new gen 3 eb strips and Bridgelux quantum boards

[Prawn Connery]

And another edit: no 3000K on the boards. 5000K is sooooo yesterday . . .

Yeah.. why? 3000K is perfect for home lighting. Anything beyond 4000K is so annoying. but I guess most industrial/workplace gigs use 4000K. Sometimes I wonder who uses these rigid strips anyway, except a bunch of crazies growing plants.

I think the slim version is really nice.

I always wondered why we gotta have rectangular designs. Isn't a square much easier to work with when designing lighting for a room? Why is the most popular size for boards ~600x200mm? Wouldn't the spread be much better at a theoretical 600x600? Etc. - in this sense I think they are making a great move... I would be the first to buy these in 3000k 90CRI if just to light my room (they are only in 80cri, not 90)

Lol! You ask "why 3000K?" and then proceeded to tell us you'd be first to buy 3000k CRI90.

Do I still need to explain?

To be clear, I was talking about grow lights - not shop lights. You are right about shop lights.

And why rectangles? Because they can light up rectangular areas, and you can put them together to form a square. Of course, you can put two squares together to form a rectangle, too!

[Prawn Connery]

I thought the connectors were in a prick of a place at first, but then realised it looks like they need matching heatsinks.

And another edit: no 3000K on the boards. 5000K is sooooo yesterday . . .

5000k + 660 + 730 is the paradise!

Not in my opinion. There are better spectra and mixes if we are talking flowering lights.

Here's an example of 5000K + 630 + 730 - way too much blue, IMO. All the best flowering lights I've seen and used have had no more than 10-15% blue. I would rather incorporate the extra 620nm red of a CRI90 2700-3000K white phosphor, or at a stretch 3500K for the extra cyan. Personal preference, of course, but it works for me.

[0 to 220]

Lol! You ask "why 3000K?" and then proceeded to tell us you'd be first to buy 3000k CRI90.

Relax chef. I think you misunderstand. I'm asking the same question as you are, and supplementing it by stating that even for home use 3000k is best (in my opinion). So, I too am wondering why they are not available in 3000k.

Anyway, arranging pcbs like QBs in squares creates a situation where the diodes are not distributed evenly. I'm kinda used to squares after vertical CMH

[TEKNIK]

The problem with judging things from a color temperature is you can see the spectrum, even if it's say a 3000K cri90 there are a number of configurations this can be done with, unless you are talking about CRI 100 that is the only true color spectrum.
I have made 3000K lights that contain 0 blue.

You can see by these 2 spectrums how they change very slightly, both are nichia top of the range, one has less blue than the other.

[Prawn Connery]

Lol! You ask "why 3000K?" and then proceeded to tell us you'd be first to buy 3000k CRI90.

Relax chef. I think you misunderstand. I'm asking the same question as you are, and supplementing it by stating that even for home use 3000k is best (in my opinion). So, I too am wondering why they are not available in 3000k.

Anyway, arranging pcbs like QBs in squares creates a situation where the diodes are not distributed evenly. I'm kinda used to squares after vertical CMH

Sorry. I re-read your post again and I interpreted it back-to-front

Apologies - I'm now on the same page.

Ok, I'm going to blow my own trumpet here . . . When we were designing the High Light boards, we also recognised that a square configuration was optimal for most indoor growing spaces - be they tents or room grows. We wanted a direct 600W HPS replacement and came up with the idea of a 16"x16" board. But it was too big - both for readily available heatsinks, and when ordering PCBs. So we cut it in half to produce a 16'x8' board that, when placed side-by-side, would form a modular 16"x16" pattern providing even light coverage and allowing the individual LEDs to be spaced nicely for heat dissipation.

The pattern is perfect for 3'x3' coverage - or for just about anywhere else you would place a 600W HPS.

