LEDgardener

Hi everybody! Long time lurker, first time posting. I've got a little something to show you guys!

I've just built my first batch of prototypes and hope to be selling these as complete luminaires very soon. Each board has 320 LM561C S6 diodes on it for that mad diode density!

I performed loads of PPFD testing in a Homebox Ambient AQ120+ tent, using the Apogee SQ520 quantum sensor. The floor was marked in 33 places with pieces of tape, and readings were taken at each location for 12", 18", and 24" heights.

Luminaires tested included my 120W, 200W, 300W, 400W designs, and a monster 800W (dual 400W) configuration, a 600W HPS overdriven to 700W, and a generic grow shop "full spectrum" 6 COB light.

The numbers are in! My 400W luminaire which draws just under 400W from the wall, compared to "700W" HPS (drawing 703W), with both running at 18" height.
You can see the 400 gets more and much better overall light spread, and isn't so harsh in the centre.

18" seemed the optimal height to compare them at and it gives the HPS a solid ass whooping. 12" was too close for either light and PPFD readings were too high to be plant healthy, and conversely at 24", the 400 still outperformed the HPS, but this height was kinda redundant because the 400 still had approximately the same PPFD values in the corners and sides as at 18", so why would you even run it at 24"? Only the HPS would need to be raised because of its mammoth bright spot right in the middle.

Oh and just for the heck of it, I've attached the PPFD map of the dual 400W lights at 24"... this is bananas, and you'd probably want to be running these another 4"-8" higher or more!
Square boards are cooler and make more sense! Check out some of these pics!

Looking good! I also agree about the 1:1 PCB shape, given that most grow tents come in squares.

The question of course is who are you contracting

Gorgeous lights- and great numbers. The only thing I see that I question in your design is that some wiring wraps outside the frame, making it vulnerable to damage. I would try to avoid running wires that way.

Do the boards have 300 301b diodes in a square foot?

What driver are you using?

majorana wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 10, 2018 2:31 pm

Looking good! I also agree about the 1:1 PCB shape, given that most grow tents come in squares.

The question of course is who are you contracting

Thanks! Yeah rectangular boards have bugged me for some time. I investigated building these with quantum boards initially, but as an engineer, the rectangular shape bugged me too much given that people like to talk about lighting, yields, and space etc in square feet.

To answer your question, I'm not contracting anyone Many hours of design time, and many more hours and late nights of hard work painstakingly assembling fixtures, fitting PCBs, running wire etc. They're pretty labour intensive to build to my exacting standards, and everything is within less than 1mm tolerance. I do have help from a buddy who is involved thankfully, and have taken pics throughout the build process.

Sativant wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 10, 2018 3:28 pm

Gorgeous lights- and great numbers. The only thing I see that I question in your design is that some wiring wraps outside the frame, making it vulnerable to damage. I would try to avoid running wires that way.

I agree if I could run the wire through a hole in the board and into the extrusion or something would be a neater way, but for now this is the simplest configuration. The luminaires are pretty sturdy, as long as the user isn't rough with them (like using them as a shield in a sword fight or something), they should be ok Thanks for the feedback, I'll look at improving this!

unkle_psycho wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:22 pm

Do the boards have 300 301b diodes in a square foot?

These boards use 320x LM561C S6 diodes.

LEDG wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 10, 2018 10:51 pm

What driver are you using?

I'm using uPowerTek drivers. On the 400 watt luminaire specifically, I'm using the BLD-400-C420-ENS. I chose these because they're an excellent alternative to Mean Well; uPowerTek make very nice quality drivers. They're practically the same efficiency as comparable Mean Well drivers, in the 92-94% range at full power, and offer all the same main features, but also have a few extras. They also sell a lot into Europe, and Europe is one of the harder places in the world to sell electronics into with all their stringent safety requirements.

thanks for info about these uPowerTek drivers .
Do you maybe now where to find them to buy inside EU?
are there any other good drivers except mean well, upowertek and maybe TRK (don't know if you can find them in EU) that you can find on the EU teritory?
thanks.

So running at 30w per square foot, these get about 0.1w per diode? would they be running at 3% of max load, and what kind of efficiency does that result in?

Also, is it too early to ask about price? Seems to be pretty top shelf stuff

unkle_psycho wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 11, 2018 8:15 am

So running at 30w per square foot, these get about 0.1w per diode? would they be running at 3% of max load, and what kind of efficiency does that result in?

Also, is it too early to ask about price? Seems to be pretty top shelf stuff

Hey man! I designed these with running 50W/sqft in mind, and using a board per square foot of grow space. With my configurations, the boards are running somewhere between 47-50W. Each diode is therefore running at about 0.148125W.

So they're at around 26% of their max, and having done the numbers with the Samsung calculator I get 195.2 lm/W. That means a Quadra 400 panel is producing approximately 73944 lumens. Multiplying 195.2 lm/W by the par multiplier of 0.014505 (specific for the LM561C 3000k 80CRI) gets 2.831376 uMol/J.

If I'm not mistaken, that's extremely efficient... enough so that no cooling gear is required, and after 45+ minutes of PPFD testing I am able to put the back of my hand on the back of any of the PCBs and on the driver itself, and leave it on there (got videos to prove it). Water from the hot tap is about 55°C and is too hot to leave your hand under... so I estimate these to reach about 40-45°.

FYI, that's inside a zipped closed grow tent with no exhaust fan and no circulation fans at all, just as you see in the testing pictures. I'm pretty confident in a properly set up grow environment with fans etc they'd be cooler still.

I haven't compared the efficiency and total light outputs to what the other Samsung diode light guys are doing, but I imagine my panels aren't too far off theirs, while still using quite a bit less power.

I'll wait for LEDG to chime in on whether or not he's happy for me to talk prices on the forum. What I can tell you is the pricing is fairly competitive for what you get. For now, PM me if you want more info and I'll do my best to help you out.

dik666 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 11, 2018 6:47 am

thanks for info about these uPowerTek drivers .
Do you maybe now where to find them to buy inside EU?
are there any other good drivers except mean well, upowertek and maybe TRK (don't know if you can find them in EU) that you can find on the EU teritory?
thanks.

Sorry I don't know where you can get them in Europe, maybe look on the uPowerTek site to see if they have a distributor in your neck of the woods!