Another LED Question.

Hi guys and gals,

This is my very first post here on RIU, so I will introduce myself a little and ask a couple questions at the same time if that's cool.

From Australia, and the laws are starting to crack down. I have grown in the past umpteen amount of years ago, and came undone ( due to my own stupidity, a huge lesson really sunk in, not to trust anyone, but that's another story ) The judge made a bit of an example out of me, for something I seen as very minor. So I haven't done anything since then.

So my basic knowledge in growing and how it works is there.... BUT,

how times have changed, I used to cram as many 600's in the area I had and go from there, follow a feeding routine and that was basically the best of it. now that Led's have come in to play, and scouring the threads on how others do their stuff, seems like I was doing it all wrong anyhow and whatever I thought I knew is out the window and I'll be trying a heap of different things which is pretty exciting to say the least.

I didn't even know about cobs and what not until about 2 weeks ago, and the DIY side of things is right up my alley.

With saying that though, building and making it work is my specialty, pairing things up to get to that stage.. Well, seems like I have more chance learning a foreign language before I can make sense of it.

I have watched GrowMau5's channels among others, and it still makes no sense, I get lost in all the jargon on the technical side of things ( volts, amps, wattages, par reading, all that stuff )

I searched some of the threads, and cob's seem to be like computers, by the time you get home, connect it all up, it's old news and something new is out. plus everyone's setup is different be it shape,size or wanting different outcomes.

The thing I did like about GrowMau5 is he laid out the parts list out on the table as to what you need. That was awesome so I got a quote on the cree's and bits and bods.

But then I seen the citizen chips, which has sparked my interest even more, being budget conscious, I would prefer to go that route.

So here is my question.

I'll try and do it in foot measurements.

2 spaces @ 3x7 foot
will only be putting 2 maybe 3 in each space.
50 gallon pots.
I want to go as natural in terms of nutrients as possible. this won't be a cash crop, this will be to supplement the tablets I am on and giving some gnarly side effects that's making me feel worse for wear.

What kind of citizen lighting would be ideal for that sort of space.

Amount of cobs, drivers and what not. Any help will be bloody good as I'm running blind at the moment and haven't got the faintest idea, and the last thing I want to do is hook up a heap of gear and blow the lot.

Sorry about the wall of text, And cheers for any advice

https://cobkits.com... checkout the cxm22

OzyGrow said:

I have watched GrowMau5's channels among others, and it still makes no sense, I get lost in all the jargon on the technical side of things ( volts, amps, wattages, par reading, all that stuff )

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watch em again! you can never know enough about the fundamentals. anything your fuzzy on just google "multimeter basics" or " basic par measurement" etc on google/youtube. lots on non-weed resources out there

OzyGrow said:

I searched some of the threads, and cob's seem to be like computers, by the time you get home, connect it all up, it's old news and something new is out. plus everyone's setup is different be it shape,size or wanting different outcomes.

Click to expand...

sort of... but imagine buying a robust case, power supply, and motherboard and upgrading your CPU and hard drives every few years not because your old ones are bad, but newer ones are better/cheaper. so theres a lot to be said for infrastructure.

aluminum heatsinks and frames will outlive you
meanwell drivers might outlive you, and are in the mid 90s in efficiency so long useful life and not much room for improvement
chips seem to increase in efficiency 5-10% a year and the cost seems to fall 20-25% per year or more

somebody above rec'd the luminus cxm22 and thats my favorite as well... because 28mm chips are a super common size and many manufacturers make ones that use the same holders (citizen, luminus, bridgelux, seoul, getian, etc etc)

whos gonna make the next greatest 28mm chip? who knows but it will be an easy upgrade. right now the best chip in that form factor is the $17 luminus and you could reasonably expect that a few years from now you'll be replacing that chip for $5-$10 to get a healthy 20% bump in efficiency. or if you want to shift gears and try some different color chips its not a huge investment

thats my vision at least

CobKits said:

watch em again! you can never know enough about the fundamentals. anything your fuzzy on just google "multimeter basics" or " basic par measurement" etc on google/youtube. lots on non-weed resources out there


sort of... but imagine buying a robust case, power supply, and motherboard and upgrading your CPU and hard drives every few years not because your old ones are bad, but newer ones are better/cheaper. so theres a lot to be said for infrastructure.

