Repurposed blackstar 500w model

Al Yamoni

Al Yamoni

Well-Known Member
Hey y'all, looking for suggestions to turn this POS into something super efficient for a veg light.

It will be in a plywood cab with the following dimensions: 24"width x 26"depth x 63"heighth.

I think I want to go with the crew cxa or cxb 3070 unless anybody had any other suggestions.. Efficiency is #1, but it def needs to keep the ladies happy and vigorous.

You can see the light I built for my bloom box off to the right side in the back.. 5 cxa3070 @1050mAh.

Thanks for looking!
 
FranJan

FranJan

Well-Known Member
Al have you ever taken a Blackstar apart? The cooling is rudimentary and the heatsink has a shit ton of holes in it from all the screws holding in the BS's diodes so it's either very small COBs, fill the holes with epoxy or just replace the whole heatsink if you want to run larger COBs. Power supply wise the BS drivers run anywhere between 500 and 680mA which may not be enough power for the COBs you want to run, or match up well voltage wise. Plus depending how the COB sits in the case a lot of the COB's light might just get eaten by the interior sides of the panel. Ultimately IMO it's not worth upgrading as opposed to just buying some CPU coolers.

And having said all that, why don't you take it apart and take and post some of the pictures. Maybe some things have changed and other people might have better ideas what to do. The drivers usually are ~85% efficient and might be perfect to run one or more COBs so there's some hope. Maybe you can mount some CPU coolers into the BS case?

Good Luck!
 
Al Yamoni

Al Yamoni

Well-Known Member
FranJan said:
Al have you ever taken a Blackstar apart? The cooling is rudimentary and the heatsink has a shit ton of holes in it from all the screws holding in the BS's diodes so it's either very small COBs, fill the holes with epoxy or just replace the whole heatsink if you want to run larger COBs. Power supply wise the BS drivers run anywhere between 500 and 680mA which may not be enough power for the COBs you want to run, or match up well voltage wise. Plus depending how the COB sits in the case a lot of the COB's light might just get eaten by the interior sides of the panel. Ultimately IMO it's not worth upgrading as opposed to just buying some CPU coolers.

And having said all that, why don't you take it apart and take and post some of the pictures. Maybe some things have changed and other people might have better ideas what to do. The drivers usually are ~85% efficient and might be perfect to run one or more COBs so there's some hope. Maybe you can mount some CPU coolers into the BS case?

Good Luck!
Click to expand...
I was leaning toward replacing the drivers altogether, they run @ only 480mAh and are not as efficient as I want the unit to be. You make some excellent points, especially regarding the POS "heatsink" (I have screwed and unscrewed ALL the screws, multiple times trying to fix it. Didn't work.)The glass would have to be removed if I were to use it for larger cobs like the 3070's because the inside would definitely eat up a ton of my light..

Thanks soo much for your input. I have posted pics of it taken apart in other threads.. I'll track them down and gather them here.
 
Al Yamoni

Al Yamoni

Well-Known Member
I was thinking to mount two cobs on the surface of the plate and laying that flat against where the glass would be.. Or is that not enough surface area to sufficiently cool the unit? the thing has eight fans and air slits all the way around..
 
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