SI-B8V521560WW Samsung F Series - How to drive for most efficiency in small 2.25*1.5ft space.

rememberingnever

Active Member
Hi guys,

So I ended up in a wormhole, I ended up ordering a few SI-B8V521560WW 3000K strips (10 :'), way more than needed). I'd like to have them dimmable and be able to get them as close to the canopy as possible. What current/voltage would generate the most efficiency on these? I'm thinking I may use 3 strips in my space or possibly more to get the coverage depending if they can be dimmed to a level that its not going to be absolutely ridiculous.

My space is small only 2.25 * 1.5ft and in flower I generally use a 400w air cooled HPS which is overkill but produces better buds than a 250w open air HPS. :D.

My headspace is small. So basically wondering what the most efficient way of driving such strips. Lets say 3 or 6 (if 6 can be ran at a greater efficiency. I can see i'm going to have to invest in a PAR meter at this rate. I was ready to pull the plug on a 3 100+ watt COB fixture and had my mind changed by the mention of Bridgelux, HLG and Samsung strips but the samsung strips seem to have the best dimensions for my area. Really I should have gone for single row strips at this point i'm feeling but nevermind!

I will use the extra strips to build a light for my old man who has a 2*4ft space he is looking to swap to LED from a 600W HPS.

Sorry for those that are sick of such questions, but my brain is just tired these days and I can't seem to figure it out. All I can see on the data sheet is a minimum voltage of 43.7v is recommended and the samsung engine calculator suggests the lower voltage will give more lumen per watt :D.
 

Moflow

Well-Known Member
Ive a load of the F strips. Great lights.
I use 3 x 2ft Double Row F strips dimmed to ~ 60 watts for Vegging.
The equivalent of 1 and a half Quantum Boards but with far better distribution of light.
What driver are you thinking of using? You have roughly a 4 sq ft area? so you'll need say 30 - 40 watts x 4, ~ 160 watts. Maybe an HLG 185H 48A The dimmers are built into the driver
Im using a Meanwell HLG 120H 54A Driver as I had it lying about spare. A HLG 120H 48A would be a better fit though.
You could use 4 x F strips and 6 x F strips for your old man's 2 x 4, 8 sq ft area.

My Area is ~ 2.5ft x 2.5ft. I can make area bigger or smaller with moveable reflective boards.
My head space is limited, ~ 38" less pot size. The higher I put the light the narrower the space becomes so say 34" of height.

~ 350 ppfd at 4" from canopy.
20231007_132514.jpg
Hope that helps.
 

rememberingnever

Active Member
Ive a load of the F strips. Great lights.
I use 3 x 2ft Double Row F strips dimmed to ~ 60 watts for Vegging.
The equivalent of 1 and a half Quantum Boards but with far better distribution of light.
What driver are you thinking of using? You have roughly a 4 sq ft area? so you'll need say 30 - 40 watts x 4, ~ 160 watts. Maybe an HLG 185H 48A The dimmers are built into the driver
Im using a Meanwell HLG 120H 54A Driver as I had it lying about spare. A HLG 120H 48A would be a better fit though.
You could use 4 x F strips and 6 x F strips for your old man's 2 x 4, 8 sq ft area.

My Area is ~ 2.5ft x 2.5ft. I can make area bigger or smaller with moveable reflective boards.
My head space is limited, ~ 38" less pot size. The higher I put the light the narrower the space becomes so say 34" of height.

~ 350 ppfd at 4" from canopy.
View attachment 5333932
Hope that helps.
Looks great Moflow and really appreciate the reply! I was just trying to figure out what drivers I should use. How is the dimming achieved at the driver? by dropping voltage or current? I am unsure whether to go constant voltage or constant current and series/parallel. What spectrum is that out of interest? Plants look very healthy and nice and stocky there. I usually keep my cuts in 12-23w of CFL light but I would like to move that over to LED strips also (and the main one is a big stainless steel box so would act as a good heatsink if need be! I did a few little calculations here but i'm still unsure. I guess you are Parallel with the constant voltage driver? I wasn't sure if voltage was dropped to dim whether the lights would fail to emit if the voltage were to drop too low etc.

Current thinking is:

Series CC or parallel CV?

