Keep adding more features, EB Gen2 build

Nutria

Well-Known Member
@noodle-led may I ask you how did you wire the pc fan on lower right corner?
I want to use 12v noctua fans in my grow and be able to control speed through rpm or pwm
 

GBAUTO

Well-Known Member
They will run without. But they are very flexible and need something to stiffen them up if not supported in the center. Cheap 3/4" aluminum channel works well for this. The .601 profile heatsink from HeatsinkUSA works well and is just under $1 per foot.
The 2"x .125" aluminum strips I got from my local welding supply are plenty stiff for the 4' double row sammys I added. When used as a flowering booster@ 60w/strip on my Vero arrays, they barely get to 50 degC-cost me $20 for the 4-45" strips.
 

noodle-led

Well-Known Member
@noodle-led may I ask you how did you wire the pc fan on lower right corner?
I want to use 12v noctua fans in my grow and be able to control speed through rpm or pwm
The power strip I am using has 4x 5V USB power ports on it, so I just used some "microusb boost" modules to step up the voltage to what I wanted the fans to run at. There's no RPM feedback or control, just a dumb voltage source.

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I originally had one with an Arduino Nano driving the 25KHz PWM input but as I started wanting more than one fan I cheaped out. I still have a desire to make a multifan unit that's programmable and can do things like fire them in some fancy sequence or something
 

noodle-led

Well-Known Member
It was a veg until it seemed to fill up all the space with light stress training then a flip to 12/12. It takes what it takes! It is actually the second grow in that space with the same Ebb and Flow system, nutrients, a 7gal fabric pot with the top 20% cut off, and fans. The last grow was 2x Vero 29 Gen 7 COBs in a small fixture for 150W total on a Cookies Kush (mostly indica) which went 8 weeks veg, 17 weeks total and grew 274g. I switched to this light in week 12 but it was already in full bud by that point. I harvested in layers starting at week 12 then two weeks two weeks as I worked my way down the plant.

This plant (Sweet Amnesia, dominant sativa) is ahead of that grow by at about a week as far as bounding box size, but has a lower leaf density in the canopy. That might have something to do with the fact I broke one of the stems a few weeks ago trying to pull it to the side. Don't worry, I didn't waste it! It became a clone I gave to a friend.
 

Ginger Viking

Well-Known Member
Random question about EB Gen 2 strips...What max voltage are the Molex connectors rated for? It is not stated in the Bridgelux manual that I can find and I cannot find the exact model number of connector to find it on Molex's website.
 

noodle-led

Well-Known Member
A single terminal connector doesn't have a max voltage rating, because there's no reference to measure the voltage against.The most potential that can ever possibly really exist across the two connectors is defined by the EB2 board design's isolating and tracking distances and not the connectors.

If you turn up the voltage, one of the LEDs in the EB2 strip will fail at an input voltage of 25V (at the absolute max). You don't have to worry about the max voltage the connectors can take because in that situation you should be more concerned with the distance between the anode and cathode pads of each LED. You'd have to generate like 500V across a *single strip* to be close to that.
 

nfhiggs

Well-Known Member
A single terminal connector doesn't have a max voltage rating, because there's no reference to measure the voltage against.The most potential that can ever possibly really exist across the two connectors is defined by the EB2 board design's isolating and tracking distances and not the connectors.

If you turn up the voltage, one of the LEDs in the EB2 strip will fail at an input voltage of 25V (at the absolute max). You don't have to worry about the max voltage the connectors can take because in that situation you should be more concerned with the distance between the anode and cathode pads of each LED. You'd have to generate like 500V across a *single strip* to be close to that.
Good analysis.
 

Ginger Viking

Well-Known Member
A single terminal connector doesn't have a max voltage rating, because there's no reference to measure the voltage against.The most potential that can ever possibly really exist across the two connectors is defined by the EB2 board design's isolating and tracking distances and not the connectors.

If you turn up the voltage, one of the LEDs in the EB2 strip will fail at an input voltage of 25V (at the absolute max). You don't have to worry about the max voltage the connectors can take because in that situation you should be more concerned with the distance between the anode and cathode pads of each LED. You'd have to generate like 500V across a *single strip* to be close to that.
So roughly 430V from my cc driver(HLG-320H-C700B) is fine with 22 - 560mm strips in series? I assumed I would have to use the solder pads for the connections. I thought the molex connectors might be like the cob holders and only rated for 200V.
 

Ginger Viking

Well-Known Member
Running pairs in series is also a lot less wiring. (:
Running a single driver in series is even less wiring. Driver is in hand and no I'm not going to return it. Actually I think this driver is the best fit on this # of strips at nominal because it is 100% loaded. By the spec sheet this driver can power 21.9 560mm strips. Thankfully it is slightly underrated. I wired it up before I built the frame to make sure that it would fire all 22 and it does. I just need to know if I will be safer and better off to take the extra time to solder the connections rather than take the easy way out and plug them into the connectors. The question again is what voltage are the Molex connectors rated for? Not what is the best driver selection or how many strips for this driver.
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
There could/should be a noticable voltage droop when 22 strips are connected in series. You maybe end up with less watts at the wall. I believe LEDgardener has switched from using the onboard connectors to parallel wiring with Wago clamps for this reason.
Below is a datasheet for a similar PCB to wire connector. He's rated with 300v, but see yourself. I would solder them just to be save!
 

