Guide me to the Light....

DukeFluke said:

Ok so... I just spent the first of my pennies... Ideally would have liked to chat with Mark over at cutter but I haven't heard back and there's nobody on the site. He's probably busy.

So what I've decided to do is spread my bets a bit. I've just picked up 40 of these 90 CRI strips https://www.futureelectronics.com/search?text=BXEB-L0560Z-30G2000-C-C3&q=BXEB-L0560Z-30G2000-C-C3:relevance:category:light-engines&selectedTab=products&selectedParentCategory=light-engines

I'll still hopefully get a couple of kits from cutter, but I'm gonna also head over to Digikey tomorrow when I get home and put in another order for some 80 CRI BXEB strips which I plan to mix with these to make me my first couple of cheapish but still decent all round veg to bloom lights.

Let me know what you think abow dat

Click to expand...

Congrats on pulling the trigger! Its the hardest part for the first timer.

You can also ponder getting some wide uv/blue supplementation, this will work in a similar way to adding some higher k 80 cri.

There are plenty of cool stuff at cutter. Im interested in seeing how the new cree photoboost in 90cri turns out, especially if we could get a split supplementation of near UV and xpg660. Not sure if the pcb architecture allows it though.

Id run the blux on heat sinks no matter what, and run 2 to 3 of them per heatsink. I think these come with double connectors which makes the parallel connections easier.

Rocket Soul said:

Congrats on pulling the trigger! Its the hardest part for the first timer.

You can also ponder getting some wide uv/blue supplementation, this will work in a similar way to adding some higher k 80 cri.

There are plenty of cool stuff at cutter. Im interested in seeing how the new cree photoboost in 90cri turns out, especially if we could get a split supplementation of near UV and xpg660. Not sure if the pcb architecture allows it though.

Id run the blux on heat sinks no matter what, and run 2 to 3 of them per heatsink. I think these come with double connectors which makes the parallel connections easier.

Click to expand...

I though @Major Blazer said EB strips are totally fine at 1050mA no heatsink? The data sheet even says they don't need it at low currents?

Airwalker16 said:

I though @Major Blazer said EB strips are totally fine at 1050mA no heatsink? The data sheet even says they don't need it at low currents?

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The standard ebs should be fine up to 1 amp, the slims are half as wide pcb. Im not sure which ones op is getting.
Check out cobshops build thread for thermals on the slim line, i think he had approx 43C diode temp with low ambient. I prefer to keep temps well under 50C for longer life. This is the trickk witth ebs, you can squeeze out real performance on low for nott that much $$. But even then its better to have some sinking just for rigidity and not breaking them accidentally.

Rocket Soul said:

Congrats on pulling the trigger! Its the hardest part for the first timer.

You can also ponder getting some wide uv/blue supplementation, this will work in a similar way to adding some higher k 80 cri.

There are plenty of cool stuff at cutter. Im interested in seeing how the new cree photoboost in 90cri turns out, especially if we could get a split supplementation of near UV and xpg660. Not sure if the pcb architecture allows it though.

Id run the blux on heat sinks no matter what, and run 2 to 3 of them per heatsink. I think these come with double connectors which makes the parallel connections easier.

Click to expand...

do you know if cutter is planning on doing a version of the photoboost strips in the 90cri cree 2835?, the ones on the site at the minute are just 80cri. cree also do a 95cri version of the 2835.

I think mark was talking about 90 cri of the new crees coming in a few months a bit back in this thread.

Airwalker16 said:

I though @Major Blazer said EB strips are totally fine at 1050mA no heatsink? The data sheet even says they don't need it at low currents?

Click to expand...

Not me man, I have no experience with Bridgelux strips so I keep my mouth shut about them (nothing against them but whenever I've been in the market, they've been unavailable) I ran l06 h-influx completely open air at 700mAh however.

Major Blazer said:

Not me man, I have no experience with Bridgelux strips so I keep my mouth shut about them (nothing against them but whenever I've been in the market, they've been unavailable) I ran l06 h-influx completely open air at 700mAh however.

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Hm... Maybe I got them mixed up.

grotbags said:

are the strips you ordered from future 3000k 90cri?.
and whats your thinking on ordering the 80cri strips to mix in? what k/ratio?.

