Its almost lighting time for me! Im so happy someone else startd this thread. Ima check those links again. But maybe $200 for lights now. DIY huh @dbrn32
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i see. So yup. Sunlight for a bit longer
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So my local hydro shop had one of these qbs for $1086.00 assembled and ready to go. I didn’t see how many watts it was but I think I Might buy it there. When I go back next time I’ll check the watts and see if it’s a decent price for what they are selling it for. It was supplied by growers lights too.
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If it’s the HLG 600, but it off growerslight as it is cheaper. Even their HLG 550 is on sale for 949 right now.
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I agree with @Aolelon, you can still get the hlg-600 kit assembled and shipped cheaper than that.
@Rugar89 had one, but kinda fell off the map before too long after. Seemed like sink temps ran a little high when cranked to 100%. But I’m not really sure of his environment either. Dimming to about 80% seemed solid though, and should give similar light to the 550. If you plan on running the 600 at 100% I would probably consider having a clip on or two to blow over the sink.
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@dbrn32
That was something I wanted to talk with you about. The light I ordered has a dimmer. Am I safe to run it at 100%? Would a fan blowing across the heat sink be necessary?
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The Slate 2 heatsinks are good enough for just passive cooling. I ran my 260w QB kit at 100% and temps were fine, granted I’m in my basement. I would recommend you run it around 60-80% though, as this is where you will be most efficient. If you do see that temps are a bit high (they should be low to mid 80s to account for the lack of IR in the white LEDs) you can definitely have a fan blowing over them. But I never had the need.
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You got a 260 kit right? I would agree with @Aolelon that you’re plenty good to run passive. The output current in the 260 kits with external dimmer is right at 2.1 amps. On the dc side that works out to about 115 watts per board. On the hlg-600 kit it’s more like 2.8 amps per board and 150 watts. As far as what I’ve seen, it’s still within specs. But it’s definitely getting out of the efficiency range and pushing near temp limits.
You certainly could still put a fan over the top of them, but shouldn’t be necessary. I haven’t looked real close at the qb’s or Samsung leds. But it’s generally about a 10% hit in efficiency from 25c to 85c on junction temps. It’s unrealistic that you’ll get down to 25c, and I think hlg- gives performance data at 50c. So it’s probably not worth the hassle and cost of doing so on the 260 kits.
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Thanks @Aolelon and @dbrn32. My tent should have plenty of air moving through it but I wanted to be sure if I needed to have a fan directly on it. We’ll see how it goes once it’s up.
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You should be plenty good with reasonable air exchange.
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@dbrn32
Another quick question on this light. I saw a video that says the heatsink will accept a third board. Will the driver that comes with this be enough to power a third or would I need a new driver?
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The xl heatsink would indeed accept a third board. The hlg-240 that the kit comes with won’t run three though. You would either need to get the third board it’s own driver or upgrade all 3 boards to run from an hlg-320h-c1750.
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@dbrn32
Thanks man! My plan is to run 2 of the 260s in my 4x4. The spacing on the heatsink is why I chose this one but I was curious about adding another board.
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check out the green sunshine company. there doing some good things
You think? They’re measuring photons from 300nm to 800nm and only coming up with 1.8 umol/joule. At $420 for 180 watts, you’re talking about a ppf of 324 umols/s. That’s like 1% more ppf than a version 2 qb 135 kit at more than twice the price. And all of it’s light is within the par range.
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I don’t like when lights don’t list their diodes either, In this day and age what is there to hide really. It should be up to the consumer. I could understand if you had a badass light and wanted to keep it trade secret. But this doesn’t cross that line.
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Did you see the ** footnote? Lmao! If they were measuring just the white would be 2.0 umol/joule. If they were measuring just the white, there wouldn’t be any damn reason to measure from 300-800nm.
I was quite impressed they listed the photon efficacy personally. Until I seen that other bs anyway. 315 lec will crush it at lower cost. Same efficacy, same or better light spectrum, twice the light, and $250-$300.
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Agreed. And yea I did notice that. I was surprised they listed that as well. Although the new norm for LED lights is really an integrated sphere test from a reputable company. but they may have that just not posted.
But for 1.8 umol/j You could find better for the price range that its listed.
There is really nothing that jumps out at me about this light except for maybe the size of it, and how its laid out.
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I suppose, probably a little cynical on my end. I see 41120mm strips and hlg-185 on 48”x12” piece of aluminum for probably less than $200. And I bet the strips would smoke it. But, not as good as option for everyone.
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Yea true, I guess when you look at it like that, then there really is no comparison. I wouldn’t doubt strips would put it to shame.
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