It's perfectly normal with the LM561B+
"LM561C" Boards and Strips from Bright and thoughts on dealing with Shenzen mfg's
this is from a RIU user. i think i remember him saying that he ordered these specimens from digikey just to be able to compare them to the LED on the alibaba boards he ordered.
lm561C S6
- lm561C s6 .jpg (9.1 KiB) Viewed 1527 times
lm561C S5
- lm561C s5 .jpg (15.06 KiB) Viewed 1527 times
lm561B+ S5
- lm561b+ s5 .jpg (8.21 KiB) Viewed 1527 times
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William E.
- LED-Curious
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- Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2018 9:25 pm
Just wanted to share my experience with dealing with Shenzen Meijiu.
Let me preface this by saying I know that you get what you pay for! The board had two dead lines of diodes upon arrival, and I am currently sorting out a replacement with the manufacturer. I will update on how this turns out when it's all sorted. Needless to say - If I had splashed out on HLG ones, I'm sure they would have replaced them immediately without question. The manufacturer said they were tested prior to being sent out, and they must have been damaged during shipping. There is a puncture hole / damage on the box which goes through to the inside in the area that the dead rows were when it was packed, and considering that LED's are fragile this may indeed be the case. The Samsung LM561C data sheet does warn against putting pressure on the LED's.
I ordered the 2-piece 312 board kit. The customer service has been very prompt in replying and the board came really quickly, like 3 working days, and they were happy to adjust the amount for customs.
The packaging was good although there were no set-up instructions. It included two mains power plug / cords - it only needs one!
I googled setting it up and found "Ede Wolf"'s youtube videos apparently showing the set-up of a Meijiu 'Folite', where the guy uses gloves, remains off camera and plays cheesy music;
In the video, the dimmer is wired wrong. He wires one cord to power the board and one to power the dimmer. What should happen instead is that you just use the one power cord, and run the phase through the dimmer to the board. The dimmer is also an on-off switch, so if you don't run the supply through it and instead power it separately, it won't switch the board off. The dimmer is this one, you can see the correct wiring diagram here under 'Downloads' and '1-10v installation panel' https://www.ledkia.com/de/kaufen-leistu ... 1-10v.html
The kit, being a low voltage design, has the two boards wired in parallel. It uses a CV + CC HLG-240H-36B. There are 26 x rows of 12 LED's on each board. As the driver puts out 240 W and up to 6.7 A, each board could use max 120 W and 3.35 A, which using an online calc gives me 35.82 V and 10.69 Ohms with 128 mA on each row.
The appearance of the diodes was uneven - they seemed lighter and darker across the board. Some zener diode black dots were more visible than others. One LED chip looked like the insides were not well made and were coming up through the side of the yellow. This chip was on the end of one of the two dead rows. There was some grubby stuff around some of the diodes and there was solder splatter around some as well.
When I hooked them up, they were bright as fuck. The colour temperature seemed correct and no rows were different colours or brighter / dimmer than others to my eye. The dimmer seemed to dim visually down to about 20%, but of course my eyes won't be accurate. The boards were at about 35.something volts on full (so circa 2.9 V per LED) and around 32.something (approx 2.66 V each) at lowest dim before the dimmer switched them off (IIRC, I'll measure them again). I'll be trying to a 100 k pot at some point. The dimming was somewhat uneven, and I believe this is due to the fact that the power supply is not fully loaded - this is a known issue.
I've got a lux meter and when I get back from holiday I'll do a proper measurement and get some photos up.
Are they legit LM561C's? Fuck knows, but I would not put money on it, considering the diodes all looked visually different. Maybe they are the ends a variety of runs. But they are bright, and they are cheap, and if they replace my board I'll be happy with my purchase.
Let me preface this by saying I know that you get what you pay for! The board had two dead lines of diodes upon arrival, and I am currently sorting out a replacement with the manufacturer. I will update on how this turns out when it's all sorted. Needless to say - If I had splashed out on HLG ones, I'm sure they would have replaced them immediately without question. The manufacturer said they were tested prior to being sent out, and they must have been damaged during shipping. There is a puncture hole / damage on the box which goes through to the inside in the area that the dead rows were when it was packed, and considering that LED's are fragile this may indeed be the case. The Samsung LM561C data sheet does warn against putting pressure on the LED's.
