Closet grow DIY COB array

[SFCol]

Hi Guys, 

New to the forum, and growing in general (other than a small CFL grow 5 or 6 years ago). 

I've recently built a custom COB array and wanted to post up here firstly to make sure I haven't done anything wrong that's going to burn my house down, and secondly because all of the builds I've seen have been fairly large and using high end CREE / Citizen / vero COB's whearas I've made a fairly compact unit from cheap Chinesium parts. 

 

At it's core, what I've got is a 24v 15A (360W) switching power supply going into 6 x 100w cheap COBS via 3 x DC-DC Voltage converters. I know the usual thing is to go for a proper Meanwell / RS components LED PSU, but I like the adjustability that I get with the independent voltage converters. 

 

The build started with a 300x300x4 aluminium plate to attach everything to.

 

I didn't take many pics through the process, but I just marked up the holes for the COB's, converters, heatsinks and fans then drilled and tapped them all M3. 

the COBs and heatsinks are mounted directly to either side of the alu plate. I used plastic standoffs to mount the fans and Voltage converters, as well as a couple more standoffs to work as bus terminals for the three converters. 

I've got 1ohm, 5w resistors in line with each LED as a current brake. 

 

 

 

The benefit as I see it is that I've effectively got three semi-independent modules that I can dim and change out for different spectrum COBs. These chips are only a few quid each so I got some Cool, Warm and full spectrum (blurple) ones to have a play around with and see which work best. 

 

 

 

At the moment I'm only running two modules (4 chips total) at ~31v, which is drawing ~3.9A so 120w. At this level the heatsinks seem to be doing their jobs nicely and its all pretty cool. I'm dubious about how well I'd be able to cool it if it was running at the PSU's full 360W, even though it's still just over half the LED's rated power. The heatsinks are a fair bit smaller than I'd imagined, at some point I might upgrade them to full size CPU coolers or maybe a watercooling setup. It'd be interesting to see how this thing would do with a bigger PSU to run these things all the way up to their 600w rated power. 

 

I'm a complete novice when it comes to electronics, so it'd be great to hear any feedback or pointers. 

 

 

 

 

[potato1356]

Love this - great idea. 

I know nothing about LED - but definitely would love to build one at some stage.

subbed in for some learning...