My current setup is 4 x VERO29-D 3500K 80 with an HLG-185H-C1400B in a 1m x 1m tent. I think its time to upgrade. I'm thinking of upgrading the driver to the HLG-320H-1750B and running the Veros closer to 65W. With the HLG-185H-C1400B, I'm thinking of adding two ChilLED Logic 100W pucks. I'd arrange the LEDs in two rows of three with the pucks in the middle.
My questions are:
Is this a good mix of colours?
Is there a better COB/array for the HLG-185H-C1400B to optimise its efficiency? I like the idea of a QB set but it seems like they're impossible to source.
The addition of the red from the pucks should help in flower. Why not just keep your cob setup, then get another hlg-185h-c1400 for the two pucks? This would give you more control. For example, you could veg with the cobs and turn on the pucks in late veg or when you flip to flower. Running both together would give you around 33w/sqft.
Thanks for the reply, @WhiteRecluse. Just picking your brain here, hope thats okay.
You said this would give me more control. Why don't you suggest getting the bigger driver while I'm in the market already? I could always dim the veros during veg and then crank them up for fruiting then I'd be running ~40w/sqft.
I misunderstood your intentions. I thought you were going to run pucks and cobs on the 320. If you have proper heatsinks, you can run 4 veros on an hlg-240h-c1750a. I'm not sure if the b version would quite get there. Maybe someone else could say for sure.
If you run the 320h-1750 you wouldn't be close to max output voltage and would take an efficiency hit. Also you would be leaving some wattage on the table as you would only be using 260w of 320 available. In summary, running 4 cobs on hlg-240-c1750a and the pucks on your 185-1400, you would be at ~420 watts or 37w/sqft.
I was recommending a separate driver for both, but in rereading your post I see you were going to do that. I feel like the pucks bring more to the table in flower as they have the added reds. So running only cobs in veg.
The predicament I'm in with going for the hlg-240-c1750a is that I'm then stuck with a driver that can only run 4 COBs. If I go for the HLG-320H-1400B, then I could add another 2 COBs (I realise now that the 1750 wouldn't have the voltage to drive more than 4 COBs anyway). This way I get 6 Veros for a total of 320w plus the 2 pucks running at 200w for 520w total and it gets me to 40+w/sqft. This way I could also move to a bigger space in the future.
Sounds like you have a good grasp on it. Don't forget to calculate minimum voltages in upgrade scenarios. In this case you would be fine with 4 cobs on the 320-1400 at ~144v. The driver minimum is 114v.
You won't see 100w out of the pucks at 1.4 amps. They are 48v boards so you would need to run them at 2.1 to get 200w. At 1.4 they will run close to 70w each according to Rapid.
