Advice on a cob build

Each light is a single engine mean well driver Citi 1812/1212 your choice. Easy plug and play:
https://www.autoflower.net/forums/threads/autocob-55-watt-cob-led-grow-light.56994/

I have been where you are going with the 3590's and found there is a point of diminishing returns, Trying a different approach now based more on efficiency for the given space, I think this is why the QB are shining but you want COB's so that's why I was suggesting the Citi's. I was not overly impressed with my 3590's save for the 5K in veg I had. which were not being driven as hard and I do not think this was a coincidence.

Read some post by @VegasWinner he knows what he is saying and has been since I joined here. I am now coming full circle to where he's at, sometimes you just have to learn shit the hard way huh......speaking of myself not you

Evil-Mobo said:

Each light is a single engine mean well driver Citi 1812/1212 your choice. Easy plug and play.

I have been where you are going and found there is a point of diminishing returns, trying a different approach now based more on efficiency for the given space, I think this is why the QB are shining but you want COB's so that's why I was suggesting the Citi's. I was not overly impressed with my 3590's save for the 5K in veg I had.


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Those look good man. So they do have little drivers built in. Thats what I thought at first but then I thought it was just th chip/fan/sink combo with a little driver just for the fan lol. Those are pretty cool man. Honestly, cree are nice, but Ill take a little sacrifice on the output/efficiency for a fraction of the cost, ie. citi 1212 being $12. I don't think cree are worth their $40 price tag other than they are popular and fit nicely with meanwell drivers. I think if vero gets their chips to 36v or citi makes a next gen "1212" 36v... the 3590 will become much less popular. I think people instantly gravitate towards cree because thats whats popular right now and they work very well, but vero has a big following and citi is becoming more popular.
It looks like Ill probably just do the 1212's on the 240-1750 or if I get a wild hair Ill do the 3 1818's on the 185-48b in parallel.

You are correct.. About 215-220 watts per driver.. But it works just fine.. I had it up to 320w and it was absolutely blinding..

I chose it this way just like you... Very eaay to upgrade to different 36v chips in the future.. The 50v chips are ok, but the 72 are just to high in my opinion, unless you want a ton of drivers

KushyMcKush said:

Those look good man. So they do have little drivers built in. Thats what I thought at first but then I thought it was just th chip/fan/sink combo with a little driver just for the fan lol. Those are pretty cool man. Honestly, cree are nice, but Ill take a little sacrifice on the output/efficiency for a fraction of the cost, ie. citi 1212 being $12. I don't think cree are worth their $40 price tag other than they are popular and fit nicely with meanwell drivers. I think if vero gets their chips to 36v or citi makes a next gen "1212" 36v... the 3590 will become much less popular. I think people instantly gravitate towards cree because thats whats popular right now and they work very well, but vero has a big following and citi is becoming more popular.
It looks like Ill probably just do the 1212's on the 240-1750 or if I get a wild hair Ill do the 3 1818's on the 185-48b in parallel.

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Just trying to offer you some outside the box advice brother and save you some headaches

I have (2) more of those single cob engines with 6500K 1212's to hang for my seed starts and cloner...........

The (4) in the tent are 1812's 3500K

The QB is 3000K in the other tent. Really like both setups and will be hard to choose between them, thank god right now I don't have to

Evil-Mobo said:

Just trying to offer you some outside the box advice brother and save you some headaches

I have (2) more of those single cob engines with 6500K 1212's to hang for my seed starts and cloner...........

The (4) in the tent are 1812's 3500K

The QB is 3000K in the other tent. Really like both setups and will be hard to choose between them, thank god right now I don't have to

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Lol so many options!!! I allreciate it, those would be cool for like a quick clone/seedling light if you didnt want to hassle with building one. Just grab one for $50 and go.
@Jimmyclone42 oh ok, so I mean wasting 30w really isnt that bad. It would just be like having space left over on the driver right? Any negatives to running the driver like that for extended periods of time? Do you know what the current is running like that? Maybe around like 1600ish?

Evil-Mobo said:

Each light is a single engine mean well driver Citi 1812/1212 your choice. Easy plug and play.

I have been where you are going and found there is a point of diminishing returns, trying a different approach now based more on efficiency for the given space, I think this is why the QB are shining but you want COB's so that's why I was suggesting the Citi's. I was not overly impressed with my 3590's save for the 5K in veg I had.


