HBG-60-1400 - Which heatsink and where?

Wow thank you so much.

I chose to DIY because I could get the 300watt light for what would cost me (two) lights in time. I've tried researching what it means to drive a led, the closest equivalent I've gotten is not to run the strips to 100%. What does it mean or rather HOW would I even drive a Led too high. All I know to do is to connect the led strips and turn it on, would keeping it on 12/12 or 24/7 is that the reference to 'running'? Or is it like a battery that is draining before you recharge it, when the lights have been run for x amount and are going to go dead I'd have to monitor that -- so lot's of confusion on what it means to run/drive a LED and how that would work (but have been unable to find answers to that question by searching so dropping that question here).

I read elsewhere in my research that LRS over HLG because LRS is cheaper with this budget (confirming?).
I notice this build has two drivers, likewise the link shows two drivers and one power cord but nowhere does it show the drivers being connected, in my shopping cart I have 16 of the bridgelux strips, and 2 meanwell LRS-150-36 which I think would give me about 300w(?). Is there an option for 1 meanwell driver even if I have to pay a little bit more that would suffice - or does it have to be two drivers together to run the lights?

I saw a few Led Strip builds and noticed some of them used cardboard as a base while others lined them against bars. I have the bottom of some rat cage bars and wondered if that could be used to fit the led strips on it without purchasing Aluminum bars -- or are the aluminum bars a key trait of the heatsink. Is the material the led strips are put on important - ex- I couldn't use spare bamboo or spare metal cages I have around, I'd have to use something aluminum?

Thanks so much for all the guidance it has been extremely helpful!

Invierno said:

I chose to DIY because I could get the 300watt light for what would cost me (two) lights in time. I've tried researching what it means to drive a led, the closest equivalent I've gotten is not to run the strips to 100%. What does it mean or rather HOW would I even drive a Led too high. All I know to do is to connect the led strips and turn it on, would keeping it on 12/12 or 24/7 is that the reference to 'running'? Or is it like a battery that is draining before you recharge it, when the lights have been run for x amount and are going to go dead I'd have to monitor that -- so lot's of confusion on what it means to run/drive a LED and how that would work (but have been unable to find answers to that question by searching so dropping that question here).

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Drive a LED is just special wording because some people call the the POWER SUPPLY a driver, it's just a wording difference. "Running" or "Driving" or "Powering" an LED all mean the same thing. Usually what happens is that the LED will be run at the maximum power the power supply can output, unless it's dimmable. Just like turning the lightswitch on. There's no monitoring. You probably want to do some testing, just to see if something happens after 30 minutes of being ON or something, but usually they're just "connect and go"

Invierno said:

I read elsewhere in my research that LRS over HLG because LRS is cheaper with this budget (confirming?).
I notice this build has two drivers, likewise the link shows two drivers and one power cord but nowhere does it show the drivers being connected, in my shopping cart I have 16 of the bridgelux strips, and 2 meanwell LRS-150-36 which I think would give me about 300w(?). Is there an option for 1 meanwell driver even if I have to pay a little bit more that would suffice - or does it have to be two drivers together to run the lights?

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HLG Drivers are more reliable, more expensive, better looking, more efficient and come with a bunch of features. the LRS drivers are less efficient, but cost a fraction of what you would pay for an HLG. They're excellent for budget builds.

The Drivers are not to be connected anywhere. My idea in the build that i recommended to you is that you connect half the strips to one driver, and the other half to the other driver. So you can then choose if you want to run 50% (150W) or 100% (300W).

If you're choosing the 300W option, you can also go for the LRS-300-36 which will save you maybe $6-10 US.

Invierno said:

I saw a few Led Strip builds and noticed some of them used cardboard as a base while others lined them against bars. I have the bottom of some rat cage bars and wondered if that could be used to fit the led strips on it without purchasing Aluminum bars -- or are the aluminum bars a key trait of the heatsink. Is the material the led strips are put on important - ex- I couldn't use spare bamboo or spare metal cages I have around, I'd have to use something aluminum?

