LEDgardener

I have a total of 9x qb288v2 and 3x MW-240h for this project. Yes, it's an overkill build, I know. But I am never going to run it full power and I already own the boards and drivers anyway so why not...

My question is: how should I place the boards for the optimal coverage in a 4x4 tent? I'm not sure if 6 boards would be better than 9

I have tried a couple of different plans but I am not sure which one has the best light spread. Please see the attached files.
I tried various other variations including 6 boards instead of 9 and aligning the boards in different directions... but it wasn't successful

Here's the plan with the dimensions. Looks like the best idea so far.

Is it just me, or were these designs made in the ghost dimension? It's all a fucked up black and grey for me?

I'm going for overkill in coverage too. I have a 2x4 tent and I'm thinking of lighting it with six quantum boards. I could run them very low to have one produce upto around 10000 lumens for a total of 60000 lumens. F**k shade is my motto. At that power it would be well over 1000ppfd and most likely I would run the lights even softer.

I’m using 6 boards in a 4 by 4 and it’s plenty of coverage.
I’m running 3 boards with 320H-C2100B on one long heat sink and have two of them in a 4 by 4.
I think running 9 boards at a lower current would work but LM301B don’t loose much efficiency by driving at max current.
Also unless you have a par meter or a way to take readings you may develop hot spots??

I went with 3 boards on one heat sink because it was the least expensive way and super fast build but I think that strips are the way to go for best uniform coverage.

Shouldn't more light sources and lower intensity per light lessen the possibility of hotspots? Unless they are bunched together like in the commercial offererings?

The more boards you run the better, spread makes a difference. Running the leds soft increases performance and lifetime. Alot of people use strips to do this but no reason it can be done with boards

Migro has a video of testing a 6 board of 288 in a 4 by 4 and the boards were placed for a very impressive coverage.
It looked like by placing the individual boards on individual heat sinks the coverage was 1000-1200 and very uniform.
He has an advantage of having a meter and moving boards to the best coverage but after watching it I remembered your build of 9 boards.
You can watch the video and take a look at how they placed the boards.
Spreading them out did prove to be very useful.

Remember that X lux = Y PPFD/YPFD. The conversation factor varies a bit per light source (around 70 for typical 80 CRI emitters), but any old cell phone or tablet will work for figuring out good enough spread, typically up to 50,000lx (somewhere around 700 PAR uMol/sm^2). IE, 30% more lux equals 30% more uMol/sm^2. Likewise, a lux meter with a max/hold feature can do the job for higher ranges. You'll probably get more precise PPFD by calculating it, based on known uMol/J values for a board, than by the lux conversion, but lux alone is fine for trying to get even coverage.

Great Information was very useful for me..