I ordered the 2-piece 312 board kit. The customer service has been very prompt in replying and the board came really quickly, like 3 working days, and they were happy to adjust the amount for customs.
The packaging was good although there were no set-up instructions. It included two mains power plug / cords - it only needs one!
I googled setting it up and found "Ede Wolf"'s youtube videos apparently showing the set-up of a Meijiu 'Folite', where the guy uses gloves, remains off camera and plays cheesy music;
In the video, the dimmer is wired wrong. He wires one cord to power the board and one to power the dimmer. What should happen instead is that you just use the one power cord, and run the phase through the dimmer to the board. The dimmer is also an on-off switch, so if you don't run the supply through it and instead power it separately, it won't switch the board off. The dimmer is this one, you can see the correct wiring diagram here under 'Downloads' and '1-10v installation panel' https://www.ledkia.com/de/kaufen-leistu ... 1-10v.html
The kit, being a low voltage design, has the two boards wired in parallel. It uses a CV + CC HLG-240H-36B. There are 26 x rows of 12 LED's on each board. As the driver puts out 240 W and up to 6.7 A, each board could use max 120 W and 3.35 A, which using an online calc gives me 35.82 V and 10.69 Ohms with 128 mA on each row.
The appearance of the diodes was uneven - they seemed lighter and darker across the board. Some zener diode black dots were more visible than others. One LED chip looked like the insides were not well made and were coming up through the side of the yellow. This chip was on the end of one of the two dead rows. There was some grubby stuff around some of the diodes and there was solder splatter around some as well.
When I hooked them up, they were bright as fuck. The colour temperature seemed correct and no rows were different colours or brighter / dimmer than others to my eye. The dimmer seemed to dim visually down to about 20%, but of course my eyes won't be accurate. The boards were at about 35.something volts on full (so circa 2.9 V per LED) and around 32.something (approx 2.66 V each) at lowest dim before the dimmer switched them off (IIRC, I'll measure them again). I'll be trying to a 100 k pot at some point. The dimming was somewhat uneven, and I believe this is due to the fact that the power supply is not fully loaded - this is a known issue.
I've got a lux meter and when I get back from holiday I'll do a proper measurement and get some photos up.
Are they legit LM561C's? Fuck knows, but I would not put money on it, considering the diodes all looked visually different. Maybe they are the ends a variety of runs. But they are bright, and they are cheap, and if they replace my board I'll be happy with my purchase.
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unkle_psycho
- LED Wizard
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How much cheaper were these then a HLG or strips?
"Nothing is true, everything is permitted"
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William E.
- LED-Curious
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- Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2018 9:25 pm
https://horticulturelightinggroup.com/c ... qb-led-kit
This is about the HLG equivalient - although the new HLG boards have the new Samsumg chips so are more efficient. It's $330 USD. Shipping to my country I would estimate as $60-$120, depending on who the carrier.
I paid $152.10 for the board and $58 for the shipping.
I have received the replacement a couple of days ago and it works.
The new board shipped from a different company (Tomtop technologies - can't find where the name of the first one went!). It looked cleaner and in slightly better condition perhaps, less solder splatter, more even diodes perhaps, but still much variable in the visibility of the black zener diode. The LED's also still variable in colour - some are more yellow and some are more orange.
I also got a hold of a microscope and took some pictures of the LED's.
In one of the two rows of dead LED's on the old board, there was a LED in which had a chip out of it. It looks like there must have been some mechanical damage as this was roughly in the area where the damage on the box was.
Here is a close up;
I also found similar damage on two LED's on the new board - but as everything lights up correctly, I'm going to run with it. I hope it doesn't fuck out early!
Here's some photos of the damage on the chips of the new board;
I did not look at every chip - too many! But I did take pics of a wide selection. I'll upload a bunch of smaller ones.
This is about the HLG equivalient - although the new HLG boards have the new Samsumg chips so are more efficient. It's $330 USD. Shipping to my country I would estimate as $60-$120, depending on who the carrier.
I paid $152.10 for the board and $58 for the shipping.
I have received the replacement a couple of days ago and it works.
