Apollo 6 / Photon 90 - A look inside and looking for alternatives ways of cooling

Rasser · Jul 12, 2012

I just bought five of these at a cost of 188$

Vs. buying the parts only.

5 120mm FAN's 47$
5 120mm FAN grill's 14$
5 ON/OFF switches 16$
5 metal boxes(cheap estm.) 120$
________
197$
________

Bonus:
5 new 550W working psu circuit boards to mount in a big box power station outside the grow room.
+ A shit load of good cables in black, red, yellow and orange.

And I've just put my module through the test to make a chart over volt vs. current relationship,
and this time adding the PAR meter readings also. To see if using 3 PC PSU at 36V is doable and safe,
witch it should be with a auto-fuse(1A) on the 36V bus and a resistor(1W-~4ohm) in every module box.
[TABLE="width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD]

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]From 29 volt and 18mA - 57uMol
[/TD]
[TD]to 38 volt and 936mA - 1801 uMol
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

LEDmania · Jul 12, 2012

Rasser said:
I just bought five of these at a cost of 188$

Vs. buying the parts only.

5 120mm FAN's 47$
5 120mm FAN grill's 14$
5 ON/OFF switches 16$
5 metal boxes(cheap estm.) 120$
________
197$
________

Bonus:
5 new 550W working psu circuit boards to mount in a big box power station outside the grow room.
+ A shit load of good black, red, yellow, orange cables.

And I've just put my module through the test to make a chart over volt current relationship
and this time adding the PAR meter readings also. To seen if using 3 PC PSU 36V is doable and safe,
witch it should be with a auto-fuse(1A) on the 36V bus and a resistor(1W-~4ohm) in every module box.
[TABLE="width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]

[/TD]
[TD]

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]From 29 volt and 18mA[/TD]
[TD]to 38 volt and 936mA[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Extremely amazing work, Rasser.How far was the distance from one orb Apollo to your quantameter please, it seems the PAR reading is more than 1400unol while running at 700mA. And you have tried to run it at 936mA, the LEDs hadn't been burnt... very amazing.

Rasser · Jul 12, 2012

LEDmania said:
Extremely amazing work, Rasser.How far was the distance from one orb Apollo to your quantameter please, it seems the PAR reading is more than 1400unol while running at 700mA. And you have tried to run it at 936mA, the LEDs hadn't been burnt... very amazing.

Thanks !
The distance was about 9-10 inches - closer than that and the meter overload at full power.
1000mA is about 2,4 Watt per LED so if they are 3 watts then they should take it for a short period if properly cooled.

nb. Please don't repost my images in the quote, it makes the thread very long quickly.

Rasser · Jul 12, 2012

And this is how it looks if I mount a 3.3 ohm resistor in series with the module.

On PC PSU tolerances.

+12V
Nominal value: 12.00V
Allowed voltage variation: +/-5%, 11.40V - 12.60V
Preferred voltage variation: +/3%, 11.64V - 12.36V
Allowed ripple: <120mV
Preferred ripple: <80mV
Info: The +12V rail is the main power rail in modern computers. Modern computers draw 70%-95% of their power from the +12V rail, and the power available at +12V should make up at least 80% of the total wattage, preferably 90% in enthusiast units.

FranJan · Jul 12, 2012

^^^^Just full of awesomeness Rasser^^^^. You got my head in a whole new place with these posts. And I love the idea of a power station outside the tent. I was thinking of rewiring my panels to get their drivers away from the LEDs, but now I'm thinking it's time to do a little planning on a new rig instead. Thanks Again Kind Stranger! :weed:

FranJan · Jul 12, 2012

Oh, and one other thing. You should be selling those on Ebay. Seriously.

patrikantonius · Jul 12, 2012

Very impressive work. Keep it up!
How hot are getting the LEDs ? Is the PSU case enough to dissipate all these watts ?

Rasser · Jul 12, 2012

FranJan said:
^^^^Just full of awesomeness Rasser^^^^. You got my head in a whole new place with these posts. And I love the idea of a power station outside the tent. I was thinking of rewiring my panels to get their drivers away from the LEDs, but now I'm thinking it's time to do a little planning on a new rig instead. Thanks Again Kind Stranger!

Thanks, yes I think 7-11% of the heat can be removed by just placing the drivers/PSU's outside,
and the loss when using long cable is or should be, irrelevant when using CCdrivers.

Glad to be inspirational in this two way street of ideas.

Rasser · Jul 12, 2012

patrikantonius said:
Very impressive work. Keep it up!
How hot are getting the LEDs ? Is the PSU case enough to dissipate all these watts ?

