Lighting MedGrower does DIY Led build (Citizen COB CLU048-1212)

[islandgrower]

Subbed

"carpe diem"

 

[MedGrower]

Alright folks!

I have gotten some really good and useful consultation from, you guessed it, @BigSm0 (thank you man!!) and I have desided to go with passive cooling. I've gone and studied plenty about basics of electricity, wire colour codes and such. Ordered single thread wires, holders, wire connectors, solder station and lead free tin to solder with along with shrink tubes. Next up I am designing a frame for the light fixture. I am having a growspace of 120cm x 60cm so I want to give it a even coverage with this light. The elements are 134mm in diameter and I plan to leave each element and the powersource 50mm space for the heat to dissapate. Provided the size of the 4 heat elements and spaces, the total length of the unit would go as far as 90.4 cm leaving almost 15cm to each side of the light in the growroom.

I have written down a rough "blueprint" of the design. You can see in the middle there is the HLG-185A-C1400A and next to it there are the passive coolers. In each point of the upper line in the diagram, I am planning on running down an aluminium strip to hold each element.

Any comments, points, tips or absolute no no's?

- I guess one question I could have for you, is to how thick of aluminium I should use in the frame so it can safely hold together? I plant to use L -shaped bars on the sides so there is more support to it.

-Also, I hope that leaving 5cm space to the coolers is enough so they can operate as intented?

-Would be more ideal to have the powersource separated from the fixture?

 

[Rapha El]

Some people like to mount their drivers some place safer since they can reach up to 100°c
But if you got it on metal I see no problem so long as you maintain the safety margins of the manufacturer: top: 97mm sides: 73mm

Also led free solder takes a higher temp to melt (230ish i think) so if you have to solder your cobs themselves be careful.

 

[2Stoned2Care]

Alright folks!

I have gotten some really good and useful consultation from, you guessed it, @BigSm0 (thank you man!!) and I have desided to go with passive cooling with ModuLED Mega 13450-HBG -elements. I've gone and studied plenty about basics of electricity, wire colour codes and such. Ordered single thread wires, holders, wire connectors, solder station and lead free tin to solder with along with shrink tubes. Next up I am designing a frame for the light fixture. I am having a growspace of 120cm x 60cm so I want to give it a even coverage with this light. The elements are 134mm in diameter and I plan to leave each element and the powersource 50mm space for the heat to dissapate. Provided the size of the 4 heat elements and spaces, the total length of the unit would go as far as 90.4 cm leaving almost 15cm to each side of the light in the growroom.

I have written down a rough "blueprint" of the design. You can see in the middle there is the HLG-185A-C1400A and next to it there are the passive coolers. In each point of the upper line in the diagram, I am planning on running down an aluminium strip to hold each element.
View attachment 672194

Any comments, points, tips or absolute no no's?

- I guess one question I could have for you, is to how thick of aluminium I should use in the frame so it can safely hold together? I plant to use L -shaped bars on the sides so there is more support to it.

-Also, I hope that leaving 5cm space to the coolers is enough so they can operate as intented?

-Would be more ideal to have the powersource separated from the fixture?

My driver is outside ontop of the tent.it gets warm but i can hold it for ages and thats run at 1400a same driver as yours

 

[MedGrower]

Alright. My next question for you guys would be: How thick of a wire would be safe to use with 1400mA and 145V?

I have three different wires to pick from now:
- Single thread, tinned copper wire, 0.28mm2 (pvc insulation 0,3mm)
- Multi thread copper wire, 0.75mm2 (pvc insulation, 0,3mm)
- Multi thread copper wire, 1.50mm2 (silicon insulation, 0,6mm)

I tried to look up for how much do these types of wires take before going kaboom and just couldn't get heads or tails out of it.

 

[Rapha El]

I'm using the .75mm stranded wire. It is maybe a tad to thick.. plus I'm using 4 meters of it.
(I'm going from each cob to the ceiling and back down so I can adjust the light hanging heights to the extreme, which is not something you want to do because of the resistance)

So you could probably get away with using the .28 one but don't take my word for it and get a second opinion.

 

[wayward1]

Some people like to mount their drivers some place safer since they can reach up to 100°c
But if you got it on metal I see no problem so long as you maintain the safety margins of the manufacturer: top: 97mm sides: 73mm

Also led free solder takes a higher temp to melt (230ish i think) so if you have to solder your cobs themselves be careful.

I'm confused as to why some configurations keep the drivers in modest temperatures but other people suffer high temperatures with them. Does anyone know the best ratio of cobs to forward voltage (vf) of their cobs to the amps (or ma.. milliamps) of the driver to keep the driver cool for a small tent? Or even a large room cos who wants a hot driver! Lol

 

[wayward1]

Alright. My next question for you guys would be: How thick of a wire would be safe to use with 1400mA and 145V?

I have three different wires to pick from now:
- Single thread, tinned copper wire, 0.28mm2 (pvc insulation 0,3mm)
- Multi thread copper wire, 0.75mm2 (pvc insulation, 0,3mm)
- Multi thread copper wire, 1.50mm2 (silicon insulation, 0,6mm)

I tried to look up for how much do these types of wires take before going kaboom and just couldn't get heads or tails out of it.

I'm after the same answer. A simple 18 gauge solid core wire with good insulation suitable for our job. Im coming to the conclusion that I should just buy pre made or all the components from cutter/northern grow lights/timber. They are all good places to buy from... but I'm in the UK and grow northern still haven't up graded their products. Grrrr... (I know they're listening)

 

[Rapha El]

I'm confused as to why some configurations keep the drivers in modest temperatures but other people suffer high temperatures with them. Does anyone know the best ratio of cobs to forward voltage (vf) of their cobs to the amps (or ma.. milliamps) of the driver to keep the driver cool for a small tent? Or even a large room cos who wants a hot driver! Lol

Those are the technical specifications. I never said my driver got that hot. On the other hand.. I'm within a few volts of the overvoltage max of my driver when running my cobs at full potential

 

[MedGrower]

Looking into the specs of HGL-185H-C1400A for example, we can see that it has overtemperature shutdown at 95℃±10℃ (RTH2) So I would assume the normal operating temperatures are going to be significantly lower than that.