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Feel free to be creative, lol. I would definitely not recommend using wood because it actually holds heat. But i've seen people literally mount their strips on hard Aluminum Trays, metallic sheets, old computer cases, old t5 light mounts, anything.

Thank you for taking the time to help me with this.

eyderbuddy said:

At least for Bridgelux strips Gen 2, those don't need cooling unless driven at more than 1.05 amps, and the L shaped aluminum works as a heatsink and a mount at the same time.

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What you said helped a lot. In this example what would cause the Strips to be driven at *more* than 1.05 amps, since 100% would be the maximum output by default, what would cause it to go above that (a dimmer?).

eyderbuddy said:

HLG Drivers are more reliable, more expensive, better looking, more efficient and come with a bunch of features. the LRS drivers are less efficient, but cost a fraction of what you would pay for an HLG. They're excellent for budget builds.

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Would you say that saving up for an HLG is a better investment than spending immediately on an LRS? What would an HLG equivalent be?

eyderbuddy said:

If you're choosing the 300W option, you can also go for the LRS-300-36 which will save you maybe $6-10 US.

Click to expand...

Do you mean LRS-350-36? When I do a google search for LRS-300-36 only LRS 350 comes up, would the LRS-350 do the same?

eyderbuddy said:

The Drivers are not to be connected anywhere. My idea in the build that i recommended to you is that you connect half the strips to one driver, and the other half to the other driver. So you can then choose if you want to run 50% (150W) or 100% (300W).

Click to expand...

Oh ! That makes a lot of sense, I understand now. Would that build require two different power cords/supplies or would I connect them to a single power supply?

If I go with the LRS 350, I could connect both sets of strips to the same driver with one power supply (or) would that be less efficient - to have them all connected to one driver? (Or no real difference?)

It sounds like there would be a gain in versatility separating them so that each set runs at 150w each vs. all of them at 300w, what would you recommend?

And that's exciting about using old computer cases and the like, thank you so much for the advisement here! Wood holding heat would have def. been bad. lol.

Invierno said:

Thank you for taking the time to help me with this.

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My pleasure man, i really enjoy this =]

Invierno said:

What you said helped a lot. In this example what would cause the Strips to be driven at *more* than 1.05 amps, since 100% would be the maximum output by default, what would cause it to go above that (a dimmer?).

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The 2 footer strips that i recommended max out at about 20 Watts (19 volts * 1.05 amp) per strip when not using a heatsink... So if you were to use 6 with a 150W driver you'd be running them at 1.32 amps, and maybe cause some problems...

The LRS-150-36 power supply actually outputs a fixed current (amps) of 4.17 amps. So you're going to need to connect them in pairs of 2 in Series, and run them in parallel.

Like this:



So basically you'd have 3 wires:

One wire that goes from the positive terminal of the driver to the positive of the first Strip > Another connecting the Negative end of that same strip to the positive of the other strip > Last wire goes from the negative terminal of the second strip to the Negative on the driver.

So you do that 4 times, and you'd end up with 4 sets of 2 strips. The 4 sets all connect to the same driver terminals, and you would end up running them at about 19Watts per strip if you're using the 150W drivers.

Invierno said:

Would you say that saving up for an HLG is a better investment than spending immediately on an LRS? What would an HLG equivalent be?

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It's a much more solid long term investment, yes! But an HLG-150-36 goes for $45.70 on mouser, vs a LRS-150-36 on arrow going for $18.70... Idk man, i've also never had ANY DRIVER FAILURES EVER with both models, and they're both built by Meanwell so i wouldn't be worried... I used to only buy HLG's but they get expensive fast...

Invierno said:

Do you mean LRS-350-36? When I do a google search for LRS-300-36 only LRS 350 comes up, would the LRS-350 do the same?

