Lighthouse Hydro is doing it wrong.

PSUAGRO. said:

god the things are designed badly

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That's why you fuck with them .

I would love to cut a big ass square hole in the back of my BS240 and attach 4 fan-less CPU heat sinks to it. It's just not worth the $60.00 to $100.00 to do it right.

Excuse me while I go see if my tent is on fire!

I have a 600w Blackstar and a 357 Mag+ and the cooling of the Blackstar is better and quieter. Blackstar seems to be more brighter when on than 357 for some reason, 357 overall has a better build quality than Blackstar.

Can I give advice?
Waist your time smoke weed than doing this!!
I have one 300w and another 600w blackstar panel when I saw this thread I start to think but this theory is bullshit
First the sides cannot pass the same amont of air when compared with the top what's make no sense to invert the airflow, and the most import the sides to the top have 1 inch or 2 inches max of difference and always the hot air go UP even if you invert the flow is not gonna change anything actually you are gonna take a risk to over heat your unit why?

This phrase from your friend explains everything

A fan can't really suck heat off of a heat sink, but it can blow cool air onto it and cool it that way.

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IF you invert the fan the air is not gonna blow in the heat sink you are just removing the hot air in that time you are decreasing the efficient of cool down from your panels!!

mtxdemon said:

Waist your time smoke weed than doing this!!

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Can't you see that's the problem? I'm smokin sativas again. If I was smoking my Blue Cheese right now I wouldn't have the energy to even read this thread! But point taken mtxdemon.

So let's do a little unscientific test. I affixed the outdoor temp probe to the aluminum on my newer Blackstar 240. This is the one that runs a little hotter and is closest to my exhaust. After 15 minutes temps leveled out at this monster (at least to me) of a number:

Probed;


Beginning;


Yow!


So I'm going to flip the fans over and let it run for twenty or so minutes. So I'll be back in a bit and we'll see what it says. I think it would be funny if it was the same numbers

Hey PSU, does your new panel suck or blow?

FranJan said:

I was thinking of doing some kind of before and after but I had 3 panels to do, and still have 1 more to go, so I said screw it. The thing that's annoying me is I set my grow tent up for the LED heat to be ejected from the tent and out through my filter which is right above the grow. Now the heated air will finally rise more freely from the panel and I'm fully expecting to be running the AC a degree or two cooler tomorrow. But still I should of checked this out before .

But if the diodes start going POP POP POP you'll be the first person I whine to TMU ! LOL


Hey Vilify what up. Two things come to my mind from what you said. One is you use the fans along with the heat coming off the device itself (convection) to help remove the heat away from what you're cooling and fill the space left by the heated air with cooler air. Blowing down on this messes this effect up, plus the hot air you've ejected from the sides is now rising up the side of the panel and being sucked into the panel again. And two, the mount for the LEDs on a BS240 is the heatsink so you can't do what you're thinking.

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IDK how well the bs's push air, but I will take some temperature readings coming off my leds when the lights come on. To either show what I was getting at, or to just prove myself wrong..
I wasnt referring to modifying a blackstar, just meant when I get around to building my own panels.

Now That Worked !

After using a metal saw with limited success, 'coughs 5 min.' I went with a more direct approach
that worked great, - if you do it quickly and with brute force(it takes about 15 sec. for all 4 outer cuts).


Fan grills for sale !

Finally I could put this 20$ machine to some use.






• Fan noise gone
• Airflow improved
• Temps down significantly

Sorry couldn't help myself. It really is a great improvement.

I think I just went up, towards more output for the same buck.





Oh my !, just search for another: from http://airbornelights.wordpress.com/lighting-technology/led-optimal-flash-duration/



And a chart with the longevity and temperature relationship.


And maybe I went up 6000 hours of livetime ! - had I been using Cree.

Maybe it's even worse on no-name led's don't know, could easily imagine that's the case.
Keep it cool - the new LED growers motto.

^^^ sick!!!!

cant wait to see FRANJAN!

Excellent Rasser! +rep 2 u. Looks like it's a trip to the hardware store for me this week. Those are blowing in, right?


Right before I turned on the BS240;



And 20 plus minutes later.....



LOL LOL LOL Think if I had removed the spacers it would have been exactly the same number? About the only conclusion I'll say about this "experiment" is if you want to raise the temps and lower your humidity run it sucking in, otherwise I still think I'm going to run it with the fans blowing out. And the Blackstar cooling design is a joke IMHO, but they do grow weed.

