Stainless Steel Cab? Free? Yes Please! Grow with CXB ( Heat , Dims )

[larrypile]

Hello there,

My brain no have answer so referred me to forum full of people with answer brains...

I had some free material around my shop and decided to build what turn out to be a
4 x 2 x 4 foot metal box with one 4" port vent. (For flower only)
All materials are stainless steal that were destined for scrap so it ended up costing me zero

I had a question about how many cxb3590s I should fit inside for the main light setup as I am doing the diy heat sink bars next. Trying to avoid temp issues and I never grew with these . I think I recall someone on the forum saying temps may be to low with these cobs?(whaaaa)... my temp around the box will be 71'F year round". .

Don't know the heat output of these cobs and MW drivers in practice , starting to think that with the dims I got only option is 2 or 4 cob light?... ( heat sinks are long enough for passive but will have active fan per bar) cab will have 4 " standard fan exhaust , nothing special

Was not sure where to post this but thought that size of the cab dictates everything else...

Thanks a yous for the helps!

 

[dajosh42069]

I lose. "..full of people with answer brains..."
That's just too much dude, lmao.
I assume that you are likely speaking English as a non-primary language, so the grammar is at least partially excusable..
But I couldn't make it further then "answer brains..". Sorry there my friend

 

[dajosh42069]

However, some pictures of the cab you are talking about would undoubtedly be extremely helpful to answering any of your questions.
Just be extra careful when taking pictures with a smart phone or tablet... iPhones in particular tend to Geotag your pictures. Once you upload that picture, it's an extremely simple matter to view it's EXIF data and gain access to not only your phones make and model...but to the time it was taken, and the exact GPS coordinates as well.

 

[fishdeth]

Just be extra careful when taking pictures with a smart phone or tablet... iPhones in particular tend to Geotag your pictures. Once you upload that picture, it's an extremely simple matter to view it's EXIF data and gain access to not only your phones make and model...but to the time it was taken, and the exact GPS coordinates as well.

Nice to know !
thanks

 

[larrypile]

Thank you dajosh! so if I send pics you can tell me if I should run two or four cxb3590 in my 2 x 4 x 4 foot cab? That's basically my question... ( don't really want to send pics..)

Sorry again for the first sentence , didn't know it would overshadow all the paragraphs afterwords... Just wanted to know if I should build a 2 or 4 cob light for this space...

Thanks guys..

 

[dionysus4]

4/5/6 cobs


depending on watts per cob

yes geodata is a real thing, but if you use a shitty old camera(anything without wifi) than its fine

you can easily buy an old canon cheaply and even add the hack software to make timelapse and other cool stuff for your garden

good luck

 

[BobCajun]

Hello there,

My brain no have answer so referred me to forum full of people with answer brains...

I had some free material around my shop and decided to build what turn out to be a
4 x 2 x 4 foot metal box with one 4" port vent. (For flower only)
All materials are stainless steal that were destined for scrap so it ended up costing me zero

I had a question about how many cxb3590s I should fit inside for the main light setup as I am doing the diy heat sink bars next. Trying to avoid temp issues and I never grew with these . I think I recall someone on the forum saying temps may be to low with these cobs?(whaaaa)... my temp around the box will be 71'F year round". .

Don't know the heat output of these cobs and MW drivers in practice , starting to think that with the dims I got only option is 2 or 4 cob light?... ( heat sinks are long enough for passive but will have active fan per bar) cab will have 4 " standard fan exhaust , nothing special

Was not sure where to post this but thought that size of the cab dictates everything else...

Thanks a yous for the helps!

Depends what current you intend to run them at. Volts x amps= watts. You would need 25-50w per sq ft. I would mount them on the outside of the top, after making some COB sized holes. LEDs do put out a lot of heat.

 

[Kevin the Great]

With a 2x4 footprint, 8 square feet, 8 cxb3590 cobs at 1400ma.
So, 8 CXB3590, 2 Meanwell HLG185-C1400 and heatsinks. I like passive heatsinks.
Around 600 bucks if you're building on the cheap.

 

[BobCajun]

With a 2x4 footprint, 8 square feet, 8 cxb3590 cobs at 1400ma.
So, 8 CXB3590, 2 Meanwell HLG185-C1400 and heatsinks. I like passive heatsinks.
Around 600 bucks if you're building on the cheap.

From what I've seen on the mouser site, the HLG240 drivers are the best deal, watt for watt, of any COB driver available. For instance currently the 185s are $69 and the 240s are $73. For an extra $4 you get 55 more watts of output. Higher ones than 240 cost more per watt, so 240 is the sweet spot for LED drivers. My advice would be to try to design systems to work with the 240 drivers, six 40 watters or whatever.

