Low ceiling , small cabinet light ?

Batshit

Member
I'm thinking of building out and old dresser for stealth build, one or two plants, hempy style. The cabinet is 30" w x 15" deep by 42" high, with really about 39" from floor to ceiling. What light would you recommend for this size. Probably do autos or quick veg and scrog. I've got a couple hundred to spend on light so looking for good light that can be close to canopy with no burn and decent yields,. Was looking at spider 1000, mars hydro 600, or ts 1000 or the 100 or 135 QB light from HLG. Thanks,
 

coreywebster

Well-Known Member
Really you only need 90-120w of Quality LED in that space.

Problem will be getting them close without light stress. So you would be best running something soft.

You could build a simple LED strip build fairly easy or you could go with a couple of QB v1 boards, normally one single QB135w kit is enough for that space but the height restricts you. Which is why more boards ran softer will be beneficial.


More you run the closer you can get.
Running them soft means you can just mount them to a piece of aluminium as heat sink.
Since your likely going to have a fan and filter above your light it loses you more space.

I think I would go for 4 boards spaced evenly, possibly each on its own aluminium and a frame allowing more air movement.

Since they would be running soft a 48v driver like meanwell hlg120h-48 will run them all if wired parallel.

Just for your info, when running a kit as they come, same with the sf or mars, you want around 18" between plant and light. You cant afford to lose that kind of space, hence the running soft idea.
 

Batshit

Member
Right on, I'll check that out. Thanks for the response and all the info gonna look at those strips and see if its something I could figure out.
 

Batshit

Member
Really you only need 90-120w of Quality LED in that space.

Problem will be getting them close without light stress. So you would be best running something soft.

You could build a simple LED strip build fairly easy or you could go with a couple of QB v1 boards, normally one single QB135w kit is enough for that space but the height restricts you. Which is why more boards ran softer will be beneficial.


More you run the closer you can get.
Running them soft means you can just mount them to a piece of aluminium as heat sink.
Since your likely going to have a fan and filter above your light it loses you more space.

I think I would go for 4 boards spaced evenly, possibly each on its own aluminium and a frame allowing more air movement.

Since they would be running soft a 48v driver like meanwell hlg120h-48 will run them all if wired parallel.

Just for your info, when running a kit as they come, same with the sf or mars, you want around 18" between plant and light. You cant afford to lose that kind of space, hence the running soft idea.
So I would use 4 of the boards you linked above, one driver and mount them on heat sink directly to underside of cabinet top of hang them a bit?
When you say " running them soft" do you mean dimming them down or is that accomplished with driver size or that's how the boards come ? Sorry for the many questions, been trying to find a link on how to build one of these but no luck yet.
I'm going to vent through the top but have fan and filter in attic above cabinet.
 

coreywebster

Well-Known Member
So I would use 4 of the boards you linked above, one driver and mount them on heat sink directly to underside of cabinet top of hang them a bit?
When you say " running them soft" do you mean dimming them down or is that accomplished with driver size or that's how the boards come ? Sorry for the many questions, been trying to find a link on how to build one of these but no luck yet.
I'm going to vent through the top but have fan and filter in attic above cabinet.
So you would hang them a few inch at least from the top of the cab.
Aluminium plate will work as heatsink when running them low wattage (soft)

By soft I mean more boards to do the same thing, less current through each as apposed to say a 135w kit which is run rather hard but singularly too intense for close quarters growing.

Should be a vid on how to assemble a kit on the HLG site, or if you look at LEDgardener he should have some diagrams or vids, even if its not the exact thing it will give you a better understanding.

Basically its very simple, you have a driver to power the four boards, like the one I suggested, you wire the positive wire to a positive connection on each (using a wago connector) the negative to a negative connection on each board.

The only other thing is mounting the boards to something to make it easy to hang and act as some sort of heatsink. 2-3mm Aluminium plate is cheap, you cant do that when running boards harder which is why they sell fin heatsinks with the kits.
It would be a case of drilling and bolting or screwing each board to the aluminium or using a thermal adhesive like they use on PC processors.

The driver will be A type or B type, the B type you would solder a potentiometer for dimming (in veg) The A type has a built in screw in the driver for dimming.

This is an example of parallel wiring from ledgardener , though obviously these are strips and not boards , its the same thing.

 

Batshit

Member
Right on, all makes sense, electrical is not my forte by any means but this looks like something I can figure out. The "running soft " was where i was lost. Gonna check out a few videos and start trying to design one of these. Thanks again for all the help, i appreciate it.
 

Dro3420

Active Member
I'm thinking of building out and old dresser for stealth build, one or two plants, hempy style. The cabinet is 30" w x 15" deep by 42" high, with really about 39" from floor to ceiling. What light would you recommend for this size. Probably do autos or quick veg and scrog. I've got a couple hundred to spend on light so looking for good light that can be close to canopy with no burn and decent yields,. Was looking at spider 1000, mars hydro 600, or ts 1000 or the 100 or 135 QB light from HLG. Thanks,
Sf1000 in my opinion
 
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