4 strips 1.5 * 2.25ft area... - minimum forward voltage: 42.4V Driven @700mA 186.4 lm/w

CC Mean Well HLG-185H-C700 Min V 143V Max V 286V Current (mA) 700 Max Power (W) 200.2W
CV Mean Well HLG-120H-42A Min V 38V Max V 46V Current 2.9Amps Max Power (W) 121.8w


6 strips 2ft x 4ft area - minimum forward voltage: 43.5V Driven @1050mA / 6.3amps 274.1W 178.6 lm/W

CC Mean Well HLG-320H-C1050 Min V 152V Max V 305V Current (mA) 1050 Max Power (W) 320.25W
CV Mean Well HLG-320H-48A Min V 43V Max V 52V Current 6.7 Amps Max Power (W) 321.6W
 

rememberingnever

Active Member
Also I tend to hit around 9-10oz in my little space (hydro NFT) with either a 250 or 400w but the quality of buds under the 400w is superior. Hoping for similar to the 400w in terms of bud quality/density and hopefully a similar yield although i'd be happy with 7-8. Also have a friend who is looking at going LED so I may have to build something for him too but he's trying to go live organic next time around :D.
 

rememberingnever

Active Member
Ok maybe someone can let me know if I made a mistake or a grave error :'). I just ordered HLG-240H-C1050AB (hoping I can limit current to 700mA via internal POT and then external dim via 100k potentiometer for different stages.

I couldn't find a CC Mean Well HLG-320H-C1050AB in stock anywhere for the old mans panel and instead went CV Mean Well HLG-320H-48AB for a parallel setup there. Seems sensible perhaps given the higher voltages at play? Not sure what kind of heatsink will be needed @1050mA on those to stop any thermal runaway. Guessing driving at 700mA won't really require any heatsink.

May have also ordered a load of bridgelux eb strips in varying spectrums and 1ft/2ft lengths... oops.
 

MedicinalMyA$$

Well-Known Member
Hi guys,

So I ended up in a wormhole, I ended up ordering a few SI-B8V521560WW 3000K strips (10 :'), way more than needed). I'd like to have them dimmable and be able to get them as close to the canopy as possible. What current/voltage would generate the most efficiency on these? I'm thinking I may use 3 strips in my space or possibly more to get the coverage depending if they can be dimmed to a level that its not going to be absolutely ridiculous.

My space is small only 2.25 * 1.5ft and in flower I generally use a 400w air cooled HPS which is overkill but produces better buds than a 250w open air HPS. :D.

My headspace is small. So basically wondering what the most efficient way of driving such strips. Lets say 3 or 6 (if 6 can be ran at a greater efficiency. I can see i'm going to have to invest in a PAR meter at this rate. I was ready to pull the plug on a 3 100+ watt COB fixture and had my mind changed by the mention of Bridgelux, HLG and Samsung strips but the samsung strips seem to have the best dimensions for my area. Really I should have gone for single row strips at this point i'm feeling but nevermind!

I will use the extra strips to build a light for my old man who has a 2*4ft space he is looking to swap to LED from a 600W HPS.

Sorry for those that are sick of such questions, but my brain is just tired these days and I can't seem to figure it out. All I can see on the data sheet is a minimum voltage of 43.7v is recommended and the samsung engine calculator suggests the lower voltage will give more lumen per watt :D.
For that little area you could run all 10 of those strips in parallel at like 250 mA on a 100W 48V driver and have more than enough light. I run the single row versions with lightweight sinks at about 500mA and they barely get lukewarm. But that would be an expensive way to light that area.
 

Moflow

Well-Known Member

rememberingnever

Active Member
UK here @Moflow . I think with the more panels its probably best to go CV and parallel. I know the A drivers apparently can push more power than they are stated for. I guess the next thing I really need to determine safe distances and power is an affordable PAR meter and probably a watt meter. I mean I have my trusty multimeter to measure each strip but that's about it.

When I initially bought the 10 strips (actually fairly expensive given the price of bridgelux alternatives!) I was originally thinking to maybe just cover the entire area of mine with them and try run as close to the canopy and low power as possible @MedicinalMyA$$ . Its been a few years since I considered building an LED panel and i've carried on caveman style with the HPS after I gave it way too much thought. I still have some old surface mount 500a drivers knocking about mounted to a board or two but thats as far as I got, I bought the power supply and drivers then gave up and didn't invest in the actual LED's. :').

