Looking for the best way to attach your COBs to your heat sink? Use a COB holder.
COB holders make it much easier to fix your chip to your heat sink and, more importantly, they make wiring far simpler as well. Rather than soldering (which sucks), COB holders offer “poke in” connectivity instead: just strip your cable and push it into the designated holes in the holder. There aren’t many manufacturers of COB holders – the 2 brands that are most prominent are Ideal and BJB. Some COBs (like Bridgelux Veros) don’t require holders at all.
An Ideal 50-2303CR COB holder.
Another advantage of using holders is that you can also fit reflector adapters onto them. Once the reflector adapter is in place, all you have to do is twist your reflector on.
COB, COB Holder, Reflector Adapter, Reflector
In terms of reflectors, LEDiL is the most popular brand for our niche. LEDiL makes a huge number of different reflectors in various colors, materials, and angles, and its ANGELA and ANGELINA series are the ones you’ll see most often for the COBs that indoor growers use. The ANGELA series measures 120mm in diameter, while the smaller ANGELINA series comes in at 85mm. Both ANGELA and ANGELINA come in a variety of different beam angles, denoted by the suffix on the part number. For example, an ANGELA-S refers to a “spot” angle (very tight), an ANGELA-M is a medium angle (say, 30 degrees or so), an ANGELA-W is a wide angle, and an ANGELA-XW is an extra-wide angle (think 70-90 degrees).
Below are the part numbers for the holders and reflector adapters of the most popular COBs. The Ideal holders require separate reflector adapters if you want to to attach a reflector, but the BJB holders have this adapter built-in and don’t require a separate part:
Morning My Friend,
You must have been reading my mind. I received your New Post on holders and reflectors at the exact same time I was finishing up my COB order with CDI. I was looking everywhere on their site for IDEAL reflectors but could not find any. Thanks again for your helpful site. Your testing and interactive spread sheets removed all the guess work.
Jim
Nice! What’d you go with? CLU048-1212?
Hey guys – what’s the advantage, or is it just price, of using the Citizen COBs?
Now… if I had a website and an audience, I might create a graphic, like an “at a glance”-type, generalization of major COB brands showing where they really hit their mark for efficiency.
For example, rate different COBs based on typical wattage per COB to show which COB outputs the most lumens per “x” watts (ie. at 50 watts the 3590 is x, where Vero 29 y, and the…)
Although, does the drive current used to achieve a given number of watts affect its efficiency (or is it efficacy – sorry man, I dunno which is which). Lol.
Any pics of the build?
Hey Brad,
Hang out on this site for awhile. Professional, no stigma and Its all here.
Price, most diffidently. You know the rest.
Hey Brad, I have written something similar, but not quiiiite exactly what you’re saying. The post I’m thinking of is here. The biggest appeal of the 1212s is their price. At low currents, they perform relatively close to the 3590s but cost 1/3 or less. If you’re hell bent on maximum efficiency, the 3590s are still the way to go at low current, but I think the increase in light you’ll get won’t be worth it to most people.
Being my first Cob build and funds tight, yes i did go with 8 X CLU048-1212 and will push them a bit for now. Splurged on the drivers hlg-320h-c1400b which were way out of my budget but will leave me a lot of room to expand or even upgrade in the future when funds permits. CDI, eBay, Aliexpress and Craigslist, are my friends.
As you can see, your site info is my entire build.
Thanks my friend
Rock on, man. You grabbed a pair of those 320s, I presume?
That’s awesome that you put this plan in motion so quickly! You’ll be impressed with this gear.
Really was not prepared to drop that kind of $$ on drivers but it’s much cheaper if you look towards the future and only do it once.
Is there a wattage these can be run where they match or exceed Cree’s lum/watt?
No, but you can run 3 for the price of 1 CXB3590 and underdrive them.
From what ive read here, cree3590 38.00-44.00 are king and very effecent when run at lower current but are twice the price of 1818 and 4 times 1212s. Check out Mr. Gardeners comparison.
https://ledgardener.com/comparison-lumen-output-common-wattages/
So leaving drivers out of the equation… a 3590 (COB, holder, heat sink) is about $80, 2 Citizens are $60. So for a 200w configuration, do I get more total lumen from 4 Cree or 8 Citizen?
Here’s how they’d stack up, based on the Cree and Citizen product simulators:
8x CLU048-1212 3500K 80CRI (Version 6) @ 700mA @ 50 degrees case temperature = 186.5W, These 8 COBs produce a total of 32,088 lumens. This equals 172 lumens per watt.
4x CXB3590 3500K 80CRI CD Bin @ 1,400mA @ 60 degrees case temperature = 192.3W.
These 4 COBs produce a total of 30,957 lumens. This equals 161 lumens per watt.
If you say Citizen, it’s a no-brainer. More COBs, more even spread, the “overlapping” effect of multiple light sources… I’ve got an order in my cart at Rapid, but this is just the kind of discussion that could side-line this order another week…
Sorry, I should have just checked out that post you mentioned. This can be extrapolated from your data.
Still looking for holders for the seoul semiconductor chips, thinking about getting 6 more for the heat sinks and the cheap supply I picked up. Looks like they are identical size to the clu-058 citizens, inquired with cob kits about holders for them and got no response. looks like the clu-058 holders will work, wanted to see what you thought about it, here’s the spec sheet, http://www.seoulsemicon.com/_upload/Goods_Spec/SDWx7F1C_ZC100_datasheet_Rev3.1_161110(0).pdf
Not sure if that link is working for some reason, heres the part number SDW87F1C-N2E11J
Hmph. I’m mobile now but I’ll have a gander tomorrow and see if we can figure it out.
Alright I looked at the mechanical drawing for both and it sure as hell looks like it would fit to me. The pads should line up for connectivity and the chip is the same size.
Thanks for the input, I just wish I could find the ideal holder for them, they look like a more sturdy holder. The bjb holers seem to work fine but the connections are a one time thing, I have managed to get a wire back out of one before but I damn near trashed it and had to do surgery on it and remove the connector and bend it back onto shape.
Hmph, crappy. I’ve never tried BJB – I’ll keep in mind.