Lighting Info needed, Driver specs for an old Blackstar 240

[dragondust]

honestly, getting the volt meter made things more confusing.

Next I used the volt meter on one of the drivers. Not running any LEDS (This is whats confusing) the meter shows that I got 169.4 VDc coming out of the driver and only .172 amps. I'm expecting to see what is listed on the driver itself, somewhere between 80 and 130V and 580mA. I don't get it??? What am I missing here?



So I still have my Kill o watt plugged in, it reads that its pulling .51mA and 58 Watts.. which makes more sense than what the volt meter showed me. I got the same reading from both drivers while only running one at a time. With both drivers connected, the kill o watt said it was pulling 1.01 Amps and 117 Watts. Which again makes sense because the fans aren't connected which pulled just over 10 watts.

So the volt meter showing me that I got 169.4 Volts coming from the driver.. does this mean I can actually run 6 of the CLU048-1212 per driver? Or should I not go over the 130 volt max, which would be 3 CLU048-1212 running at 37.5 volts?

You have the open voltage of 169.4vDc from the driver no load. Do a test with the driver connected to led. You should have a voltage of in the range of 80v -130v. my guess is about 100v under load.

Stay with 3 36v cob or 2 50v cobs per driver. The open volts is always higher than under load. Your driver is 75watts max.

 

[dragondust]

Also the amp test will not work unless you test it under a load.

 

[Adam & Cola]

Holy shit balls, this thing is bright as hell.
Ok so I finally got all my parts in. In the long run I went with 4 citizen CLU048 1212 80 CRI 4000K COBS. The led drivers in the Blackstar were kinda lacking in the Amp department, I went ahead and put them in Parallel to essentially double the AMP output. You can see from the Pics above I was getting roughly .510mA from each driver. Now I'm getting 1.45 to 1.47Amps total... Chaching. -.15mA for the 3 fans.. So now getting a very respectable 1.3Amps going directly to the cobs that I have in series. Pull at the wall is 178 total watts. -10.2watts for the 3 fans. 168Watts When the original Blackstar 240 before being modified pulled 126 watts total.
I don't how to calculate total lumens being output or the ppfd or whatever Par somethin is. but all i can say is this shit is bright! Give this guy a badge!

Here are a couple pics. I just have it in my garage to test it out for a couple days to make sure it doesn't blow up.. If it does I would rather it do it in the garage. It's all good I have a veg chamber that is overgrown so I have a couple plants enjoying the new light.

 

[Adam & Cola]

oops, i deleted the picture of the AMp draw at the wall using the Kill o watt meter.

 

[Adam & Cola]

Took a new picture.. Here is the Amp draw at the wall now.

 

[dragondust]

Holy shit balls, this thing is bright as hell.
Ok so I finally got all my parts in. In the long run I went with 4 citizen CLU048 1212 80 CRI 4000K COBS. The led drivers in the Blackstar were kinda lacking in the Amp department, I went ahead and put them in Parallel to essentially double the AMP output. You can see from the Pics above I was getting roughly .510mA from each driver. Now I'm getting 1.45 to 1.47Amps total... Chaching. -.15mA for the 3 fans.. So now getting a very respectable 1.3Amps going directly to the cobs that I have in series. Pull at the wall is 178 total watts. -10.2watts for the 3 fans. 168Watts When the original Blackstar 240 before being modified pulled 126 watts total.
I don't how to calculate total lumens being output or the ppfd or whatever Par somethin is. but all i can say is this shit is bright! Give this guy a badge!

Here are a couple pics. I just have it in my garage to test it out for a couple days to make sure it doesn't blow up.. If it does I would rather it do it in the garage. It's all good I have a veg chamber that is overgrown so I have a couple plants enjoying the new light.

Cool. This is first time I am hearing about paralleling the DC output of 2 drivers. Running 4 1212 36v in series is 144v is over the rated 130v. You would gain current but not votalge with the dc output in parralle.

I would watch the heat on the drivers as you now pushing the drivers over it rated volts and wattage. Your pulling over 83wats from each driver thats rated for 75wats. Pushing these cheap drivers are not a good thing. Be safe.

 

[Adam & Cola]

I will certainly keep an eye on the temps, especially since I'm a little precarious of this at first. I used the temp probe from my multi meter to check on the temps. It's been running for the last 5 hrs. It was really difficult to get pictures of temps while holding the multi meter, the probe and the phone. Ambient air temp was 74f measured 5 ft away from the light at the same level as the light. with the temp probe directly above a cob and touching the heatsink it measured 85f. With the light 16" above the canopy it measured 75f at the canopy top, same as ambient temp. that tells me to lower the light a couple inches, will measure again later.

I never checked the temps of the actual drivers before modifying the blackstar, I guess next time I will.

I did open up the blackstar frame with a cutoff wheel and some of the plastic enclosure surrounding the drivers to remove excess heat. plus I do not have the piece of glass on it anymore. Wish I took detailed pictures as i went along to document some of this. the only thing I can get a picture of now is the external frame of which I hacked up.

This is actively cooled with 3 fans. I did position the cobs as close to the center of the fans as possible. eventhough I had plenty of headroom with my hacking to the frame to spread the cobs out further. I just wanted to cool the unit the best i could with what was available in the original design of the fixture.

It's working so good and the plants are loving it.. I ended up moving two other plants from my veg chamber for them to enjoy the light.

 

[Adam & Cola]

not sure how to quote someone yet.. but I can put two power supplies in parallel.. lmao

"Dragondust"

"Cool. This is first time I am hearing about paralleling the DC output of 2 drivers. Running 4 1212 36v in series is 144v is over the rated 130v. You would gain current but not votalge with the dc output in parralle"

I have read nearly all the posts. in this DIY led section to get a slight grip on what to do. I was amazed that I didn't see anyone combine there cheap drivers in a parallel circuit to double there amperage. ... Ok, I did take a electronics course in college and after 20yrs I forgot a lot of shit. But after reading and seeing people say series this, and parallel that I figured why not do a parallel driver.

I have a solar panel array (only 3 panels) that I made. The inverter can only take a certain amount of volts (60 Volts) so a 24 volt panel you could only connect two panels on the inverter in series. because in series, 24v + 24v + 24v = 72volts.. just like connecting LED's in series. But connected in parallel the voltage stays the same across the board. so I applied this to connecting the drivers in parallel, as if the drivers are the solar panels providing the power to the cobs.

yeah you would think with taking an electronic's class in college I would have remembered to have a load on the circuit when taking measurements. I blame weed and alchohol for that one.. and my bad memory.

on my next LED upgrade, I will try to apply this same practice to double my amps. If it works dont fix it.

I don't recommend trying this on your first build, for Pete's sake.. stick to basics an make sure it works, before attempting to take it to the next level. I did cut corners and i'm lucky its working so far. Do yur research and if you have any questions ask BIGS.. or look up videos on you tube on connecting drivers in parallel.

SAFETY FIRST!!!

 

[Adam & Cola]

These girls seem to like all the attention from the light.

 

[Mr Piggy]

Once again the search function delivers! Thanks for posting this Adam, do you have any follow up with how the light is working for you? I have an old blackstar 240 that was only used for a year before half the panel crapped out, both drivers are still good.