Bueno Grows w/ DIY COB LEDs

[The Dopest]

Yeah I've never used that large of a pot(3l or gallon), I always used 5-6" pots, usually 5.5" extra deep square pots. They are roughly 2l, actually 1.9 I think but I grow more of a sog style with more smaller plants packed in and automated flood/drain. I've even used 3.5 & 4.5" on occasion simply because I had some laying around and they fit between the other pots in the tray. The root ball takes up almost all of the pot by harvest time, hardly any coco to left recycle. If you have any hydroton, or pebbles or river rocks around, try a layer or two and see if it makes a difference for you.

 

[Wreched75]

Wow just wow!!!! I finally got caught up great great job btw BT!!! So a couple of questions and I hope not to be repeating myself here.

I have a 4x4x6' tent, given that you went away from the Cree due to the spread of light do you think its because of the space issue? If you were to have spread it across bars like your current setup would you have stayed with the Cree?

Given my current space how many vero 29's would you go with and how many Cree 3070's if you were to go either route.

Thanks again!!!

 

[Bueno Time]

Wow just wow!!!! I finally got caught up great great job btw BT!!! So a couple of questions and I hope not to be repeating myself here.

I have a 4x4x6' tent, given that you went away from the Cree due to the spread of light do you think its because of the space issue? If you were to have spread it across bars like your current setup would you have stayed with the Cree?

Given my current space how many vero 29's would you go with and how many Cree 3070's if you were to go either route.

Thanks again!!!

Hey Wreched I went with the Veros for a few reasons but mainly price and performance in the small COB package. The small Vero COBs are better than the smaller CREE COBs but the larger CREEs are better than the larger Veros, there are some cases where this would prove false but not in my particular build.

In my opinion 1 Vero 29 or CXA3070 per sq ft would be the minimum amount of emitters I would use on any build for a decent light spread. They could be ran at lower currents for increased efficiency also that way vs half the amount of COBs ran at twice as high of current, using the same wattage (the latter being less efficient and having worse light spread too). 1 per sq ft is a good compromise in a cost to performance and light spread ratio for the 29 and 3070.

 

[Wreched75]

Hey Wreched I went with the Veros for a few reasons but mainly price and performance in the small COB package. The small Vero COBs are better than the smaller CREE COBs but the larger CREEs are better than the larger Veros, there are some cases where this would prove false but not in my particular build.

In my opinion 1 Vero 29 or CXA3070 per sq ft would be the minimum amount of emitters I would use on any build for a decent light spread. They could be ran at lower currents for increased efficiency also that way vs half the amount of COBs ran at twice as high of current, using the same wattage (the latter being less efficient and having worse light spread too). 1 per sq ft is a good compromise in a cost to performance and light spread ratio for the 29 and 3070.

Thanks for the quick reply BT! You know what I just realized your current setup isn't vero 29's it's the vero 10's!!! That's what happens when you just want to see bud porn and just skimming through the pages haha.

This changes everything now haha if I were to mimic your light with the vero 10's given my space how many of those 10's would you put per sq ft?

Also with so many cobs running in parallel would you get a driver vs a power supply?

 

[Bueno Time]

Thanks for the quick reply BT! You know what I just realized your current setup isn't vero 29's it's the vero 10's!!! That's what happens when you just want to see bud porn and just skimming through the pages haha.

This changes everything now haha if I were to mimic your light with the vero 10's given my space how many of those 10's would you put per sq ft?

Also with so many cobs running in parallel would you get a driver vs a power supply?

Haha nice ya Vero 10s, Ive got 35 in 6 sq ft so 5.8 per sq ft you would need 93 total in 16 sq ft (4x4) to have the same amount of emitters per sq ft. It would be a big pain in the ass build though it was quite time consuming even doing this fixture with 35 COBs.

You would want constant current drivers, dimmable if you like, I went dimmable on both my veg and flower drivers, I recommend dimmable to anyone looking to DIY. Its a little more expensive but I wouldnt build another fixture without it I dont think. You would need to run multiple drivers most likely for 90+ Vero 10s I dont know of a single driver that could run them all.

Im using the HLG-185H-C1400A for my flowering light and its running the 35 COBs in series/parallel. Each bar has a set of 5 in series with 7 sets in parallel. You would want to test each COB individually to determine vF and pair your series sets up to be as close to equal as possible that way when you wire them in parallel they will get more even current on each of the series sets.

I used Mr Flux's idea he was using 25 Vero 10s per C1400A driver I just added two more sets of 5 for my fixture to spread the light more evenly and reduce the drive current of each COB which increased the efficiency too.

 

[Wreched75]

Haha nice ya Vero 10s, Ive got 35 in 6 sq ft so 5.8 per sq ft you would need 93 total in 16 sq ft (4x4) to have the same amount of emitters per sq ft. It would be a big pain in the ass build though it was quite time consuming even doing this fixture with 35 COBs.

