artyb Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 (edited) I've ordered myself 15 citizen clu048 3000k units, I want to run them at 1050mah with mean well 285v drivers as 3 individual lights which should give me about 35w per cob, so about 175w per light. Does this sound too much for 1m x 1m grow room, would I be better off running the lights at 700mah for less heat and increased efficiency? These are the heatsinks I've got my eye on, they'll be 600 long. Will they be sufficient for passive cooling at 1050mah or again, would I be better off at 700mah? My main aim is increased efficiency but also increased coverage, so even running the lights at 1050mah I'll still be using less watts than I currently am with my mars lights. Edited July 26, 2017 by artyb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artyb Posted July 27, 2017 Author Share Posted July 27, 2017 My Leds came 2 weeks earlier than expected so I've ordered 3 heat sinks, 3 mean well drivers, and all the bits and bobs I will need, including potentiometers; that way if the heat sinks aren't sufficient for running them at 1050mah, i can dim the lights. Hopefully everything should be here by the weekend so I'll update this thread once I've finished and share my experience. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artyb Posted August 1, 2017 Author Share Posted August 1, 2017 So the led is more or less finished, I had a few semi disasters along the way, manged to fry one chip by connecting to the driver alone. What a dope. Nearly broke another one becasue the copper contact on the led tore away from the wire; I connected everything together expecting my heat sinks to arrive, but the ever incompetent parcel force couldn't find my address. How that is possible in 2017 I do not know. Then they got put back on the truck to the seller but I managed to call them 10 minutes before it left and save it. So yeah everyhting was wired up and waiting to go. I should have been more patient really, but the weeks are busy. I digress. Managed to scrape away the surface of the cob until I revealed more copper. So down to 14 citizen clu048 1212s. According to my smart meter at full power tehy're pulling 535 watts from the wall, at these temps the heatsinks feel way too hot, so I've ordered some 140mm casefans and a 12v 1a constant votlage driver. They're currently running at 350 watts and compared to 700 actual watts of mars the light is brighter (according to the light meter on my camera, not that accurate but a definite indicator i'm sure) and penetration is better. At full power these things are insanely bright, bare in mind I've only ever grown with LED, penetration is awesome, however I don't think my plants will ever have hte potential to use all that light, so I doubt I'll go full power. Definitely a wise idea adding the potentiometers. I still don't feel comfortable of it having the capability of going that bright, and therefore hot, so fan are an absolute must. This has been a strong learning curve and I think I could make one of these look professional, however, being on a tight budget I'm happy for it to look as ghetto as it does. I checked all connections and it's safe so I'm happy. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vortex Posted August 1, 2017 Share Posted August 1, 2017 well whatever you have done .... it seems to be working as those plants look bloody brilliant too me mate ... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 2, 2017 Share Posted August 2, 2017 Nice work fella. Looks great, nothing wrong with ghetto. Better safe and ghetto than dodgy and flash Think the fans on the heatsinks will finish off sweetly. Good to hear your thoughts in a few weeks . What spectrum did you go for in the end? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artyb Posted August 2, 2017 Author Share Posted August 2, 2017 21 hours ago, bobnudd said: Nice work fella. Looks great, nothing wrong with ghetto. Better safe and ghetto than dodgy and flash Think the fans on the heatsinks will finish off sweetly. Good to hear your thoughts in a few weeks . What spectrum did you go for in the end? My girls will be coming down next week I think so Ill be starting a full cycle soon. Will be interesting to see if my plants stretch under this warmer light. I feel like the mars has too much blue for flower. Fans and driver arrive tomorrow. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artyb Posted August 4, 2017 Author Share Posted August 4, 2017 My Arctic F14 fans arrived along with a 12v 1a constant voltage driver. I worked the fans in parallel so theyre all receiving 12v and wired the driver in parallel with the lights. Each fan has been fixed to the centre of the heatsinks blowing air through the channels. I wasn't sure that these fans would be sufficient for the 600mm long heatsinks as they were incredibly hot to touch even at 66 percent power. After a short test run for an hour the heatsinks were only a little bit warm. I went in this morning just before lights out and they're perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tokenroll Posted August 4, 2017 Share Posted August 4, 2017 @artyb looking like a nice build, reference your fans they should really be sucking air off the heatsink and not blowing onto it. Secondary cooling from circulation fans should help cool the heatsink more. Toke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-E_Man Posted August 4, 2017 Share Posted August 4, 2017 You seem to like projects artyb. How do you feel about some thermisters on them heatsinks to control the lighting load? Then if a fan fails at a high power setting, you don't burn your lights. It could be quite trick to have your lights respomd to the changing weather to. Off the top of my head, your ballasts take a voltage right? So you want a voltage divider made from the thermister and a resistor, then to make scaling that voltage easier you would make that resistor variable. Plus, run your signal through a pre-amp like board. So you can keep the signal low with the variable and boost it up with the op-amp. So your amp can add nothing, leaving them dim, or add voltage to turn them up. I'm seeing holes in my idea, but nothing hard to fix. I'm just presenting a concept. 