple questions.

How have the results gone? What CCT did you chose and why? What was the final voltage and current out of the supply? (LED watts not system watts)

I think my responses would be better responding to something new than revisiting all the things of the past but here are some highlights.

+Samsung doesn't keep this very current but they have a helpful calculator to see the trade-off in drive currents.
I would use the 560mm F series and multiply it out to be the higher boards since the calculator doesn't have the new stuff.
It also allows you to input ambient temp and Tc measurement. It will be a solderable dot typically in the center of the module. Take a thermocouple probe for you volt meter and solder it on there and measure once you've been up and running for about an hour. It will spit everything out you need to know.

Samsung LED │LED Components & Engines, Smart Lighting Solutions

+ Saw the link to the thermal tape. I could do a whole rant on that another time about bonding.

+ Samsung typically designs their modules to be able to run at their typ rated current without secondary heatsinks. This is why the F series is metal core and the higher output version is a wider mcpcb. I would always heatsink however and then do a Tc point measurement to see how you did.

+ I would always use a mcpcb (metal core printed circuit board) when you can. Drives me nuts seeing these grow lights with FR4 boards (typical fiberglass circuit board). If you're making a "high performance" product spend the couple dollars to use metal. Performance is way better.

+ Metal circuit boards pull heat out of the die of the LED better. You want to keep the die temperature down because as the die temp goes up the efficiency goes down. Meaning the better you heatsink the better your light output is. Also longevity of the LED improves as well as color shift. Yes LEDs shift color as they age. Increased die temp also lowers the forward voltage of the LED which can lead to something called thermal runaway in constant voltage systems. I'd stick to constant current for these type designs.

+ For your heatsinks try to find something that is anodized. Since these aren't water cooled and are quasi air cooled most of your cooling will come from emissivity of the heatsink. Compare commercial sheet (mil finish) vs anodized: Emissivity Coefficients of some common Materials

+ Heat sink is more about surface area then about volume but volume helps move it similar to a pipe. Its a balance.

+ I agree with not trying to maximize the lifetime of the product since efficiency and/or technology will improve very quickly here. If you run 18hrs/day then 50000hrs is 7.5 years.

+ Don't pay any attention to the MTBF on the power supplies. Though helpful I'd just look at the warranty. Warranty is usually based on full load and highest ambient temp. MTBF is usually at 25C and a other situations. Warranty will tell you manufacturers confidence in the product.

+ HLG products are good in the fact they have high warranty. The other hidden benefit is their high efficiency. They are >90% efficient usually.

+ If you lose a string the other strings will pick up the current so don't max out. Also replacing the LED once you heatsink will be very difficult although I have some techniques.

+ I'd stick to only UL class 2 power supplies. I know no one wants to hear this. This would be HLG 100 watts or less. Class 2 means it is power limited if + and - of the output short as well as energy limited for fire. This of course is not fool prood and do your DIY at your own peril but this will help safety. For making a UL listed light you could only have an exposed circuit board like that if it were class 2.

Tried to keep it short Anyways interested in your results.

 

[Rider509]

Tried to keep it short Anyways interested in your results.

That was short? LOL.
All good info! Not sure about your dislike for the thermal heat tape as most are rated in the 5 to 7 N/cm range. I think where people go wrong is in not allowing the 48-72 hours that the manufacturers recommend to allow the tape to set before firing the system up. I used Al u-channel and sanded the mating surface to ensure flatness and good adhesion. And if a strip were to die I'd more likely replace the heatsink, although a heat gun and a guitar string would likely make removal pretty easy.

I'm using 3500K FB24Bs, four each on an HLG-600H-48A, and am pretty happy with the results. During testing you likely saw that I hit over 650W at the lights. Wouldn't suggest running them that hard!

Here's one month of growth, supplemented with CXB3590 side lighting, also at 3500K. I just fired new 730nm reds for the first time last night after lights out.

November 15

December 13

Not bad, right?

 

[Rider509]

LEDXpert, do I know you from RIU?
All solid info on your follow up post. Where the hell were you when I was learning all this stuff the hard way? LOL
Glad to have you on board.

 

[LEDXpert]

Nope whats RIU? Love the Bubbles icon.

I design high performance LED lighting for non-horticulture applications. This industry has caught my eye and just learning at the moment. Was doing research this thread popped up in a google search and thought I could chime in to be mutually beneficial.

Lights appear to work well based on those pictures!

I use thermal tape. Just a lot of non-sense with w/mk and specsmanship. Surface prep is very important. The period you're talking about is what they call the "wetting period". The tape literally expands in to pores like a sponge. I uses 99% alcohol for surface prep but there adhesion promoter wipes you can get too.

Why'd you chose 3500K. Everything I've read is you want cooler (more blue) for veg to keep inter-nodal spacings tighter and warmer for flowering (more red). Typically I see 4000K for flower and about 5000K for veg, you chose 3500K, and a prominent manufacturer just came out with a veg product that uses 3500K.

How many watts of 730nm do you use and for how long. Anything past 700nm goes to infrared and fixtures/leds will emit some of this naturally anyways. What importance do you see. I've seen more information on using 660nm which is deep red tuned to chlorophyll production and a wavelength deeper than the peak of the warm white signature.

 

[Rider509]

The use of 3500K is a compromise gleaned from following some of the pioneers in LED growing. It's one of those topics that's sure to stimulate a spirited discussion. The reality is that total PPFD plays a bigger role in reducing internodal spacing than spectrum alone.

It doesn't take much 730 to impact the far red phytochrome response that puts the plants to "sleep." It's been speculated that the bulb cooling off in an HPS system was inadvertently achieving the same effect. I'm only using 4W per side for about 6 minutes after lights out. The deep red/far red thing is about the Emerson effect and stimulating the Pr Pfr cycle. My goal with the 730nm red is to shorten the dark time requirement to allow me to run the lights 13/11 or 14/10 through the middle few weeks of flowering. It's all about pushing my own envelop for the fun of it.

 

[Rider509]

I also am playing with the Samsung H Series Gen3 strips in 5000K strictly for veg. They seem to be performing as expected.

 

[TheMadDabber]

So is it proven the Emerson effect works best when the far red is on alone? I try to turn off all but the red lights for the last 20 or 30 mins of each I day. Guess I'm curious if I'm wasting my time...

 

[Mayne]

that was short? Lol.
All good info! Not sure about your dislike for the thermal heat tape as most are rated in the 5 to 7 n/cm range. I think where people go wrong is in not allowing the 48-72 hours that the manufacturers recommend to allow the tape to set before firing the system up. I used al u-channel and sanded the mating surface to ensure flatness and good adhesion. And if a strip were to die i’d more likely replace the heatsink, although a heat gun and a guitar string would likely make removal pretty easy.

I’m using 3500k fb24bs, four each on an hlg-600h-48a, and am pretty happy with the results. During testing you likely saw that i hit over 650w at the lights. Wouldn’t suggest running them that hard!

Here’s one month of growth, supplemented with cxb3590 side lighting, also at 3500k. I just fired new 730nm reds for the first time last night after lights out.

November 15

december 13

not bad, right?

ho lee fook