muleface
Well-Known Member
https://www.bridgelux.com/sites/default/files/resource_media/DS131 Bridgelux EB Series Gen2 Data Sheet 20171020 Rev A.pdf
anyone know when these hit the market?
anyone know when these hit the market?
Bridgelux EB Strips GEN 2
- Thread starter muleface
- Start date
I guess most people know this but I am still posting it for those that don't know (I found out yesyerday)
I ordeedr some 560mm gen 1 strips and a hlg-185h-24a to run these in parallel. For gen 1, you can use either 24v driver (to run strips at 700ma or more) or 20v driver (to run the strips at 650ma or less).
***Typical voltage for gen 2 is lower (19.5v at 700ma) ,so you should use 20v drivers only.***
Hope this info helps someone
I ordeedr some 560mm gen 1 strips and a hlg-185h-24a to run these in parallel. For gen 1, you can use either 24v driver (to run strips at 700ma or more) or 20v driver (to run the strips at 650ma or less).
***Typical voltage for gen 2 is lower (19.5v at 700ma) ,so you should use 20v drivers only.***
Hope this info helps someone
canadian1969
Well-Known Member
or put 7 Gen 2 560mm strips on one HLG-185H-C1400B (dimmable with potentiometer) in series and drive it at any current from 0 to 1400mA.
I really dont get everyone using parallel circuits with these CV+CC A version drivers, not saving you any money from what I can tell. Maybe electrically safer I guess, wiring parallel. I find trying to dim things with a screwdriver a little annoying personally.
It seems from the spec sheet for the hlg-185h-24a that you would dim from 22-27volts on the Voltage adjustment and from 3.9-7.8A on the current side. however and maybe someone can explain this to me, the spec sheet also says a Constant Current region of 12-24volts, so okay that seems weird, taking minimums and maximums
22*3.9=85.8 watts
27*7.8=210.6 watts (out of specification, but MW drivers do usually have some extra head room)
I dont understand their constant current region spec of 12 volts to 24 volts, particularly how you would get down to 12 volts to begin with? Mostly irrelevant I suppose as you need 18.5 ish volts to drive these strips, but this little thing has been bugging me, maybe someone can explain that CC region spec as it doesn't seem to jive with the dimming specs.
Anyway seems to me that the hlg-185h-24a or 20a (maybe the better choice as the above poster mentions) would only be dimmable to about 40-50%, no?
I really dont get everyone using parallel circuits with these CV+CC A version drivers, not saving you any money from what I can tell. Maybe electrically safer I guess, wiring parallel. I find trying to dim things with a screwdriver a little annoying personally.
It seems from the spec sheet for the hlg-185h-24a that you would dim from 22-27volts on the Voltage adjustment and from 3.9-7.8A on the current side. however and maybe someone can explain this to me, the spec sheet also says a Constant Current region of 12-24volts, so okay that seems weird, taking minimums and maximums
22*3.9=85.8 watts
27*7.8=210.6 watts (out of specification, but MW drivers do usually have some extra head room)
I dont understand their constant current region spec of 12 volts to 24 volts, particularly how you would get down to 12 volts to begin with? Mostly irrelevant I suppose as you need 18.5 ish volts to drive these strips, but this little thing has been bugging me, maybe someone can explain that CC region spec as it doesn't seem to jive with the dimming specs.
Anyway seems to me that the hlg-185h-24a or 20a (maybe the better choice as the above poster mentions) would only be dimmable to about 40-50%, no?
Serva
Well-Known Member
Personally I think is pretty easy, and absolutely not annoying, dimming with a screw driver, but I always have one around, because I like to craft anyways. So it‘s done in less than 5s! And..., how often do you dim your lights?
50% also seems to be good for me, never needed less. 30w/sqft in flower 15w/sqft for veg, seems pretty good. I don‘t want grow lettuce, so I don‘t need less.
Though I like the idea of sunrise for example, or flawless spec changes, and that wouldn’t be possible with the „A“ version.
Randomblame just tried to explain me the modeling of the cv driver. You have the possibilty to adjust both, current and voltage. Adjust voltage, so you don‘t kill your leds, and max open current, for maximum power. If you want to dim now, just dim the current. I will try to find his post in the eb thread, because I am a noob!
50% also seems to be good for me, never needed less. 30w/sqft in flower 15w/sqft for veg, seems pretty good. I don‘t want grow lettuce, so I don‘t need less.
Though I like the idea of sunrise for example, or flawless spec changes, and that wouldn’t be possible with the „A“ version.
Randomblame just tried to explain me the modeling of the cv driver. You have the possibilty to adjust both, current and voltage. Adjust voltage, so you don‘t kill your leds, and max open current, for maximum power. If you want to dim now, just dim the current. I will try to find his post in the eb thread, because I am a noob!
