Big COB Setup: the annoying question.

[Cannabislight]

Think that in my country Spain (Europe) there is an oficial distributor of HLG quantum boards…
I would bought them my leds..but I did the alibaba route some months before they appear..anyway I am happy with my "samsungs"

Hi Nachoo, thanks for your input.

What I'm thinking about is the absence of lensens on top of these quantum boards. Does the light penetrate the lower levels of the plants? We're going to (aka we're forced to) use strains that grow even 3-4-5 meters tall, might this be an issue?

That's the only thing I still have doubts on. I've used several setups during the last years, for small tests in small environment (let's say 2x2'), always with custom made blurple setups. I remember once I switched from 1-3W power leds (hand made) to SMD5050 led strips, and while the strips should have met the same specs in terms of power, they were really weak in term of distance coverage, so the lower parts of the plants had not enough light.

I know that technology advances and that 10years old blurple SMD5050 isnt really something I'd put in comparison to the LM561x series, but I would like to hear a hands-on opinion on this specific aspect.

Thanks!

 

[Rocket Soul]

If youre growing 5 meter plants indoor id reallreally like to see that, all bets are off!

It might be easier for people to help you if you detail the grow style a bit more. Greenhouse or standard indoor growing? How high are your ceiling? How long vegg? Plants per m2? Im not sure about legalities in Italy, but for legal grows many times you need water-proof certification inorder to get insurance.

As for boards/penetration: some of the hlg qbs can fit lenses. Its also possible to diy reflectors. If you want intensity far down under your light your best bet is 2-4 boards together, run fairly hard with some kind of reflector/optics and hanging the lights high. Repeat over the whole cannopy.
But no matter what, if your cannopy is thick and deep its going to be hard for light to find its way down. Maybe some side lighting or semi vertical setup? Or defoliation?

Hi Nachoo, thanks for your input.

What I'm thinking about is the absence of lensens on top of these quantum boards. Does the light penetrate the lower levels of the plants? We're going to (aka we're forced to) use strains that grow even 3-4-5 meters tall, might this be an issue?

That's the only thing I still have doubts on. I've used several setups during the last years, for small tests in small environment (let's say 2x2'), always with custom made blurple setups. I remember once I switched from 1-3W power leds (hand made) to SMD5050 led strips, and while the strips should have met the same specs in terms of power, they were really weak in term of distance coverage, so the lower parts of the plants had not enough light.

I know that technology advances and that 10years old blurple SMD5050 isnt really something I'd put in comparison to the LM561x series, but I would like to hear a hands-on opinion on this specific aspect.

Thanks!

 

[Cannabislight]

If youre growing 5 meter plants indoor id reallreally like to see that, all bets are off!

It might be easier for people to help you if you detail the grow style a bit more. Greenhouse or standard indoor growing? How high are your ceiling? How long vegg? Plants per m2? Im not sure about legalities in Italy, but for legal grows many times you need water-proof certification inorder to get insurance.

As for boards/penetration: some of the hlg qbs can fit lenses. Its also possible to diy reflectors. If you want intensity far down under your light your best bet is 2-4 boards together, run fairly hard with some kind of reflector/optics and hanging the lights high. Repeat over the whole cannopy.
But no matter what, if your cannopy is thick and deep its going to be hard for light to find its way down. Maybe some side lighting or semi vertical setup? Or defoliation?

Hi RocketSoul, obviously those heights are possible in an outdoor environment.

Indoor plants will be smaller, according to veg period (but we might decide to jump it, or keep it very short, such as 1-2 weeks) and strains (Finola is very short, and autoflowering, other photodependant strains are shorter than those we've done outdoor last year as a test crop).

We will start indoor, but we have greehouses too (it's not used for cannabis now).

I would like just to know if quantum boards need to be kept closer to the plants, or have specific issues compared to cobs, when the light has to go down, or if they're comparable.

 

[Rocket Soul]

Hi RocketSoul, obviously those heights are possible in an outdoor environment.

Indoor plants will be smaller, according to veg period (but we might decide to jump it, or keep it very short, such as 1/2 weeks) and strains (Finola is very short, and autoflowering, other photodependant strains are shorter than those we've done outdoor last year as a test crop).

We will start indoor, but we have greehouses too (it's not used for cannabis now).

I would like just to know if quantum boards need to be kept closer to the plants, or have specific issues compared to cobs, when the light has to go down.

I think the general advice on Qbs at 80+ watts per board is to hang them 45ish cms above and work yourself down as the plants allow for it, they need to harden up to the light levels before they can take any closer. For a Hlg550 (4 boards together) i believe they quote 55cm as hanging height, preferably higher to start.

