Lighting Help actually BUYING LEDS

[Dr.Bubbles]

Lol. Avoid Amazon for Grow Lights. I enjoy this line.

You wanna know a few easy ways of telling if what you are looking at is crap?
- First, it will say some stupid shit about how it's a "600 watt" or "1000 watt" light. No...it's not.
-Second, they all are blue and purple like a blurple muthafucker and look like disco inferno. Don't buy these.
-Third, the write-up and advertisement is written in broken Engrish so you can make super happy fun time.
-Lastly, it's a straight up clone of every other light on Amazon.

They use SHIT diodes and junk drivers. Their drivers are better than the diodes though, and I have a handful of them around from an old Viparspectra which we did it a favor and ripped it apart. And this was the "pro" model! I used the heatsink for COBs and used the drivers to run a few fans. I even used the cheap driver to run a few COBs until I got stacked with Mean Well HLGs. I got 7 or 8 of em now.

To answer a question above about drivers having an aux out. Haven't seen that on real drivers, but the Viparspectra drivers had em. Once you start buying Mean Well drivers you won't be buying anything else. That being said, Mean Well makes a cute little 12v driver specifically for fans and it's only like $10 or so. Grab your Meanies at Arrow, you even get free overnight shipping and they always have cool promos.

I don't particularly like active cooling unless you are doing something crazy...like running Citizen 1825s at 120w, which is INSANE by the way. Did those on Mechatronix heat sinks with IceLED fan. I got two of those running off a 240w Mean Well. Very cool take on the Autobob...Gen 6 Citizen 1825s 3500°K @ 90 CRI.

I would absolutely recommend not trying to reinvent the wheel on your first build and just get some aluminum passive heat sinks like 120 or 130mm pin fin or get Mechatronix heat sinks if ya want to be fancy. They are the nicest heatsinks in the game. Skip the 1212s and get 1812s or 1818s, which are all of the CLU048 frame. The 1825s are CLU058, and they are substantially bigger and more expensive....and worth every penny. I personally like the 1818s and 1825s.

Okay, so we skipped the 1212s, and perhaps you bought some 1812s or 18². Drive these at 52w each off a Mean Well HLG-240h-C1050 driver. You can run 3 or 4 COBs off that driver in series. Minimum of three.

Or you can try your luck with Quantum Boards...haven't gone that route yet personally, COBs work great. When you're dealing with top bin COBs, stick with the big guys:

-CREE (overpriced IMO)
-Citizen (The watch guys and A++)
-Bridgelux Vero (have built in holder)
-Luminus (Have heard good things)

You will be ahead of the game if you get top binned diodes from these brands. As far as strips and QBs, I like Samsung and Tom Brady. The 288/304 Brady's with Samsung 561c and LM301b are awesome...and they come in strips.

Okay, I'm done. Hit me up for help sourcing this stuff if you're having trouble...I've been there. Lol. The last thing you want is to get shit that's not what you need, or doesn't work together like you thought it would...and for how amazing these shits am, they are still quite difficult to track down if you don't know where to look. And no...we won't be shopping on Amazon...lol

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[Archaic]

The main thing I needed help with was where to actually buy components. I'm pretty well versed on the understanding part I just couldn't figure out how digikey worked or how to buy non bulk quantities.

Thanks to some PMs, I'm in a lot better shape now.

How do you guys feel about the XLG drivers? Basically still Meanwell drivers like HLG but plastic cases and no frills, but quite a bit cheaper.

Has anybody here used Luminous COBs yet?

 

[Dr.Bubbles]

Never used anything but the HLG in the aluminum housing. I also have an LG/Innotek driver that came from a commercial parking lot light. It's a cool driver with 4 channels and a dimming circuit. Very nice and as well constructed as the Mean Well driver.

I have not personally used a Luminus, but I have heard they are right up there from 2 reliable sources. Ask the dude I steered you to, he told me they are every bit as good as Citis, they even look like em, and they were much easier to source. He was having problems with the Citis (at least that was the case last year) being on backorder everywhere, so he started stocking those to have consistent stock. I know this story all too well, as I have literally watched them dry up for months at a time. Everywhere. The most cutting edge lights you've ever seen and you can't have em. Yay.

My buddy that I got into LEDs with...that is now residing in Nelson's Balcony...because AR-15s and cold turkey MAOI antidepressants don't mix, was the real adventurer of the two of us with LEDs. I just made em work. I built a 1212 four bagger on a giant extruded heat sink...from Amazon!! It had two 5700°K, a 6500°K, and a blue one. It was a KILLER fucking nursery light, stupid tight nodes. You can use it like a tool. We did a side by side with that rig and a 3500°K 1818 rig and the nodal spacing was double. A serious contender to start plants with, especially if you're working in a vertically challenged environment.

There is also Almost Complete Autobobs which are ready for a 120 or 240 driver as stated above. Personally, I have a thing for the 240-1050 CC Mean Wells, I have 3 of em. They are perfect for 50v COBs and as stated above you can run 3 or 4 off each one.

If you wanna do something cool and unique in a 4x4 tent, grab 4 3500°s and a 240-1050 driver and 4 passive heat sinks....and the coup de grâce would be a dead center 1825 @ 2700°K running at 100w or more. The 1825s throw a TON of light and have a much wider footprint than the 1818s. That would give you 350-400w of badass lighting in a 4x4 area that will be an incredible flowering machine. I came from the world of HPS and MH lighting, and the 2700°K have quite the orangey glow. We built a 6 pack of 1818s with a 320 driver, and there weren't any 3500°K in stock...seems to be a recurring theme...so we mixed 3 and 3 of 3000° and 4000° in a checkerboard pattern and it was great. You can definitely get nutty with mixing and matching here. I would love to try some IR and far red diodes, anything to tighten up those colas.

It's nice to see people making their own lights. I was just looking at Amazon at 2000w grow lights. What a joke. Real world current draw: 2A@ 120VAC. Sweet. Don't be that guy...lol

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[Fitzy]

Well the first thing I plan on doing is hacking my Growstar UFO blurple and converting it to a single citizen COB fixture.

I understand the electronics and can do the work, I just don't know how to actually buy components. I think I want to go with a CLU 048 1812, but there are dozens of them. Everything links me back to digikey, but digikey shows tarrifs and only sells in huge lots.

Ive just discovered LED Gardener website, so I might actually be able to sort things out now in plain english. Growmau5 suggested Rapid LED, but that looks suspiciously like his own store.

Once I convert the Growstar, I'll probably look into building a Q-board and I can't find anybody just selling Panasonic LEDs by the roll.

Hey bud if u need nething I'm building a fixture today with strip led lights again anything u need tag me and ask it no problem I've built a UFO hack and 5 others qb96v2 cobs and strips I've got a lot of good info on connectors and 18g solid core wires ect lmk wat u want/need