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Serva
Well-Known Member
There are a few discussion about the driver setting around this post...
https://www.rollitup.org/t/bridgelux-eb-series-build.928676/page-82#post-13939808
snooplover5
Active Member
I have a couple on pre-order at Digikey. The expected shipping date is at 2nd of January for the 5000k and 24th of this December for the 3500k.
Observe & Report
Well-Known Member
High voltage is no joke.
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
Hi Serva, I have a HLG (A-)model driver livehack for you, LOL!
Get a dimmer knob for 6mm axis, a bamboo chopstick or crochet hook(6mm Ø) and superglue.
Now grind the stick at the small side so that it looks and work like a flat-head screwdriver, then cut it off at ~2" length, round off a bit at the other end and then glue it into the dimmer knob.
Now you can plug that thingy into your driver and have a dimmer knob directly on the driver.
You can even make two of them and you can control Vf and amps at the same time.
You could also use a drop superglue for a durable connection if you plan to hang the driver vertically.
BTW, you can dimm the amps to 50% but if you limit the voltage to the minimum you can dimm even further. It depends on the minimum voltage of the strips. Limit a 20v driver to 18,5v and a 2ft. EB strip(gen2) gets probably less than 150mA or 2,8w. That's ~20%! Lower it further and they will go out completely!
Get a dimmer knob for 6mm axis, a bamboo chopstick or crochet hook(6mm Ø) and superglue.
Now grind the stick at the small side so that it looks and work like a flat-head screwdriver, then cut it off at ~2" length, round off a bit at the other end and then glue it into the dimmer knob.
Now you can plug that thingy into your driver and have a dimmer knob directly on the driver.
You can even make two of them and you can control Vf and amps at the same time.
You could also use a drop superglue for a durable connection if you plan to hang the driver vertically.
BTW, you can dimm the amps to 50% but if you limit the voltage to the minimum you can dimm even further. It depends on the minimum voltage of the strips. Limit a 20v driver to 18,5v and a 2ft. EB strip(gen2) gets probably less than 150mA or 2,8w. That's ~20%! Lower it further and they will go out completely!
The reason why people wire lights in parallel is because lower voltage is safer, and I think it is also easier to troubleshoot. I am not 100% sure how CV+CC drivers work since I am waiting for my order to arrive to build my very first light, but I have read a lot about it, so I'll try to explain how I think they work.
CV+CC drivers will work as constant voltage as long as they have enough current, when the lights request more current that the driver is rated for, it will hold its max current and vary the voltage. Lets take the HLG-185H-24A and the GEN 1 - 560mm strips for the example.
That strip has a voltage 22.1v at 700am, so if you connect 6 of this to the HLG-185-24A, you have to adjust the voltage to 22.1v (you can adjust voltage from 22v to 27v ). Even though the driver can provide 7.8amps and the strips can use up to 1.4amps, they will only use 700am since the 22.1v is limiting the amount of current the LEDs will pull. You can dial the voltage down to 22v and the LEDs will pull 650ma , or you can adjust it higher, up to 23.3v and the LEDs will pull whatever current is linked to the set voltage.
So, if we have 6 LEDs and the voltage is set to 22.1v, then we are using 4.2amps (700ma per strip). We can keep adding strips up to 11.
11 strips at 22.1v will pull 7.7amps. If we decide to add another strip at 22.1v, then we need a total current of 8.4amps but our driver can only provide 7.8amps. At this point we have to lower the voltage to 22v, which is the minimum we can set this drive to manually. LEDs at 22v will pull 650ma. and 650ma x 12 LEDs is 7.8amps (MAX).
If you decide to add another strip of LED at 22v, the driver would need to provide 8.45amps but it only provides 7.8amps. At this point, the driver will stop working in constant voltage mode and will start working in constant current mode. What it will do is to hold its max current of 7.8amps and lower the voltage. 7.8amps divided by 13 LEDs is 600ma per LED and if you go the data sheet, you'll see that 600ma is linked to 21.9v but we can not set the voltage to 21.9v. The driver does this by it self. When the driver switches to constant current mode, you can turn the voltage screw and nothing will happen, the driver doesn't let you to adjust the voltage anymore. You can add more strips if you want and the driver will divide its 7.8amps equally and adjust the voltage based on the amount of current each strip is receiving. this will happen as long as the voltage is between 12v and 24v (constant current region).
You don't need to add 13 strips to force the driver into constant current mode, you can limit the current using the current potentiometer (type A only). You can set the current for this driver down to 3.9amps. So if you set the voltage manually to its minimum 22v and the current to its minimum 3.9amps, you can only have up to 6 LEDs in CV mode. LEDs at 22.v will pull 650ma. if you add a 7th LED, driver will have to provide 4.55amps, but since it is set to 3.9amps, it will switch to CC mode, distribute the current among the strips and adjust the voltage accordingly.