aluminum heatsinks and frames will outlive you
meanwell drivers might outlive you, and are in the mid 90s in efficiency so long useful life and not much room for improvement
chips seem to increase in efficiency 5-10% a year and the cost seems to fall 20-25% per year or more

somebody above rec'd the luminus cxm22 and thats my favorite as well... because 28mm chips are super common size and many manufacturers make ones that use the same holders (citizen, luminus, bridgelux, seoul, getian, etc etc)

whos gonna make the next greatest 28mm chip? who knows but it will be an easy upgrade. right now the best chip in that form factor is the $17 luminus and you could reasonably expect that a few years from now you'll be replacing that chip for $5-$10 to get a healthy 20% bump in efficiency. or if you want to shift gears and try some different color chips its not a huge investment

thats my vision at least

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@CobKits

What would be your recommendation for a 7 x 3 for amount of cobs and amount of drivers to run at a reasonable rate without putting to much load on everything.

In simple terms for a average like myself. The computer analogy made sense. I am currently rewatching growmau5 channel as I type, and picked up a few things, but still somewhat being lost. And is it just the one colour that is best to run. I noticed on your site there are a straight blue, and or seen the far reds. Is it better to throw one or two of them in the initial build and use them solely for the purpose. So ( and correct me if I am wrong ) throw the blue on it's on driver and timer and use that only for veg, the red the same or not even bother with them at all ?

Although, not being rich I understand that it may better to just feel the pinch now. Also,

few people use those. if jsut starting out get yourself a 3000k and 3500k and you can use it for veg as well

you can do a 7x3 with as little as 8 cobs or as many as 21. most people use about 35W/SF and run cobs at 35-75W ea

Excellent, thanks for that. I priced up 16 units, but that was with the crees. with the savings on those chips may just work out pretty good. Even if I place bit by bit as in get the heat sinks, holders all the bits and pieces and then jump on the chips last. That will give a bit of time to get the frame knocked together how I want it.

COBs are like cars. Yes, you can spend months researching all the little details that make each one unique and all the various performance differences that go along with that. At the end of the day though, you pick the one that best suits your specific requirements. Cost, performance, value, features, etc. I picked small Citizen chips because I have a small space, and I don't like doing what all the cool kids are doing. If I had 10' ceilings and a whole room to grow in, I would run a different setup. Do some research, determine what you want based on your environment, and pick your chips from there. Use findchips or octopart to find the best price for most electrical parts, if you don't have a specific supplier that you like. Growmau5 is a great resource, but go the extra mile and pause the video to look up things that you aren't familiar with. You can learn almost anything with the internet at your fingertips.

Thanks heaps for that

xX_BHMC_Xx said:

Use findchips or octopart to find the best price for most electrical parts, if you don't have a specific supplier that you like

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Thanks for that, that actually helps a lot. I have had a look around, kingbrite was my first stop. but that opens up a lot of options.

xX_BHMC_Xx said:

Growmau5 is a great resource, but go the extra mile and pause the video to look up things that you aren't familiar with. You can learn almost anything with the internet at your fingertips.

Click to expand...

I have found myself doing is exactly that, I opened up a note on the laptop and when their was something I needed for later I did pause and started taking notes, ha ha.. It will be like anything I guess, once you understand the general gist of it, be piece of cake to part everything together, just like piecing a desktop together, bunch of mumbo jumbo numbers, and only a couple that really count to make it work.

I appreciate all the help guys, little bit of a mind bend, but sure it won't be that bad once I pull the trigger on it.

Ok people,

The last week, I have been trying to nut this out. Is it at all possible to get some confirmation that I am on the right track.

3x3 foot squared area ideally is 9 cobs. I have a " thing " with odd numbers, so I am thinking 8 cobs running on 2x drivers. two rows of 3 either side and 2 evenly spaced in the guts.

