Mau5Capades: builds & grow journal

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CDiablo

Active Member
Hello @Growmau5 your builds are inspiring. I am a first time builder wondering if there is a one stop shop for things like 3 prong plug ends(trouble finding theses), hanging wire(I am hanging directly from the heatsink), wire, flux, etc. Let me know if you know a place, thanks. In short though I have everything I want for the build(lights, heatsink, driver) but need somewhere to buy all the extras to put them together. Thanks.
 
C

CDiablo

Active Member
@Growmau5 Do you have any good links @ amazon for dimmer switches to attach to a driver(I get pages and pages of house switch dimmers.) Also what would be a good way to hang a huge(5 foot x 6 inch) heatsink? Thanks.
 
CanadianONE

CanadianONE

Well-Known Member
Growmau5 said:
@CanadianONE lol, thanks for the kind words bro. i was going to edit that out and voice over, but I thought it was kind of funny too. Thanks for watching.

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Anytime always love to see the updated and get some insight from others on there perspective of growing the beloved cannabis plant. Keep up the good work and don't stop building I draw tons of inspiration from all your builds. Simply put I love how clean your builds turn out.
 
Growmau5

Growmau5

Well-Known Member
I finally decided to pull the trigger on (32) cxb3590 3500k CD. These will be for the second half of my room that just finished up under (2) 600w HPS. Ordered and paid Kingbrite middle of last week, I heard back from Jerry minutes ago. They are very low on stock for this item, so I will have to wait patiently. I thought I would put it out there as a public service announcement for those looking to order soon.

**UPDATE** Jerry has 500 units: cxb3590 on the way from Cree.
 
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Growmau5

Growmau5

Well-Known Member
WwW1962 said:
another excellent thread ..subbed up and learning..waiting on the freight boat from china to come with some parts..thank you for valuable
and honest info
WwW
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Thanks for stopping by. You motivated me to update this thread.

1) Right now, I just finished the 1200w HPS side with a yield of 1064 grams of dry weight (0.88 GPW) These results will serve as a nice comparison for the other side of the room which is 1200w of LED between the cxa3070 and the BML spydr600. Ill splice a video together at the end to rub it in the die hard HPS guys faces. I am hoping for 1500-1600 grams + for the LED side so that I can say " look here, same wattage but COBs yield 50% more" but we shall see.

Here is a video of the HPS yield, the camera really sucks , as does the close up bud shots, but Ill be taking care of that with a new Nikon this weekend :)

 
BobCajun

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
Growmau5 said:
I finally decided to pull the trigger on (32) cxb3590 3500k CD. These will be for the second half of my room that just finished up under (2) 600w HPS. Ordered and paid Kingbrite middle of last week, I heard back from Jerry minutes ago. They are very low on stock for this item, so I will have to wait patiently. I thought I would put it out there as a public service announcement for those looking to order soon.

**UPDATE** Jerry has 500 units: cxb3590 on the way from Cree.
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How do you adjust the current so it's lower than normel so you get higher efficiency? I saw where you said you had a potentiometer for dimming. Is that how you do it or do you just start with a low current power supply? As I understand it, a potentiometer itself dissipates heat from the power that its resistor cuts out of the circuit. Wouldn't that mean that the power you lowered to the LEDs was just diverted to the potentiometer and dissipated there instead of at the LED? Also, what happens if you power say twice as many LEDs with a power supply than it was designed for? Does that give them half the wattage or half the voltage, or both? Youknow how a Spectrum King 400w has dual power supplies, well what would happen if you disconnecetd one of them and connected the remaining one to both halves of it?
 
Growmau5

Growmau5

Well-Known Member
@BobCajun I just use the 'b' version drivers from MW and attach 100k ohm potentiometers to dim. I don't know the inner workings of their 3 in 1 dimming functionality, but it does not produce significant heat or dissipate much additional energy.

Sk uses 42 white diodes, so I would imagine one driver runs 21 and cutting the power to a single driver would cut power to half the diodes.

Most drivers have a forward voltage range, if the Fv of the LEDs paired to it to not fit with this range, nothing happens, ie the diodes to not fire on.
 
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CanadianONE

CanadianONE

Well-Known Member
Growmau5 said:
@BobCajun I just use the 'b' version drivers from MW and attach 100k ohm potentiometers to dim. I don't know the inner workings of their 3 in 1 dimming functionality, but it does not produce any heat or dissipate additional energy.

Sk uses 42 white diodes, so I would imagine one driver runs 21 and cutting the power to a single driver would cut power to half the diodes.

Most drivers have a forward voltage range, if the Fv of the LEDs paired to it to not fit with this range, nothing happens, ie the diodes to not fire on.
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The use of a potentiometer turns electrical energy into heat which is discippated into the air. But with that being said I do not know the electrical energy flowing through the dimming circuit to calculate it but I am sure its not much electrical energy therefore not much heat.
 
WwW1962

WwW1962

Well-Known Member
Thanks man, i have a single cxa3070 going atm, the frost started really early..very impressed with these incredible
chips..heres a peek at my skeleton for the veg cabinet..i put another sink in the middle..waiting on the XML 4000-4300K 10 w lamps

WwW i cant like anything yet..but every post will get one when my time is up lol
 

Attachments

BobCajun

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
Growmau5 said:
@BobCajun I just use the 'b' version drivers from MW and attach 100k ohm potentiometers to dim. I don't know the inner workings of their 3 in 1 dimming functionality, but it does not produce significant heat or dissipate much additional energy.

Sk uses 42 white diodes, so I would imagine one driver runs 21 and cutting the power to a single driver would cut power to half the diodes.

Most drivers have a forward voltage range, if the Fv of the LEDs paired to it to not fit with this range, nothing happens, ie the diodes to not fire on.
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So what's the current output on your drivers? Also, when you turn the dimmer down does the wattage from the wall decrease, stay the same, vary to some degree or what? Same with the onboard power supply dimming function. How does that change the wall wattage draw?

Some LED dimmers just rapidly turn them on and off, making a very rapid strobing effect. The eye percieves it as reduced brightness. That however would not actually make the LEDs more efficient. They're just not on steadily. I think it's the wall type slide dimmers that work that way. I don't know how the Meanwell onboard dimmers work.
 
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Growmau5

Growmau5

Well-Known Member
BobCajun said:
So what's the current output on your drivers? Also, when you turn the dimmer down does the wattage from the wall decrease, stay the same, vary to some degree or what? Same with the onboard power supply dimming function. How does that change the wall wattage draw?
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Each of my (3) cxa3070 modules runs on a MW hlg 1400mA. Full blast is 160w per bar, when I adjust the dimmer you can see the wattage consumed going down on a Kill a watt. turn it down half way and its 80-90w at the wall.
 
BobCajun

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
Growmau5 said:
Each of my (3) cxa3070 modules runs on a MW hlg 1400mA. Full blast is 160w per bar, when I adjust the dimmer you can see the wattage consumed going down on a Kill a watt. turn it down half way and its 80-90w at the wall.
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I see. But does the dimmer just use the strobe type dimming or some other form? I described what I mean in my last post which I edited after you wrote your reply and before I saw it. The LEDs may still be drawing 1400 ma but just not be on steadily. From the chart on pg 1 of this thread it looks like 300 ma is what you need for maximum efficiency, unless I'm interpreting it wrong.
 
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