 

[zangtumtum]

Hi guys,

First of all thanks to all the members for the wonderful forum, I've spent almost one day reading A TON of usefull stuff.

Second, presentations. I really love your setups, I'm from Italy and we're having here a developing production of so-called Cannabis Light which is, in fact, weed with close to no thc. Good start for now, even if not great, hope things will change here too, but you know, it takes time.

Together with some friend of mine we're going to enter the business, and we're planning to setup an indoor rig of around 6.4Kw total power, for now, assembling together different 2*2 COBs array in frames.

What we're not sure about is... which COB?

Please consider that we've made a lot of research already, and for what it seems, here in EU many people are still on CXB3590 at 1.4A.

However, the price difference is huge compared to the Citi's CLU048 - 1212.

Considering frame, reflector, wagos, wires, holders, heatsinks, driver etcetera, each 200W Kit would cost to us:

• around $ 260 using CXB's
• around $ 180 using 1212's
• around $ 200 using 1216's

The driver would always be the Meanwell HLG-185H-C1400B.

Considering a total of 32 kits / 128 COBs, it makes a HUGE price difference.

So, here are my findings:

• Efficacy, even if different, is comparable in the range of 10-20% (depending of Forward current, in favor of CXB's)
  
• Official Citizen docs slightly underestimate actual efficacy (in terms of lm/W)
  
• I've found online some homemade tests stating that the actual PPFD at the same Fc is around 5-10% lower on the Citizens
• I've noticed many people just suggest Citizen because of its best price/performance ratio

Still, I cannot decide yet what to do. Can you help us?

Thanks from Italy!!

if I can afford a suggestion, it could be interesting
if you are in Italy:

http://www.spectradesignlab.com/

you can use their solutions or ask or be offered a custom solution
based on your production needs tending to your budget
I hope it was useful

 

[nachooo]

Hey Nachooo, always like to see you around
So you went for some china sammie boards?
Have a few of those myself.
Whats your current setup?
Still rocking those sativas? Any experiences with Amnesia Haze?

Thanks Rocket , well my actual setup is a mix of a lot of different cobs and middle power samsungs plus Far red and some UVA/B. As I am always in a low budget, I bought some months ago lot of different spectrums constant current flexible roll strips...which were even cheaper than rigid ones or boards. I did some macro pics and compare them with the original Samsungs and It seems that they are ok..Anyway...they are working fine..I will post a pic later here...What I do now, is almost cover the whole canopy with little sources of lights very close to the plants...nice photon inmersión...and this way I reduce the hot spots to a mínimum.
Yes , still working with sativas, but doing also some breeding with my old genetics and some from USA, just for fun. I have never plant Amnesia Haze by the way, too much time in flowering for my situation… Nowadays all my plants flower in 7 weeks , sativas included...I use Far red and 10/14 with early sativas.

 

[nachooo]

if I can afford a suggestion, it could be interesting
if you are in Italy:

http://www.spectradesignlab.com/

you can use their solutions or ask or be offered a custom solution
based on your production needs tending to your budget
I hope it was useful

Beautiful italian design.

 

[InTheValley]

Luminus22,

*MicDrop

 

[Cannabislight]

Hi there! Few months later (wooops, actually about a year later!) here I am with some updates.

I wanted to thank all the users here for their suggestion. We started looking to quantum boards and... ended up designing one which gave us pretty nice results!

We showed the to some friends of ours, they looked at them, said our lamps are amazing, so we begun to take preorders... and built our own growin' brand

Here you are Her Imperial Majesty... the Quantum One!

(To me, this is actually beautiful italian design, clean and functional, without any useless over engineered stuff or bloat in it)

If you wanna take a look at it, or get more info, we're online: https://growersolutions.it/en/

 

[Porky101]

CXB3590s FTW!!! my plants love them!!!

 

[GreeneryBob]

Hi there! Few months later (wooops, actually about a year later!) here I am with some updates.

I wanted to thank all the users here for their suggestion. We started looking to quantum boards and... ended up designing one which gave us pretty nice results!

We showed the to some friends of ours, they looked at them, said our lamps are amazing, so we begun to take preorders... and built our own growin' brand

Here you are Her Imperial Majesty... the Quantum One!

(To me, this is actually beautiful italian design, clean and functional, without any useless over engineered stuff or bloat in it)

If you wanna take a look at it, or get more info, we're online: https://growersolutions.it/en/

I think you might want to rename that as 'quantum board' is a trademarked term, also consider remote mounting your driver to avoid excessive heat.

 

[nevergoodenuf]

You said big COBs. CLU058 3618 @ 250 watts or the newest CLU059 1825 @ 165 watts.