Mau5Capades: builds & grow journal

bicit

Well-Known Member
It's already difficult if not impossible to make back the investment on CXB3070's running at 1.4A for an increase in efficiency of 20% to 30% over a top of the line HPS. Let alone almost doubling the costs by running them at 0.7A for an added 13% increase of led efficiency.
Maybe not on electricity expenses for the lamps themselves. However you will save on things like replacement bulbs, labor replacing bulbs, servicing reflectors, and an overall reduction of load on the HVAC systems in place. These cobs experience very little output depreciation at the temps and power levels most are driving them at.

Impossible? I don't think so. Takes a lot of time to properly service reflectors.
 

PurpleBuz

Well-Known Member
Calling an engineer anal is considered a compliment.

Quite right; I think the biggest influence is the fact the sun moves across the sky.

My other gripe is with people invoking spectrum as justification for continuing to use hps and/or mh lamps. There are better options for both if spectrum is really their concern.
does that mean your an engineer ? lol ok I get it ... LOL, there is more than sun moving through its daily cycle. there is also seasonal changes and the status of air pollution over the test area.

your right about hid diehards. might as well as pull out the buggy whip. its basically a friggin incandescent bulb.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
does that mean your an engineer ? lol ok I get it ... LOL, there is more than sun moving through its daily cycle. there is also seasonal changes and the status of air pollution over the test area.

your right about hid diehards. might as well as pull out the buggy whip. its basically a friggin incandescent bulb.
Even without giving up on HID altogether, one can still register a big improvement by stepping up to 315W CMH lighting. I'm not convinced of the ultimate efficiency of DE HPS, maybe I'm just a diehard skeptic.
 

PurpleBuz

Well-Known Member
Even without giving up on HID altogether, one can still register a big improvement by stepping up to 315W CMH lighting. I'm not convinced of the ultimate efficiency of DE HPS, maybe I'm just a diehard skeptic.
whats startup cost for a TOP of the line DE cmh system ? Best reflectors, best ballast etc.
 

bicit

Well-Known Member
whats startup cost for a TOP of the line DE cmh system ? Best reflectors, best ballast etc.
I don't think there are any DE CMH bulbs around yet. Just normal MH/HPS IIRC.

Last I read beta test team over on icmag was a big fan of the cycloptics greenbeam reflectors. Those are around $500 each on their website. No idea what wholesale would be but still, adds up quickly.
 

cdgmoney250

Well-Known Member
It's already difficult if not impossible to make back the investment on CXB3070's running at 1.4A for an increase in efficiency of 20% to 30% over a top of the line HPS. Let alone almost doubling the costs by running them at 0.7A for an added 13% increase of led efficiency.
Are you talking watt for watt, or matched PPF output? Running at 60% or higher efficiency is expensive up front, but depending on the scale of the grow, the ROI could be made back much quicker than you seem to think just from power consumption. Even at 56ish% (3070@1.4A) the difference in actual measurable light output watt for watt destroys any top of the line HPS setup with a fuller spectrum to boot. The increase in yield and quality should more than make up for the cost difference, especially as the grow is scaled up.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Are you talking watt for watt, or matched PPF output? Running at 60% or higher efficiency is expensive up front, but depending on the scale of the grow, the ROI could be made back much quicker than you seem to think just from power consumption. Even at 56ish% (3070@1.4A) the difference in actual measurable light output watt for watt destroys any top of the line HPS setup with a fuller spectrum to boot. The increase in yield and quality should more than make up for the cost difference, especially as the grow is scaled up.
I'll be putting this to the test. Soon.
 

2ANONYMOUS

Well-Known Member
Maybe not on electricity expenses for the lamps themselves. However you will save on things like replacement bulbs, labor replacing bulbs, servicing reflectors, and an overall reduction of load on the HVAC systems in place. These cobs experience very little output depreciation at the temps and power levels most are driving them at.