***I don't think this driver can provide 7.8 amps at 27v, becasue that is way more than its rated wattage. I think the higher voltage at which the driver can provide 7.8amps is 24v. At 27v, it should privide around 6.93amps (27v x 6.93amps = 187.2 watts) ***
One disadvantage for these 24v drivers is that you can not use them to its full potential, since you need to use 24v to be able to hit the 187.2watts the driver can provide, and the LEDs will normally work with 22v or less. I would definitely recommend 20v drivers, specially for the GEN-2 strips since typical voltage is 19.5v. Note that if you connect GEN-2 strips to this 24v driver, you have to make sure that you force the driver to work in CC mode and that you have enough strips so the voltage is in the range these GEN-2 strips can take. GEN-2 strips do 1.4amps at 20.5v, so 22v will probably brake it.
canadian1969
Well-Known Member
through the whole grow, starting around 40 watts with clones/seeds and upping it as required, currently in veg running at 100 watts and will raise it to 200+ during flower (4.5sq'). I have the drivers wall mounted outside the grow with pots, and run dual colour temps so can play with the spectrum as well. Dimming imho is essential. If you have a dedicated flowering room, makes less sense I suppose.
I did the math and I can only dim mi lights to about 80watts and my space is 3.5 square feet. Think 80w will be too much?
Serva
Well-Known Member
Only experience will show you. My veg cab had 50w (4,6 sqft), and it was fine for me. Flower cab had 250w (5 sqft), but I never used full power, because everything about 35w/sqft made problems. Now I will run 350w / 10sqft, perpetual 12/12fs, and I am planning not to dim the power or adjust the height.
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Damn, now I am scared. I guess I can always disconnect strip if I need to dim more. Thanks.
Serva
Well-Known Member
Depends on your driver and your wiring! In the end, you could also raise the lights, in a growing tent, it will be like 10-20% less light, due to wall loss.
What I realized, that the plants becoming bright at the top 1/3 when there was too much light. Looked like cal def, though I was giving cal/mag with every feeding. But it was also strain dependent, some had way more problems than other with light intensity.
What I realized, that the plants becoming bright at the top 1/3 when there was too much light. Looked like cal def, though I was giving cal/mag with every feeding. But it was also strain dependent, some had way more problems than other with light intensity.
Serva
Well-Known Member
Don‘t be scared. My last run I started was in a 1,8sqft cab, with 50w (I was also not able to dim them lower), but I used 3 days (after rooting) old cuttings (3-4“ small). No problems until I raised the power in week 3 over 70-80w.
(You can see them in my grow journal, the Jillybeans)
Hello
I read that if you multiply your radiant watts by 4.66 and then divide the resulting number by the area of your plant (in square meters) , you get a rough estimate of your PPFD.
Now the problem is that to calculate the radiant watts I need to kmow if the led is 50%, or 45%, or 60% efficient. I have been reding a lot and analyzing data sheets but can find a way to calculate radiant watts and heat watts. Can you (or anyone reading this) help me with this?
Also, how far does the light need to be from the plants for this formula (radiant watts * 4.66 / m^2 ) to work? 18 inches?
Thanks.
Serva
Well-Known Member
I can‘t help you much, atleast I don’t want to write something wrong now, sorry... but I can tell you, who is able to: @Randomblame 
Merry Christmas! 
Personally I just use w/sqft to remember if my plants were happy, or not and to adjust for the next grow. I started with 50w/sqft, and realized it was too much for my plants. Now I use 30-35 w/sqft and my plants are happy, me too.
The distance isn‘t important, because you are looking at the area. If you hava a light source, which is illuminating 1/2 m^2, you can also raise the light, to illuminate 1 m^2. That will lower the PPFD
PPF would tell you, if you need to rise your light at a given point, to avoid a hotspot. Not so important imo, because the strips make such a uniform light compared to HPS or high power COBs.
Merry Christmas! Personally I just use w/sqft to remember if my plants were happy, or not and to adjust for the next grow. I started with 50w/sqft, and realized it was too much for my plants. Now I use 30-35 w/sqft and my plants are happy, me too.
The distance isn‘t important, because you are looking at the area. If you hava a light source, which is illuminating 1/2 m^2, you can also raise the light, to illuminate 1 m^2. That will lower the PPFD
PPF would tell you, if you need to rise your light at a given point, to avoid a hotspot. Not so important imo, because the strips make such a uniform light compared to HPS or high power COBs.
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Thanks!I can‘t help you much, atleast I don’t want to write something wrong now, sorry... but I can tell you, who is able to: @Randomblame
Personally I just use w/sqft to remember if my plants were happy, or not and to adjust for the next grow. I started with 50w/sqft, and realized it was too much for my plants. Now I use 30-35 w/sqft and my plants are happy, me too.
The distance isn‘t important, because you are looking at the area. If you hava a light source, which is illuminating 1/2 m^2, you can also raise the light, to illuminate 1 m^2. That will lower the PPFD
PPF would tell you, if you need to rise your light at a given point, to avoid a hotspot. Not so important imo, because the strips make such a uniform light compared to HPS or high power COBs.
Merry Christmas!