The new board shipped from a different company (Tomtop technologies - can't find where the name of the first one went!). It looked cleaner and in slightly better condition perhaps, less solder splatter, more even diodes perhaps, but still much variable in the visibility of the black zener diode. The LED's also still variable in colour - some are more yellow and some are more orange.
I also got a hold of a microscope and took some pictures of the LED's.
In one of the two rows of dead LED's on the old board, there was a LED in which had a chip out of it. It looks like there must have been some mechanical damage as this was roughly in the area where the damage on the box was.
Here is a close up;
Here's some photos of the damage on the chips of the new board;
are all rigid strip constant voltage? because i see some flexible strips are CC with IC chip?
which is better if i want to get max brightness or lumen?
I plan on running 14 strips of 48 leds each on hlg 185h c1400a driver what do you think?
which is better if i want to get max brightness or lumen?
I plan on running 14 strips of 48 leds each on hlg 185h c1400a driver what do you think?
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William E.
- LED-Curious
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- Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2018 9:25 pm
Here is a imgur album of the pics I took. The light colour correction from the camera varies throughout as I moved the board around, so things are in slightly different shades, but you can see that some chips were more yellow and some more orange. They all appear to be the same colour temp when switched on. These photos were taken with cell phone camera down an old binocular microscope. Can't recall the magnification.
All of the chips I looked appeared to be LM561C. I believe this as the 'emitting element' appeared to be the same larger format size in every chip. If you look at the diagrams previously posted you can see the middle rectangular element is smaller in the B+. I can't tell if they are s5 or s6. I suspect they might be a mix of chips that missed out due to quality control and are being re-sold. I say this because there are some chips that have little metal containing bubbles in the yellow resin! Maybe they are still-working but otherwise reject chips? Forgot to do a lux measurement - maybe in future.
All of the chips I looked appeared to be LM561C. I believe this as the 'emitting element' appeared to be the same larger format size in every chip. If you look at the diagrams previously posted you can see the middle rectangular element is smaller in the B+. I can't tell if they are s5 or s6. I suspect they might be a mix of chips that missed out due to quality control and are being re-sold. I say this because there are some chips that have little metal containing bubbles in the yellow resin! Maybe they are still-working but otherwise reject chips? Forgot to do a lux measurement - maybe in future.
What are your thoughts 6 months later ?William E. wrote: ↑Wed Jul 11, 2018 7:08 amHere is a imgur album of the pics I took. The light colour correction from the camera varies throughout as I moved the board around, so things are in slightly different shades, but you can see that some chips were more yellow and some more orange. They all appear to be the same colour temp when switched on. These photos were taken with cell phone camera down an old binocular microscope. Can't recall the magnification.
All of the chips I looked appeared to be LM561C. I believe this as the 'emitting element' appeared to be the same larger format size in every chip. If you look at the diagrams previously posted you can see the middle rectangular element is smaller in the B+. I can't tell if they are s5 or s6. I suspect they might be a mix of chips that missed out due to quality control and are being re-sold. I say this because there are some chips that have little metal containing bubbles in the yellow resin! Maybe they are still-working but otherwise reject chips? Forgot to do a lux measurement - maybe in future.
I bought the 480w kit from the same seller with lm301b's allegedly!
Apart from the dimmer being shit it's a great light I have a big space SOG approx 1.5m x 3m 6 plants one side had the led and the other half 600w hps through a cool tube led side definitely had a bigger yeild the LEDs seem to penetrate the canopy so much better there was a huge cola right in the middle where both lights crossed over. But all in all led was definitely better than the hps .
It wasn't a true comparison from day one.
What a can say the hps is gone and I got another 480w kit but from Bava this time . I'm in the first week of flower and it will definitely be a good grow if it keeps going as it is now.
Pm me if you have any questions
Apart from the dimmer being shit it's a great light I have a big space SOG approx 1.5m x 3m 6 plants one side had the led and the other half 600w hps through a cool tube led side definitely had a bigger yeild the LEDs seem to penetrate the canopy so much better there was a huge cola right in the middle where both lights crossed over. But all in all led was definitely better than the hps .
It wasn't a true comparison from day one.
What a can say the hps is gone and I got another 480w kit but from Bava this time . I'm in the first week of flower and it will definitely be a good grow if it keeps going as it is now.
Pm me if you have any questions