Lighting Cobkits Light Engines!

[Evil-Mobo]

Did you go with the 3000k or 4000k? I'm suprised more people haven't noticed the 10 dollar 1212s. Anyone can build a ~420 PAR output light for less than 50 dollars.

The value in the 1212's is there depedning on your build. To make the most of the smaller LES you would want more of the them run softer for better coverage "supposedly", if you get away from one big heat sink and go to pin heat sinks or the like then the value goes away, because now you're buying heat sinks holders and optics for a lot more COB's vs less COB's run @ higher watts.

There's no wrong or right way, but there are different ways to go about running your COB's that DIY let's your personally tailor to your preference and/or grow setup.

My 600W light would have easily cost me twice as much to DIY if I followed the more common ways as of late of building lights. To me there's a point where the cost just would not be worth the switch to COB's it would take forever to realize ROI.

 

[dankle]

And that's the beauty that there's endless possibilites to build with cobs. For someone like me who needs to squeeze the most watts/$ I found CPU active heatsinks to be a cost efficient solution. I skipped out on reflectors, holders and lenses and soldered the wires directly to the cob and applied thermal adhesive on the corners of the chips.

It cost me about 184 dollars to build a 200W (4x50W) 1212 fixture. For two plants this has been plentiful so far.

 

[Puddentane]

I bought the 3K. Got a heat sink here waiting for it. I will use some arctic silver adhesive and a cheap 50watt Chinese driver and on my way. If it is everything I am hearing they are I might run down to the store and get a month's worth of Ramen and Oatmeal and then get online and wreck myself.

 

[Rapha El]

I don't get it. Some of these companies that charge a premium but have shitty leds are really just killing sales. The k5 is probably a 200-300 dollar light from the production line. For an extra 100 in led upgrades they would produce a hell of allot better and make allot more sales.

Bro the most efficient chip CXM-32-40-70-54 from luminux and the best mars upgrade chip BXRC-40E4000-D-7 from bridgelux are 33 and 9 bucks respectively. The BXRE-40E4000-C-7 beats the 1212s for 9 bucks. What are you on about?

 

[BigSm0]

I'm on about pops new lights vs his old ones. I didn't mean to reply to your message. My comment was specifically about the k5 light.

As for your suggestions I like the citizen cobs and have purchased hundreds upon hundreds of them without a single issue. They work and are priced right especially dealing with this quantity. I could save 3 dollars here or there but it's not worth it to me. Especially when my distributer sells and discounts my entire orders. Ocassional free overseas air shipping when I'm in a pinch too. I never really liked vero's either.They always seem to come in late with things that are usually just as good or maybe a little better. Never really pushing any epic items.

 

[woody]

@BigSm0 @pop22 @Evil-Mobo @Puddentane
@dankle i love learning about all this so thanks for sharing the info!
Is it possible to replace a 600w hps with less watts of cobs AND increase yeild with a sensible budget? I can already hit 1gpw+ with hps but would love to have the same (or rather better) results with 400-500 watt draw
As i plan to run at least 2 lights constantly.
I grow in a wilma system so 4 plants close together 4x4 canopy

 

[F.N.]

Thank I share my work not to brag or anything like that but rather it is to show people this is not impossible to do. I had never done anything like this before and have absolutely zero exp with anything electrical. If you take your time with your planning and then when it comes time to build split it up into sections/phases, it goes smooth and you can build some nice stuff pretty easily.

Your my kind of guy my dad taught me how to phone for estimates and get the best quote lol. The most I ever DIY'ed with the old boy was a still LMAO. I have zero electrical experience unless you call screwing in a lightbulb electrical work. Being Canadian nothing is cheap when our dollar is a 72 cents to a 1.00 dollar american. So I need to keep it in stages I want to build to 400 watt COB lights. Is this not like any other business you get what you pay for something might work amazing now but 10.000 hours in they show there true quality. I read somewhere led inside magazine I think that CREE leds take 10.000 hours just to stabilize into a life of longevity. Some great reading out there I found out there is a lot of korean japanese and chinese led COB makers more than I thought and for all differnt aplications. I was looking at company that makes 3000 color spectrum COB and they had the NICIHA which is supossedly right up there with orsam and cree sorry about this I will apply the short pencil beats a long memory affect next time I get reading on this stuff

