Building Prototype 300W CXB3590 Bar Need Comments Suggestions.

DoctorDelta9 said:

Took 2 days for my order to arrive. I love Jerry

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If you only order emitters you can opt for the china post for $10. Takes about ten days give or take.

@Getgrowingson

You can follow my build post here
https://www.rollitup.org/t/first-led-build-cxb3590.868236/page-7#post-11620210

I'll be making a few minor revisions after talking to the led gods

OK after a bunch of following leads and pricing everything out i have changed a few things and ordered some cobs! WHOOO first step to a rockin light!

I ordered
12 CXB3590 3500K CD Bin 72V
12 Ideal Chip-Loc Holders
12 Glass 80 Degree Lenses
ALL from Kingbrite for a much cheaper price then with Digikey or Arrow or whatever. Cobs were almost half the price and a better bin! Pumped. The holders were a little more expensive. 3$ vs 2 and change but i pay shipping once this way and probably will end up coming out on top this way.

Anyway I decided to mount 4 on a ????x 40" Heatsink fro HUSA with an HLG185-700C driver for 4 of them. So each bar would be pushing around 200W at 51% efficiency. I will be using 3 of these bars over a 4x4 area. I picked 3500K because everyone says 3000K does very well on its own and also that 4000K is good for both veg and flower. SO i figured since its a mix of the two with probably a little more red then the 4000K but a little more blue then the 3000K i would get just as good flower development with the frost of a higher kelvin color. Also the bin for the 3500K is a higher bin then what i could get for the 3000K.

This is going to be a very expensive endeavour but i am confident with all the research i have done that i can get the output of a thouie with only 600W and never have to change bulbs ever again. Have less heat then a 600W HPS but as much light as a thouie and a better spectrum to boot!

Now a few things i still need to get.
Heatsink... I decided to go with a heatsink vs cpu cooler due to cleanliness and ease of use vs seperate coolers and wires running all over the place. Was thinking of going with the 5.88" Heatsink and have some overkill incase something goes wrong with the fan. I will eventually put in a thermal relay of some sort to shut the light down if it reaches to high of a temp but want the extra aluminium incase something goes wrong in the meantime. Also if i decide i want to use some 730nm stars to put these ladies to sleep quicker and take advantage of the emmerson effect i am able to put a couple in between the cobs on the heatsink.

Paste. What would you guys recommend and where can i get it for the best price? Arctic Silver?

Fan. Thinking of going with a Noctua 140MM fan which seems to be the best fan i can get for a decent price that will last close to as long as my cobs will.

Fan Power Supply. What are you guys using for a power supply for the fan? Obviously it needs to be a reliable one since the 1300$ lights will be cooled by this thing and we dont want her overheating on me.

I will be using some sort of covers on the heatsink and one fan in the middle to push the air to the outsides. I have seen a few doing this and think it should be sufficient as long as its nice and tight to the fins as to keep the air moving along the channels.

I will figure out spacing once i can get some insight into how far people are running these from their plants and not frying them. Spacing seems rather important when using lenses as i want complete coverage with as even ppfd as possible. obviously coverage changes with height so i need to know what height they are running so i can figure out the coverage of each cob and adjust my spacing between cobs and bars so its optimal.

ANYWAY! I really appreciate all the insight you guys have given me in the last little while and frequently follow most threads in the LED section here. I am addicted and havent even built my first light yet! haha ANY comments or criticism from experienced builders and growers is welcome here. Thanks again everyone!

Getgrowingson said:

WHOOO first step to a rockin light!

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WHOOO indeed. Sounds like a good plan. DD9's example is an excellent one to follow.

Two small suggestions: think about dimming and if you want to put in a thermal relay, do it during the initial build. As to the latter point, it will be easier to do it at the start and, if you're like me, going back to add something later on often seems to never happen.

HydroDC said:

WHOOO indeed. Sounds like a good plan. DD9's example is an excellent one to follow.

Two small suggestions: think about dimming and if you want to put in a thermal relay, do it during the initial build. As to the latter point, it will be easier to do it at the start and, if you're like me, going back to add something later on often seems to never happen.

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Yea I forgot to put the dimming part in there. I will be hooking them on dimmers. Probably just one pot for all three drivers. So a 33K linear potentiometer will be used. Not sure if I need a lower limit resistor or not but will look into that as well.

For fan PS I ordered 12v 1a ( overkill I know, but the fans will only draw what they need) from eBay http://m.ebay.com/itm/371117456686?nav=SEARCH

You can get custom shrouds here.
Onlinemetals.com

I love my noctuna fans. Good choice.

As far as paste I used prolimatech pk-3. Artic silver gets a lot of mixed reviews, seems like its old technology and not worth the price. 5g is plenty. I put the paste out in the sun before I spread it to warm it and make it easy to spread.

Good luck my friend!
Sounds like a killer setup!!

