Question about a Mars hack/DIY to Strips build.

I bought a knock off Mars blurple light before finding RIU and reading on DIY LEDs. I've already opened the light and installed 4 COB's but 1 blew out yesterday. I'm thinking of getting some 1' Samsung or Bridgelux strips instead this time. My question is can i really run 7 or 8 strips per driver. I could get a lot more coverage if that is true. First pic is driver, then the original lights, and finally what my hack looks like.

Bridgelux EB series has 22,1vf@350mA, the drivers can deliver up to 75vf @600mA.
3 strips in series to each of the driver should work and you should get ~40w per driver.
You could also take 6 strips and make two stings of 3 strips and connect them in parallel to the driver. Each strip would only get 300mA this way but run more efficient(158lm/w), total output would be still ~40w per driver.

How much drivers you have? 2 or 4?

Randomblame said:

Bridgelux EB series has 22,1vf@350mA, the drivers can deliver up to 75vf @600mA.
3 strips in series to each of the driver should work and you should get ~40w per driver.
You could also take 6 strips and make two stings of 3 strips and connect them in parallel to the driver. Each strip would only get 300mA this way but run more efficient(158lm/w), total output would be still ~40w per driver.

How much drivers you have? 2 or 4?

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I have 2 drivers. I like the sound of 6 strips split into sets of 3. Then I could have 12 lights total.

I know it's not a strip. But, cutter has a board like a QB called Sol-Skin. And they say those are good for Mars conversions.

Kenny Grows said:

I have 2 drivers. I like the sound of 6 strips split into into sets of 3. Then I could have 12 lights total.

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Yepp,
with 12 strips at 300mA(22v per strip), ~80w net., ~94w total, ~12.600lm, enough light for a 3ft² area/20x 20"...
With 6 strips at 600mA(23v per strip), ~83w net., ~98w total, ~12,400lm, still enough for a 3ft² area, but slightly less efficient(150 vs. 158lm/w).

Nugachino said:

I know it's not a strip. But, cutter has a board like a QB called Sol-Skin. And they say those are good for Mars conversions.

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Yeah, I like them. Really good specs and probably one of the better boards.
Unfortunately the shipping costs from australia are much higher as when you order EB strips from digikey.
(free shipping >50$ vs 40$ dhl)
Probably a lot more expensive and he would need more than only two of his 75v/600mA drivers to use the full potential of the sol-skin boards.

Randomblame said:

Yeah, I like them. Really good specs and probably one of the better boards.
Unfortunately the shipping costs from australia are much higher as when you order EB strips from digikey.
(free shipping >50$ vs 40$ dhl)
Probably a lot more expensive and he would need more than only two of his 75v/600mA drivers to use the full potential of the sol-skin boards.

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Ah. See I am in Australia. I dont think of the shipping costs to other places. My bad.

Randomblame said:

Yepp,
with 12 strips at 300mA(22v per strip), ~80w net., ~94w total, ~12.600lm, enough light for a 3ft² area/20x 20"...
With 6 strips at 600mA(23v per strip), ~83w net., ~98w total, ~12,400lm, still enough for a 3ft² area, but slightly less efficient(150 vs. 158lm/w).

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Hi, thanks for the info. I ordered 12 lights. But I have a question, do you think I'd need a heatsink if I'm running them at 300mA? The heatsink will probably be the most expensive part, I'd like to skip it if possible

Kenny Grows said:

Hi, thanks for the info. I ordered 12 lights. But I have a question, do you think I'd need a heatsink if I'm running them at 300mA? The heatsink will probably be the most expensive part, I'd like to skip it if possible

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Good decision, mate!
At 300mA you only need a ⅛" thick alu sheet. You can take the one where the COB's are mounted to.
If you want and there is enough room in the housing you can glue a few small c-channels to the sheets backside to increase it's cooling surface, but it should also work without because of the fans and because the strips are running really cool and therefor needs a lot less cooling effort as COB's.

Can I ask how big your tent is?

When you need a bit more punch you could take a HLG-150H-24A and wire all 12 strips in parallel. It is a 6,3A driver which means each strip would get 525mA. ~153lm/w and ~22.000lm total. And via a build-in potentiometer you can dimm it between 50 aud 100%, for instance for vegging..
It costs around 45$ +shipping and has 5 or 7 years warranty. In other words, they last forever!

