Lighting 20k ohm potentiometer question

Damn, I'm going to have to get a new light. And. Get. A 100k, they are only a few bucks.
Back to the drawing board.
Thanks again

well you only need that 100k ohm poti if you got a driver that has an extra dimming channel with 10V DC. If you dont have a driver with extra dimming channel a poti is useless.
Drivers without extra dimming channel may have a screw inside where you can adjust a little bit.

If you really want to be sure try this config:

- dimmable driver + the right poti for it
- good passive/active heatsink
- for a standard PC case i would say 50W of light would be max. try to split this 50W in as much LED's as possible nd dont use COB's because they are just too powerfull ( for example: 5x10W's or 10x5W's or even 25x2W's ) The more LED's you have running at low current the smaller your heatsink can be. this can be driven to a point where almost no heatsink would be needed.
- a way of changing the air inside without blowing the smell inside your living room.

maybe you take a look in this thread from @Mr. Sparkle
https://www.autoflower.org/threads/2017-pc-micro-grows-with-mr-sparkle.57405/
 
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well you only need that 100k ohm poti if you got a driver that has an extra dimming channel with 10V DC. If you dont have a driver with extra dimming channel a poti is useless.
Drivers without extra dimming channel may have a screw inside where you can adjust a little bit.

If you really want to be sure try this config:

- dimmable driver + the right poti for it
- good passive/active heatsink
- for a standard PC case i would say 50W of light would be max. try to split this 50W in as much LED's as possible nd dont use COB's because they are just too powerfull ( for example: 5x10W's or 10x5W's or even 25x2W's ) The more LED's you have running at low current the smaller your heatsink can be. this can be driven to a point where almost no heatsink would be needed.
- a way of changing the air inside without blowing the smell inside your living room.

maybe you take a look in this thread from @Mr. Sparkle
https://www.autoflower.org/threads/2017-pc-micro-grows-with-mr-sparkle.57405/
Thanks I will consider your input. Although I am a stubborn sob, and kinda have my mind set.


I will have to check out that thread. I did go through the first few pages(mainly looking at pic, not reading) when I first registered here, but now I will have a more in depth look.
I will consider everybody's input. I would rep slap everyone but I don't think this site tracks rep points.Thanks again
 
To back up @L0wbob2017 dimming a cob with a potentiometer isn't the way to do it its not like incandescent bulbs and brings with it a whole bunch of other issues some of which were mentioned, but dimming is typically done one of two ways either current limiting or Pulse Width Modulated control which effectively flashes the led's.

But back to your driver combo unit i presume its one of those ebay generic cobs and tin can ballasts, if so a lot of those aren't actually 100w, might list as such but it all depends on what ballast is paired with them "current x volts = watts", and at 100w they don't last very long.

Second to that you will need adequate cooling especially in a pc case, where in my opinion 100w is way way to much and honestly you wont be able to cool it effectively unless you have external mounted heatsinks and no filtering and even still plants wont be able to get any where near close 4+ inches or they will crisp up.


So saying that if your actually wanting to build a stealth PC case i'll give you some suggestions from my own trial and errors.

First multiple sources of light is the way to go, when running only a couple light sources or less you end up concentrating the light and heat into areas right around your light source, the down side with that is you will create dark areas in your case where things wont grow as well, and also have a cone right under your light source where plants cant go into without being crisped up either due to light intensity and or heat, but typically both, where as with multiple sources everything gets evened out and plants grow a lot more evenly and don't have those cones of burnage.

Wattage wise you probably don't want to go over 50w a sqft, i have and do run above that with my cases which consume 65watts each but thats due to not so efficient ballasts and me being on the upper end of the spectrum for light concentration, 25-40w is a nice range to start and run with.

Now you can run cobs and i have and they work great when under driven, but for the best bang for your buck honestly take a look into dismantling some screw in led light bulbs and mounting the cobs to some heat sinks, Standard cost to outfit a pc case is $10-20 plus heatsinks, Take for example the Philips 8w led bulbs they are 4 for $10, or the bigger 14.5w which are 2 for $12, in a pc case you only really need to run 4 of the 8w ones or 2 of the 14.5w ones, or up to 8 and 4 respectively if your wanting to be on the really high side of the light spectrum, but you will have to deal with the heat.

Which leads us to Heatsinks, old CPU heatsinks are your friends, i've used a lot of the stock intel lga1155/1156 socket heatsinks which you can typically pick up for free to $5 a piece as they are always the first thing chucked aside when building a custom pc, but they work great for smaller wattage cobs, i cut the fans off the stock holders and flip the heatsinks in them giving you a handy mounting bracket.

As for color temperature of your light even though this is contrary to the old thought on it, which is different now but i highly suggest going with lights in the 4-5000k range instead especially in a pc case, the reason being is due to the bluer light your plants wont stretch as much in comparison to the the light of a 2700k source for scientific reasons i wont get into, but in a limited height environment that's a good thing as we want to limit stretch as much as possible, as for difference in yield you wont notice any or it will be fractions of a difference, i've personally always had healthier plants under a cooler spectrum, where as sure buds finish nicer under a redder spectrum for the last couple of weeks of flower, but all that time before hand they are trying to stretch and outgrow your space, so we need to play it to our advantage.