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There's no LRS-300-36, i was confusing it with the 350 watt version that you found. You can run 18 strips on the 350 version, if it suits your fancy, lol. I'm sure you can run 16 strips on the 350 Watt version, but if they overheat they will shutdown and start blinking on and off showing that there's a problem, they're very smart =d

Invierno said:

Oh ! That makes a lot of sense, I understand now. Would that build require two different power cords/supplies or would I connect them to a single power supply?

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If you want to be able to turn each driver on at will, you will need to have 2 separate power cords. (technically you can actually do it using 1 cord, but it would be much more complicated)

Invierno said:

If I go with the LRS 350, I could connect both sets of strips to the same driver with one power supply (or) would that be less efficient - to have them all connected to one driver? (Or no real difference?)

Click to expand...

Generally, the more strips you connect together, the more efficient the build becomes. But for our purposes it doesn't really matter.

Invierno said:

It sounds like there would be a gain in versatility separating them so that each set runs at 150w each vs. all of them at 300w, what would you recommend?

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Separate them! You could build 2 separate lights. I'd rather have 2 150W lights that i can use for smaller situations, and use them side by side for bigger grows =]

I always wanted to build my own lights... And i was afraid of electricity and breaking my components or getting shocked. But my curiosity was so much that i took an electricity course just so i could start building my own LEDs and understand stuff like "series", or "parallel"... But actually this is all really simple!

Just looks complicated if you haven't done it before.

You can watch this growmau5 video:


Right at the minute 11 mark he starts explaining the difference between wiring in series or in parallel. In our build we're wiring 2 strips in series and 4 groups in parallel.

If Samsung F strips or H strips are available where you live, those are the most economical option to build using current tech diodes. A simple solution for a framework/heatsink is using an aluminum baking tray-cheap and effective.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1fAwTmYH19VUG02N5S0CQ1UWoNX-_ZC-d4g

I truly appreciate it; spent the whole night mulling it over until I had a clear idea of how it works.

So to confirm, if I used 6 strips in a series as a single set and then connected them to the driver (parallel alongside others also in a similar set), I would be running them at 1.32amps which would be a problem.

However* if I use 2 strips in a series as a single set, then parallel connect the 4 sets of 2 (total 8 ). That'd be ok?

Another benefit of the 150w is that it allows me to build one light now (8 Led strips with an LRS 150) and then I can add the other light next month giving me room to expand and grow. This is the version I feel I will go with due the versatility of the build. I can't begin to express how much I appreciate it.

I was looking at the link you gave me and saw that they used an AC Power Cable, AC power extender, and a 3 pin connector -- are all of these 3 things necessary? Or could I just purchase an AC Power Cable and that would be enough?

You mentioned that I could run 18 strips on the 350 watt driver and that 16 strips on the 350watt version could overheat the driver. How would 16 strips overheat it but not 18?

At this point I'm curious and asking for explorations sake. Instead of an LRS 350 w/18 Led strips, would an HLG-240H-C700B run 16 bridgelux strip be sufficient? (I think the price savings would be negligible here and at this point I'm just curious what my options are and what would be comparable to what).

Would the wiring on a single driver be the same? 2 sets of 16 (18 )? Or would the change in driver change the way its wired together? In an LRS 350 vs an HLG 240H-700B would make any difference to the wiring on a single driver.
I've also always wanted to get into wiring light projects (for programming with the arduino). I used to repair and solder (my enemy is soldering), old wires all the time. But after an incident where I fixed an old wire on my xbox 360 controller and it caught fire I've been terrified of things catching fire and breaking expensive components. But honestly this appears to be simple, negatives and positives and when in doubt thermal paste?

Excited to hear that aluminum banking trays can work. I have some cages made of aluminium with bars on them, but just knowing baking trays could work is exciting.

Invierno said:

So to confirm, if I used 6 strips in a series as a single set and then connected them to the driver (parallel alongside others also in a similar set), I would be running them at 1.32amps which would be a problem.