 

[pop22]

Everything is a trade off in some manner. HPS is a cheaper system to buy. But the heat an inefficiency comes into play, so you need bigger exhaust fans, bigger air conditioner, more water, etc. All systems have faults. But I see the efficiency of the COBs the deciding factor. I just read one ( sorry, don't remember which ) is considering throttling power to indoor growers, so people need to get thinking about this aspect. When I can build a light that is 60% efficient compare the 25-40% of 95% of commercial lights, that make price less of an issue. My airconditioner runs less now that I've already eliminates over 400 watts of heat, I'll be eliminating around another 800 watts soon. THAT is significant.

I currently use 1825 watts/hr with all my lights ( prior to the new cob light ) that put out a total of 1131.5 watts of heat. Replaced with 1200 watts of these cobs at lets be conservative, 52% efficiency, produces 576 watts of heat. LOTS more light, LOTS less heat. Add in the other reduced needs and where is your RIO now? RIO is based on total operation, not on one piece of the puzzle. some I'm also using 625watts/hr less to boot. I've seen what some people pay per kwh, I'd be crapping my pants at their power bill!

So now how much is that DIY light worth? But also, yes, you need to choose what work best based on the size of your space. Less than 4'x4'? 1212 rock! 4x4 or larger 1818's oe even better, 1825, which I'm running. If I dimm to 200 watts, I'm running near 60% efficient.

My current grow is far superior to those under the previous cheap LED grow lights. 300 watts of a 4-COB light has turned things from grape size buds into real colas!

This is not a big strain, but look at the buds!

The value in the 1212's is there depedning on your build. To make the most of the smaller LES you would want more of the them run softer for better coverage "supposedly", if you get away from one big heat sink and go to pin heat sinks or the like then the value goes away, because now you're buying heat sinks holders and optics for a lot more COB's vs less COB's run @ higher watts.

There's no wrong or right way, but there are different ways to go about running your COB's that DIY let's your personally tailor to your preference and/or grow setup.

My 600W light would have easily cost me twice as much to DIY if I followed the more common ways as of late of building lights. To me there's a point where the cost just would not be worth the switch to COB's it would take forever to realize ROI.

 

[Evil-Mobo]

@BigSm0 @pop22 @Evil-Mobo @Puddentane
@dankle i love learning about all this so thanks for sharing the info!
Is it possible to replace a 600w hps with less watts of cobs AND increase yeild with a sensible budget? I can already hit 1gpw+ with hps but would love to have the same (or rather better) results with 400-500 watt draw
As i plan to run at least 2 lights constantly.
I grow in a wilma system so 4 plants close together 4x4 canopy

If you honestly hit 1 gpw already then yes just switching to COB's I would say your first run 1.5 gpw is not an unreasonable number to shoot for. When I finish this run I can give you a better idea about yield vs less watts in COB vs HID I have 600W hanging where there was a 1K HPS, and there is still an HPS on the other side of the flower tent.

My veg tent is doing just as good or better with 275 watts of COB's than it was with 454 watts of T5 HO.

 

[Puddentane]

@BigSm0 @pop22 @Evil-Mobo @Puddentane
@dankle i love learning about all this so thanks for sharing the info!
Is it possible to replace a 600w hps with less watts of cobs AND increase yeild with a sensible budget? I can already hit 1gpw+ with hps but would love to have the same (or rather better) results with 400-500 watt draw
As i plan to run at least 2 lights constantly.
I grow in a wilma system so 4 plants close together 4x4 canopy

I gotta say I am on the bus with these guys now. I think from my perspective it is not always about the production per watt, but the efficiency of the system as a whole. Cooling, energy usage, and ease of maintenance overall. I am a cob fanboy now and until I see science to change my thinking I don't expect I will use anything else. My grow is small but that may not always be the case. So I want to develop best practices style systems that can be used modular so that grows can expand and contract based on need. Cobs, and particularly some of the solo cob lights that are popping up now, are perfect for this kind of mindset.

Let us know your thoughts on this. I could read on this subject almost all day. Well gotta eat sleep hit the head and make coffee. Other than that...

Grow on!