Impossible? I don't think so. Takes a lot of time to properly service reflectors.
What do you mean save on replacement bulbs ?? The newest technology in High Pressure Sodium are the Double Ended HPS bulbs. These bulbs degrade slower than traditional single ended HPS bulbs. In fact, after 10,000 hours double ended lamps will still output approximately 90% of their original intensity. Double Ended HPS bulbs are also more stable than traditional single ended HPS bulbs, and this allows them to have a 10% increase in light intensity and PAR output over traditional single ended HPS bulbs. Lastly, Double Ended HPS bulbs emit more UV and IR light than traditional single ended HPS bulbs, increasing the potency and essential oils of oil producing plants

With that said and not sure how does Cob UV and IR light compare ??? i mean 10,000 hrs is a lot of grows 416.666 days or 4.5 90 day grows and still 90 percent out put ??? and lets not forget i am using 24 hr lighting its more like 2 plus year light bulb replacement or until i start seeing diminishing yields right i mean 18 / 6 and 12 hr compared to 24 non stop
and when i do replace DE bulbs i mark hrs and keep them as back ups so its never really losing out
Again not sure what a cob will be like after 10,000 hrs possible ??? inner corroding,, failure rate increase ??? due to RH etc
which produces more UV and IR DE's or Cobs
and lets face it UV is a important part of essentials
then we get into reflector maintenance ??? 4.5 grows and replace reflectors as in nano / Gavita etc i change out usually 7- 8 th grow actual replacement that is what 2 years later ??
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
What do you mean save on replacement bulbs ?? The newest technology in High Pressure Sodium are the Double Ended HPS bulbs. These bulbs degrade slower than traditional single ended HPS bulbs. In fact, after 10,000 hours double ended lamps will still output approximately 90% of their original intensity. Double Ended HPS bulbs are also more stable than traditional single ended HPS bulbs, and this allows them to have a 10% increase in light intensity and PAR output over traditional single ended HPS bulbs. Lastly, Double Ended HPS bulbs emit more UV and IR light than traditional single ended HPS bulbs, increasing the potency and essential oils of oil producing plants

With that said and not sure how does Cob UV and IR light compare ??? i mean 10,000 hrs is a lot of grows 416.666 days or 4.5 90 day grows and still 90 percent out put ??? and lets not forget i am using 24 hr lighting its more like 2 plus year light bulb replacement or until i start seeing diminishing yields right i mean 18 / 6 and 12 hr compared to 24 non stop
and when i do replace DE bulbs i mark hrs and keep them as back ups so its never really losing out
Again not sure what a cob will be like after 10,000 hrs possible ??? inner corroding,, failure rate increase ??? due to RH etc
which produces more UV and IR DE's or Cobs
and lets face it UV is a important part of essentials
then we get into reflector maintenance ??? 4.5 grows and replace reflectors as in nano / Gavita etc i change out usually 7- 8 th grow actual replacement that is what 2 years later ??
Look it up yourself, smart guy; high quality COBs like the Cree CXB3590 last 50,000 hours at their rated output, and most people run them softer which dramatically INCREASES lifespan. I'm putting lenses on mine specifically to protect them so they'll last for ten years or more. By then they'll be obsolete- but I'm betting they'll still be working just fine. Light degradation isn't an issue, either.
 

J Bleezy

Well-Known Member
Can you use the Ideal 2303 cob holder for cxb3590? Specs says it's for cxa30, but I thought I saw a thread with someone using them with cxb3590.
Thanks
 

2ANONYMOUS

Well-Known Member
Look it up yourself, smart guy; high quality COBs like the Cree CXB3590 last 50,000 hours at their rated output, and most people run them softer which dramatically INCREASES lifespan. I'm putting lenses on mine specifically to protect them so they'll last for ten years or more. By then they'll be obsolete- but I'm betting they'll still be working just fine. Light degradation isn't an issue, either.
Really now 50,000 hrs have you or anyone you know run them that long ???? just saying also out of curiosity how would these fair in green house humid area's after time ?????
again know one really knows are these cobs actually designed for high VPD area's or made for actual growing ??? or is it some stoner with knowledge and time figured out hey these will work but actual company cree made them not for green houses but for hall way lighting lol where they will never see high heat or humidity again just saying ..
I think i make valid points in all above
Truth is
The life span which Cree (for example) claims basically means that at that point, their fixture will be emitting at least 70% of the amount of its original brightness.
So yes, they will dim- in varying amounts.

