fuggzy
Member
My 2 cents
My 2 cents
I would look in to doing a diy cob solution. With a bit of research, you can make any mix up you want. (wants per inch, spectrum, heat and light spread) I don't claim to be a led guru, or an electrician. Just a guy with lost of time on my hands that gets filled by research.
I have a cab thats 10"x12" with 4 vero 10 giving me 38w, and could easily add 4 more. My cab is in a closet also but the door is wide open all day, and my temps are MAYBE 1-3° above ambient. I do have a healthy exhaust system, but when the heat of the cob is dispersed properly, controlling the ambient is shouldn't be to hard imo. Although in my case I have no restrictions for cold air reaching my cab.
I would recommend higher quality cobs (cree, bridgelux) over ebay specials, if your budget allows. Better efficiency, better use of watts, less heat produced by wasted watts, better spectrum, actual data sheets for EXACT info,It's just better is my point.
This is a link to digi-key, and the filter is only set to the vero 10 array, you can dial the rest in to how you want it. http://www.digikey.com/product-sear...t=0&page=1&quantity=0&ptm=0&fid=0&pageSize=25
As far as drivers, you may find someone else (Dion I'm pointing at you man) that can hep you better, but here I go.
you want to get Constant current drivers. Look for "led driver" they are ready for led with needing to wire any drop resistors. You can use other dc supplies like a pc psu or w/e, but I have no clue what you would need to rewire. Sorry, I dont know how to explain it w/o great detail. It alone would take me an entire page.
You can get a meanwell and be happy you got a trusted name. This is the route I went for my micro cab, but I'm waiting on some much cheaper drivers from ebay for a larger setup. On paper, if the driver runs at the rated specs, and it happens to be the specs you want... well good game. The ebay drivers I am waiting on are going to be a gamble. However, I spent less on 12 ebay drivers than I did on 2 meanwells.
You can run the cob at what ever current you want (within a reasonable range)to adjust the wattage output. I run my cobs at 350ma, or .35a for about 8w. ~26.7w *.35a= 8.01w.
A good guideline to go by when shopping is that it will be ran at ~50% of its max current. (this is where prefabs get you with a 300w panel thats only pulling 150w actual draw) Then just get a calculator (volt calc from the app store on the phone is handy) and start running numbers to see what wattage you can get with the drivers you want. VOLTS * CURRENT = WATTAGE. Volts will be listed as forward voltage (vf), and current will be listed as either amps (A) or milliamp (ma)
Prices are way cheaper to build a diy top of the line fixture than buy a mid range prefab. Take the apache for example. Now I'm not saying it's bad, but it IS retardly priced. the 120w is at http://www.apachetechinc.com/white-leds/1-white-leds-at120w.html and from what I understand it is in the lower 30% for efficiency. You can build a setup in the lower 40%s for a FRACTION of the price.
Heat sinks can be sourced from amazon, ebay, or my preferred site is heatsinkusa.com Although if you run the smaller 3w led, ebay is probably the cheapest. If you plan on running 1 larger cob, a pc cpu cooler would be your best rout. Those can be found on newegg, and amazon for ~$10, look for the alpine11, it goes on sale frequently.
Some resources are:
Dion is a great resource. I have read lots of his stuff.
This thread is great he goes through like 3 grows with larger cobs, and towards the end gets into talking about the smaller cobs. He post all his parts, and where to find them also. Gets very technical with the efficiency and spectrum of his lights. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=284309
SupraSPL is an amazing person to reference. He can be found here, and RIU. Do a general google search for "diy cob" and it is the 1st entry by RIU.
The 3 above people are great at referring your questions to.
Google diy cob grow journals, or anything related to "cob & grow"
I hope at least some of this was helpful.
My 2 cents
I would look in to doing a diy cob solution. With a bit of research, you can make any mix up you want. (wants per inch, spectrum, heat and light spread) I don't claim to be a led guru, or an electrician. Just a guy with lost of time on my hands that gets filled by research.
I have a cab thats 10"x12" with 4 vero 10 giving me 38w, and could easily add 4 more. My cab is in a closet also but the door is wide open all day, and my temps are MAYBE 1-3° above ambient. I do have a healthy exhaust system, but when the heat of the cob is dispersed properly, controlling the ambient is shouldn't be to hard imo. Although in my case I have no restrictions for cold air reaching my cab.
I would recommend higher quality cobs (cree, bridgelux) over ebay specials, if your budget allows. Better efficiency, better use of watts, less heat produced by wasted watts, better spectrum, actual data sheets for EXACT info,It's just better is my point.
This is a link to digi-key, and the filter is only set to the vero 10 array, you can dial the rest in to how you want it. http://www.digikey.com/product-sear...t=0&page=1&quantity=0&ptm=0&fid=0&pageSize=25
As far as drivers, you may find someone else (Dion I'm pointing at you man) that can hep you better, but here I go.
you want to get Constant current drivers. Look for "led driver" they are ready for led with needing to wire any drop resistors. You can use other dc supplies like a pc psu or w/e, but I have no clue what you would need to rewire. Sorry, I dont know how to explain it w/o great detail. It alone would take me an entire page.
You can get a meanwell and be happy you got a trusted name. This is the route I went for my micro cab, but I'm waiting on some much cheaper drivers from ebay for a larger setup. On paper, if the driver runs at the rated specs, and it happens to be the specs you want... well good game. The ebay drivers I am waiting on are going to be a gamble. However, I spent less on 12 ebay drivers than I did on 2 meanwells.
You can run the cob at what ever current you want (within a reasonable range)to adjust the wattage output. I run my cobs at 350ma, or .35a for about 8w. ~26.7w *.35a= 8.01w.
A good guideline to go by when shopping is that it will be ran at ~50% of its max current. (this is where prefabs get you with a 300w panel thats only pulling 150w actual draw) Then just get a calculator (volt calc from the app store on the phone is handy) and start running numbers to see what wattage you can get with the drivers you want. VOLTS * CURRENT = WATTAGE. Volts will be listed as forward voltage (vf), and current will be listed as either amps (A) or milliamp (ma)
Prices are way cheaper to build a diy top of the line fixture than buy a mid range prefab. Take the apache for example. Now I'm not saying it's bad, but it IS retardly priced. the 120w is at http://www.apachetechinc.com/white-leds/1-white-leds-at120w.html and from what I understand it is in the lower 30% for efficiency. You can build a setup in the lower 40%s for a FRACTION of the price.
Heat sinks can be sourced from amazon, ebay, or my preferred site is heatsinkusa.com Although if you run the smaller 3w led, ebay is probably the cheapest. If you plan on running 1 larger cob, a pc cpu cooler would be your best rout. Those can be found on newegg, and amazon for ~$10, look for the alpine11, it goes on sale frequently.
Some resources are:
Dion is a great resource. I have read lots of his stuff.
This thread is great he goes through like 3 grows with larger cobs, and towards the end gets into talking about the smaller cobs. He post all his parts, and where to find them also. Gets very technical with the efficiency and spectrum of his lights. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=284309
SupraSPL is an amazing person to reference. He can be found here, and RIU. Do a general google search for "diy cob" and it is the 1st entry by RIU.
The 3 above people are great at referring your questions to.
Google diy cob grow journals, or anything related to "cob & grow"
I hope at least some of this was helpful.
No I missed that part. 
But thats still cool man. 
all the sudden it made sense) If you have any questions feel free to ask. What I can't answer, I can point you towards an answer most likely.
