Blackstar 240W LED Dissected and Upgraded!

I've had this Blackstar 240 model long enough... time to void the warranty!
Power draw: 133W
Cooling fans: 3X 80mm 3-watt cheap, loud, decent airflow
Heatsink: 1/8 inch thick, flat aluminum plate
Drivers: 2X each putting out 96V@630mA (total ~120W going through LED array, 1.5W per LED @2.4V forward voltage average)

Upgrades:
1. Much quieter fans, each pushing ~36 CFM (should be more than current airflow)
2. High quality thermal paste (current is cheap white stuff)
3. Finned aluminum heat sinks attached to existing plate (free from old projection TV)

For heat sinks surface area is key. The difference in surface area of the new vs. old setup (only using the footprint of the heat sinks) amounts to a 560% increase.(~32 CI to ~182 CI).

At stock, the back of the heat sink measured ~20 degrees F above ambient. I hope to lower this number, which in my experience would be noticeable with just the thermal paste. The additional surface area should make a great difference, and the fans should push more air and will definitely be quieter.

Buying fans and paste new, total cost ~$25-30. Destroying warranties... priceless.

I just bought 2 of the 240 watt Blackstars yesterday.
What kind of yields were you getting with them before your mods?

Yes, what kind of yields were you getting on those. I would like to know if LEDs are worth the money vs hps. BTW, meharmon, I really like your Avatar https://www.rollitup.org/members/meharmon-317697.html

The Blackstar 240

Flat heat sink

Fans and drivers

Peeling Foil

Foil peeled

PCB screws removed

PCB separated from heatsink with white thermal paste


Now we wait for the fans and paste to arrive.
Led dim:

Diagram:

Mods aren't done yet, fans and paste in the mail, but the fans will be done a few days later than the heat sinks, and should make the least difference overall. I can't comment on yield as it was paired with 400W HPS, then 400W induction. See "Kush Groove.. the Blackstar" thread for a pure Blackstar grow about 6+ weeks into flower. This is basically to address the weak points of the Blackstar heat sink design. Although adequate, it could (and will!) be better. LEDs perform better when cool Thanks for posting! You'll be very happy with your purchase!

The diagram pic with red letters and line denotes the layout of the board. The line divides the two sets in series fed by the 2 drivers. W = white, UV = UV(and is a 2x1 looking diode), V = blue-violet color (also 2x1), R1 = large red diodes, B = blue diodes, B1 are larger-looking blue (hard to see in lens), and the rest are all red small diodes (similar size to blue, and 1x1 of the 2x1 chips)

LEDs are definitely worth the money because they pay for themselves in power savings alone, but the science behind the lights is specific for our plants so you will get great results if you get a good panel and use it well! Check out dunit purple kush under 360W LED (just finished).

drcheat said:

Yes, what kind of yields were you getting on those. I would like to know if LEDs are worth the money vs hps. BTW, meharmon, I really like your Avatar https://www.rollitup.org/members/meharmon-317697.html

Click to expand...

I can't wait to see this done! Looks like it is decently straight forwared. Good Luck!!! - Subed!

Hey buddy, nice little upgrade you made there But, Speaking direct from the technology side of these panels, they are being underdriven. Maybe you like that for having a panel that will run 100,000 hours plus, but under driving doesn't help lumens out. But for you to really upgrade your ride, it would be like an engine swap. There is probably no way you can ever get the blackstar LEDs to run out their rated output

Yeah I won't be swapping the drivers just yet, hehe. A billion tiny screws later (I only lost 2) and I have the heatsink tighter than it was initially, so I need to back them out to make them flush, OR modify the extra heat sinks, which is what I will probably do. The orange film I should have left alone, but it was more resistant to conducting heat, so I peeled that too. One thing to note in the first 2 pics you can see where one diode did not make a good contact with the board. I blame it on poor quality control, because the method of installing and soldering these basically leaves the chip hanging freely in a hole with two small tabs to solder the +/-, which in this case meant it was much deeper than its surrounding chips. On another note, someone has some splainin' to do with the numbers printed on PCB...
Film and weak contact point:

Closeup of weak contact and film piece:

New paste applied and... this panel is supposed to use 3W chips, so why does it say 80X2W? I call shenanigans!


Now waiting on DHL . Hope I don't fry the board for good (in retrospect I should have just mounted the heat sinks and fans and called it good. That paste is a pain, and the film might prove to be difficult to reattach...

Make sure you get some shots of the installed heatsinks and new fans before you slap that thing back together. Thanks!