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Not really a problem, but would force you to use some sort of cooling for the strips. You can feel safe as long as you're not putting over 20W per 2ft strip.

Invierno said:

However* if I use 2 strips in a series as a single set, then parallel connect the 4 sets of 2 (total 8 ). That'd be ok?

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Exactly, you're correct!

Invierno said:

I was looking at the link you gave me and saw that they used an AC Power Cable, AC power extender, and a 3 pin connector -- are all of these 3 things necessary? Or could I just purchase an AC Power Cable and that would be enough?

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All you really need is a power cable, a PC power cable would work wonders since it already has the Line, Neutral and Ground cables.

Invierno said:

You mentioned that I could run 18 strips on the 350 watt driver and that 16 strips on the 350watt version could overheat the driver. How would 16 strips overheat it but not 18?

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Not quite, running 16 strips with the 350W driver would overheat the strips, not the driver... but i think they could take it really, i don't think an extra watt or two is going to make them blow up, lol. I just like staying within the safe and tested parameters though =]

Invierno said:

At this point I'm curious and asking for explorations sake. Instead of an LRS 350 w/18 Led strips, would an HLG-240H-C700B run 16 bridgelux strip be sufficient? (I think the price savings would be negligible here and at this point I'm just curious what my options are and what would be comparable to what).

Would the wiring on a single driver be the same? 2 sets of 16 (18 )? Or would the change in driver change the way its wired together? In an LRS 350 vs an HLG 240H-700B would make any difference to the wiring on a single driver.

Click to expand...

You choose drivers depending on how you want to run everything. A constant voltage driver (the LRS) is usually better for parallel connections, and a constant current driver is mostly used for series connections. It all depends on how you like to work and what is more comfortable for the build at hand.

I personally like running Parallel, and haven't built a "whole series" grow light yet, only partially series like this one.

Invierno said:

But honestly this appears to be simple, negatives and positives and when in doubt thermal paste?

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Negatives and positives in DC. Neutral and Potential in AC. It isn't complicated, but i'd do some more research on videos and stuff if i were you. It's easy to get confused...

Btw, if you need help assembling the build when you get it, feel free to post!

I personally like running Parallel, and haven't built a "whole series" grow light yet, only partially series like this one.

Click to expand...

Is there any particular reason one would choose all parallel over all series; over hybrid?

I just got my led strips (and) my lrs-150, I'm still waiting for my 18/2 gauge wire to come in, and have an old PC computer power cord. However I'm looking at this LRS-150 and unlike the meanwell which had wires that were already coming out of it this one has none. Would you or anyone happen to know any good tutorials on using LRS-150, or be able to offer any assistance on how to connect the driver?

I've attached a picture of the cable I'm hoping to use, it was repurposed from an old laptop (not a PC but I should have a PC plug somewhere if that would be better, would have to find it).


(Edit):
I cut off the end of the three pronged wire revealing three wires, green and two others beside it (non colours). I found this additional video:

So the output area will be where the power supply goes; will need to wait for the 18 gauge wires to come in sometime between friday and saturday to connect the led strips. But can at the very least connect the driver to the LRS-150 and looks like no soldering to the driver will be needed just screwing it.

((I will be sharing the entire light build here as I go along so that perhaps it could help others in the future. I will definitely ask for help when I encounter a problem. Right now just making sure I'm connecting everything right is my biggest concern)).

Invierno said:

Is there any particular reason one would choose all parallel over all series; over hybrid?

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for one, the type of driver you have
if you're using constant current driver and wiring in series, it will have a range of acceptable forward voltage. if the sum of your forward voltages in the series is on the low end of that voltage range you won't be maximizing your driver.
if you're using constant voltage driver and wiring parallel, you can keep adding more and more chips and it will just keep splitting the current. so its easier to upgrade and make more efficient without buying new drivers.
also, when you work with larger series/drivers, the total voltage of the series can easily get 300+ which is a problem for some wires and solderless connectors and things, not too mention can be more dangerous
but, parallel has restrictions too of course. i think thermal runaway is the main one people talk about. and i don't think you can wire in parallel with some of the higher voltage chips, at least with mw drivers.

they lend themselves to different scenarios. usually decided in the very beginnings of the design.

