1440 watt project - Cutter strips, Time to build!

diggs99

diggs99

Well-Known Member
@whytewidow

bro, my respect for you and your skills continues to rise. We practically built the same lights, your wire management is superb, its been a constant battle for me lol

No doubt, building a diy grow light isnt rocket science, but making it look professional, not everyone can do that shit.

Side note; second light is all wired, just need to do the driver and plug it in, see if it lights up lol
 
diggs99

diggs99

Well-Known Member
Hey led gurus,

about to turn the lights on above the plants for the first time, i dont have lux meter yet, its on the way. How should i set the light? raise it high and leave it at full power or dim it down and keep it closer to the plants to begin?
 
whytewidow

whytewidow

Well-Known Member
Lookn good man. Until you get a meter to see what your at. I'd leave em like 18-24" above the canopy run at like 80# turn the pots wide open then a slight qtr turn back. I never run the drivers wide open.
 
diggs99

diggs99

Well-Known Member
whytewidow said:
Lookn good man. Until you get a meter to see what your at. I'd leave em like 18-24" above the canopy run at like 80# turn the pots wide open then a slight qtr turn back. I never run the drivers wide open.
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Hey bud, thanks

when you say pot, are you referring to the one that sets voltage or the dimmer?

as of right now i have both turned up to max, so i guess i should change that
 
whytewidow

whytewidow

Well-Known Member
diggs99 said:
Hey bud, thanks

when you say pot, are you referring to the one that sets voltage or the dimmer?

as of right now i have both turned up to max, so i guess i should change that
Click to expand...
Yeah potentiometer current and voltage. Depending on how hard you wanna run the driver. I usually set the current wide open then back the voltage off a qtr turn. Bc the strip will only pull the amount of current as it has voltage. More voltage equals more current. Max IO allows the driver to put out its max current if needed. But lowering the voltage some gives you a soft start as well on the driver. When it turns on.
 
whytewidow

whytewidow

Well-Known Member
Man I'm so jealous of that space. I dont even have a garden going right now. In over 7 years I've never not had something growing. But right now I dont have a single plant. I've been so busy at work, family life, building lights, and me and my wife grow roses for exhibition contests. We have over 35 different types of roses growing right now. And they take constant pruning and training. Weve done it for the last 8 years. This year is our first year of introducing our own type of rose we bred ourselves. It's not like breeding herb though. It takes alot more time. After you make a cross with roses. The seeds are in hips on the plants. They have to ripen, then be picked and shucked out of the hips. Then go through stratification in the fridge for 3 months before they can even be germinated. Weve 11 different crosses so far. And only grew put 5 of them from seed. But we found an amazing one. Got lucky actually. But hopefully we place on the top 50. That's our goal. Itd be cool to win. But that is about as good of odds as winning the lottery. But a top 50 put 25,000 entries would be cool.
 
diggs99

diggs99

Well-Known Member
Ok so I turned both all the way up and then dimmed the light back 1/4 turn.

Temps haven't risen past 79 yet. May throw my hps or cmh light up in the room. Add the extra heat. May also just go with co2. Exhaust hasn't kicked on once yet. Temps just not getting high enough

I have lights about 18" above tops





Crazy about the roses, would be cool to see
 
diggs99

diggs99

Well-Known Member
ugh i just noticed something im not too happy about and anyone planning future builds should be aware of.

The 1"x2" center bar in my fixtures is too heavy and is weighing the .601" heat sinks down, causing them to have a slight bow. i may try to run a ratchet strap off the center beam, see if i can pick up some of that sagging
 
