QB324 grow

Dramas aside, the Quantum Board 324s are doing well. As mentioned in another thread, I like the spectrum of the Nichia NT2L757GRT-V1 mixed 3000K 80CRI and 90CRI leds, which was the main reason for choosing these over the QB288 or QB304 boards.

We are growing out some Paradise Seeds Wappa side-by-side with six 600w HPS bulbs (Gavitas). The HPS usually yield about 20oz per 7-8 week harvest. That's pretty average, as they've been as high as 24oz.

There are four QB324s in the room now. Each plant station has two boards with heatsinks that have been mounted to some L-shape aluminium (50mm x25mm x3mm) and are being driven in series by a HLG-480H-C2100A driver at about 200W per board, or 400W total per station. Each 400W frame has replaced a single 600w HPS. All the plants are being fed run-to-waste coco.

Here are the plants and QB324s when they first went in two weeks ago:

Here is the entire room they are in:

This is obviously a commercial operation. Those 600s produce a lot of heat.

Here we are two weeks later:

Here's the canopy after it's been tucked in, scrog style. A friend of mine looks after this grow and probably needs to spend a bit more time maximising his grow footprint.


Here's what the Wappa buds will look like when they're nearing harvest. It's an excellent smoke - a really good commercial strain that stinks to high heaven and has loads of bag appeal.

More bud shots.


And a shot of the entire room. This is a perpetual grow with 3-4 plants harvested every four weeks or so.

Do you find this spectrum to be better than a 3000k and/or a 3500k? Have you noticed any negative growth differences between the 600W?

If you could choose again, would you pick the QB288v2 or the QB304?

It's a bit early to say, but the CRI90 mix does have a bit more red in it, which should be better for yields. I've noticed already, after having built and tried a few different LED veg frames using 5000K and 4000K Samsung LM561C strips that the 4000K seem to veg faster than the 5000K, so I would expect to see similar results with the 3000K CRi80/90 mix compared to straight 3000KCRI80 LEDs.

No negative growth differences - they seem to have stretched about the same. I've been growing under 3000K Samsung LM561C led strips at another place, and they've been producing good yields. When I grew with HPS, I grew vertically, so my yields were always better than horizontal HPS grows. The test above is simply to see if we can get the same results using 400W of LEDs as 600W of HPS with the obvious power saving, as well as reduced heat during summer (note aircon on the wall).

Would I choose the 288 or 304 over the 324? Probably not. It comes down to economics (the QB324 boards can be driven higher for less money) and spectrum (unless the 288/304 boards came out in, say 2700K).

Prawn Connery said:

It's a bit early to say, but the CRI90 mix does have a bit more red in it, which should be better for yields. I've noticed already, after having built and tried a few different LED veg frames using 5000K and 4000K Samsung LM561C strips that the 4000K seem to veg faster than the 5000K, so I would expect to see similar results with the 3000K CRi80/90 mix compared to straight 3000KCRI80 LEDs.

No negative growth differences - they seem to have stretched about the same. I've been growing under 3000K Samsung LM561C led strips at another place, and they've been producing good yields. When I grew with HPS, I grew vertically, so my yields were always better than horizontal HPS grows. The test above is simply to see if we can get the same results using 400W of LEDs as 600W of HPS with the obvious power saving, as well as reduced heat during summer (note aircon on the wall).

Would I choose the 288 or 304 over the 324? Probably not. It comes down to economics (the QB324 boards can be driven higher for less money) and spectrum (unless the 288/304 boards came out in, say 2700K).

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Thanks for the response. I’ve been looking at all the HLG boards to determine which one would be the best for my intended setup (My first time growing, setup is a 2’x4’). I kinda came to the same conclusion, more power for less money. I’m just been getting hung up by spectrum, CRI, LM561c vs LM301B, etc. Does any of that really make a significant difference? Again your response really helps

Prawn Connery said:

Dramas aside, the Quantum Board 324s are doing well. As mentioned in another thread, I like the spectrum of the Nichia NT2L757GRT-V1 mixed 3000K 80CRI and 90CRI leds, which was the main reason for choosing these over the QB288 or QB304 boards.

We are growing out some Paradise Seeds Wappa side-by-side with six 600w HPS bulbs (Gavitas). The HPS usually yield about 20oz per 7-8 week harvest. That's pretty average, as they've been as high as 24oz.

There are four QB324s in the room now. Each plant station has two boards with heatsinks that have been mounted to some L-shape aluminium (50mm x25mm x3mm) and are being driven in series by a HLG-480H-C2100A driver at about 200W per board, or 400W total per station. Each 400W frame has replaced a single 600w HPS. All the plants are being fed run-to-waste coco.