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Those look good man. So they do have little drivers built in. Thats what I thought at first but then I thought it was just th chip/fan/sink combo with a little driver just for the fan lol. Those are pretty cool man. Honestly, cree are nice, but Ill take a little sacrifice on the output/efficiency for a fraction of the cost, ie. citi 1212 being $12. I don't think cree are worth their $40 price tag other than they are popular and fit nicely with meanwell drivers. I think if vero gets their chips to 36v or citi makes a next gen "1212" 36v... the 3590 will become much less popular. I think people instantly gravitate towards cree because thats whats popular right now and they work very well, but vero has a big following and citi is becoming more popular.
It looks like Ill probably just do the 1212's on the 240-1750 or if I get a wild hair Ill do the 1818's or vero in parallel on the 42

Or.... 3 1818's on 240-1400's.... id have a little room left over but 6 1818's would kill it I think. But that means I have to use 50v chips which I didnt really want to do.

KushyMcKush said:

Lol so many options!!! I allreciate it, those would be cool for like a quick clone/seedling light if you didnt want to hassle with building one. Just grab one for $50 and go.
@Jimmyclone42 oh ok, so I mean wasting 30w really isnt that bad. It would just be like having space left over on the driver right? Any negatives to running the driver like that for extended periods of time? Do you know what the current is running like that? Maybe around like 1600ish?

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Current is constant on these drivers, so it should stay the same. The voltage will be limited a little bit. And by doing this lowering the over all wattage.. If you run a 1400 you'll be bang on the 200 mark, give or take 5%..by using the 1750 i get a little more out of them.. And will have the ability to do. 250w per driver with a steady 36v cob.. I have 2 drivers in parallel with a little digital read out and only had it over 400 at the test... Ran it for an hour.. Drivers get warm, but not hot.. It wont do any damage.. Well within specs..

I was running about 250w,like in this photo.. I turned it up to 300 b4 i left for work last night and just got home to some taco'ing leaves.. And the panel is 32-36" away... These things have power.. And i just switched from a 1000w hps 2 days ago that was around 20-24" away... Im back to 250w....haha..

Its very difficult when theres so many options... Not like picking between a 1000w or 2 600w hps systems.... Much more to consider.. For me the poke in's and the little built-in reflector, sold me on the veros, as i new i didnt want reflectors.. And in my eye there was no real decision on the driver.. 1750 all the way..
Good luck buddy, this is the fun of DIY
Cheers

Jimmyclone42 said:

Current is constant on these drivers, so it should stay the same. The voltage will be limited a little bit. And by doing this lowering the over all wattage.. If you run a 1400 you'll be bang on the 200 mark, give or take 5%..by using the 1750 i get a little more out of them.. And will have the ability to do. 250w per driver with a steady 36v cob.. I have 2 drivers in parallel with a little digital read out and only had it over 400 at the test... Ran it for an hour.. Drivers get warm, but not hot.. It wont do any damage.. Well within specs..
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I was running about 250w,like in this photo.. I turned it up to 300 b4 i left for work last night and just got home to some taco'ing leaves.. And the panel is 32-36" away... These things have power.. And i just switched from a 1000w hps 2 days ago that was around 20-24" away... Im back to 250w....haha..

Its very difficult when theres so many options... Not like picking between a 1000w or 2 600w hps systems.... Much more to consider.. For me the poke in's and the little built-in reflector, sold me on the veros, as i new i didnt want reflectors.. And in my eye there was no real decision on the driver.. 1750 all the way..
Good luck buddy, this is the fun of DIY
Cheers

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I see, I really like the vero too, but when I head what greengene and growmau5 said it kind of threw a wrench in my plan here lol. He did mention running them in parallel on the "42v verson of hlg...and will get you full current," but Im not sure exactly what he meant by this as the hlg-240-42 is 5.72a...but would that mean Id be running at 1.42a each? Isnt that how it works, the current is divided evenly amongst the cobs? Im not sure how that would get me to my 1750ma current. Maybe he just meant drive them at ~1400ma. Thats an option too.
So I guess is it better to under drive the driver (240-1400 would be 150v/179v... or the 320-1750 would be a similar situation), or over drive it like you do. Wither way it would essientially be wasting ~30-40w right? Shits so confusing man lol.

