I really need to stop bothering robin, can I bother you guys instead?

Thanks to everyone who shares the knowledge here and on YouTube . Trying to be patient and make a educated purchase but the excitement is getting the better of me last few days. Maybe I can speed this process up with some help from you guys here.

My current set up is 8x8x8 flower room with four 600watt hids

5x8 veg tent with two 4'x8 bulb t5's and a small area51 led.

Motive for converting is a lot to due with wanting a more efficient set up, less heat/electrical usage. But also cause I like what the LEDs produce quality wise

I spoke with robin a few times at northerngrowlights about the vero29's and had my mind made up for a few days to go with them. I really like that they are newest on the block but I keep going back to the citi 1212 based on price and the idea of running more cobs appeals to me, I think?

Veg I was thinking 12 citi 1212s on 2x 240 1050 driver with cobs on 120mm passive pinfins

Flower I was thinking 5.866 6 foot heatsink bars actively cooled with 6 citis on 240 150 driver OR 5 vero29s on 320 1050, could I fit 6 veros on this driver if I wanted? Are these pretty efficient numbers to drive these cobs?

I'm not stuck on them but the heatsinkusa bars appeal to more then the pin fins do based on looks alone. Any thoughts on the 6 foot? Or maybe even 75" being that's the longest available? To long, pia to handle?

Anyone who wants to jump in please feel free I'm looking to sponge any opinions I can.

Hit the CobKits thread in this section.

1212 vs vero is kind of apples and oranges. on a performance basis the 36v veros are closest to the citi 1818s and cxbs, the 72V veros are closer to a citi 1825.

1212 would prob run with a vero 18 i havent tested any of those but ill bet the new ones are pretty good.

johnnyblaze313 said:

Flower I was thinking 5.866 6 foot heatsink bars actively cooled with 6 citis on 240 150 driver OR 5 vero29s on 320 1050, could I fit 6 veros on this driver if I wanted? Are these pretty efficient numbers to drive these cobs?

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any of these chips are really efficient below 50W

this is a good comparison:

https://www.rollitup.org/t/why-are-cobs-better-and-whats-so-great-about-the-3590.920480/#post-12944400

it may seem like theres a large gap but its really zoomed in. the way i use that chart is i pick an efficiency. in this case say 9 ppfd which is mid to upper 50s in chip efficiency

you can see that a $12 1212 at 30-35W is about as efficient as a $35 cxb at 45-50W or a $25 vero29 36V@ 55-60W

from there its just math to determine what is most cost effective, which is a little easier on extruded bars but if youre using discrete pinfins the smaller cheaper chips become less economical

We have been running a pair of under-driven vero 29's as veg for ages, and they are awesome, have just completed the first of 5 600w vero 29 arrays, check out the build vid here;
enjoy!
oh and as to 'bothering robin'...... who the fuck do you think you are? batman? leave poor robin alone ffs! and take off that rubber cape this instant!

Thanks fellas that chart helped alot, I looked at it before but I didn't really understand it then. I come across that Vero build on YouTube last night jack, that's a bad ass light.

I'm leaning toward the veros at this point. I think I'm going to do a veg light of each to see them in person before I commit to the flower lights.

freemanjack said:

We have been running a pair of under-driven vero 29's as veg for ages, and they are awesome, have just completed the first of 5 600w vero 29 arrays, check out the build vid here;

enjoy!
oh and as to 'bothering robin'...... who the fuck do you think you are? batman? leave poor robin alone ffs! and take off that rubber cape this instant!

Click to expand...

My kind of build wow very nice.

Evil-Mobo said:

My kind of build wow very nice.

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Thanks dood, get dis tho...... I recon with the temps and max values for those parts, I can pour 1000w into one of those arrays, will post the results as I have them, 2.3A meh, gimme the full fat 4.6A feckers!! In all seriousness, I heat soak tested that rig for around 4 hrs last night and the h/s temps showed a 15 c rise above ambient @ 300w per side (honestly, the drivers ran twice as hot as the h/s and they were only luke warm!), we know from test rigs we have run that the thermal/wattage gradient is a linear so in theory at least, we should only see a 30 c above ambient rise for 500w per side and that is allowing for the fans being a fixed speed!!

freemanjack said:

Thanks dood, get dis tho...... I recon with the temps and max values for those parts, I can pour 1000w into one of those arrays, will post the results as I have them, 2.3A meh, gimme the full fat 4.6A feckers!! In all seriousness, I heat soak tested that rig for around 4 hrs last night and the h/s temps showed a 15 c rise above ambient @ 300w per side (honestly, the drivers ran twice as hot as the h/s and they were only luke warm!), we know from test rigs we have run that the thermal/wattage gradient is a linear so in theory at least, we should only see a 30 c above ambient rise for 500w per side and that is allowing for the fans being a fixed speed!!

Click to expand...

would love to see more detail on how you wired the fan pigtails to create 12 v per leg for the fans.i assume that power comes from the same driver as the cobs are using?

johnnyblaze313 said:

Thanks fellas that chart helped alot, I looked at it before but I didn't really understand it then. I come across that Vero build on YouTube last night jack, that's a bad ass light.

I'm leaning toward the veros at this point. I think I'm going to do a veg light of each to see them in person before I commit to the flower lights.