You would want constant current drivers, dimmable if you like, I went dimmable on both my veg and flower drivers, I recommend dimmable to anyone looking to DIY. Its a little more expensive but I wouldnt build another fixture without it I dont think. You would need to run multiple drivers most likely for 90+ Vero 10s I dont know of a single driver that could run them all.

Im using the HLG-185H-C1400A for my flowering light and its running the 35 COBs in series/parallel. Each bar has a set of 5 in series with 7 sets in parallel. You would want to test each COB individually to determine vF and pair your series sets up to be as close to equal as possible that way when you wire them in parallel they will get more even current on each of the series sets.

I used Mr Flux's idea he was using 25 Vero 10s per C1400A driver I just added two more sets of 5 for my fixture to spread the light more evenly and reduce the drive current of each COB which increased the efficiency too.

Thats a whole lot of cobs! Haha, I was doing some readingif I were to go with the 93 cobs ( don't think I will, still debating) I would have to get 3 drivers, would that amount to 600+ watts? And if so then wouldn't it be more beneficial just to get an MH? Or even stick with vero 29 and just use less of them?

Maybe I don't need to do corner to corner I only do 5 plants at a time with mainlining. My main and only concern is the light spread. I'd like it to cover the canopy and be effective.

Right now I have the 2 igro 270's which I like but again light spread. Started with the Mars II it was great then I wanted to upgrade, upgraded to the igro and now I read this thread and it seams this is a great route.

 

[DaBeaverFunk]

So I built a light w/ 6 Vero 10's per 44" of heatsink. The same profile you are using BT. I'm running them at 90watt, so less efficient than your setup but still much better then my previous attempts.

I did some CFD analysis on the heatsinks and ended u. Cutting some 20*C off their ambient temperature by slotting the heatsinks to increase airflow around the fins. I had access to a mill to do this, you may be able to get by with a dremel and a shit ton of patients.

 

[Bueno Time]

Thats a whole lot of cobs! Haha, I was doing some readingif I were to go with the 93 cobs ( don't think I will, still debating) I would have to get 3 drivers, would that amount to 600+ watts? And if so then wouldn't it be more beneficial just to get an MH? Or even stick with vero 29 and just use less of them?

Maybe I don't need to do corner to corner I only do 5 plants at a time with mainlining. My main and only concern is the light spread. I'd like it to cover the canopy and be effective.

Right now I have the 2 igro 270's which I like but again light spread. Started with the Mars II it was great then I wanted to upgrade, upgraded to the igro and now I read this thread and it seams this is a great route.

Probably might want to stick with HID due to cost and complexity in a large setup unless you are really into building for efficiency to save/manage heat or electric costs if KWH is high in your area, for me the extra efficiency was great for heat management reasons, more grams harvested without more heat (if you run same wattage and one is more efficient than it will create more grams with less heat due to increased efficiency, theoretically of course with all else equal).

If you want to do COBs you could just do 3070s, Vero 29s might not be worth it for efficiency to cost vs just running a typical 600 HPS. 3x3 or 9 total CXA3070 top bin COBs would probably do you good at 1.4A each in a 4x4. Would be running at ~470w total with 9 @ 1.4A/1400mA each, 52w of LED dissipation each (more power draw from the wall, depends on your driver efficiency). Should perform as well or better than a 600 HPS I would think with much less heat for sure.

So I built a light w/ 6 Vero 10's per 44" of heatsink. The same profile you are using BT. I'm running them at 90watt, so less efficient than your setup but still much better then my previous attempts.

I did some CFD analysis on the heatsinks and ended u. Cutting some 20*C off their ambient temperature by slotting the heatsinks to increase airflow around the fins. I had access to a mill to do this, you may be able to get by with a dremel and a shit ton of patients.View Image
View Image

Nice sounds cool. So you are running 6 V10s at 90w or 15w each? Im not sure what you mean by the slotting of the heatsinks but it sounds interesting. Can you provide pictures at all?

 

[Bueno Time]

Day 14 12/12, they are stretching pretty good especially the Starkiller shes gotten big, sitting on the floor of the tent she is still the tallest of them all with others sitting on boxes of various heights, so I have raised the light up a few times so far and have defoliated a little up top and trimmed out a lot of lower shaded out bud sites 2-3x on each plant so far in the past couple weeks (one of those times was right after taking these pics). Hoping they start to top out in height soon then I will boost the indicas back up some more to even the canopy better. The OX F2s and Sour Bubble F2 have maybe doubled in height so far where the others have 2.5-3x in size so far pretty easily.

