PS, strangely, I was proudest of the little trick i figured out to hanging the hygrometer/thermometer.
Lighting Just put in my kingbrite order
- Thread starter InexpensiveBeret
- Start date
Something to keep in mind - I think the cables on the dimmer were a little thin; either way, they weren't tinned, just kind of stuffed into the wagos they came with. Didn't think to check. Went to check on them today, light was flickering, dimming made no real difference. Disconnected the dimmer, left the wagos on the driver side as insulation (in a rush today and of course I can't find any electrical tape). I've had to move the light around a lot, and hastily, so that probably had something to do with it. Light was on full anyway - so now it's on a little more than full, right? - so no biggie. Will check into it tomorrow.
so turns out i was over-optimistic with that last post. it wasn't on high, it was actually on low. today i noticed some weird flickering again, and the dimmer is disconnected. i took down the light, made sure everything was plugged in nice and tight - that seemed to fix the flickering. i then reconnected the dimmer and - lo and behold - the light went UP in brightness, except now the dimmer is working as a sort of hi/lo switch. anyone have any idea what's going on? none of the heatsinks are particularly warm, so i don't think it's some sort of heat failure. i'm going to get some thicker gauge cables to replace everything. any other ideas?
@BigSm0 @Banjacked
@BigSm0 @Banjacked
Okay. So I did a big ol' freakout yesterday. I think what happened is that I did bad research and bad buying, which is embarrassing and pricey but not the end of the world. Basically, the cobs are just a hair over the driver's capacity. When the circuit open, the driver is putting out more than 1400mah. Combined with the temperature staying pretty low and you the cobs trip the over-voltage protection. Should work at ~250w slightly dimmed (that is, with a 100k potentiometer that isn't straight garbage).
Only smart thing I did in my overreaction last night was disconnecting one of the cobs. The circuit now runs 4, and that seems okay. 200w@full power is way more light than I was getting before. Potentiometer is definitely shitty - just kind of jumping around, not really moving smoothly through the range, etc - will replace it with a higher quality part today, as well as rewire everything with higher gauge higher quality wire, and probably replace some of the terminal blocks for wire splices, just to reduce strain. That should allow me to run the 5, unless there's some other problem.
Only smart thing I did in my overreaction last night was disconnecting one of the cobs. The circuit now runs 4, and that seems okay. 200w@full power is way more light than I was getting before. Potentiometer is definitely shitty - just kind of jumping around, not really moving smoothly through the range, etc - will replace it with a higher quality part today, as well as rewire everything with higher gauge higher quality wire, and probably replace some of the terminal blocks for wire splices, just to reduce strain. That should allow me to run the 5, unless there's some other problem.
@InexpensiveBeret,
So how good was the stuff you got from Kingbrite? I noticed it was the chineese driver version as you mentionned. How about the cobs? Are they marked with the proper version? Just about to order from them but would like to know the quality of what I'll be getting. Wondering if it's worth getting my stuff from them and saving 100$ on my DIY cob light.
So how good was the stuff you got from Kingbrite? I noticed it was the chineese driver version as you mentionned. How about the cobs? Are they marked with the proper version? Just about to order from them but would like to know the quality of what I'll be getting. Wondering if it's worth getting my stuff from them and saving 100$ on my DIY cob light.
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