Questions for the quantum board experts

[guabasa]

Hi all! I have a few questions for the QB geniuses out there, this will be my first grow and I’m confused about some stuff regarding QB’s.

I just finished building my light fixture which is 4 QB288 V2’s from HLG running with a Mean Well HLG-600H-54A driver. Everything is mounted on a Slate 6 Quad heatsink, also from HLG. This will be covering a 60x60x78 (5x5x6.5) grow tent. I will be growing 4 plants in DWC in this setup (2x Northern Light, 2x Wonder Woman).

On to the questions:

1. Watts/Volts/Amps. How much should this driver be pulling from the wall? I’m measuring everything with a Kill-A-Watt. With the Io (which I understand is current) dimmed down to 50% it says it’s pulling 205 watts, 1.76 amps and 119.9 volts. At 100% this goes up to 651 watts, 5.64 amps and 116.2 volts. The Vo (which I understand is voltage) is set to max on the driver in both cases. Are these measurements in the right range? If not, how do I correct it?

2. I don’t have any measurements for heat right now, but I’m planning on buying a temp gun to measure that, as of now I’ve only had the lights on for 15 minutes at a time for testing, the boards do give off some heat but I can hold my hand under them without an issue, the driver and heatsink do get a bit hot. What’s the ideal temp for the heatsink and driver?

3. I saw a LedGardener video for the HLG driver series in which he shows how to fine tune the driver using both the Io and Vo pots on the back of the driver. Could someone ELI5 how to do this and what’s the ideal settings for the pots?

4. I understand the A series of the HLG drivers come with the built in dimming pots and I can’t add a second pot for it. I see the driver has some extra wires for Remote Control, if I were to add the Mean Well remote, could I dim the lights under 50% or would I only be able to go from 50-100% same as with the driver pot? Here’s the remote I’m talking about, is this the right one for my driver? https://www.jameco.com/z/RFP-M1M3-3A-MEAN-WELL-12V-24V-Wireless-Dimming-Remote-Controller-M1_2248069.html

5. I’m a bit confused as to the total height I’ll have available for my plants. I’ve always seen huge plants in tents similar to mine, but now that I’m setting everything up I feel I don’t have much space to work with. The tent is 78 inches tall. My lights are at the highest I can hang them right now at 12 inches from the top, I may be able to shave off 6 inches by changing my hanging method. My reservoirs are 12 inches high so my plants will sprout at that height. If I factor in the 28 inches (max) distance I need between my lights and canopy, that leaves with 26 inches for growing space for my plants…I feel like this is tiny!!! That would mean I need to start flowering when they’re 13 inches tall. I do plan on doing SCROG and widening out the canopy to the edges the most I can since the light can cover almost the entire tent. Any thoughts?

6. Related to last question, how close can my plants be to the lights? What’s the ideal height/dimming combination for Seedling, Veg and Flower stages?

7. Lastly, I want to change the way I’m hanging my lights, if anyone has the exact carabiner size that would fit into the Slate 6 Quad heatsink hanging holes that would be awesome, I haven’t ordered them on Amazon since I want to be sure before I do.

I know this being my first grow I have a lot to learn and there are tons of things I’ll only learn by trial and error, but I want to be as informed as I can before I start.

If you want to know more about the things I have in my setup check this google sheet:

https://goo.gl/14QKSn

For some pictures of how my setup is coming along go here:



Thanks for reading! Hope you can pass on some knowledge as I’m eager to learn!

Happy Growing!

[Shimbob]

1. Numbers sound right, nothing wrong.

4. RC only allows you to turn the driver on/off, not dim.

[WhiteRecluse]

2. The board specs given by hlg are at 55 Celsius. Running them cooler than that will get a slight efficiency bump.

3. To fine tune the driver for max current: turn both pots up to max and let it run for a few minutes. When the wattage on the kill-a-watt settles (example 650 watts). Then turn down the voltage pot until it's as low as you can turn it and still be 650 watts. After this, only use the current pot for dimming.

