(F series -canceled) Vesta build with side lighting

[Professor Xavier]

Could always mount your drivers on a wall or some beautiful Finnish wood out of the way
I see many folks whom are dealing with heat or space issues separate their drivers and lights.

[unkle_psycho]

I was thinking of mounting the drivers on the wall, your right, its the best solution, I think I can do it without the cables getting too long.
Since I made the frame with wood, the whole build was so easy the first thing I thought about when it finished was to start again. The Frame elements are 20mm x 40mm, I think if I used 25mm thick or some other wood besides pine it would feel sturdy enough for 6 drivers. Now 3 feel on the limit.

The only heat issue I'm facing is wishing for more heat. Took out two 400w HPS lights, and had to add a heater. So much for efficiency. Will find the right balance between setup and temperature though.

When I finally make it to town I'll get some dimmers and other equipment. I was originally scared that the wires would create a spider web. It's much cleaner then I expected, so now having done it once I know I can do a cleaner build.

Cutting the wood for the frame took like 2min. Everything just got attached with screws, so it's really easy and fast to take apart and put back together. Most of the build time went to cutting the extrusion and wating for the weak adhesive to stick to trips to the sink. I had to cut the fins a little with a hacksaw and dremel, then I just screwed them onto the wooden elements.

How do you post photos here? Do I need third party hosting?

[tazztone]

How do you post photos here?

u know i was always waiting for photos all this time

[Rocket Soul]

Hey U_P! Ive also been looking at the vesta strips. Interested in their thermal performance on a heat sink/extrusion. Did you get readings on your Vestas on your extrusions? If so, how much do they weigh each, and what are their measurements? Also, for laser thermometer, try putting a black electric tape on the alu and then measure, should work better than alu alone.

My take on the vestas is not to use them for mainlight, just for 90cri spectrum tweaking. I wanna use about 50-50% vesta and lm561c, 3000k 80 cri in light output.

[unkle_psycho]

Ladies and gentlemen, sorry to keep you waiting. Finally made it to the capital, and got some pot's for dimming.
And will upload some photos today too.

And rocket soul, will write to you within an hour or two. Need to check my tomatoes and clillies etc since I was away for a couple of days

[unkle_psycho]

Hey U_P! Ive also been looking at the vesta strips. Interested in their thermal performance on a heat sink/extrusion. Did you get readings on your Vestas on your extrusions? If so, how much do they weigh each, and what are their measurements? Also, for laser thermometer, try putting a black electric tape on the alu and then measure, should work better than alu alone.

My take on the vestas is not to use them for mainlight, just for 90cri spectrum tweaking. I wanna use about 50-50% vesta and lm561c, 3000k 80 cri in light output.

Before building the top light, I measured temperatures with the strips with no heatsinks on. When I fed the 2 foot strips 12.5w, they only got slightly warm. With the slightest fanning they were running perhaps 10c over ambient. When I ran them at 25w per strip, their temps were around 40-50c with very minor fanning. This was running only one of the 2 channels, so one side of the strip was at 35c and the other at 49c. If I would have shared the 25w between the two channels, I am pretty sure they wold have balanced the heat within the strip better.

The heatsink I attached is a railing cover for an Ikea cubboard. Its 55mm wide, and it only has two cooling fins. One is about 16mm tall, and the other is about 8mm. I'll check the weight, from the left over pieces, but the weight is mainly from thickness, which should not have much effect on cooling.
I made a mistake, since I'm in the countryside, I used a copper adhesive for drag racers engine caskets, and it didn't have enough gluing power. I added a few drops of super glue at the ends of each strip, and now they stayed. I had to redo the super glue on a few strips as I put so little that it didnt hold. in a few spots I can see that the superglued part of the strip seems about 0.5mm off the heatsink, as the glue dried, perhaps without enough pressure.

I'm feeding 25w per strip, and I cant really get any perceived heat from the sinks. The strips are running at about 30-35c, with an ambient temperature of 25c. The ones with minor imperfection in attachment seem to run at the same temperature as the others, and the heatsinks are helping with the strips internal heat dissipation.

Will weigh the leftover pieces in a moment.

[unkle_psycho]

26cm left over piece weighed 70g. My sinks are about 1cm longer then the strips.

[Rocket Soul]

Hey U_P, thanks for the help. Have you had a chance to test your toplight yet? Any lux/ppfd readings on it?

[unkle_psycho]

I'm hoping to borrow a lux meter from some friend who does photography, but don't expect to bump into a ppfd meter... would be easy to calculate the conversion though.

I Built the light while doing a pheno hunt, and now I have a couple of clones that I'll test my side lighting idea on. Our weather is really amazing now, so I put them to veg with my tomatoes and chilies in the greenhouse. Didn't get to the side lights, or photos or anything, I have suddenly found myself having the busiest time ever, so everything is a little on pause.

I do check on the forum every day or two, and will continue the build and side lighting etc. very soon.

[unkle_psycho]

So finally I managed to move some photos to my computer.

I was given some leftover railing for an Ikea cupboard, so I used a dremel on the rear side to cut the 'fins' to make way for the frame.