I am worried about any energy saved via LED may need to be thought about in environmental control, I'm used to heavy feeding, nutrient guzzling plants in my NFT that love to drink heavy given the temps... Going to be a whole new learning curve, just hope I don't regret it :D.
 

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
Ok maybe someone can let me know if I made a mistake or a grave error :'). I just ordered HLG-240H-C1050AB (hoping I can limit current to 700mA via internal POT and then external dim via 100k potentiometer for different stages.

I couldn't find a CC Mean Well HLG-320H-C1050AB in stock anywhere for the old mans panel and instead went CV Mean Well HLG-320H-48AB for a parallel setup there. Seems sensible perhaps given the higher voltages at play? Not sure what kind of heatsink will be needed @1050mA on those to stop any thermal runaway. Guessing driving at 700mA won't really require any heatsink.

May have also ordered a load of bridgelux eb strips in varying spectrums and 1ft/2ft lengths... oops.
For 700mA/ 30w operation youll need heatsinks if you want the strips to last. I even use sinking for 20w on fr4/plastic type strips. Alu u channel, 2mm thic is usually allright. When sourcing alu u-channel think about where and how the holes are placed: if they are around edges the inner dimensions of the u-channel need to accommodate the nuts or screw heads. Or use double adhesive tape but secure the ends with screws, they tend to bend up.
 

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
Ok maybe someone can let me know if I made a mistake or a grave error :'). I just ordered HLG-240H-C1050AB (hoping I can limit current to 700mA via internal POT and then external dim via 100k potentiometer for different stages.

I couldn't find a CC Mean Well HLG-320H-C1050AB in stock anywhere for the old mans panel and instead went CV Mean Well HLG-320H-48AB for a parallel setup there. Seems sensible perhaps given the higher voltages at play? Not sure what kind of heatsink will be needed @1050mA on those to stop any thermal runaway. Guessing driving at 700mA won't really require any heatsink.

May have also ordered a load of bridgelux eb strips in varying spectrums and 1ft/2ft lengths... oops.
Is the 240 driver for the 2.5x1.5 space? Id go for no more than 150w max. Thats already 40w per square foot. 60w per foot is generally too much.

Since the sammie strips got a slightly weird voltage which is hard to match you could consider the xlg150-h: its a constant power driver which will make sure to squeeze out all the watts from those strips.
 

rememberingnever

Active Member
The 240 driver is but being as though its constant current and I can trim the current down I figured i'd be able to run closer to 120w or so. Looking at the coco for cannabis site me running 400w HPS in that space is almost double recommended wattage per square foot or so, I do wonder if over doing it on the LED's would be as forgiving as the HPS :D.

The HLG-320H-48AB order got cancelled due to region restriction earlier so I got to either try TME or find an alternative for the 6 strip setup.,
 

rememberingnever

Active Member
are TME UE delivering to the uk again?. i know they stopped after brexit :cry:?.
I bloody hope so :D. Mouser wont sell them to personal customers either it appears due to some licence agreements.

All strips arrived and i've had a little play today, the Bridgelux were first on the table with my bench PSU and all were pretty impressive but the 3000k definitely seemed "dimmer" to the eye, hopefully more useful light! The samsung ones at full power, i'm still blind. Incredible. I have no doubt they'll do the trick.

I'm awaiting a little UniT light meter and i'll try have a play, May have also set about acquiring a Migrow Aray 4 to hopefully "bench" test vs these strips and see what I come up with. But yeah... exciting to me at least that I have something to play with :D.

One thing i'm not sure about is the connectors and required wiring... to the female receivers latch onto cable of a certain size or do I need some kind of male terminal that will interface with the connectors? :D. Final step is now to order some aluminium angle for framing and heatsink purposes. I am very tempted on a smaller scale to throw a 1 or 2ft 5000k in my stainless steel veg box glued to the roof at this point! Will take being creative with little space to a whole new level.
 

rememberingnever

Active Member
Waiting on some aluminium to come through and I can get building, got some Migro 4's to put em up against on the PAR tests. Just need some wago's/wire and a potentiometer for remote dimming. Debating what colour spectrum to throw on there as it seems the migro are pretty 4k heavy. Throw your suggestions into the pot :D. Not settled on how many strips but initially I'm thinking to go with the OG plan of 4 2ft double row samsung strips for my own space for now.
 
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