a little help disecting a circa 2011 '300w' LED panel (quantum evader)

[caretak3r]

hey guys - I bought a couple of these pretty cheap 2nd hand last year before I had done much research. The seller said they were evader 300w from quantum LED. There is, however, no identifying labels anywhere on the lights. They appear, to my eye, to be only 2 spectrums (70 red LEDs, 30 blue LEDs). There's 100 LEDs per panel and they pull 135W per panel. I gave them a shot in my cabinet and I'm pretty sure that they were burning my plants pretty badly -I only have a about 3ft of vertical space, my DWC tub is taking up about 5inch vert space and the light was hanging about 8inches from the top. The way things were setup, I couldn't easily get the light any higher so, maxmimum height from light to tub was 2ft - as the plants grew they had more and more problems that appear to me to be light bleaching/burn. I yanked the panels out and ran with 3 x 9.5W cree WW bulbs for a few days until I could get my 300W DIY 5630/5050 bucket of light in there. They are doing fine under the 5630/5050s for now, but I'd like to revisit these panels and potentially do some surgery to provide a better spectrum and modify them so I can get them a little higher in the cab. Here's the innards:




I have questions out to the manufacturer to see if they can fill the gaps. I'll let you know what, if anything, I hear from them.

So, here are my questions. 1) is there an easy way to determine if these are 1W or 3W LEDs? 2)I'm interested in modifying them to add additional spectrum - anyone have experience doing surgery on these type panels and know of any gotchas? 3)what criteria should I use when selecting replacement mcpcb LEDs?

I'm going to be able to drop my DWC tub about 4" and I'm working to modify things at the top so I can get the panels as high as possible (where LEDs would be 3-5 inches from the top). I'm not sure if this will gain me enough or not, but it'll be worthwhile regardless of whether I can employ these panels to get more grow space.

 

[caretak3r]

a little more info:

If this is indeed an evader 300w bloom light, i guess it's obvious that they would be 3W leds as per how it was marketed. Also, using the wayback machine internet archive, i found the following from the manufacturers description page from 4/2011:

EVADER 300W BLOOM with 3w chip
Penta spectrum(5 band) 35% 660nm red, 35% 630nm red, 10%470nm blue, 10%440nm blue, 10% warm white

I tried capturing a decent pic which seems pretty difficult -while looking, I guess I can say I see what is likely 2 different spectrum reds, but I can't pick out any whites.

 

[Eraserhead]

If you look at the circuit board, it says it's LG, they're a factory in China. http://lgledsolutions.en.alibaba.com/

I'm pretty sure they can give you more info on it than the reseller.

If you know how to solder, you can upgrade it fairly easy.

 

[RainerRocks]

I can't tell you what wattage they are but there is 100 led's on that panel. Now If they are 3W's is another thing.

Well it should be a fun project if you enjoy tear downs and rebuilds..I know I would.

Plus if it doesn't work out you can at least use the metal case for a complete rebuild to your own specs.

Goodluck and keep us updated .

 

[caretak3r]

The guys at quantum got back to me. They couldn't 100% confirm whether it was their light or not from the pics I sent, but the info matches up favorably. He told me they used 4 spectrum (2 Red, 2 Blue) up until July 2011 and that they used bridglux and epistar leds with 90 and 120 degree beam angles. As per recommended height-to-canopy, he said 60 cm for young plants and no closer than 40 cm. That would be next to impossible for me in my cab. Maintaining a minimum of 40cm (15") would mean if I did everything I could to use all available height, my plants would have to stay under 14-15" tall. I do have an odd shaped custom cab that is 32" deep so I guess I could hang one in the back facing forward and light the plants from the side. I've read that the blue spectrum leds are the ones that cause bleaching issues for the most part - do you think it would help my height limitations if I replaced the blues with CW and NW?

 

[Eraserhead]

Too much blue will cause problems. Too much deep red will cause problems too.

The best thing you could do to that panel if you want to use it with little head space, is use all wide angle warm white or neutral white LEDs. 120° is wide enough.

By the looks of that panel, it has 24 blue LEDs, which is entirely too much for a total of 100 LEDs used. Like 3Xs too much. Per every 100 LEDs, you only need 8-10 blue LEDs, if you are going to use blue... I prefer a mix of white and red.