FranJan said:

Excellent Rasser! +rep 2 u. Looks like it's a trip to the hardware store for me this week. Those are blowing in, right?

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Thanks ! yes, they are back to default -
(sucking air in from the top and blowing it on the heat sink.)


The next thing I wanna know is, how cold do a Star PCB has to be, for the junction temperature to be 25°c(77°F)

Okay so this is Heat's road to the sink


Hmm, I think I'm gonna mount my second temperature display sensor somewhere on the pcb-package
and see what the difference is.



Looking at this chart - next up liquid Co2 and super-boosted red LED's ?




Interesting...


Online web apps: Arr okay this is not gonna take 3 minutes.
http://www.ti.com/adc/docs/midlevel.tsp?contentId=76735&DCMP=hpa_design_center&HQS=Tools+OT+pcbthermalcalc

Think I see what I can see with the 2nd. temp display.

Excellent work you guys^^^^^.............If you look at the two best built panels IMO, california light works/lumigrow, CLW sucks in the air and pushes it out on top(fan) of the unit over massive heatsinks...lumigrow pushes the air in from the bottom (fan) out the sides of the unit over massive heatsinks(neirther draws air in from the top/ still seems wrong to me?idk)....so it comes to the heat management design on how airflow is dictated within the unit, But alleviating restrictions like Rasser did was a great/easy improvement........

Id rep you both/ but you know how it works on RIU........Oh and Fran my panel sucks the hot air out at the top of the unit

I see the sucking vs. blowing like this:

In a ideal environment there is no difference, only air temperature and airflow / speed matters (chill factor)
A person standing in a long tube can't tell if there is a fan if the front blowing, or one in the back sucking.

The cheap flat heat sinks used on many LED grow lights and there design in general is far from ideal, and for a tiny
person standing on that heat sink there is all the difference if it's sucking or blowing from above. If it's sucking
a great deal of the air flow will go through the side vents and go directly up, without touching the plate, the center of the plate
is the calm eye of the storm. Reverse the flow and the center becomes the center of the storm.

Fuck a better stop smoking ! -tiny people on heat sinks, this is getting out of control. lol -

So I was in a bit of a rush before to post those pictures and redo my panel before lights out. I'm now thinking that the generic panel design of the BS doesn't do much for cooling, if anything at all. Isn't it kind of funny as you start to cut away a Blackstar's case, it starts to work better ? Affixing some cheap heat-sinks will help probably cool it better too and maybe even help get some more performance out of it. It is true that LEDs do perform better at different temps like Risser is pointing out, and that's something I've been ignoring too long. I'm also of the opinion now that it doesn't matter if the fan is blowing in or out, as long as the air is moving over the heatsink/mount your OK with a BS and you might as well leave it alone. Still I took out the spacers, flipped the fans over so they are blowing out and am planning on cutting out the fan covers once I find some kind of filtration material and maybe some copper tape to tape it out with. Anyway the other panels survived the day running like that and I'm fine leaving them running the way they are.

And yeah PSU I figured it sucked . Can't wait to see how it "sucks" in action. LOL Should be fun. Han's seems to know something.

Rasser said:

Fuck a better stop smoking ! -tiny people on heat sinks, this is getting out of control. lol -

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Don't stop now, you're having a vision!!!!!!

Just tested the temps with my temp gun. 110f on the reflective surface and 135f on the led itself. This is without modifications to the unit besides glass being removed.

thatsmessedup said:

Just tested the temps with my temp gun. 110f on the reflective surface and 135f on the led itself. This is without modifications to the unit besides glass being removed.

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wow at those temps....looking at Rasser's charts on the last page and seeing these temps coming of your panel (Blackstar?) Is kinda sickening due to the money we spend on these panels/so basically light house is selling us shit that is basically useless after a handful of runs (without mods) Fuck.....

PSUAGRO. said:

wow at those temps....looking at Rasser's charts on the last page and seeing these temps coming of your panel (Blackstar?) Is kinda sickening due to the money we spend on these panels/so basically light house is selling us shit that is basically useless after a handful of runs (without mods) Fuck.....

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All the Chinese re-shippers basically.

Anybody remember this "great lost" post about custom cooling BS240s. Great photos for people who want to know "what's behind the foil". Good for larger BS panel owners too. Got ruined in the attack.

BS240 Dissected and Upgraded

^^ ya... according to the chart, these leds will last about 35,000 hours at 135f. I think Im going to do what rasser did and remove the grills for maximum airflow... should help alot considering there are 8 fans on my blackstar unit.