 

[DaBeaverFunk]

there ya go, pictures should be visable now. new to the forum and i missed the private/public radio button in the album creation menu.

6 vero 10's @15watts a piece x 3 bars.

 

[The Dopest]

Great job slotting Beaver!

Looking good Bueno!!

 

[Bueno Time]

there ya go, pictures should be visable now. new to the forum and i missed the private/public radio button in the album creation menu.

6 vero 10's @15watts a piece x 3 bars.

Hell yeah that looks kick ass Beaver!

I couldnt do anything like that without a machine but damn thats pretty awesome. As the hot air that is heated up between the fins rises due to convection it pulls cooler air thru from the bottom (I know you know this, just saying it for anyone else who is watching and doesnt see why this would help.) Pretty ingenious idea, excellent work. Ive got some 50mm fans for my sinks when I want to turn the power up more on the fixture but I might not even need them if I could have modified my bars like you did I dig it.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Wreched75]

Probably might want to stick with HID due to cost and complexity in a large setup unless you are really into building for efficiency to save/manage heat or electric costs if KWH is high in your area, for me the extra efficiency was great for heat management reasons, more grams harvested without more heat (if you run same wattage and one is more efficient than it will create more grams with less heat due to increased efficiency, theoretically of course with all else equal).

If you want to do COBs you could just do 3070s, Vero 29s might not be worth it for efficiency to cost vs just running a typical 600 HPS. 3x3 or 9 total CXA3070 top bin COBs would probably do you good at 1.4A each in a 4x4. Would be running at ~470w total with 9 @ 1.4A/1400mA each, 52w of LED dissipation each (more power draw from the wall, depends on your driver efficiency). Should perform as well or better than a 600 HPS I would think with much less heat for sure.

Damn BT I can't thank you enough!!! I think since I currently have some LEDS I'm going to go with 20 vero 10's, 10 in each string 30" long heat sink spaced out 3" between each cob. I'll run the cobs in series and strings in parallel. These will be my supplemental lighting to get better light spread. What do you think?


If I get the same driver as you will the cobs be over ran?

Thanks again man really appreciate the help with this.

 

[Bueno Time]

Damn BT I can't thank you enough!!! I think since I currently have some LEDS I'm going to go with 20 vero 10's, 10 in each string 30" long heat sink spaced out 3" between each cob. I'll run the cobs in series and strings in parallel. These will be my supplemental lighting to get better light spread. What do you think?


If I get the same driver as you will the cobs be over ran?

Thanks again man really appreciate the help with this.

10 Vero 10s in series would be around 250-280 volts depending on vF of each COB when in real time use, which is crazy high. I dont know any drivers that will run that high of voltage strings off hand there probably is something out there though.

Mr Flux, one of my inspirations for the Vero 10 fixture I built was running two HLG-185s one with 5 strings of 5 and one with 5 strings of 4.

You could run the same driver as me and wire 5 sets of 4, 5 strings of 4 would give you approx. 350-375mA per COB around 9-10w each chip max and dimmable.

 

[DaBeaverFunk]

Thanks for the kickback guys!

And yes BT, and everyone else. A massive heatsink won't gecha monies worth unless you get air moving over the surface. So you've either got to put fans on - which is fine. And/or provide space for air to flow through the heatsink. the slots came about from a conversation with a friend, and once he said it I smacked myself in the forehead. It's so obvious! But you really don't see it in practice too much. Usually fans are added.

If you can slot or massively drill your heatsink, it helps!

Also that 5x4 config w/ Vero 10's was my same thought!

 

[The Dopest]

Beaver, I was just going to mention to Bueno that he can either drill a lot of holes between fins/COBs or drill then connect the drill holes with a dremel or similar to make slots.

 

[Kaskadian]

The plants are looking incredible brother! I'm loving all that dark emerald green. I can't wait to see these ladies fill out. I'm going back through this thread to catch up on all the goodness.

Pulling up a chair for this one.

 

[Bueno Time]

The plants are looking incredible brother! I'm loving all that dark emerald green. I can't wait to see these ladies fill out. I'm going back through this thread to catch up on all the goodness.

Pulling up a chair for this one.

Thanks kaskadian, Im hoping they turn out to be some beauties this run they are all from clones from last run which sucked and they were still good phenos so they should be pretty nice this time I think.

Going to update with pics in 2 days for my weekly update at 3 weeks of 12/12. Little buds are starting to form and they might be thinking about stopping stretching but I am sure they havent quite topped out yet fully. Canopy is looking good and thick with a lot of bud sites.

 

[Bueno Time]

I took some pics last night when I was raising the light up a hair.

Day 20 12/12

 

[Bueno Time]

Starkiller

Truepower OG #2

Sour Bubble BX3/4 F2 #2

OX F2 #2

OX F2 #1 (three little tops in the middle)