But in a 4'x4' it was a bit trickier. Of course having 16"x16" over each 24"x24" (2 foot by 2 foot square) provides almost unparalleled coverage - even better than strip lighting. But it means having 8 panels per 4'x4' and driving them at less than half their rated maximum power (225W). Again, great for efficiency, but 8 panels can by expensive for those on a budget.

Still, there's not much else on the market than can cover a 4'x4' quite like 8 High Lights running at 80-90W each.

However, we also noticed some growers wanted to add LED panels to their current CMH grows to supplement red and increase yield efficiencies. For that, we have provided double heatsinks that allow the panels to be arranged end-to-end: you put one panel in each side of the tent, angle it towards the middle slightly, and place a CMH bulb in the middle.

Best of both worlds! You get excellent and efficient light spread with lots of red and a good amount of far red, as well as the UV boost from the CMH.

You can also run the long panels in tandem to cover a 4'x4'.

Here's the light spread from four panels running at 3.5A (168W each = 672W total)

This one is at 15" with 70% reflective walls

Here's the same with 80% reflective walls

Turn the wick up to 4A (196W x 4 = 784W) and hang at 18" and the spread is really nice. All figures are in PPFD

So, rectangles can also work.

[Prawn Connery]

The problem with judging things from a color temperature is you can see the spectrum, even if it's say a 3000K cri90 there are a number of configurations this can be done with, unless you are talking about CRI 100 that is the only true color spectrum.
I have made 3000K lights that contain 0 blue.

You can see by these 2 spectrums how they change very slightly, both are nichia top of the range, one has less blue than the other. Screenshot_20190712-150057_Samsung Internet.jpgScreenshot_20190712-150132_Samsung Internet.jpg

Yes, more green = less blue (as green compensates for blue).

It also depends on where the blue is. The Nichia Optisolis have a 440-445nm pump, while other ranges have a 450-455nm pump.

Many ways to skin a cat, but we're talking in general terms. We choose the Optisolis 2700K to mix with our boards precisely because of that 440nm pump and the 660nm peak offered by a CRI95 LED compared to CRI90 (450nm-620nm) and CRI80 (450nm-590nm).

Optisolis CRI95 3000K

[TEKNIK]

Prawn is using Dialux to create grow room PAR maps, I tested his board a few months ago, as my machine also creates IES files when I do a test this allows you to use a free to download program to do your own checks to see what works best in your grow room before a purchase.
Gone are the days of using a par meter to create maps, DIALUX removes the need for it and it is accurate.
Most manufacturers are terrified of IES files as it takes all sales pitches and marketing out of the equation regarding how much light will reach your canopy.
I will make IES files available on the new board from Cutter once I test that also

[HomerPepsi]

Newb question here: what is a "pump" VS any other blue diode? Is it something that pushes those high frequencies in pulses like a pump? Or just LED slang for adding more color?

Cheers

[TEKNIK]

The pump is usually a blue led that then has phosphor placed over it to create white or other colors. Most white LEDs use a 450-460nm blue led.
Nichias optisolis 5000k uses a 420nm blue led as the pump.

[Prawn Connery]

Newb question here: what is a "pump" VS any other blue diode? Is it something that pushes those high frequencies in pulses like a pump? Or just LED slang for adding more color?

Cheers

As TEKNIK explained.

In layman's terms, the blue LED that is the base of every white LED is referred to as the "pump" (because it "pumps" out light). That blue light is converted to green and red light using phosphors (the yellow coating on the LED), and together they form white light.

A UV "pump" is a white phosphor LED that uses a UV base (400-420nm) instead of a blue base (440-460nm), which is then converted to white light.

The main difference is, the UV pump has blue, green and red phosphors to form white light. The blue pump only uses green and red phosphors to form white light. So the UV pump is able to achieve better colour rendition (CRI), because it covers a wider spectrum.

We use UV pump LEDs in our High Light boards for this reason - to broaden the spectrum. The Seoul Semiconductor UV LED we use has a 410-415nm pump.