Driver: divide total amount of output volts to the volt of the chip to determine the amount of chips that can be run, then divide the cob amount to the driver wattage to get the highest wattage per cob, keep wattages under that and it shouldn't blow anything up?

So example only... 4 cobs on a MW HLG - 320H-C1050 driver I can run 6x 50v cobs @54w max.

Which brings me to another question, some lights prefer to be run higher and some lower ( that's where the whole efficiency stuff mind f***s me )

Efficiency: to get the most light out of a cob without killing the electric bill and and raising temps to much while extending the life of the cob itself. Lumens par and all that, is a sea of unknown, and I'm trying to cram enough in the noggin as it is. But is that the general idea?

How do I figure out how if it has to be run in series or parallel is a question that has me scratching my head?

Also the mA and amps have me screwed. some drivers are a solid amp number, some are milliamp numbers, whats the difference?

I'll be sourcing my stuff all over the place, here there and everywhere because we have a right crap dollar exchange so some of the bigger items are cheaper to source locally by the time exchange rate and shipping is added.

OzyGrow said:

Which brings me to another question, some lights prefer to be run higher and some lower ( that's where the whole efficiency stuff mind f***s me )

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no they dont

any given cob is always more efficient at lower currents and less efficient at higher currents

OzyGrow said:

Also the mA and amps have me screwed. some drivers are a solid amp number, some are milliamp numbers, whats the difference?

Click to expand...

1000 mA = 1A

OzyGrow said:

Ok people,

The last week, I have been trying to nut this out. Is it at all possible to get some confirmation that I am on the right track.

3x3 foot squared area ideally is 9 cobs. I have a " thing " with odd numbers, so I am thinking 8 cobs running on 2x drivers. two rows of 3 either side and 2 evenly spaced in the guts.

Driver: divide total amount of output volts to the volt of the chip to determine the amount of chips that can be run, then divide the cob amount to the driver wattage to get the highest wattage per cob, keep wattages under that and it shouldn't blow anything up?

So example only... 4 cobs on a MW HLG - 320H-C1050 driver I can run 6x 50v cobs @54w max.

Which brings me to another question, some lights prefer to be run higher and some lower ( that's where the whole efficiency stuff mind f***s me )

Efficiency: to get the most light out of a cob without killing the electric bill and and raising temps to much while extending the life of the cob itself. Lumens par and all that, is a sea of unknown, and I'm trying to cram enough in the noggin as it is. But is that the general idea?

How do I figure out how if it has to be run in series or parallel is a question that has me scratching my head?

Also the mA and amps have me screwed. some drivers are a solid amp number, some are milliamp numbers, whats the difference?

I'll be sourcing my stuff all over the place, here there and everywhere because we have a right crap dollar exchange so some of the bigger items are cheaper to source locally by the time exchange rate and shipping is added.

Click to expand...

Your layout sounds fine. Determine how hard you want to run your chips, then pick the driver that fits best. Run your chips in series on a constant current driver, or parallel on a constant voltage driver. If you're running series, just make sure your total voltage drop for all cobs is less than the driver's recommended max. If parallel, make sure the total amperage of all cobs is less than the driver's max. Voltage is additive in series, amperage is additive in parallel. Running cobs softer will almost always yield higher efficiency, so if that is your goal, run soft. If total output is your goal, run hard. An amp is 1000 milliamps.

CobKits, this is what has me confused? Does that mean you get a better preforming chip with higher light output when run at those wattages, and how does the amperage play into it.

CLU-1818 is a nominal 50V COB which can operate up to 4.14A max (approximately 250W). Best efficiency is seen below 150W with this chip. This chip offers similar efficiency to a CXB3590 of the same color temperature n the 60-90W range. The 1818 is typically more efficient above 90W, with the CXB3590 being more efficient below 60W

CLU-1212 is a nominal 36V COB which can operate up to 2.76A max (approximately 100W). Best efficiency is seen below 50W with this chip.

I watched growmau5's video ( the simple one ) where he explained with the glass of water and the amount and colour of colouring in there. I guess it has me how the amperage / wattage / volts all work together.