Click to expand...

We were just grazing digikey earlier and the vero 29 gen 7's are now £18 per cob!!!!!!**** best bang fer yer buck by far (150lm/w @ 80w), wait till you see em at max forward current! 4.6@ approx 22,000 lum per cob!!!! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH MY EYES, MY EYES!

freemanjack said:

We were just grazing digikey earlier and the vero 20 gen 7's are now £18 per cob!!!!!!**** best bang fer yer buck by far (150lm/w @ 80w), wait till you see em at max forward current! 4.6@ approx 22,000 lum per cob!!!! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH MY EYES, MY EYES!

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The C version of the gen7 is even better bang for the money IMO.

sixstring2112 said:

would love to see more detail on how you wired the fan pigtails to create 12 v per leg for the fans.i assume that power comes from the same driver as the cobs are using?

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Sorry, I hoped my description in the vid kinda explained that, I guess badly! is quite straightforward series wiring, you only need the red/black wires from the 4 pwm fan wires, so cut back the blue and yellow ones, join the positive (red) of one lead to the neg (black) of another then attach the neg of the first to the pos of the third one, insulate the joins with heatshrink then use the pos of lead 2 and neg of lead 3 to connect to the 36v lighting supply. Now the 36v positive goes in one fan, thru the middle one and returns via the neg on the last one, hence dividing the 36v x 3 lots of 12v, precisely the same way as you would series cob's to divide the voltage. If you run 50 or 70v drivers you can either use more fans in series or drive them using a suitable buck converter.

alesh said:

The C version of the gen7 is even better bang for the money IMO.

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correction *vero 29 gen 7's
not sure what the 'C version' is alesh, care to educate?

freemanjack said:

correction *vero 29 gen 7's
not sure what the 'C version' is alesh, care to educate?

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Sure. Gen7 Veros come in three versions with different voltage, current and output ratings. The C version is ~68V and seems to be the most efficient of them at any power. It's also slightly more expensive. Digikey have some 3000 & 4000K in stock.
See Bridgelux Product Simulator and DS93 or DS94 data sheets.

B,C,D are different voltage (and not even in order so i ALWAYS get them mixed up. they are completely different chips with different die layouts, and only share two things in common
1. package size
2. super efficient and grow great weed

freemanjack said:

Thanks dood, get dis tho...... I recon with the temps and max values for those parts, I can pour 1000w into one of those arrays, will post the results as I have them, 2.3A meh, gimme the full fat 4.6A feckers!! In all seriousness, I heat soak tested that rig for around 4 hrs last night and the h/s temps showed a 15 c rise above ambient @ 300w per side (honestly, the drivers ran twice as hot as the h/s and they were only luke warm!), we know from test rigs we have run that the thermal/wattage gradient is a linear so in theory at least, we should only see a 30 c above ambient rise for 500w per side and that is allowing for the fans being a fixed speed!!

Click to expand...

Nice build. I went with two 300 watt mw drivers and 8 cobs and remote mounted my driver's and j boxes outside the tent by my light controller. Two bars four cobs a piece each dims separately from the other but one light and plug at the power end. Came out betrer than I thought. Not hard but very tedious work lots of little details to keep track of.

I was going to go Vero but when I bought the new ones were not available and where the old ones were people were price gouging doni went with 3000K cxb 3590's

Cheers

johnnyblaze313 said:

Thanks to everyone who shares the knowledge here and on YouTube . Trying to be patient and make a educated purchase but the excitement is getting the better of me last few days. Maybe I can speed this process up with some help from you guys here.

My current set up is 8x8x8 flower room with four 600watt hids

5x8 veg tent with two 4'x8 bulb t5's and a small area51 led.

Motive for converting is a lot to due with wanting a more efficient set up, less heat/electrical usage. But also cause I like what the LEDs produce quality wise

I spoke with robin a few times at northerngrowlights about the vero29's and had my mind made up for a few days to go with them. I really like that they are newest on the block but I keep going back to the citi 1212 based on price and the idea of running more cobs appeals to me, I think?

Veg I was thinking 12 citi 1212s on 2x 240 1050 driver with cobs on 120mm passive pinfins

Flower I was thinking 5.866 6 foot heatsink bars actively cooled with 6 citis on 240 150 driver OR 5 vero29s on 320 1050, could I fit 6 veros on this driver if I wanted? Are these pretty efficient numbers to drive these cobs?

I'm not stuck on them but the heatsinkusa bars appeal to more then the pin fins do based on looks alone. Any thoughts on the 6 foot? Or maybe even 75" being that's the longest available? To long, pia to handle?

Anyone who wants to jump in please feel free I'm looking to sponge any opinions I can.

Click to expand...

I'm running 60" bars. Bitch to machine and heavy. Just take that into account


Good luck

alesh said:

It's also slightly more expensive.

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last time i checked it was about 40% more so slightly might be a stretch

CobKits said:

last time i checked it was about 40% more so slightly might be a stretch

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It's 27% more at Digikey right now. Anyway, still better deal than other two versions.

oh i was going by the $22 50pc price, looks like they jacked the single chip price for in stock chips up to $25

the Cs at $31 are a good deal for sure