 

[Kevin the Great]

From what I've seen on the mouser site, the HLG240 drivers are the best deal, watt for watt, of any COB driver available. For instance currently the 185s are $69 and the 240s are $73. For an extra $4 you get 55 more watts of output. Higher ones than 240 cost more per watt, so 240 is the sweet spot for LED drivers. My advice would be to try to design systems to work with the 240 drivers, six 40 watters or whatever.

I see what you're saying, but the 185 x 2 fills this area perfectly. The 240 x 2 running 8 Vero 29s at 1400ma would be cheaper.

 

[BobCajun]

I see what you're saying, but the 185 x 2 fills this area perfectly. The 240 x 2 running 8 Vero 29s at 1400ma would be cheaper.

Looking at the 240 specs, 1400 ma, 179v, 250.6w, I guess you could run five 36v COBs at 50w each. Vero 29 have a weird forward voltage though, 36.8V ~ 38.6V, so the driver might be a little short. IDK how close you have to match the voltages.

 

[Kevin the Great]

Looking at the 240 specs, 1400 ma, 179v, 250.6w, I guess you could run five 36v COBs at 50w each. Vero 29 have a weird forward voltage though, 36.8V ~ 38.6V, so the driver might be a little short. IDK how close you have to match the voltages.

That's max voltage, running it at 80% of the listed max won't hurt anything, actually extend the life of the driver and keep it cooler. That's why I said 4 of them at 1400ma and the Vero29s are cheaper than the 3590s by about half.

 

[BobCajun]

That's max voltage, running it at 80% of the listed max won't hurt anything, actually extend the life of the driver and keep it cooler. That's why I said 4 of them at 1400ma and the Vero29s are cheaper than the 3590s by about half.

Right, 4 would work. So the Vero 29s are the best buy these days are they? Haven't really looked into them before.

 

[BobCajun]

Hello there,

My brain no have answer so referred me to forum full of people with answer brains...

I had some free material around my shop and decided to build what turn out to be a
4 x 2 x 4 foot metal box with one 4" port vent. (For flower only)
All materials are stainless steal that were destined for scrap so it ended up costing me zero

I had a question about how many cxb3590s I should fit inside for the main light setup as I am doing the diy heat sink bars next. Trying to avoid temp issues and I never grew with these . I think I recall someone on the forum saying temps may be to low with these cobs?(whaaaa)... my temp around the box will be 71'F year round". .

Don't know the heat output of these cobs and MW drivers in practice , starting to think that with the dims I got only option is 2 or 4 cob light?... ( heat sinks are long enough for passive but will have active fan per bar) cab will have 4 " standard fan exhaust , nothing special

Was not sure where to post this but thought that size of the cab dictates everything else...

Thanks a yous for the helps!

Okay how about this, 3 Vero 29s (BXRC-35E10K0-L-2x) on a meanwell HLG-240H-C2100B driver. That's almost 240w, so 30w per sq ft in your 4'x2' chamber. It's the premium mini cab package. You'll have to get heatsink advice from someone else though. Here's the data sheet for the Veros. The one I recommended is the one in bold in this part. It's current, volts, watts, lumen outputs and the last one is the lumens per watt. Not bad.

 

[BobCajun]

Actually I guess 3 Veros at 80w each would be hard to keep cool, and wouldn't spread the light very well, so probably 6 of them at 40w on a 1050 ma driver would be more appropriate, though it would cost about $120 more for the 3 more Veros. You would get 153 lm/w instead of only 134 though and should run a lot cooler. They do look like good COBs though. I wonder why people still use the Crees.

If I were to make a commercial fixture that's what I'd use though, 6 Vero 29s at 1050 ma. If people have more space than 240w would cover, they could just add more units. It makes sense to use the number of COBs in each fixture that can be powered efficiently by one HLG-240H.

 

[Kevin the Great]

Right, 4 would work. So the Vero 29s are the best buy these days are they? Haven't really looked into them before.

Actually, the bridgelux V22s are the best buy in my opinion.

 

[BobCajun]

Actually, the bridgelux V22s are the best buy in my opinion.

I see what you mean. They're practically giving them away. What's the catch? Looks like a perfect substitute for CXB3590s at less than half the price. Have you used them yet?

 

[Kevin the Great]

I see what you mean. They're practically giving them away. What's the catch? Looks like a perfect substitute for CXB3590s at less than half the price. Have you used them yet?

Yep. I have a panel of 8 on an HLG 185 700. Thermal paste and kapton tape, easy to assemble if you don't mind soldering.

 

[BobCajun]

Yep. I have a panel of 8 on an HLG 185 700. Thermal paste and kapton tape, easy to assemble if you don't mind soldering.

Probably less than $1 per watt to build, about the same as CMH.

 

[Kevin the Great]

Probably less than $1 per watt to build, about the same as CMH.

I have about 250 into it with 2 passive heatsinks and a potentiometer so a little over a buck a watt for my build but it could be done cheaper. It's going in an area of barely over 3 square feet so the dimmer is almost mandatory for me.