 

[caretak3r]

thanks for the advice Eraserhead

 

[SnotBoogie]

Ask the company for the voltage and current of the driver for the blues. You need this to be able to make a judgement.

 

[caretak3r]

Too much blue will cause problems. Too much deep red will cause problems too.

The best thing you could do to that panel if you want to use it with little head space, is use all wide angle warm white or neutral white LEDs. 120° is wide enough.

By the looks of that panel, it has 24 blue LEDs, which is entirely too much for a total of 100 LEDs used. Like 3Xs too much. Per every 100 LEDs, you only need 8-10 blue LEDs, if you are going to use blue... I prefer a mix of white and red.

revisiting this - are you recommending I replace ALL (including reds) to 120degrees or just the blues? My preliminary train of thought was to swap all the blues for WW and NW.

 

[SnotBoogie]

Just blues.

Also see my questions above...

 

[caretak3r]

There are 4 drivers. One dedicated to the fans. For the other 3, I can tell by the traces on the board that all the various spectrum LEDs are using the same driver.

 

[caretak3r]

follow up question - Where do you guys suggest I pick up the white replacment LEDs. Most of the places that are referenced here sell the premium LEDs on stars. I have an outstanding order with merryday168 (Merry Wu) - she's putting together some 1W panels for me. I could have her add some 3W whites like these to my order: http://www.ebay.com/itm/wdm-10x-leds-3W-pure-white-6000-6500K-160-180LM-700mA-clip-size-45-45mil-HP-LED-/180871583809

if not cheap asian LEDs, where do you recommend I pick up some decent quality whites in the right format for this board?

 

[caretak3r]

it occurs to me that this is exactly why SnotBoogie was asking about the drivers - to see WHAT could be swapped in place. I don't expect the seller to have the info handy - so what's the easiest way to test the drivers to check for voltage/amperage? I have a little multimeter but have never been successful at measuring DCA for some reason (user error I'm sure)

 

[SnotBoogie]

Eeee..... this is where my knowledge hits a wall. Im not sure how to ascertain max output voltage and amperage with a multimeter.

You're absolutely right that you will need these figures to work out which whites to swap in.

*blows the horn of gondor* Hopefully one of the brotherhood can lend some advice.

 

[caretak3r]

since things are on pause for the moment with replacing the LEDs, I'm cheap and decided on a ghetto fabulous approach for now. First, the 3 fans were WAY too loud, pretty easy fix by replacing with 1 X 120MM and done pretty neatly (at least for me - re-soldered connections, used heatshrink tubing, etc):



and, to fix the blue balance for now (doesn't address bleaching/beam angle yet so much):

 

[caretak3r]

finally updated this panel - replaced all but 4 blues with 5000K whites from Satisled.

 

[stardustsailor]

I can see that it has some 630 and some 660 nm leds ...
I think it is way better than before ...
Although ,I would 'd replaced most of deep reds and some of the 630's ,
with more WW 's ...

 

[stardustsailor]

it occurs to me that this is exactly why SnotBoogie was asking about the drivers - to see WHAT could be swapped in place. I don't expect the seller to have the info handy - so what's the easiest way to test the drivers to check for voltage/amperage? I have a little multimeter but have never been successful at measuring DCA for some reason (user error I'm sure)

The amperage is probably around 600-800mA ....

70 reds x 2.5 Volts (aver. ) = 175 volts
30 blue x 3.5 (aver.) = 105 volts
Total =280 Volts / 3 drivers = 93.3 volts ..
Each driver probably is delivering ~ 95-100 Volts @ ~700mA = 70 Watts

Each driver can drive so many leds in series ,with total Vf ~90-95 Volts ...
@ (hard guess ) 650-700m A ...

 

[DiyKindaGuy]

Yea i had two three watt panels... saying three hundred watts.. wishin i had a pic handy... kinda have to dig around to find it but.. they were full spectrum veg / bloom in one... they were freaking blindin to look at and were pretty warm and kinda loud fans too..

★★★kushed_out★★★

 

[DiyKindaGuy]

Have yu checked the voltage and current(mA) with yur multimeter yet?

★★★kushed_out★★★