ragetakesover
Member
Hello all,
Little about me, I'm an Electrical Engineering senior in college. I have an extensive background in LED lighting and applications.
As I own A LOT of LED components (Cree, OSRAM, Bridgelux, Luminleds, cheap china stuff). I am looking how manufactures are making lights.
First is BLACKSTAR 240w (pictures I've found online).
COMPLETE ASSEMBLY:
Heatsink - Flat sheet of aluminum .... WTF! that is literally the most inefficient form of a heatsink design, should be finned. Surface area cools heatsinks.
Fans - Blowing air inwards towards the heatsink (they should be blowing outwards (fans are more efficient pulling air out then pushing air in)
AC/DC Driver - Cannot identify manufacture but looks generic as the AC 120v lines are Red/Black (should be blue/brown by US code) also they are poorly insulated for 120v.
Optics - Mylar sheet is not a form of optics, LEDs are generally 140degrees viewing angle. Mylar is at 180degrees which LEDs are not hitting it, so Mylar is pointless.
^^As you can see the fans are blowing air onto the heatsink, trapping much air within the unit which is trying to escape out little vents. The correct way is to be pulling air from the little vents and pushing it out the top. I can go into the physics of this but meh. Any person who builds computers knows this.
Front of LEDs^ ^
Back of LEDs^ ^
^^ On the phone I was told that they use "98% Cree leds and 2% bridgelux Leds" .. There is approx 70ish in this unit, so there is 1 bridgelux in this unit somewhere ..
Looking closely these are NOT Cree nor Bridgelux, these are cheap generic Chinese LEDs
Compare with LED below is a generic chinese 1w LED (check in famous auction sites keyword "1w led red" or "3w led red"
These LEDs are low efficiency, do not put out rated stats, and nanometer (nm) wavelength color cannot be verified and is usually way off.
Now lets look at the PCB (printed circuit board) design..
High power LEDs are supposed to be printed on a "Metal core" PCB which the LEDs are soldered directed to a sheet of metal which can easily be heatsinked. How they've done it is beyond my reasoning.
My conclusion for this is ... whoever designed this has little knowledge of circuitry and manufacturing. Also false claims of 240w when outputting 130w is totally unacceptable. Claiming to use Cree LEDs is illegal.
So my word for this unit is "SKETCHY"
Ill clean this up later. lol .. post pics of other units and ill analyzing them. ^_^ Peace
Little about me, I'm an Electrical Engineering senior in college. I have an extensive background in LED lighting and applications.
As I own A LOT of LED components (Cree, OSRAM, Bridgelux, Luminleds, cheap china stuff). I am looking how manufactures are making lights.
First is BLACKSTAR 240w (pictures I've found online).
COMPLETE ASSEMBLY:
Heatsink - Flat sheet of aluminum .... WTF! that is literally the most inefficient form of a heatsink design, should be finned. Surface area cools heatsinks.
Fans - Blowing air inwards towards the heatsink (they should be blowing outwards (fans are more efficient pulling air out then pushing air in)
AC/DC Driver - Cannot identify manufacture but looks generic as the AC 120v lines are Red/Black (should be blue/brown by US code) also they are poorly insulated for 120v.
Optics - Mylar sheet is not a form of optics, LEDs are generally 140degrees viewing angle. Mylar is at 180degrees which LEDs are not hitting it, so Mylar is pointless.
^^As you can see the fans are blowing air onto the heatsink, trapping much air within the unit which is trying to escape out little vents. The correct way is to be pulling air from the little vents and pushing it out the top. I can go into the physics of this but meh. Any person who builds computers knows this.
Front of LEDs^ ^
Back of LEDs^ ^
^^ On the phone I was told that they use "98% Cree leds and 2% bridgelux Leds" .. There is approx 70ish in this unit, so there is 1 bridgelux in this unit somewhere ..
Looking closely these are NOT Cree nor Bridgelux, these are cheap generic Chinese LEDs
Compare with LED below is a generic chinese 1w LED (check in famous auction sites keyword "1w led red" or "3w led red"
These LEDs are low efficiency, do not put out rated stats, and nanometer (nm) wavelength color cannot be verified and is usually way off.
Now lets look at the PCB (printed circuit board) design..
High power LEDs are supposed to be printed on a "Metal core" PCB which the LEDs are soldered directed to a sheet of metal which can easily be heatsinked. How they've done it is beyond my reasoning.
My conclusion for this is ... whoever designed this has little knowledge of circuitry and manufacturing. Also false claims of 240w when outputting 130w is totally unacceptable. Claiming to use Cree LEDs is illegal.
So my word for this unit is "SKETCHY"
Ill clean this up later. lol .. post pics of other units and ill analyzing them. ^_^ Peace
