So is the chip more efficient at lower temperatures? I really like where the 40 C line would sit on this graph.
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DIY leds Discussion Thread for all your how tos and doubts and anything related
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No fans! Fans clog, fans die, taking the rest of the driver with them. No fans! LolMeanWell LRS-600-24 120mm FAN top replacement by The Real Phoenix | Download free STL model | Printables.com
Use a 12V 120mm fan for the LRS-600-24. 2 models: one with fan inside, one with fan outside. | Download free 3D printable STL modelswww.printables.com
I'm looking at 40W per COB, it's the voltage that confuses me.
The xlg-h is decent efficiency withing 20% of its max voltage (57V) so they arent the best choice for a 36V cob.
Since its parallel connections you just divided max wattage with amount of leds, so it would take 8 cobs per driver.
Chips and leds are always more efficient at lower temps (but i think theres point where this may stopp some where far below room temps but not sure).
Anything below 15 C isn't going to matter for our purposes anyway because of condensation issues. Plants don't grow when it's that cold.
Ok so the Cree chips come in 36V and 72V and if I'm looking at 8 chips to divide 280-320W across, what's a good driver? Dimmable is nice but not necessary.
Hlg320-36B for parallel, or hlg600-36b for 16 chips. I thoght you where going 5 cobs per light fixture though?
If you go for Vero 29 50V version or citizen 1812/1818/1825 you have a good fitting cob for going for the xlg320-h which is a slightly cheaper driver, with slightly less efficiency but much more flexibility with regards to reuse with different voltages.
I'm considering anything between 4 and 10 chips for the wattage, obviously the more chips I run, the more efficient the light will be. That's an important selling point so I need to be as close to 60% efficiency as I can afford.
I'll study these, thanks.
jonesfam7715
Well-known member
I have ran Lrs 350 for over 3 years straight and have never lost a stock fan, I'm sure those upgraded fans would work well. I do understand the concern tho, especially if this has happened to you. I have overheated a fan and had it sieze up on me, on a quality active heatsink, roasted a giant expensive cob, after everything cooled off the fan ran fine again.
But the COB was toast... and they cost a lot more than fans do.
jonesfam7715
Well-known member
I used to run citizen cobs back when I first started growing, after getting burnt with my first blurple china light. them clu-048 1212, they worked very well, hot little fuckers. The cob I was referring to in above post was a clu058-3618, I wouldn't buy it again but it's a very powerful cob like 500 watt max, also worked very well. I've been having heat issues with my xlg-240-h-ab drivers running cobs at like 52v, they have never failed but it's so hot it can't be good for it, I put a heatsink on one of em with thermal glue seemed to help a little. I'm going to add some white
I'm looking for efficient chips. Hot chips aren't efficient but I know there's more to it than that?
If you are gonna run 350w+ LRS- (or SE-) meanwell drivers.. You need to at least upgrade the stock fans to a noctua or similar quality brand, and drop the dBs by atleast 10, for goodness sakes!. They are noisy little suckers. Going with a 120mm 12v PC fan is the ultimate upgrade IMO. You don't even need to 3d print a fancy new upper shell, just cut a large opening on the existing cover and install the bigger fan with a grill.
I could say the same thing about LED diodes.. They burn out and wipe out drivers all the time.
I could say the same thing about LED diodes.. They burn out and wipe out drivers all the time.
It's full of water, my friend. See the fitting at the top? There's a matching one at the bottom. It's designed to have cooling water flowing through it, which is far more effective than fans could hope to be.
Pulled the quote over here to respond on a couple of things:
When doing strip builds with low current per strip (bxeb are perfect for this) there is one really good advantage to the series connection with higher voltage constant power drivers: it gives you great flexibility for future modding of the light. Since youre already pretty much running 700mA if theres a bit spare voltage on the driver you can always add in monos in series on the circuit. Say you wanted to add a red supplement: just buy a bunch of monos (even aliexpress cree footprint 3535s are good enough to be considered nowadays for experimentation, they tend to not cost more than 1$/€); attach the diodes to your frame and connect in series and you have your red sup. Or UV for that matter. You would have to get handy with a soldering iron though, but this is no biggie: i curse myself for not doing it sooner as it was both easy, had very direct impact on crop quality and was generally a blast to have done once you saw the changes in smells and growth.
Say you wanted to have this as an option for when flowering with the light? But not on in vegg? Again doable, just add a switch or wago connector before the monos in the string so that you can short the circuit directly to minus pole on the driver and your back to white only. If you dont know exactly what you want to do with your spectrum, how much of uv or red would be good to add, this gives you an excellent way to experiment and not be locked in on your decision since you can always go back and get the same total output from the driver. This would be a much more complicated thing if you were doing the parallel connection approach.