Thanks for the onlinemetals.com site--they have some good info there. Years ago, I'd get my project aluminum from the Boeing surplus store in Kent, WA.

Well I hit a little bend in the road yesterday. I set up my order from Heatsinkusa and found out my 240$ worth of heatsink is going to cost me 108$ just on shipping. FAAAAAK. THAT'S INSANE! that was for the 5.88 heatsink. Coolers would cost me 165$ Total for 12 of them and could probably get the aluminum rail for under 50$ so total 215 vs 350$ do you guys really think the heatsink is that much better even for the high price difference??

Getgrowingson said:

Well I hit a little bend in the road yesterday. I set up my order from Heatsinkusa and found out my 240$ worth of heatsink is going to cost me 108$ just on shipping. FAAAAAK. THAT'S INSANE! that was for the 5.88 heatsink. Coolers would cost me 165$ Total for 12 of them and could probably get the aluminum rail for under 50$ so total 215 vs 350$ do you guys really think the heatsink is that much better even for the high price difference??

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I'm with you on that. Changed up my plans too..I'm going with coolers instead now.

Getgrowingson said:

Well I hit a little bend in the road yesterday. I set up my order from Heatsinkusa and found out my 240$ worth of heatsink is going to cost me 108$ just on shipping. FAAAAAK. THAT'S INSANE! that was for the 5.88 heatsink. Coolers would cost me 165$ Total for 12 of them and could probably get the aluminum rail for under 50$ so total 215 vs 350$ do you guys really think the heatsink is that much better even for the high price difference??

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For me, it was worth the extra $$ to have peace of mind that I wouldn't fry my $800 worth of cobs. 100$ shipping sounds high, you can pick economy shipping I think mine was 50$

Yea that's the cheapest option available. Kinda hurts but seems like it would be much easier to use the heatsink

Getgrowingson said:

Well I hit a little bend in the road yesterday. I set up my order from Heatsinkusa and found out my 240$ worth of heatsink is going to cost me 108$ just on shipping. FAAAAAK. THAT'S INSANE! that was for the 5.88 heatsink. Coolers would cost me 165$ Total for 12 of them and could probably get the aluminum rail for under 50$ so total 215 vs 350$ do you guys really think the heatsink is that much better even for the high price difference??

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This is what it look like when you pay about $100 for each heat sink including shipping when I buy 5 10"x24" check this video out

Looking good bro. @SupraSPL if you could take a quick look at what i have going on here that would be great. I am looking at ordering heatsinks for this and am wondering what the ideal spacing should be for these cobs on the heatsinks. I ordered 80 degree lenses as per your suggestion in the DIY CXA3070 thread. What would be the main coverage area for each cob? i can do spread calculations all day long with the lenses ect but i know the light source intensity will fall off on the edges of each spherical cone each cob emits and would like to know what your opinion on heatsink size and spacing of the cobs to cover the 4x4 area . really appreciate any comments or criticism.

Getgrowingson said:

Well I hit a little bend in the road yesterday. I set up my order from Heatsinkusa and found out my 240$ worth of heatsink is going to cost me 108$ just on shipping. FAAAAAK. THAT'S INSANE! that was for the 5.88 heatsink. Coolers would cost me 165$ Total for 12 of them and could probably get the aluminum rail for under 50$ so total 215 vs 350$ do you guys really think the heatsink is that much better even for the high price difference??

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haha yea I've had to look for a local place after realising the cost of shipping them here was going to be almost the same price as the sinks themselves!
Have you tried locally? I was pretty impressed at my local prices and I live in a pretty small town.

I've been weighing it up - re big heatsink vs small cpu coolers and I've decided on the big heatsinks for a few reasons - main ones being that it'll be safer (if one of the fans goes on the cpu coolers that cob is buggered).
plus (i feel) it'll be more reusable and has far more flexibility than the cpu coolers ( can upgrade it over and over as new tech comes out), also it'll be easier to hang it up and lastly I think it'll look nicer (really pretty unimportant overall).

I went with 4" sections of the 4.6" from Heat Sink USA, with some 120mm computer case fans, for some Vero 29s, having used some computer fans previously. I did it for a lot of the same reasons Goldy listed, cleaner look, easy to set and tape them into aluminum angle iron, and most importantly, I mounted the LEDs without screws, so I can use the same heat sink at any point in the future as technology advances.

I just can't decide whether it's best to go for 4 panels each with 4 (roughly 200-300w per) or to go for just 2, larger panels with 8 each (to cover 4'x4' - 5'x5').
Spread, in theory, would be best with more panels..not sure if it's enough difference to justify the extra cost, weight etc. though.
Yea I like the idea of not screwing on led holders..means if there's suddenly a crazy jump in tech it's cheaper to keep up.

Getgrowingson's made his panels now they're awesome https://www.rollitup.org/t/my-1000w-hps-killer.882548/