Hi and thanks, under the test I was using a 9V psu for the fan and it was running to fast and made some noise but the box and air was very cool, when running at 750mA, for 1/2 hour.
In the unit where the module came from there was 2 80mm fans cooling 3 modules and 1 1/2 driver, so using a 120mm dedicated to one module is luxurious. :-)

DO3SHA · Jul 12, 2012

I would rather buy smaller units like that then these bigger units, you could get way more coverage

Rasser · Jul 12, 2012

DO3SHA said:
I would rather buy smaller units like that then these bigger units, you could get way more coverage

Sure you could fit a 50 watt LED chip on a cpu cooler and double the power per size, but light without lenses was not what I was after, with this.
I got 12 10W 660nm 160° chips incoming, for close up lighting without lenses.

Rasser · Jul 12, 2012

What cheap LED bulbs can be used for:

I tested the voltage range of the driver, with the help of my lab-psu: it's a 300mA 5-7W driver
(max turned out not to be true under load !)

Under load the driver is maxing out at 29.6 volt

Getting help !

edit.
So if one of the 330mA drivers in my 120W ufo burned off, I could replaced it quickly with this stuff
thats easy available from a local shop.

:peace:

patrikantonius · Jul 12, 2012

Wow, I am very impressed. Very informative stuff.
So correct me if I'm wrong; basically, a "low voltage" driver can be boosted by adding a DC source in series? That's genius.

bellskids · Jul 13, 2012

I have an apollo 10 and my biggest gripe is the 80mm fans used for cooling. If they had used 120mm fans then noise would be vastly reduced

that said I dont find my Apollo noise levels offensive at all, its nothing compared to the sound of my exhaust, even my clip on fans make more noise.

bellskids · Jul 13, 2012

btw i "think" you can buy components from CIDLY individually. speak to one of their sales reps

Rasser · Jul 13, 2012

patrikantonius said:
Wow, I am very impressed. Very informative stuff.
So correct me if I'm wrong; basically, a "low voltage" driver can be boosted by adding a DC source in series?

YES !

A driver that can drive ONE led(xx00mA) can drive 100 of these LED's in series with the help of other DC sources,
for it's only the "top" voltage that needs to be adjusted and typically very few volts +/-

Thinking about the design of CCdrivers, I would think that the operating voltage range +/- should be within what can be expected of change in the modules volt/current relationship, in it's lifetime,

In the UFO types units where there is ~30 LED in series, if one LED short circuit the driver just turns down the voltage to compensate,
and it keep doing that until it reaches it's minimum point, then the current starts to rise and the remaining LEDs burn off, if the driver has no protection for that.
So having a great range is great when you have many LED's in series, and is expecting some of them to shot circuit and make the hole string overload.

Rasser · Jul 13, 2012

Hi.

Revived the 5 PC power supply's today and is inspecting and is prepping one of them:

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[TD][/TD]
[TD]Bonus: Mains cable X 5[/TD]
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Bonus: 50 x 17" cables.

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NO BONUS !

Takes 10 min. to remove and
clean up all the labels.

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
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[TR]
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Side by side: PSUVo and the new case

Nice the mains plug is mounted higher so it's not blocking for the heatsink like the other case,
and can be left in and used. I think I will use the Neutral plug as GND, the phase plug as FAN power
and the earth plug as LED power just in case a real mains plug finds it's way.

How the power is distributed:
450 watt / 12 = 37.5 / 4 = 9.37 ~ 4 x 9A = ~ 400 usable watts per PSU so when using 3 in series to create 36 volts a 1200 watt draw
should be possible but not recommended, the half is more likely better for the PSU's cap's in the long run.

DO3SHA · Jul 15, 2012

My voltage and current should be correct tell me if im wrong

Rasser · Jul 15, 2012

To get a better overview and to illustrate the valid voltage combinations that's possible when using more then on DC source in series.

And as an example the use of a 10W LED constant current driver and PC PSU's to driver more then 1 LED with the same driver.

But note the PC PSU use 14 watt at idle so it only make sense if there is a heavy draw 100 watt per PSU or so.

All LED drivers lose 5-15W per 100W, the ones in my 10W LED flood light looks like those that has a 85% efficiency, so using many of them
also has a price. ~1W per driver.

The color codes should points to the right reference GND to use with the right PSU and voltage.
Since we are interested in the highest voltage it's the +12 & GND thats connected between the PSU's

In the example used they both run on +36V one of them could use +29V by being connected to +5V on PSU 3, if that voltage was required.

Besides the "main" power source(PSU3) using this as a external power station there is a lot of voltage possibilities to take from:
+5V(PSU1,2,3) to the temperature displays and such(USB). +12V(PSU1,2,3) to the fan controller. +12V(PSU1,2,3) to DC to DC constant current drivers,
like the ones used in MR16 12V LED spots.

Rasser · Jul 15, 2012

DO3SHA said:
My voltage and current should be correct tell me if im wrongView attachment 2255964 View attachment 2255965

Looks perfect to me, if you want to control the 3 drivers individual that is, else I would look into incorporating the 4 blue LED into the 2 other stings.

Apollo 6 / Photon 90 - A look inside and looking for alternatives ways of cooling

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