High power COB -vs- hps vertical shoot out

Yo bitches,
So ttystickk finally convinced me to give the new cree COB a try. Since we grow vert to maximize sq ft. In our warehouse I built a fixture designed to be used in a vertical setting... ergo omni directional light.

Using cxb 3590 3500 80? CRI chips and 200 watt meanwell drivers. 12 chips total, 18" long and 4.5" wide heatsinks.

Therefore, you end up with the 800 watt tower of power...


It will have a 150mm fan on the bottom of it for cooling even though the heatsink stayed touchable without any discomfort.

Anywho... then we had to test this thing... will 800 watts out produce 100k of brand new hps bulbs?

We currently have 3 40k watt flower rooms, vertical, checkerboard style. So all the plants on the inside of the grid have a 1k bulb on each side. So I took apart the tower of power and hung one panel on each side of a monster blue dream plant. They hang 12" from the plant.



It's kind of hard to see.. because it's fucking big. The cage is 32" wide and 4' tall on each side. Turns out to be effectively like 23 watts per sq. Ft.

The plants are like day 15 of flower, DWC in 10 gallon rubbermaids.

It cost me about $800 to build this thing.

Do we are looking at around 45k to build a 50k watt room. On the plus side, our AC cost will be cut in half.. saving 10k. And our power bill.. around 12k per month should be 20% less which will save us around 27-28k a year... if all the rooms converted to LED.

So, grab a chair, and we will see what happens. We will chop this plant aND another same sized blue dream in the hps, get them tested and weighed and finally see what is what.

Sounds like a good little investment to see if you could save a lot of carbon.

Fucking awesome! I was able to make out the four lights around the plant. I think it's going to be epic!

epic .... glad your still pushing boundries ....

I know one thinh, those fucking lights are BRIGHT!! I thought staring at a horti was bad.. I will say it is dope as fuck how little heat they radiate.

We have pretty much decided that if they don't produce AT LEAST 2 LBS of prime flower they are going to be made into clone or preveg lights.

Question for those that know more about leds than me... which is everyone on the planet except my parents..

What kind of relay would you need to build a large scale relay flip box. Because these fuckers have 4 ballasts each... we are talking about flipping 160 wires...

But they are very low amperage.. so...

Any tips greatly appreciated.

legallyflying said:

Question for those that know more about leds than me... which is everyone on the planet except my parents..

What kind of relay would you need to build a large scale relay flip box. Because these fuckers have 4 ballasts each... we are talking about flipping 160 wires...

But they are very low amperage.. so...

Any tips greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

I'd recommend using banks of relays to operate groups of lights. In my case, I used a 50A circuit to power a Titan Controls Helios 8 box, which has two separate trigger cord controlled relays in it. I have a dozen modules, each pulling about 225W, on each relay. On my single phase 240V service, that's only 11A.... but when they kick on, the inrush current will momentarily cause a spike in amperage. Honestly, I'm not really sure how to calculate it, I just employed a lil overkill. That's why I run each side of my rack on a separate trigger, so I can fire them in sequence. No problems so far.

legallyflying said:

Question for those that know more about leds than me... which is everyone on the planet except my parents..

What kind of relay would you need to build a large scale relay flip box. Because these fuckers have 4 ballasts each... we are talking about flipping 160 wires...

But they are very low amperage.. so...

Any tips greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

Just put the inputs in parallel and you can connect them to the same outlet(as long as the outlet can handle that much current). You could put all 4 of those drivers in parallel (the inputs) for one plug as long as it can handle 4 times the current.

churchhaze is right. Wire together 1000 to 1200 watts to one 14 gauge plug or quality extension cord and use your master light controller no different than HPS.

