Lighting COB or driver upgrade

[wwwillie]

Hey
I say go for the driver. Meanwell HLG with a B suffix for dimming. If you get a 1050 you can prolly loose a few lights too so one of the 320 will power maybe 9 of them... Just a thought to consider. Going for 700 to 1050 is a fair jump.

** I am a bit new at this so double check my figures but it should be close.

 

[Baxterwolfe]

Hey
I say go for the driver. Meanwell HLG with a B suffix for dimming. If you get a 1050 you can prolly loose a few lights too so one of the 320 will power maybe 9 of them... Just a thought to consider. Going for 700 to 1050 is a fair jump.

** I am a bit new at this so double check my figures but it should be close.

The 320 is just shy of being able to run 9 of the cxa2530s. But I found a pretty good deal for HLG-240H-C1050B on arrow.com. They are $64 a piece and Im gonna grab 2 of them that way when I am able to expand into a larger grow area I will already have the drivers for just about any setup I do.

 

[wwwillie]

The 320 is just shy of being able to run 9 of the cxa2530s. But I found a pretty good deal for HLG-240H-C1050B on arrow.com. They are $64 a piece and Im gonna grab 2 of them that way when I am able to expand into a larger grow area I will already have the drivers for just about any setup I do.

Sounds like a good plan. Nice price too.

 

[Slater]

Very nice work on your light man she is a beauty. I was thinking about adding some far red and blues like on yours but Im still on the fence on adding them or not. I also need to figure out how I want to do my cooling because the setup now is at its limits at 700ma. Going to 1050ma is going to be a little more heat and I want negate as much heat as possible at the COBs. I may just get creative and do a custom water cooled setup because I really love to tinker and build. That and I have most of the parts needed from old gaming pc builds. I have like 2 weeks to make a decision and make any changes to the light as I have 3 photo ladies that are about to be flipped to flower in the veg box. Im going to have them in the veg box under 5000k until they show signs of flowering to hopefully reduce some stretch then into the cabinet under the new light. Here is the link to my current journal https://www.autoflower.org/threads/baxters-diy-basement-hideout.58750/#post-1400112

You will be surprised how little heat driving the cobs at 1050ma puts out, those 3w diodes on my build put way more heat out than the cobs. The fan on top is only really needed when driving them at full power... Go passive and save the hassle.
Nice deal on the drivers, I would have done the same.

Sent from mTalk

 

[Baxterwolfe]

You will be surprised how little heat driving the cobs at 1050ma puts out, those 3w diodes on my build put way more heat out than the cobs. The fan on top is only really needed when driving them at full power... Go passive and save the hassle.
Nice deal on the drivers, I would have done the same.

Sent from mTalk

I guess I noticed the heat issue more because the cobs are mounted with thermal and kapton tape which applied to the aluminum sheeting I had ( which is far to thin ) caused some separation and boom cob failure. I have thicker gauge aluminum on hand now and will be ordering holders for my cobs when I grab the drivers. And when it comes to the water cooling thats more of a zen thing for me. I am a jack of all trades type of person and get real satisfaction from designing and engineering my projects. That and I already have the parts taking up space on the shelf haha. Although I have thought passive cooling has been creeping into some later build ideas since the heatsinks are really dropping in price from when all of this DIY started for me.

 

[BigSm0]

Going from 600-1050 with the same voltage cob will increase the intensity big time. Increase light, heat and raw plant burning power. I'd skip the 1212's to. Dimmable driver is a must. I would also rather have 1812's at 700 than a 1212 at 1050. Hope my last minute curve ball doesn't screw up your plans.

 

[BigSm0]

I guess I noticed the heat issue more because the cobs are mounted with thermal and kapton tape which applied to the aluminum sheeting I had ( which is far to thin ) caused some separation and boom cob failure. I have thicker gauge aluminum on hand now and will be ordering holders for my cobs when I grab the drivers. And when it comes to the water cooling thats more of a zen thing for me. I am a jack of all trades type of person and get real satisfaction from designing and engineering my projects. That and I already have the parts taking up space on the shelf haha. Although I have thought passive cooling has been creeping into some later build ideas since the heatsinks are really dropping in price from when all of this DIY started for me.

Jupiter had a chandelier grow going in here somewhere. He water cooled a bunch of 1818's with 3/4 copper piping. Ugliest light in history but he pulled a nice 11oz'er from it

 

[thetreeman]

Im running 1212s at 1750 just fine, not great for a low ceiling height maybe but they can handle quite a bit of power, they are cheap tho so no reason not to drive them lower I guess. I would definitely not add blue monos, only reason I can see to add monos is to supplement red a bit in the 660 range as many cobs start to fall off around 630.

 

[L0wbob2017]

Well my first idea was, why dont go mad and give this a try ( again thats just my crazy brain )

get 2 HLG-320H-C1400B, hook up 6 cxa2530's per driver, wire up a 100k potentiometer to each of the MW dimming outputs. ( a even nicer solution would be getting a 100k stereo potentiometer for dimming both drivers with 1 poti hehe )


For me this sounds like a good solution. MW drivers are most efficient when running close to max load.

Cxa2530's gonna consume about | ~38,5V @1340ma,T=85°C | 39V @1340ma,T=55°C | 39,5V @1340ma, T=25°C.
Normally there is a graph in the datasheet where you can see the dropping voltage with rising temp but i couldnt find one.
Also depending on how good your way of cooling is the temp will be something between 25-85°C

T=25°C | 39,5V*6=237V
T=55°C | 39,0V*6=234V
T=85°C | 38,5V*6=231V

So i am not sure about going 100% power but my idea was just why not rise to ~1300ma instead of 1050ma

 

[BigSm0]

I think I would skip the 2530's and go with the 1212's both 36v and the citizen will deliver more light per watt. Probably close to 10% more. As for the driver you could safely run 8 cobs on it too. Just seems like a lot of extra voltage and amperage not being utilized. 1050-1400 is more about efficiency. There has to be a line we draw between cost and efficiency. More cobs at lower amperage is more light and less waste but also a higher cost. All in all 1212's at 1050 is not extreme by any means.