Frank Nitty

Frank Nitty

Well-Known Member
whytewidow said:
Man I'm so jealous of that space. I dont even have a garden going right now. In over 7 years I've never not had something growing. But right now I dont have a single plant. I've been so busy at work, family life, building lights, and me and my wife grow roses for exhibition contests. We have over 35 different types of roses growing right now. And they take constant pruning and training. Weve done it for the last 8 years. This year is our first year of introducing our own type of rose we bred ourselves. It's not like breeding herb though. It takes alot more time. After you make a cross with roses. The seeds are in hips on the plants. They have to ripen, then be picked and shucked out of the hips. Then go through stratification in the fridge for 3 months before they can even be germinated. Weve 11 different crosses so far. And only grew put 5 of them from seed. But we found an amazing one. Got lucky actually. But hopefully we place on the top 50. That's our goal. Itd be cool to win. But that is about as good of odds as winning the lottery. But a top 50 put 25,000 entries would be cool.
Click to expand...
That sounds like fun!!!
 
whytewidow

whytewidow

Well-Known Member
diggs99 said:
ugh i just noticed something im not too happy about and anyone planning future builds should be aware of.

The 1"x2" center bar in my fixtures is too heavy and is weighing the .601" heat sinks down, causing them to have a slight bow. i may try to run a ratchet strap off the center beam, see if i can pick up some of that sagging
Click to expand...
What do you mean to heavy and sagging. How is it weigh the sinks down. It should be ontop and hung from the center main beam. Not the outsides

Edit: tmans and greens is built to hang exactly level from two center points one on each end. And that's it. From the tnutz frame in the center. Use stainless eye bolts, one in each end.
 
diggs99

diggs99

Well-Known Member
whytewidow said:
What do you mean to heavy and sagging. How is it weigh the sinks down. It should be ontop and hung from the center main beam. Not the outsides

Edit: tmans and greens is built to hang exactly level from two center points one on each end. And that's it. From the tnutz frame in the center. Use stainless eye bolts, one in each end.
Click to expand...
Ya see this is where I fkd up.

I hung it from outside frame parts. Nothing holding up centre beam, which is making it sag.

Totally my fk up :(
 
whytewidow

whytewidow

Well-Known Member
diggs99 said:
Ya see this is where I fkd up.

I hung it from outside frame parts. Nothing holding up centre beam, which is making it sag.

Totally my fk up :(
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Get you two eye bolts. Drill a hole on each end dead center of the 1x2 tnutz frame. Screw your eye bolt in and hang.
 
diggs99

diggs99

Well-Known Member
whytewidow said:
Get you two eye bolts. Drill a hole on each end dead center of the 1x2 tnutz frame. Screw your eye bolt in and hang.
Click to expand...

I Should have just built the fkn things exactly as you did. Wouldn't be having this issue.

I may be able to add a ratchet strap to centre beam to pick up the weight. I'll try the eye bolts if that don't work.

Also don't help that I hung them by 4 corners with a strap on each corner, rather than making a triangle out of chain or something and hanging them in the centre. I'm sure that's also adding more strain on the heatsinks
 
whytewidow

whytewidow

Well-Known Member
Yeah nvr hang weight on the sinks themselves. What you have to watch is the flexing of the heatsink and heat will cause the strip to pop off the thermal tape. Or add more alum to the outside frame.
 
whytewidow

whytewidow

Well-Known Member
Did you figure out the driver being hot problem? The way I told you and amount of strips the driver shouldn't get hot. Warm to warmish but nvr hot.
 
whytewidow

whytewidow

Well-Known Member
I have a friend running one I built with 36 24v strips on one hlg480/48 driver in series parallel loops and connected to the driver in parallel and it's been like that for 17 months. Not a problem. So I know your more than ok. I dont remember how many you have per driver. But it's not 36 is it
 
diggs99

diggs99

Well-Known Member
whytewidow said:
Yeah nvr hang weight on the sinks themselves. What you have to watch is the flexing of the heatsink and heat will cause the strip to pop off the thermal tape. Or add more alum to the outside frame.
Click to expand...
Yep as I have it, the sinks themselves are what's taking the weight and that's no good.

I'm gonna try the ratchets on centre beam first, see if I can make it work. If not I'll drill holes and use eye bolts as you suggested.

Honestly I think if I hang by centre beam only , the outsides will sag from the weight of the 2 outside frame parts.

Other option is to just remove outside frame parts and just hang them as tmans is.
 
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