The nice thing is though, for them to make that claim is warranty will be long gone well before the 50k hour time frame, right

But it's a good question. How can we really test the 50k hour claim? The way I figure, I go with the trusted companies-
Even then though, someone can be using Cree's or the best bins etc but if they build a crappy fixture around it, all of Cree's quality will be practically meaningless.

So with that said you know anyone that has pushed there cob units 50 k hrs YET ?? thats 2083 days 6 years
awe yeah shits not been out that long ,,

As i am new to this cob led area Don't claim that you can surely say that you will not see degradation in Cobs That is being ridiculous... even if using them at lower power or dim able cause then again i am no scientist but in theory as spectrums are also referred to kelvin temps your 4000 K so called cob unit running at half power may be infact not 4000 k unit right ????

Many or most of the white LEDs use a phosphor. It is the phosphor that degrades with time and use.
Now to my understanding yes EVEN CREE CHIP ON BOARD or as many call it COB use phos coated Disc's ??????

But all lamps do this to some degree. The phosphors in fluorescent lamps also degrade and their light declines over time. Incandescents' envelopes darken as the tunsten boils off the filament and deposits on the cooler envelope, and this blocks some of the light output. (This effect is reduced but not eliminated in halogen lamps).

Falling light output is inevitable with all lamps, to one degree or another. Perhaps it is more significant in LEDs because of their very long theoretical life.

However, note that the 40k or 50k hour LED life rating is always an average. LED lamps may fail prematurely, just as compact fluorescents do. Other than the outright cr@p that you buy on Ebay and at fly by night online retailers, we are probably not seeing too much of this early failure yet because until recently LEDs have been expensive, limited production items.

As LED production is increased and transferred to China and other low-wage nations, and as price competition heats up, cost cutting will become more common and quality will decline. Then we are likely to see more premature LED failures. Consumers will complain about 50k hour rated LEDs that last only a few thousand hours, even though some of their other LEDs last 100k hours or more. That is the way people are. :)
 
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benbud89

Well-Known Member
Hello Mau, before asking my twosided question, Id like to thank you for making such neat and organized videos. That is a rare sight in pot growing videos.... Your lamps, like the rest of the geniuses here, seem to be doing their job quite nicely. Id be really pleased if you could answer this for me:
1: My grow room is going from a 2x3 to a 4x3. Is 600w of cxb3070 BB sufficient to blast my space out? Im no expert grower, so if I can just hit 1g/w, Id be really pleased. (right now I have an sgs-160 from a51, and it is far from enough. I will sell that)
2: Since this is smallscale grow, and I only pay around 0,1usd/kwh, would I really stand to benefit from using the CXB3590 CD over the CXB3070 BB? What has been your experience when comparing these two? What worries me the most is penetration, and I dont know if the former will really add much to the equation there, it seems to be more a heat/electricity thing when comparing.

Thanks again for your engagement and cool videos. I envy your harvests.
 

sethimus

Well-Known Member
Really now 50,000 hrs have you or anyone you know run them that long ???? just saying also out of curiosity how would these fair in green house humid area's after time ?????
again know one really knows are these cobs actually designed for high VPD area's or made for actual growing ??? or is it some stoner with knowledge and time figured out hey these will work but actual company cree made them not for green houses but for hall way lighting lol where they will never see high heat or humidity again just saying ..
I think i make valid points in all above
Truth is
The life span which Cree (for example) claims basically means that at that point, their fixture will be emitting at least 70% of the amount of its original brightness.
So yes, they will dim- in varying amounts.

