Will these work and how many

Ok hubby came home with a giant trash bag filled with these broken 65 watt equivalent, 9 watt, 3000k color, 650 lumen, dimmable led spot lights. I guess he knows somebody and the store wrote 4 cases of these off cuz they got smashed so now we have almost 40 of these chips and little drivers
So would it be worth the time/money to attach these to a aluminum plate and make a light out of them? Prolly go buy another 240 watts to have 600 watts total to replace the cfls I am growing with now. First indoor grow so I have no clue about all the lighting but I will be getting 50 watt COBS over time when money is available.

theyre ok. if you drive them soft they will do fine. that said they are medium efficient at 9W and you'd want to run them at 2-4W each to get in the range of what current boards/strips are doing. just take one driver and put 2-4 boards in parallel to cut the current to each and youre in business. free is great, wouldnt buy the 9W though as the 15W are much more efficient for the cost.

Thank you @CobKits
If you don't mind I have a couple other questions.
If I run 3 chips in parrelel to each driver would it still be safe to run the drivers in series?
And we would be mounting these on the flat side of a piece of 1/8th aluminum diamond plate (the plate is roughly 20in wide x 37in long) total of 60 chips (540 watts) would that be enough to flower a canopy of 2 feet x 3 feet?
Would have to buy a few more lights but final cost after everything that we have on hand and the freebies would be around $22USD. Would be replacing 8 2700k and 8 6500k CFL bulbs (368 watts)

Ok hubby used a old aluminum no parking sign to mount these onto. It's 12 inch x 18 inch ran the power through a dimmer switch so I can dim them when I'm working on the plants and full power the sign heats up to almost 95°f he said so I run it around 75% and the box stays in the 75-80° mark. So a question if he makes 2 more of these would that be enough for a 2foot x 3foot area during flowering? They are 3000k warm white power draw from the plug is 240-250 watts for the whole light (at full power but he said he can run some computer fans to cool them). That would give me 720-750 watts for the box.

Yeah, nice little budget light! Looks nice and clean and is completely DIY. Probably ~120lm/w or so..
For only 6sft we usually calculate with 180-210w(30-35w/sft) when using latest COB's or strips. If you dimm it to ~75% or ~150w I would say two of them (~300w) should be more than sufficient.
Three would be much too much unless you dimm them below 100w per board.

95°F Tcase is almost perfect for LED's, btw ... no need to waste energy for additional cooling.

sorry i never replied before, looks like it all worked out!

i agree 95 is fine, the screw in lightbulbs get a lot hotter than that

doctordetroit said:

the box stays in the 75-80° mark..

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Nice DIY!
BTW, optimum air temperature with LED is low to mid 80's. Due to the lack of infrared, leaf temperatures run lower under LED.

Thanx everyone. He's in the process of mounting some more chips on old commercial aluminum cookie sheets I believe they are 14inch by 21inch and very thick (thicker then the sign) From what I can see he's using 2 with the tops facing each other and the ballasts would be inside, and 2 big pc fans on the top.
He seen everyone's comments so to not go over the 35watt sq foot as what was suggested (hope he doest go overboard like he likes to do lol).
I'll post pics when they are done he's working doubles for a couple weeks so it'll take some time.

doctordetroit said:

View attachment 4168566 Ok hubby used a old aluminum no parking sign to mount these onto. It's 12 inch x 18 inch ran the power through a dimmer switch so I can dim them when I'm working on the plants and full power the sign heats up to almost 95°f he said so I run it around 75% and the box stays in the 75-80° mark. So a question if he makes 2 more of these would that be enough for a 2foot x 3foot area during flowering? They are 3000k warm white power draw from the plug is 240-250 watts for the whole light (at full power but he said he can run some computer fans to cool them). That would give me 720-750 watts for the box.

Click to expand...

Yes. More than enough wattage for most diodes. But I assume those are from eBay, cheap, and aren't super efficient. But that much wattage I'd say you'd be golden.

You oughtta just buy some boards and slap them on the cookie sheet instead.

Airwalker16 said:

Yes. More than enough wattage for most diodes. But I assume those are from eBay, cheap, and aren't super efficient. But that much wattage I'd say you'd be golden.

You oughtta just buy some boards and slap them on the cookie sheet instead.

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Got a bunch for free and bought a few from dollar tree. They are 2 for $1 USD out of screw in led spot lights. We are on a tight budget (one of the reasons of growing) and just trying to get the most from what we already have. I'd love to just up grade to quantum boards but that is out of reach this grow and most likely the next also.

You have a very good light. It doesn't have the efficiency of a Quantum Board, but with the money saved, you can power that light for years.
A 600 watt light, at the 15 hours/day average of veg/flower, is 279 kilowatt hours/month, or $27.90 at $0.10 kW/hr. Typical rates in the US are 10-15 cents per kw/hr.

Caution: That light should be grounded! Use a grounded power cord and connect the ground wire to the frame/heat sink.