Feel free to ask any questions, and my threads a blab a lot in so i fully understand just looking at the pictures lol.
 
To back up @L0wbob2017 dimming a cob with a potentiometer isn't the way to do it its not like incandescent bulbs and brings with it a whole bunch of other issues some of which were mentioned, but dimming is typically done one of two ways either current limiting or Pulse Width Modulated control which effectively flashes the led's.

But back to your driver combo unit i presume its one of those ebay generic cobs and tin can ballasts, if so a lot of those aren't actually 100w, might list as such but it all depends on what ballast is paired with them "current x volts = watts", and at 100w they don't last very long.

Second to that you will need adequate cooling especially in a pc case, where in my opinion 100w is way way to much and honestly you wont be able to cool it effectively unless you have external mounted heatsinks and no filtering and even still plants wont be able to get any where near close 4+ inches or they will crisp up.


So saying that if your actually wanting to build a stealth PC case i'll give you some suggestions from my own trial and errors.

First multiple sources of light is the way to go, when running only a couple light sources or less you end up concentrating the light and heat into areas right around your light source, the down side with that is you will create dark areas in your case where things wont grow as well, and also have a cone right under your light source where plants cant go into without being crisped up either due to light intensity and or heat, but typically both, where as with multiple sources everything gets evened out and plants grow a lot more evenly and don't have those cones of burnage.

Wattage wise you probably don't want to go over 50w a sqft, i have and do run above that with my cases which consume 65watts each but thats due to not so efficient ballasts and me being on the upper end of the spectrum for light concentration, 25-40w is a nice range to start and run with.

Now you can run cobs and i have and they work great when under driven, but for the best bang for your buck honestly take a look into dismantling some screw in led light bulbs and mounting the cobs to some heat sinks, Standard cost to outfit a pc case is $10-20 plus heatsinks, Take for example the Philips 8w led bulbs they are 4 for $10, or the bigger 14.5w which are 2 for $12, in a pc case you only really need to run 4 of the 8w ones or 2 of the 14.5w ones, or up to 8 and 4 respectively if your wanting to be on the really high side of the light spectrum, but you will have to deal with the heat.

Which leads us to Heatsinks, old CPU heatsinks are your friends, i've used a lot of the stock intel lga1155/1156 socket heatsinks which you can typically pick up for free to $5 a piece as they are always the first thing chucked aside when building a custom pc, but they work great for smaller wattage cobs, i cut the fans off the stock holders and flip the heatsinks in them giving you a handy mounting bracket.

As for color temperature of your light even though this is contrary to the old thought on it, which is different now but i highly suggest going with lights in the 4-5000k range instead especially in a pc case, the reason being is due to the bluer light your plants wont stretch as much in comparison to the the light of a 2700k source for scientific reasons i wont get into, but in a limited height environment that's a good thing as we want to limit stretch as much as possible, as for difference in yield you wont notice any or it will be fractions of a difference, i've personally always had healthier plants under a cooler spectrum, where as sure buds finish nicer under a redder spectrum for the last couple of weeks of flower, but all that time before hand they are trying to stretch and outgrow your space, so we need to play it to our advantage.

Feel free to ask any questions, and my threads a blab a lot in so i fully understand just looking at the pictures lol.
Wow, btw I love your boxes, they are lovely. The case in using is the big brother to the 330r.
I have everything I need except the light, I've decided to use that cob set I bought to light some basil and other herbs.
The case has a compartment for the psu on the top and I want to contain everything in there. In the case there really using a lot of room In that compartment after I I stall the carbon scrubber.
I'm going to take another look and see if I can fit multiple lights in there.
Thanks a lot for your input. Btw I really love your cases, have I mentioned that already. I'm hoping to make mine almost as nice as yours. It. Won't have an led screen or reservoir, and be more for the soil grower.
 
Hey!
Wow some great answers here!
Sorry you COB isn't working out. The one question I didn't see is if the widget you purchased claims it is dim-able. Some are, and can use a Lutron type or similar. Want to put that out there. @Mr. Sparkle ' suggestion of using E26 based bulbs is a very good one. I had plans to make these nice COB type lights for my mother cab and cancelled those in favor of the screw in bulb. It really works great.
Nice work and I am looking forward to watching your progress.
 
No it never claimed to be dimmable, I just diddnt know there was a dimmable and non dimmable. I'll admit it I saw 12.59 a I made an impulse buy.
Oh well I'll re purpose the light.
I thought about the screw in bulbs. I opted out because it takes up vertical space and I really didn't want a power strip in the grow chamber. I really wanted to contain everything in the psu and hard drive storage area.
I'll install the carbon scrubber and take another look.
 
No it never claimed to be dimmable, I just diddnt know there was a dimmable and non dimmable. I'll admit it I saw 12.59 a I made an impulse buy.
Oh well I'll re purpose the light.
I thought about the screw in bulbs. I opted out because it takes up vertical space and I really didn't want a power strip in the grow chamber. I really wanted to contain everything in the psu and hard drive storage area.
I'll install the carbon scrubber and take another look.
Ahhh... OK. You're right about the price. I have a whole bin of stuff that was a really good price!!
Good thought regarding heights! Shame though, the screw ins are a great inexpensive light.
Looking forward to see what you come up with!
Peace
 
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