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Ditched that idea. Gonna use the 40 strips on their own. And yes, they're 90CRI 3000K

I think the 3000K will be a decent all rounder. Let' see.

Rocket Soul said:

Congrats on pulling the trigger! Its the hardest part for the first timer.

You can also ponder getting some wide uv/blue supplementation, this will work in a similar way to adding some higher k 80 cri.

There are plenty of cool stuff at cutter. Im interested in seeing how the new cree photoboost in 90cri turns out, especially if we could get a split supplementation of near UV and xpg660. Not sure if the pcb architecture allows it though.

Id run the blux on heat sinks no matter what, and run 2 to 3 of them per heatsink. I think these come with double connectors which makes the parallel connections easier.

Click to expand...

Thanks man.

Yea I'm not gonna mess with the spectrum of these. I wanna see how they do on their own.

When you say 2 on a sink, do you mean side by side and not end to end?

If I run 40 with 480w I'm at 12w a strip.

What driver would you recommend?

Ok next thing after the driver is the heatsink.

What thickness and grade of aluminium is recommended for a grow light of this spec?

Cheers

Okay, got a bit more time off work now and I want to use this next couple of days to make my final decision and get everything bought. I need to:

1. Make my final decision on lights and get them.

- So far I've got the 90CRI BXEB from future elec.
I'm just going to run these 50/50 with some 80CRI strips from digikey at the same colour. The 90CRI should add a bit to the overall spectrum and the 80s will bump up the efficiency slightly. Should make decent overall veg to flower lights and a decent first build.

That's my first two lights sorted.

I'm making 6 lights altogether and as part of this I wat to try out a few different things and see how the results compare.

Ideally I want to use 2 BXEB lights + 2 LM301B lights + 2 cutter PR boost kits.

Two down, four to go.

2. Get the drivers.

3. Source heatsinks and bits and bobs while the other stuff is on the way.
Should be the easiest part, everything's local. just need to find the best suppliers.

So based on this I need your help again to get me to the finish line on this one. It's been much appreciated so far and so valuable. I've gone from knowing nothing at all about LED lighting and ready to buy a spider farmer, to really looking forward to building my own basic ones and learning more to add to them from there.

I'll use the next few posts to break those stages down.

Okay so stage 1. The lights.

I've got the BXEB in the bag.

Leaves me the 2 x LM301b and the 2 Cutter sets.

Leaving the cutters apart for now. I'll start with the exact numbers for my space.

2 lights will actually cover an area 6.5 ft x 3.5 ft.
Which means 900W - two of them on 450 - will give me pretty much 40w/sqft

Is that good?

Regarding the 301b, this is where I'm stuck a bit, it's ll about diode count and what represents good value for money.

I've been quoted $30 per bar by Shenzen bright. Come to $35 with shipping.

The bars are 56cm/ 2ft, with 240 diodes + 8 deep red and 2 far red.
Max out of them is 120W
I would run 10 of them at 45W per light.

But this got me thinking. After reading a post over at LEDgardener, and a PM from @maddmango about using 120W boards and running them low.

They're LM301B 248PCS+32PCS CREE 660nm+4PCS Epistar UV+4PCS Epistar IR.

Cost for 6 would be £300 from Kinbrite with decent shipping rate on those.

I could get 6 boards and run them at 75w for 40w/psf

That would be my LM301b option sorted.

Or..... get strips from Digikey.

In this case I need a bit of help deciding which is best from the Samsung series.

What's the lowdown on H-influx vs Q-series vs the F series?

As far as being stuck on choice goes, this is basically my last real knot I need to unravel.

DukeFluke said:

Okay so stage 1. The lights.

I've got the BXEB in the bag.

Leaves me the 2 x LM301b and the 2 Cutter sets.

Leaving the cutters apart for now. I'll start with the exact numbers for my space.

2 lights will actually cover an area 6.5 ft x 3.5 ft.
Which means 900W - two of them on 450 - will give me pretty much 40w/sqft

Is that good?

Regarding the 301b, this is where I'm stuck a bit, it's ll about diode count and what represents good value for money.

I've been quoted $30 per bar by Shenzen bright. Come to $35 with shipping.