Ok, So I was talking to northern grow lights on IG, and he explained to me how those drivers work when topped out like that. Apperantly they just go from CC to CV and only use the alloted 143v and +/- 20w from driver differences, so around 1500-1600mA. Someone could have just explained that to me. Ill just use the original plan! He also gave me a cool suggestion to just use either 2 vero29 B (50v) or 2 citi 1818 on 120-1400 drivers which are only $45. Thats good to know if I just wanna add 150w at a time for cheap.

Ok, so I got all my parts... or most of them at least. I ordered the wire and kilowatt displays on amazon. I got:
8x vero 29 SE (poke-in) 3500k
8x 140mm pin sinks
2x hlg-240-1750 drivers
Plus sur seal thermal pads, shaxton 18g solid core, wago connectors, 2 cased pots, power cords, 2 6.5-100v digital lcd kilowatt displays (current, voltage, power).

$498 out the door! Not bad at all. Rapid led is legit. I ordered thursday morning, package was at my door at 5pm friday afternoon!

Might need some help with connecting those kilowatt displays lol. Ill be attatching them to a plastic project box on each frame along with a dimmer on each one.

sweet!

visajoe1 said:

To run three 1818's parallel at 1600, you would need more than one driver, so you would want to run 4 actually. You would need 2 HLG 185-48a models, max amperage on this driver is 3.9a. Remember, the 1818 requires 50v. I would not recommend this setup.

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(3) 1818 gen 6 would run just over 1400 mA at 51-52V on that driver. it would work but it couldnt get 1600 mA, youd need a 240-48a for that

KushyMcKush said:

Ok, So I was talking to northern grow lights on IG, and he explained to me how those drivers work when topped out like that. Apperantly they just go from CC to CV and only use the alloted 143v and +/- 20w from driver differences, so around 1500-1600mA. Someone could have just explained that to me. Ill just use the original plan! He also gave me a cool suggestion to just use either 2 vero29 B (50v) or 2 citi 1818 on 120-1400 drivers which are only $45. Thats good to know if I just wanna add 150w at a time for cheap.

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i agree with robin, i think that 50V chips are the best, i dont understand why people think that 36V have more driver options. in some cases a 36V chip fills a driver better, but its the other way around in other cases.

in the Vero 29 case, the 50V and 36V are the same price yet the 50V is more efficient at a given wattage, seems like a no-brainer unless you are upgrading an existing 36V system

CobKits said:

i agree with robin, i think that 50V chips are the best, i dont understand why people think that 36V have more driver options. in some cases a 36V chip fills a driver better, but its the other way around in other cases.

in the Vero 29 case, the 50V and 36V are the same price yet the 50V is more efficient at a given wattage, seems like a no-brainer unless you are upgrading an existing 36V system

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Ok well I already got my stuff. I think more people gravitate towards 36v because thats whats talked about most, and pretty much every youtube vid Ive seen uses 36v, timber kits are mostly 36v... its just what people see and are confortable with as a first time builder. All this led shit is pretty intimidating at first. I agree though, now that Im looking at 50v chips I see what your talking about.
Once I get this first build done, and Im a bit more confortable with how all this works, I will most likely use 50v chips for my next one. The more Im reading through forum threads such as the vero thread, it looks like most recommend the C (50v) version over the 36v.
Thanks for all your help! Just picked up all the materials for my frame. hoping to finish my build by the end of the weekend.

KushyMcKush said:

Ok well I already got my stuff. I think more people gravitate towards 36v because thats whats talked about most, and pretty much every youtube vid Ive seen uses 36v, timber kits are mostly 36v... its just what people see and are confortable with as a first time builder. All this led shit is pretty intimidating at first. I agree though, now that Im looking at 50v chips I see what your talking about.
Once I get this first build done, and Im a bit more confortable with how all this works, I will most likely use 50v chips for my next one. The more Im reading through forum threads such as the vero thread, it looks like most recommend the C (50v) version over the 36v.
Thanks for all your help! Just picked up all the materials for my frame. hoping to finish my build by the end of the weekend.

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Thats exactly what happened to me. I just built my 36v Vero light to replicate some of the packages you find on timber/cutter because I was overwhelmed by the amount of choices. Now that I've built it and got my head around some of it I can clearly see I made a mistake and should have went the 50v option! Luckily I only filled half my flowering space so the other half can be done properly

Have fun with the build! Looking forward to seeing how yours comes together