The nice thing is though, for them to make that claim is warranty will be long gone well before the 50k hour time frame, right

But it's a good question. How can we really test the 50k hour claim? The way I figure, I go with the trusted companies-
Even then though, someone can be using Cree's or the best bins etc but if they build a crappy fixture around it, all of Cree's quality will be practically meaningless.

So with that said you know anyone that has pushed there cob units 50 k hrs YET ?? thats 2083 days 6 years
awe yeah shits not been out that long ,,

As i am new to this cob led area Don't claim that you can surely say that you will not see degradation in Cobs That is being ridiculous... even if using them at lower power or dim able cause then again i am no scientist but in theory as spectrums are also referred to kelvin temps your 4000 K so called cob unit running at half power may be infact not 4000 k unit right ????

Many or most of the white LEDs use a phosphor. It is the phosphor that degrades with time and use.
Now to my understanding yes EVEN CREE CHIP ON BOARD or as many call it COB use phos coated Disc's ??????

But all lamps do this to some degree. The phosphors in fluorescent lamps also degrade and their light declines over time. Incandescents' envelopes darken as the tunsten boils off the filament and deposits on the cooler envelope, and this blocks some of the light output. (This effect is reduced but not eliminated in halogen lamps).

Falling light output is inevitable with all lamps, to one degree or another. Perhaps it is more significant in LEDs because of their very long theoretical life.

However, note that the 40k or 50k hour LED life rating is always an average. LED lamps may fail prematurely, just as compact fluorescents do. Other than the outright cr@p that you buy on Ebay and at fly by night online retailers, we are probably not seeing too much of this early failure yet because until recently LEDs have been expensive, limited production items.

As LED production is increased and transferred to China and other low-wage nations, and as price competition heats up, cost cutting will become more common and quality will decline. Then we are likely to see more premature LED failures. Consumers will complain about 50k hour rated LEDs that last only a few thousand hours, even though some of their other LEDs last 100k hours or more. That is the way people are. :)
a) backup your old claims, i'm still waiting for proof
b) crees numbers are for nominal current, most run them way softer and cooler
 
I would love to see a video on troubleshooting, what to do, what to never do, how you could damage your led's. This is really what NOOB's need to know :)
 

2ANONYMOUS

Well-Known Member
a) backup your old claims, i'm still waiting for proof
b) crees numbers are for nominal current, most run them way softer and cooler
WTF you mean Back up my claims ?? What am i claiming here meat head the 50,000 hrs what do you think @ 50,000 hrs there going to be 100 percent from the day you plugged them in ???
Any light source from the time you plug them in start to degrade ,,
Now your going to get me to look for the 70 percent claim LED mentions that they say the light will emit if it hasn't failed by then ????
You do not believe its all about money and that companies will outsource and find a cheaper way to make them to play with there margins ??
And YES its a matter of time as the market gets flooded before we do see more failure rates
Its like how come the vehicle manufacturers ,, have moved into mexico to make a American Car..
or China making Harley Davidson parts and usa re boxing them to made in USA

Now here is a claim You know anyone that has run there COBS lights @ 50,000 hrs yet ???

Owe i am still waiting ????
YOUR B temps are very important not only for efficiency but for the life of anything
There is no need to claim anything its you guys that need to show your claims
for intance here
Wonder why they mention the temp in degree to get at them numbers could it be like you say if we cut current or run it softer haha you may not get them numbers ??? I fucking think so you will not get them numbers

The CXA1520 LED arrays deliver up to 3,478 lumens at 33 W (at 85°C). The product is available in CCTs from 2,700 to 5,000 K, and 70, 80, and 95 color rendering index (CRI) options.

interesting huh 85 degrees I wonder hmmm if you ran it @ 130 degrees would it be the same ????
or - 30 degrees would it be the same ??? i fucking think not
 