I think I didn't make myself clear enough. I'm trying to run a flip type setup. So I don't need to control the power going to each ballast, I need to flip the output wires. So one ballast would ultimately power two sets of chips, one in each flower room. ...obviously not at t he same time

I think that would be a custom build, but I do see applications down the road as larger facilities change over. This is still only doable to those DIY setups or a light company that goes the remote driver route.

legallyflying said:

I think I didn't make myself clear enough. I'm trying to run a flip type setup. So I don't need to control the power going to each ballast, I need to flip the output wires. So one ballast would ultimately power two sets of chips, one in each flower room. ...obviously not at t he same time

Click to expand...

I'm working on this.

Well the set up for a flip is easy... it's a double pole, double throw relay. They are like 9 or 10 on ebay but I have only used the bigger 40 amp jobs for my hps set up.
I'm wondering if you could use "cube" relays. They are much smaller and cheaper, still lookin for a multi cube kind of deal...

I don't see anyway around not having 160 relays for a 40 light flip... there would be 160 ballasts..

Still wayyyyy cheaper than buying an extra set of 160 ballasts though. If I buy gear I want that shit to run 24/7. Not 12 hours a day.

I THINK I might have found an answer.. at at least cut the number of relays in half. I could use a 4pdt relay. That is 4 poles
-- 2 pos and 2 neg-- and double throw meaning when the coil is energized it switches between the two.. not just closed or open like a contactor.

Here is a pin out diagram for it..

So on this case..
9 ballast 1 out pos
10 ballast 1 out neg
11 balast 2 out pos
12 ballast 2 out neg.

1- 2 and 3- 4 would run to room A led chips and 5-6, 7-8 would run to ro B chips


No?

Nice setup. One thing to consider with going with a flip box on LEDs is that they run on much lower voltage than HIDs. I don't know how you wired your LED chips and what kind of drivers you are using. I'd recommend going for higher voltage and wiring them in series in case you aren't doing so already.

The problem with this is that you loose voltage with high current and cable length. If you get a bit of voltage drop on supply end it doesn't matter, because you need to step it down anyways, and at 200W you have like 1A current. But on the secondary side, if you use 12V drivers for example, you have 12V and about 17A. So the voltage drop (on the same lenght of same gauge cable) is 17 times higher. And you only started with the 12V, so if you lose 3V on the cables that a serious problem for your setup.

Its better if you're using 48V drivers, but i hope you catch my drift...

For the flip... Why not connect all the negative terminals and just switch the positive ones?


Another thing that came to my mind is that watch out for corroding contacts as they have no protection... I had problems before with this kind of LED set up (just screwed on a heat sink, usually they are behind an IP rated housing.

Oh well i guess its a test run, so take it for a spin a see where it gets you. Sry for the long post.

I would not bother

led ballasts often don`t outlast cob chips in my experience saying that I don`t pay out for fancy meanwell ones

but yeah normally the chip can last 2 to 4 times the life of a driver so I would use more drivers

if its for a veg area I would just buy some cheap drivers and chips even the cheaper cob`s will out do anything else bar induction or 1w leds for veg

Shame to see you went with 800w per unit instead of 1000w the best thing I find about led is you can use upto double the power of hps in the same area before you have any heating issues, sure getting the power bill down is great but I`m an idiot I always opt for more light if that`s an option

Oh were you not tempted to cut off the protective silicone layer on the cob`s ?

.... You opt for double the power,.likely because you didn't spend $80,000 on electricity last year

I didn't see the protective coating..

Bubbler, for good point on cable length and voltage drop.

I think those are 24v drivers... dunno?

Tyystickk... what are they?

legallyflying said:

.... You opt for double the power,.likely because you didn't spend $80,000 on electricity last year

I didn't see the protective coating..

Bubbler, for good point on cable length and voltage drop.

I think those are 24v drivers... dunno?

Tyystickk... what are they?

Click to expand...

I'm not the expert on all sizes and flavors, I'm afraid. I did not opt for remote drivers.

Lol. Well you did tell me which ones to buy. I'll look at them and report back

legallyflying said:

Lol. Well you did tell me which ones to buy. I'll look at them and report back

Click to expand...

The driver I'm running is 72V, and the others are 36V. That didn't seem to be the question you were asking?