The bars are 56cm/ 2ft, with 240 diodes + 8 deep red and 2 far red.
Max out of them is 120W
I would run 10 of them at 45W per light.

But this got me thinking. After reading a post over at LEDgardener, and a PM from @maddmango about using 120W boards and running them low.

They're LM301B 248PCS+32PCS CREE 660nm+4PCS Epistar UV+4PCS Epistar IR.

Cost for 6 would be £300 from Kinbrite with decent shipping rate on those.

I could get 6 boards and run them at 75w for 40w/psf

That would be my LM301b option sorted.

Or..... get strips from Digikey.

In this case I need a bit of help deciding which is best from the Samsung series.

What's the lowdown on H-influx vs Q-series vs the F series?

As far as being stuck on choice goes, this is basically my last real knot I need to unravel.

Click to expand...

@ANC Please lend your experience any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks buddy.

Ok so after doing the due diligence, unless anyone suggests otherwise, I think a good basic option for me would be the F-Series. With 288 diodes per strip I think I'm good knocking a light or two together with those. 10 strips run at half power should give me near the max efficiency from them shouldn't it?

Thoughts on that?

DukeFluke said:

Ok so after doing the due diligence, unless anyone suggests otherwise, I think a good basic option for me would be the F-Series. With 288 diodes per strip I think I'm good knocking a light or two together with those. 10 strips run at half power should give me near the max efficiency from them shouldn't it?

Thoughts on that?

Click to expand...

When you use so low power per diode and so good distribuition, and i assume keeping them low towards the cannopy youre better of calculating 35w max per squarefoot. Or even lower. Youve referenced cobshops grow which also designed witha massive amount of diodes: hee dont get to much more than 25w per squarre foot before getting bleaching. Its allwas good to have extra power but it really tempts you to use it. I can guarantee you will light burn plants with this build once oor twice if you have 40w/foot max. Its just too tempting...

I've decided to keep things basic with the first four lights.

It'll be

2 x BXEB 3000k fixtures
2 x F-Series fixtures
2 x Cutter PR boost fixtures

What'll be interesting to me is seeing how the first two builds, basic strips with no added deep or far red, compare with the PR boosts, which are also a bit more efficient.

Looking forward to it the closer I get. All these head wrecking questions have been solved now, helped a large part by finding the bit of the data sheet which told me how many diodes are on each strip.

That kind of clicked when I saw the count for the F-series then compared it to the Shenzen stuff. I can always add the far and deep red later on a separate driver is my thinking. So I can forget all that now.

Next thing... Drivers

Rocket Soul said:

When you use so low power per diode and so good distribuition, and i assume keeping them low towards the cannopy youre better of calculating 35w max per squarefoot. Or even lower. Youve referenced cobshops grow which also designed witha massive amount of diodes: hee dont get to much more than 25w per squarre foot before getting bleaching. Its allwas good to have extra power but it really tempts you to use it. I can guarantee you will light burn plants with this build once oor twice if you have 40w/foot max. Its just too tempting...

Click to expand...

hello mate.

I've worked out 40w as 900w over the two fixtures.

If I go full power at 960w I've got 42w/sf

Now I hear what you're saying about getting greedy, but... that little 1m space might be my fail-safe there because those numbers have got me thinking ( in a greedy way)

If I dial it down to 350w per fixture and run them 30w/sf that's just 1050w...

...the room can take 1200-1400w in the summer

That opens up the possibility to put another light in that one meter space and have the trays on casters so I can move them aside to get in and work. It won't be as easy access tho and it is me being a bit greedy, but If I can run those types of numbers and still pull yield, I might try it, maybe just on one side. hm

While you're here... what you think about the F-series? Reckon I'm good with those?

Alright then... so I want to put my drivers on the same order as my strips on Digikey.

So.... which ones should I go for?

Power per fixture will be 480w max. More likely driven at about 420w, but based on the post above from @Rocket Soul maybe even needing dimming a bit more.

If you want flexibility do 2x 2by4s at 240w each rather than a 4x4. It seems like your space is complicated and theres a definite tendency to want to change things up later. None of the first builds i built for my growbuddy is still there, they all became something else.