Thanks for the info pulpoinspace I truly appreciate it!

Last night I went and purchased a (cheap) digital multimeter, cat 3, hypertough at walmart for ~12. I'm thinking about returning it this morning, but not sure if it's not working or if it's something that I'm doing wrong. I was looking for a $19 meter that I saw on amazon and that walmart said they had but ended up not being the case. I picked up some 18 gauge wire at home depot even though I had some coming in the mail, and connected my power cord to the driver, and then put the positive in the v+ slot and the negative in the v- next to it.

When I got the multimeter I tested the drive unplugged before plugging it in. I didn't have any idea what I was reading but it read around ~122 volts. It was late so I went to bed.

This morning when I woke up and went to test again with the digital multimeter it would not give me a reading at all. I double checked to see if the settings were the same as last night from the pictures and they were. This time I plugged it into the outlet and it gave me a reading.

The next thing I wanted to do was test the led strips to see if they were working and able to turn on. I was unable to use the multimeter to turn them on nor was I able to test the drive unplugged again as I did last night (read the manual, couldn't see how I had blown a fuse it says it has fuse protection built in). I got a lightbulb that I knew worked and set it on the upside down (ohm) 0.L nothing registered. Eventually numbers would come up (I can't remember on what setting).

I had seen on youtube someone use a multimeter to test the led strips and get the lights to turn on, so I thought this would work and wasn't sure why it didn't. I wasn't going to stress over it. So I just plugged my driver in, placed the multimeter on it showed it was outputting 122v; and I connected the red to the + side on the led strip and the - negative on the negative side on the led strip -- the light didn't come on.

1. How do I get a single led strip to come on to make sure the lights work?
2. Why isn't the Led strip coming on when I put the wires into their respective places?
3. Can a multimeter 'turn' on a lightbulb or a led strip (or am I misunderstanding what a multimeter can do)?
4. Why would a multimeter show the same numbers unplugged one day but require it to be plugged in the next?
5. Is a Cat 3 multimeter enough to do the job?
6. How do I connect the led strip wires -- I thought I would need to solder but it looks like it will need glue or tape to connect them? But the image I see in the Led strip build look like they were just inserted into the reusable connectors -- how did they stay put? -- maybe I just don't have a connection -- but power(?) was shown coming out of the strip when I put the multimeter testers on the positive and negative circles at the very end of the led strip.
7. I thought I would need wago connectors so ordered some but not sure now if that was just for the meanwell HLG build and that the wago connectors are irrelevent for the LRS build? ?

I'm trying to figure out if I should return the multimeter, or if there's something not working, or if I'm doing something wrong and how to remedy it. Even if the multimeter didn't work -- shouldn't the lights just plug into their respective wiring and turn on?

One thing I thought was that if I'm unable to test the led strip with the multimeter that the problem I'm having is that I have to connect all the led strips before the lights will turn on?


- the power cord from previous post freshly cut before stripping
- power cord in its place

- wires all in their respective places

- results of the led strips with multimeter plugged in

- results of the multimeter unplugged

Another theory I have is that I'm unable to actually test the led strips without using batteries that match the (voltage or current (not sure which terminology)) of that particular strip; and that I'll have to wire them all up in order to actually turn them on to see if they work. Which leaves me with how to actually get the wires to stay put in their slots.

(update) I have stranded wire, I just pushed them in and kept pushing hard until I felt it lock, and they're locked in place now (have no idea how to release it) but that's a start.

This is where I've hit a cross roads. I'm afraid to turn it on because I don't want to burn out the leds if I connected them wrong. I'm unsure of how to connect the bottom part of the leds. If I'm supposed to connect them in a series like I did t he upper part or... just leave them unconnnected. I also wasn't sure if I was supposed to connected the long red cable (it needs to be shortened) from the starting positive to the end positive.
- before the red wire was added to the top.