Randomblame said:

Can I ask how big your tent is?

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I plan on using these lights in a 2 by 3 foot area in my closet. They will be used more for my pepper plants, so i'm not too concerned about having 30-40W per sqft. I just bought an HLG-120H-24A that i want to use for my veg light, I want 8 of the 2' new EB strips for my vegging light.

Kenny Grows said:

I plan on using these lights in a 2 by 3 foot area in my closet. They will be used more for my pepper plants, so i'm not too concerned about having 30-40W per sqft. I just bought an HLG-120H-24A that i want to use for my veg light, I want 8 of the 2' new EB strips for my vegging light.

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Sweet profile pic, Dude.

Randomblame said:

You could also take 6 strips and make two stings of 3 strips and connect them in parallel to the driver. Each strip would only get 300mA this way but run more efficient(158lm/w), total output would be still ~40w per driver.

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Hi @Randomblame I plan on wiring 3 strips in series and having 2 sets of those connected in parallel to each driver. Although i know i need to connect the 2 sets together in parallel, i'm not sure what that actually looks like. I've read through quite a bit of the Bridgelux EB Series Build thread, This post has helped a lot. But your examples show connecting the sets in series.

The 2nd and the 3rd pigs shows series parallel connection but with more strips in parallel.
At first you make 3 pairs of two strips and connct each 2 in parallel using two short wires. + goes to + of the 2nd strip and - to - of the 2nd strip.
Do this with all 3 pairs.
If it's done connect the + wire coming from driver to the positive of the first strip pair, then connect - from 2nd strip to + of the 2nd pair and do it again to connect the 2nd pair to the 3rd pair.
Negative pole of the last strip is connected to the negative of the driver.

Should look like this(2p3s):

Not really nice, but it shows what I mean.
Haha! And I've seen I started from the back(3rd, 2nd, 1st pair), but that does not matter...LOL!

Use a fan to active cool the thing. Im doing something similar and for an extra 3-4w with the fan I got my panel to be 70F.

Randomblame said:

Not really nice, but it shows what I mean.
Haha! And I've seen I started from the back(3rd, 2nd, 1st pair), but that does not matter...LOL!

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No you've cleared it all up. I had it backwards. Can't thank you enough. Now I just need to find a cheap metal frame/heatsink. Thinking of using a metal cooking sheet, like this.

Kenny Grows said:

No you've cleared it all up. I had it backwards. Can't thank you enough. Now I just need to find a cheap metal frame/heatsink. Thinking of using a metal cooking sheet, like this.

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I would recommend to use at least a 3mm thick aluminum plate. You plan to stick the strips pretty close together and the whole is built-in into a housing. Your COB is probably burned out because of overheating...!?

Scrap yards are a good place to find aluminum on "kilo price base". (~ 3 $ / kg)
Maybe you even find a matching, flat ribbed heat sink ...
Otherwise, it also does an aluminum plate from Walmart, e3ay or a metal store there you could led it cut exactly to your specifications (same goes on a scrap yard)...

I would not save on cooling, it is the most important part and guarantees a long shelf life.

Randomblame said:

I would recommend to use at least a 3mm thick aluminum plate. You plan to stick the strips pretty close together and the whole is built-in into a housing. Your COB is probably burned out because of overheating...!?

Scrap yards are a good place to find aluminum on "kilo price base". (~ 3 $ / kg)
Maybe you even find a matching, flat ribbed heat sink ...
Otherwise, it also does an aluminum plate from Walmart, e3ay or a metal store there you could led it cut exactly to your specifications (same goes on a scrap yard)...

I would not save on cooling, it is the most important part and guarantees a long shelf life.

Click to expand...

I think it's a good chance my COB light burned out. I didn't know much about lights and bought one that couldn't handle the current. I planned on going to a metal shop it seems like that what most people advise on RIU. But thanks for the scrap yard idea I'll check them first. But I want these lights spread out about, I'll have 3" spaces in between each light. I'm mostly doing this to get even more light coverage but I think it should help with heat also