Great work on the thermal paste, I have only installed it onto CPU heatsinks. One surface is enough, but 90 wow!

Someone should contact Lighthouse and ask them about the 80X2W...

So after cursing DHL and Newegg I realized I hadn't checked the mail in several days and, of course, there were the fans. The normal fans were very loud (I'll guess around 55-60db), while the new ones are close to 30dB, which is less than my 16" oscillating fans on low speed. The new fans also draw 40% less power, have roughly the same airflow. On a side note, LED manufacturers should use 120mm fans instead of 80mm. I could put 2 in place of these 3 fans in the Blackstar and be pushing more air over with less noise. /facepalm
Also, like an idiot, uh, I mean "in the name of science" I discovered that when you short circuit it, the last LED on the negative side (black wire) gets sacrificed. A new solder later and we're back in business! Pics coming soon, I was playing with all sorts of wacky designs for this thing (outside in, inside out looked cool!) so I'll post pics of normal configuration once I finish putting it together later today. Cheers!

Florida - high heat and humidity - help
Does anyone have any way I can dry my autos that will be ready in a couple of weeks. Can't bring into the house during the drying period and am worrying about getting mold. I know the lower heat and humidity are best but I am stuck with few options. Any help highly (no pun intended) appreciated.

OK all done... Like I said earlier, I should have left the film and paste alone, that stuff caused major headaches. But, I ended up with a dot-grid of Arctic Silver 5 paste above and below the film, so it worked out anyhow.
Here's the salvaged heat sinks, pasted and screwed.

Here's the new fans



The fans are much, much quieter, as previously mentioned. For further airflow and sound enhancements, I also removed the grills:


And here it is running with the heat sinks seen under fans:


Final temperature readings with thermal gun show the back of the heat sink to be 4 degrees F above ambient. Before the upgrade it was about 18 degrees above. Yay!
Other thoughts...
1. Fans were too loud, and mounted with bolt and 2 nuts. I used the screws that came with the fans and it was much faster. Fans should have remove-able grills-- look at the airflow those things must block.
2. A good heat sink will keep your system as close to ambient as possible. The original heat sink is little more than a base for a real heat management solution, because surface area is very important for heat transfer.
3. Leave the film alone! But, I'm glad I saw the 80X2W, so questions can be asked.

Hope you enjoyed the show, thanks for tuning in!

I just bought a 240w Blackstar and a bit disturbed to find out it's running 80 2w LEDs WTF!!

Anything over 1watt for LED diodes is a waste: 100x1w > 50x2w

While there is a small benefit of larger than 1watt led, the price is not worth it.

Po boy said:

Florida - high heat and humidity - help
Does anyone have any way I can dry my autos that will be ready in a couple of weeks. Can't bring into the house during the drying period and am worrying about getting mold. I know the lower heat and humidity are best but I am stuck with few options. Any help highly (no pun intended) appreciated.

Click to expand...

Hey man, if you need your dried bud quick you can essentially drown your plants. Just put the pot in a bucket of water(for about 4days) and the tree won't be able to get oxygen and dry up the buds. This is with the lights off(on takes longer) and still air circulating... (Taken from riddleme, don't directly quote me)

Good luck!

Spoc said:

I just bought a 240w Blackstar and a bit disturbed to find out it's running 80 2w LEDs WTF!!

Click to expand...

WTF indeed! I assume they will simply say that its an older PCB, while still using 3W chips or some similar excuse, but I need to research a bit more to find out exactly what these are. Either way the panels produce well, so I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for checking out the thread!

Millsie said:

Hey man, if you need your dried bud quick you can essentially drown your plants. Just put the pot in a bucket of water(for about 4days) and the tree won't be able to get oxygen and dry up the buds. This is with the lights off(on takes longer) and still air circulating... (Taken from riddleme, don't directly quote me)

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Even if the post is totally unrelated to the topic, thanks for being helpful. I think you're confused with flushing though, because drowning the plants will make them soak up all that water, and the excess nutrients are supposed to get used up since they're starved of oxygen in the roots. What he needs is a dehumidifer, maybe in an enclosed tent? Not sure why they can't bring them into the house as that's generally more secure than outside anyhow. A piece of tin laying in the sun will dry them fast

Okay, I won't reply after this because I don't want to sidetrack this topic but heres the post here.
https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/409622-truth-about-flushing-16.html
It's around halfway through the topic...

Good luck

Thats some crazy shit man I just ordered one so im not ready to void tbe warranty yet lol but good job I might need this later. +rep