95c one-shot thermal fuses are about £1 each. That might be easier to rush into your design. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Key4 Posted August 4, 2017 Share Posted August 4, 2017 Holders are on shitbay for £16 for ten. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artyb Posted August 5, 2017 Author Share Posted August 5, 2017 On 04/08/2017 at 1:37 PM, tokenroll said: @artyb looking like a nice build, reference your fans they should really be sucking air off the heatsink and not blowing onto it. Secondary cooling from circulation fans should help cool the heatsink more. Toke Okay mate, I think the fans are sufficient as they are but I will it a give it a go. When I had no fans my electronic probe thermometer thingy was reading 65c after a few minutes and was still rising, I didn't even bother to check the temps post fan installation as they were barely over body temperature, however I will run the lights for an hour with both configurations and report back. I chopped all my plants down today so that may not be for a while though. On 04/08/2017 at 2:02 PM, F-E_Man said: You seem to like projects artyb. How do you feel about some thermisters on them heatsinks to control the lighting load? Then if a fan fails at a high power setting, you don't burn your lights. It could be quite trick to have your lights respomd to the changing weather to. Off the top of my head, your ballasts take a voltage right? So you want a voltage divider made from the thermister and a resistor, then to make scaling that voltage easier you would make that resistor variable. Plus, run your signal through a pre-amp like board. So you can keep the signal low with the variable and boost it up with the op-amp. So your amp can add nothing, leaving them dim, or add voltage to turn them up. I'm seeing holes in my idea, but nothing hard to fix. I'm just presenting a concept. 95c one-shot thermal fuses are about £1 each. That might be easier to rush into your design. I do like projects indeed, I have a problem with getting overly engrossed in my interests, which works in my benefit in some circumstances (like work), but is also detrimental to my wallet. I did think about looking into implementing some sort of fail safe so if my fans shut off my lights shut off, I think I will do a bit more research into it. On 04/08/2017 at 3:15 PM, Key4 said: Holders are on shitbay for £16 for ten. Yeah they're from the same seller I bought the cobs from. I'm possibly going to be making another one for a pal so when i order more cobs I'll be sure to buy some holders. I'm not that fussed about the aesthetics but the cobs are little bit exposed for my liking. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badders Posted September 3, 2017 Share Posted September 3, 2017 good job on the build, 80 or 90 cri? Im sure you will be pleased with results, i think there is a heatsink calc on riu somewhere, 1 M2 floor area 1000 PPFD is target for rapid growth 1000 PPF required for 1m^2 217 PARW required (PPF/4.6 umols/s/m) 395 W required@45% eff 8 # cobs required @ 1.4A drive current 11 # cobs required @ 1A drive current this was an old calc i made so its probably out of date, its based on 36V cobs, @ 4.6 umols, i expect your citis are bit better than that, anyway, i reckon about 11 cobs @ 1A would get you to 1000PPFD, so if your running 15 @ 1A...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Takeshy Posted September 3, 2017 Share Posted September 3, 2017 Where did you bought the heatsink? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artyb Posted September 3, 2017 Author Share Posted September 3, 2017 18 hours ago, Badders said: good job on the build, 80 or 90 cri? Im sure you will be pleased with results, i think there is a heatsink calc on riu somewhere, 1 M2 floor area 1000 PPFD is target for rapid growth 1000 PPF required for 1m^2 217 PARW required (PPF/4.6 umols/s/m) 395 W required@45% eff 8 # cobs required @ 1.4A drive current 11 # cobs required @ 1A drive current this was an old calc i made so its probably out of date, its based on 36V cobs, @ 4.6 umols, i expect your citis are bit better than that, anyway, i reckon about 11 cobs @ 1A would get you to 1000PPFD, so if your running 15 @ 1A...... Thanks mate, they're 90 cri. and I make you right, plenty of light, possibly too much. I'm running them at half power in veg and the plants are loving it. I'll only run them at full power if I can't keep my canopy level. 51 minutes ago, Takeshy said: Where did you bought the heatsink? Ebay mate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Hunt Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 On 05/08/2017 at 3:54 PM, artyb said: I do like projects indeed, I have a problem with getting overly engrossed in my interests, which works in my benefit in some circumstances (like work), but is also detrimental to my wallet. I did think about looking into implementing some sort of fail safe so if my fans shut off my lights shut off, I think I will do a bit more research into it. Haha if my missus read this she would give me " That Look " pmsl Looking to dip my feet into LED as supplimental lighting - WW3 is gonna kick off ! Fair play mate 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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