5. You should be fine with the height you have to work with. Especially if you plan to scrog and use other LST's or supercropping.

6. 18" or a bit more. Some folks get them a bit closer some prefer 24". I would suggest starting the light 24"+ and dimmed to 50% on seedlings. You can walk it down an inch or so each day. When they have developed some, you can turn up the wattage some each day if you wish. Listen to the plant.

[guabasa]

1. Numbers sound right, nothing wrong.

4. RC only allows you to turn the driver on/off, not dim.

Thanks for the clarification on the RC. Much appreciated!

[guabasa]

2. The board specs given by hlg are at 55 Celsius. Running them cooler than that will get a slight efficiency bump.

3. To fine tune the driver for max current: turn both pots up to max and let it run for a few minutes. When the wattage on the kill-a-watt settles (example 650 watts). Then turn down the voltage pot until it's as low as you can turn it and still be 650 watts. After this, only use the current pot for dimming.

5. You should be fine with the height you have to work with. Especially if you plan to scrog and use other LST's or supercropping.

6. 18" or a bit more. Some folks get them a bit closer some prefer 24". I would suggest starting the light 24"+ and dimmed to 50% on seedlings. You can walk it down an inch or so each day. When they have developed some, you can turn up the wattage some each day if you wish. Listen to the plant.

Thanks for the reply! The info helps a lot!

[Shimbob]

6. Personally,

Theres one foot to the ceiling. Gonna be interesting.

[guabasa]

6. Personally,
IMG_20190307_214139.jpg
Theres one foot to the ceiling. Gonna be interesting.

Geez, had no idea QB's could get that close!!

[QuantumMechanic]

That's quite the comprehensive shopping list for a first effort. Looks like you've got all the parts.

How is your water? Will you need an RO unit too?

When I look at your pics, it seems to me that you've built a light for a rectangular tent, not a 5 x 5 square tent. How does the light distribution look if you lower the light to 2 feet from the floor?

[Shimbob]

Sorry, didn't mean to mislead, those aren't qb, just diy LEDs in general.

[Jolly Green Giant]

welcome to the forum first off
and I see a couple of the guys covered pretty much everything over night and while I was deleting spam this morning. but ill add a few things..

1) yeah that's completely normal for a "a" type.. my bad 135w kit using a 120-54a can go to 134 watts and dims to 75ish at the minimum..

2) 55c or lower is great.. 60c not bad.. my little slate 1's were hitting over 70c when I was using the -c2100 but now they only get 1450 ish ma each and are running a lot cooler in that 55-60c range the extra heat from the driver makes it harder to dissipate the board heat.. a great way to help this is running a remote driver... mount it somewhere with easy access off the heatsink ( out side grow area even if heat is a issue ), and run a longer lead from the driver output to the boards input..

3) exactly what WR said

4) exactly what SB said

5) I'm in same size tent using a 480h-54 with 6 QB's. ( viewtopic.php?f=11&t=56&hilit=it%27s+alive got to jump to page 4 I think for the 6 board upgrade ) for veg I like 24-30" full power.. for flower I drop right to 16-18" on day one.. and slowly move the light up with the plants as they stretch.. in my situation it seems I can control the stretch by doing this.. the last 3-4 runs they ended up right where I thought it would.. just above the scrog net.. I'm thinking I'm over saturating them with light and not running co2, they can't use it all so it kind of stunts them... just my country boy theory

6) my seedlings and cloner are about 4' or so away from my 135w qb kit I use for a veg light outside of my tent.. I just kind of move them off to the side at first.. if they can take more I move them over/ up a little.. til they on point with rest in the area...

7) I haven't had a slate 6 yet, but if it's the same size holes as a slate 1 or 2, they going to be really small.. I'll see what I can dig up.. but I'm guessing even the keyring sized ones are just barely to big.

again welcome