Here are the plants and QB324s when they first went in two weeks ago:
View attachment 4173831
Here is the entire room they are in:
View attachment 4173832
This is obviously a commercial operation. Those 600s produce a lot of heat.

Click to expand...

Subbed, mate!
Finally! I thought that I would soon see a test from you with these boards. I like what I see. Are these fabric pots on the tables? How does it work with coco dtw?
I love the CRI80/90 mix mostly because of the increased far-red part in the spectrum. PS I is typically more excited than PS II under LED's and some far-red helps to make up for it because it balance out the excitation state between PS system I and II resulting in an increase over all photosyntic performance. It also has an effect on leaf temps..(+~1°C)
I'll add the pdf paper below about this topic. Interesting stuff..!

Subbed. Looking good as usual mate!!

aren't you blocking some of the light with those longer l brackets?

Nice set up.
I'm subbed!

sethimus said:

aren't you blocking some of the light with those longer l brackets?

Click to expand...

Yes and no. The LEDS have a 120-degree angle of output, or 30-degrees from the flat surface on all four sides. If you do the maths, you'll see the angle between the edge of the long side (50mm) and the edge of the short side (25mm) "L" is less than 30-degrees - so no direct light is blocked.

Ambient light, on the other hand, yes. But it just gets reflected back in.

I designed the frames like that for 3 reasons: 1 is that I can put them face-down on any flat surface and not have to worry about the LEDS touching; 2 is that the L shape doesn't interfere with the direction of flow of the cooling fins on top; 3 is that I can mount a couple of computer fans on top of the L frame brackets facing towards the middle of the boards to cool the fins if I decide to crank up the power later and use active cooling. There's also a gap in-between the heatsinks to allow hot air to escape through the middle.

The room does have a fan blowing through it - though no direct cooling at this stage - and you can see the aircon on the wall behind, which isn't running at the moment as it's winter and the room is at a stable 30C. The boards and heatsinks are quite hot to touch, but not enough that you'd burn yourself.

Subbed!

Randomblame said:

Are these fabric pots on the tables? How does it work with coco dtw?

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Yes, fabric pots inside normal plastic drainage pots. They work well. My mate likes them because he just throws everything away at the end of each grow. That's commercial growers for you!

I will try to update this thread when I can, but as this isn't my grow, I'm not there all the time. I designed the room, plumbing, LED lights and obtained/selected the clone mother for him, but it's his operation. He saw what I was doing with LEDs and asked me to build him something. I built a couple of veg frames for him first using double-row F-strips and HLG-240 drivers, and he was so impressed with the performance he asked me to build him some flowering lights. I thought the QB324s would suit his application, so decided to give them a go. If they equal or outperform the HPS lights, we'll probably switch them out for LED.

Prawn Connery said:

Yes, fabric pots inside normal plastic drainage pots. They work well. My mate likes them because he just throws everything away at the end of each grow. That's commercial growers for you!

I will try to update this thread when I can, but as this isn't my grow, I'm not there all the time. I designed the room, plumbing, LED lights and obtained/selected the clone mother for him, but it's his operation. He saw what I was doing with LEDs and asked me to build him something. I built a couple of veg frames for him first using double-row F-strips and HLG-240 drivers, and he was so impressed with the performance he asked me to build him some flowering lights. I thought the QB324s would suit his application, so decided to give them a go. If they equal or outperform the HPS lights, we'll probably switch them out for LED.

Click to expand...

Yea, I thought it's a pot in pot system but will the fabric pots not soak up the drain or did he just pick them for this reason to avoid collect and dispose it?
I wish I had someone like you 30 years ago, who would have helped me that way. Remarkably nice setup! I am sure that with 400w from the nichia boards he can get pretty close to the results of the HPS.

Edit!
It would be a shame if he also throws the boards away later ...

Nice setup you got there. Surprised you put both boards side by side, but in a room filled with them i guess it doesn't matter so much as it would in a small tent.

Good luck with the run.

The idea is to have one light, one plant per 3x3 table. You can see the newer stations where there are single plants per table. The square LED layout should give good penetration through the middle and a nice overlapping spread around the periphery. My mate wanted to try two plants per station first. We'll find out soon enough which method works best.

Randomblame said:

Yea, I thought it's a pot in pot system but will the fabric pots not soak up the drain or did he just pick them for this reason to avoid collect and dispose it?

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Nah, the pots drain straight to waste. It's almost like a large single bucket with a drain hole in the bottom. He likes the idea of just pulling out the fabric pot, cutting off the plant, tying up the bag and throwing everything away at once.

very nice!

Nice setup! The leaves under the hps are curling inwards - too much heat or light??