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Ginger Viking

Well-Known Member
There could/should be a noticable voltage droop when 22 strips are connected in series. You maybe end up with less watts at the wall. I believe LEDgardener has switched from using the onboard connectors to parallel wiring with Wago clamps for this reason.
Below is a datasheet for a similar PCB to wire connector. He's rated with 300v, but see yourself. I would solder them just to be save!
This was the answer I was looking for with a datasheet to back it up. Thanks for coming thru with a direct answer. Solder it is.
 

nfhiggs

Well-Known Member
There could/should be a noticable voltage droop when 22 strips are connected in series. You maybe end up with less watts at the wall. I believe LEDgardener has switched from using the onboard connectors to parallel wiring with Wago clamps for this reason.
Below is a datasheet for a similar PCB to wire connector. He's rated with 300v, but see yourself. I would solder them just to be save!
Thats daisy chaining with parallel connections. There is no voltage droop in a CC series setup. Every strip has the exact same current running through it.
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
Yup, I just looked again. He first had a series-parallel circuit using the onboard connectors and then switched to series-parallel with Wagos because some of the connectors were too hot.
The reason why I've thought there could be something like a droop is, I've first tried to use 16 F-strips in series on an HLG-240H-C700 and got only ~190w at the wall instead 250w. All connections double checked! Then I've tried it with 10s2p and a HLG-240H-C1050 and it worked with 252w at the wall. If not because of a voltage droop there must been another issue I simply don't have realized. Hmm, I've used 1mm² single core wire aka awg18 or 17, do you think it could be because of the wires?
You know me long enough, I'm not an electrician, but I get a simple series circuit error-free to work... I've also used the exact same poti, so what could have been wrong?
 
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nfhiggs

Well-Known Member
Yup, I just looked again. He first had a series-parallel circuit using the onboard connectors and then switched to series-parallel with Wagos because some of the connectors were too hot.
The reason why I've thought there could be something like a droop is, I've first tried to use 16 F-strips in series on an HLG-240H-C700 and got only ~190w at the wall instead 250w. All connections double checked! Then I've tried it with 10s2p and a HLG-240H-C1050 and it worked with 252w at the wall. If not because of a voltage droop there must been another issue I simply don't have realized. Hmm, I've used 1mm² single core wire aka awg18 or 17, do you think it could be because of the wires?
You know me long enough, I'm not an electrician, but I get a simple series circuit error-free to work... I've also used the exact same poti, so what could have been wrong?
Mine are running at 700 mA right now (6 strips at 4.2 amps total) and they are getting 22.9 volts. With 16 strips thats a total of 366 volts, plus any wiring losses - the C700 driver tops out at 357v. I think maybe the driver was reducing the current to get the Vf down below 357, resulting in a loss of overall power. With the 1050 mA driver, they are getting only 550 mA instead of 700, so the Vf is lower - probably about 22.5 - thats 225 total volts, within the voltage range of the driver's 238V maximum. Anytime you get "outside the lines" with drivers, they will do weird stuff.
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
I thought that myself..
I simply forget to take into account that the 23v@1120mA was measured at 65°C, but the strips, when they are cold, even at 700mA, need at least about 23,5 or 24v when switching on.
Maybe I just reached the driver limit and with only 1v more it would have caused that the strips start flashing.
Who knows!? In future, I'll measure the open circuit voltage myself and stay at least a few volts below so I do not have to send drivers back anymore to exchange them against another model, lol!
 

noodle-led

Well-Known Member
And in conclusion, I find that the light does in fact grow plants.
DSC05676.JPG

I apologize for not being able to get a better photo of it (single Sweet Amnesia plant) but the plant is collapsing under its own weight and since I'm cutting it down today I don't feel like stringing it all up just to take a photo. The tent is sort of structural to keeping it up right now. These EB strips are friggin awesome. For most of the flowering, I tried to keep the light between 7-12cm (3-5") from the tops of the plant but it was growing so quickly it was hard to keep up. You must be thinking I am crazy and that I burned the crap out of the buds but they were perfectly happy even growing up to touch the lights as you can see by their bent tops. I used bamboo sticks and plant wire to position them between the strips, but it was an uphill battle as they just kept shifting around on their own. I actually pruned and removed the two largest shoots a few weeks into flowering because they were 2x hand-widths above the rest of the plant and I wasn't too concerned with getting every bit of flower out. I mean look how friggin' giant this is.

DSC05680.JPG

Did somebody order the footlong?! It is hard to see in the picture but I've got several flowers that are over 30cm long and 10cm wide. I'm not sure if it is the nutrients I am using (advanced nutrients Sensi Bloom and all the addons) or just the plant's cycle, but all the lush green leaves started turning yellow and dying about two weeks ago. My last plant (Cookies Kush) was lush green right to the end on general hydroponics flora series.

The light performed fantastically and I didn't have a problem with every bit of the plant trying to grow directly toward the 2x COBs I had previously. Great mostly even coverage with absolutely no sign of plant stress even at 7cm distance and 1100mA of power (215W total at wall). The pretty big downside to having such a big light fixture is that it takes up the whole tent. I still have another 25-30cm of space above the light but I can't lift it any higher because the air filter is in the way. I'll see if I can figure out a way to lift that higher or move it closer to the side to be able to recover the space. I also think I'd prefer a setup with space between the strips so the plant can grow through if needed and allow better airflow. I don't see any issue with mold or rot on any of the flowers though and just have 3x 120mm computer fans circulating the air at 3 levels running on 9V.

The flowers probably could use another day or two to finish up, but they're so heavy I'm afraid they're going to fall and start to make a mess of themselves so we're calling this done. The pH was a little high in bloom-- those Advanced Nutrients are hard to get the pH down.
Veg: General Hydroponics Flora series in 3-2-1 mix up to 900ppm, 1-2 flood cycles per day, nutrients changed once per month, 5.6-5.7 pH, 70-100W of LED 18h
Bloom: Sensi Bloom + B52 + BigBud in recommended dosage, 2 flood cycles per day, changed once per month, 5.9-6.0 pH, 215W of LED 12h + far red 10mins
DSC05671.JPG
 
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