- connected the upper red positive to the opposite end of the led (negative)

Any help on how to connect the bottom part of the series? Or do they all need to be soldered to the red/black wires that are coming out of the LRS driver?

Just to update I did plug it in and the led strips all connected never came on. Output is reading 122 on the driver, the positive/negative (red/black) cables when I switch it to 'diode' initially give me a crazy reading of 1800, and then jumps around 304, 500s, 001, 003, so I don't know if it's my multimeter or something I'm doing wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Invierno said:

This is where I've hit a cross roads. I'm afraid to turn it on because I don't want to burn out the leds if I connected them wrong. I'm unsure of how to connect the bottom part of the leds. If I'm supposed to connect them in a series like I did t he upper part or... just leave them unconnnected. I also wasn't sure if I was supposed to connected the long red cable (it needs to be shortened) from the starting positive to the end positive.
View attachment 4213318 - before the red wire was added to the top.

View attachment 4213321 - connected the upper red positive to the opposite end of the led (negative)

Any help on how to connect the bottom part of the series? Or do they all need to be soldered to the red/black wires that are coming out of the LRS driver?

Click to expand...

Alright man, i'm going through a medical crises but i haven't forgotten about you. lets see if we can help you out...

First of all, all of those connections are wrong. You will not be able to run the LEDS using that driver in that setup.

Also most testers have a mode for DC testing and a mode for AC testing. If you were getting 122 Volts, it means you were measuring the AC input terminals using the AC mode... If you set your driver to DC, and test the DC output terminals (marked + & -) , you should get anywhere between 33 to 40 volts.



Ayways... Back to the project at hand:

You are not going to be running the entire LED array in series. You will connect them in series in PAIRS, like this:



So you will end up making 4 pairs of 2 strips.

Then you will connect all the positives to the driver's positive poles, and all the negatives to the drivers negatives poles. It doesn't matter if 2 of them share the same poles as long as they're the same polarity.

I am so sorry you are going through a medical crisis and hope it gets better for you! Omg Thank you so much!! The wiring was the key!

As soon as I got the opportunity I was working on the lights, the first problem I ran into was that my driver wasn't coming on (light wasn't green). I thought maybe my power cord was broken or that I had ground wires mixed up, so I found my PC wire which had the cords colour coded. Spent the whole day brainstorming how to power the green light. Turns out I had to switch the switch from 220 to 115v.

Then when I put the wiring together (using the wrong wiring I had and plugged it in)I swear I saw a flicker of light but it was greenish and faded quickly. The led light began blinking green, and I couldn't figure out why it was blinking or what to do I figured after researching that I'd either blown something/damaged something (or) that I had wired it wrong and thus the driver was reading wrong.

I came here to see if there were any replies and your message was just in time! I took those notes and went right back to work and !!!! I'm so excited. These are great lights and I am so eternally grateful to you for helping me discover an affordable alternative to the more expensive ones -- and for walking me through all of this.

This has been a great project and I loved it so much I want to learn more about wiring (thinking of taking some legit classes) and do more projects like this (def. more led builds in my future), so truly grateful to you walking me through this! Please feel better!!






Now the only thing I need to do is mount this awesome creature! Piece of cake, thank you again !!

i'm so glad that you got it to work man, i felt so good inside when i saw your pictures! And thanks for the good wishes =]

Here's a super cool tip too: In this configuration you can actually Dimm the lights by turning the potentiometer that's next to the green light on the driver. gotta use a screwdriver tho.. But it's such a cool little free dimm thingy

Oh wow!! What a neat bonus feature! Thank you for the tip! I never would have figured that out. I don't actually know how to like a post (or if that's an option for newcomers) but if I could give you a thousand kudos I would. Wish I could express my level of gratitude!!! It's beyond words. THANK YOU! I truly lucked out here!!