EfficientWatt

Well-Known Member
WTF you mean Back up my claims ?? What am i claiming here meat head the 50,000 hrs what do you think @ 50,000 hrs there going to be 100 percent from the day you plugged them in ???
Any light source from the time you plug them in start to degrade ,,
Now your going to get me to look for the 70 percent claim LED mentions that they say the light will emit if it hasn't failed by then ????
You do not believe its all about money and that companies will outsource and find a cheaper way to make them to play with there margins ??
And YES its a matter of time as the market gets flooded before we do see more failure rates
Its like how come the vehicle manufacturers ,, have moved into mexico to make a American Car..
or China making Harley Davidson parts and usa re boxing them to made in USA

Now here is a claim You know anyone that has run there COBS lights @ 50,000 hrs yet ???

Owe i am still waiting ????
YOUR B temps are very important not only for efficiency but for the life of anything
There is no need to claim anything its you guys that need to show your claims
for intance here
Wonder why they mention the temp in degree to get at them numbers could it be like you say if we cut current or run it softer haha you may not get them numbers ??? I fucking think so you will not get them numbers

The CXA1520 LED arrays deliver up to 3,478 lumens at 33 W (at 85°C). The product is available in CCTs from 2,700 to 5,000 K, and 70, 80, and 95 color rendering index (CRI) options.

interesting huh 85 degrees I wonder hmmm if you ran it @ 130 degrees would it be the same ????
or - 30 degrees would it be the same ??? i fucking think not
( You like aggresivity, huh ? I'l try and talk your language ...)

Exactly knuckle head : Has your half dimwit dumbass brain ever heard of accelerated reliability testing and high temperature operating life ?

What "you fucking think not" engineers at CREE (and other led companies of course) actually measure, test, and push to the level of science.

Get a brain, girl, and relearn your manners ... a-hole

Even with your ridiculously limited capacities, do you beleive a multi-billion dollar company's, medium term business model, can include providing fake data and grossly lying on reliability .. ?
Don't answer please, just STFU
 
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2ANONYMOUS

Well-Known Member
@2ANONYMOUS, They test the leds for for instance 6.000 hours and then fit a curve to the light output measurements to predict future lumen maintenance. This is a standard way of doing this and pretty accurate.
exactly so they look at how its degrading over time and add it all up into saying the ligh should emit min 70 percent @ the 50 k mark ,, I didn;t come in here to start a pissing match but to think cause someone dims there Diy unit is going to mean its going to last longer haha rings Hollow again who really knows and most importantly like my EXample

The CXA1520 LED arrays deliver up to 3,478 lumens at 33 W (at 85°C). The product is available in CCTs from 2,700 to 5,000 K, and 70, 80, and 95 color rendering index (CRI) options.

So dimming light and not running it at the 85 degree mark will it mean your not getting the 3478 lumen maybe they should of widened the range to like 65 - 110 degree to keep it in the 3478 mark but running half power one would think well then i will be @ 1739 lumens but if your not in the same temp range could it be even less ??? its just not subtracting power to a unit and expecting half of the lumens to magically appear cause your know where in the temp range ???
I am not claiming this just saying LAws change with temps , current and you cannot magically add it all up to say your going to have this unless you have the actual testing equipment and lab test rooms to test it ..

Now who is to say that in the long run by running your unit @ half power does not infact damage it faster by means of not running it at its designed spec area ?? right






Although the performance of LEDs has improved dramatically, single devices still do not produce enough output for a mainstream lighting application. For example, a single 100 W, 120 V incandescent bulb generates 1,700 lumens (at an efficacy of around 17 lm/W). In comparison, a popular LED such as OSRAM'sOSLON SSL 150 generates 136 lm (350 mA, 3.1 V, 125 lm/W). A lighting designer would need a dozen of these OSRAM devices to provide approximately the same output as the bulb.
 
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