MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
Watch your backs now hoes. Jk. You guys totally inspired me to finally get this.
Bridgelux Vesta super tuneable strip build
- Thread starter ilovereggae
- Start date
SBBCal
Well-Known Member
$$?? I mean did you find a deal?
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
$1250 CAD assembled. Which is less than I can buy it for from PRUSA (999USD+ shipping and customs). It's from a local guy who buys them 20 at a time from PRUSA. Also saved me from having to wait for them to put me in the build que and then waiting for shipping.
grotbags
Well-Known Member
nice one!!!...
i am far from a 3d print expert but if you are struggling with anything let me know ill do my best help.
have you ever used any 3d cad software before?, i started on sketch up but then moved onto fusion 360...
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
I am pretty good with sketch up. Been using it since it was invented almost lol
grotbags
Well-Known Member
ah great, sounds like ill be coming to you for advice!.
i liked sketch up but for some reason i just got on better with fusion 360... looking forward to what you come up with...
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
Lmao. I'll be the one coming to you to get advice. I got zero prints under my belt soooooo. Should be fun.
grotbags
Well-Known Member
use decent quality filament and the standard settings in prusa slicer and it should just work...(fingers crossed)...
grotbags
Well-Known Member
ok last build from me now as this brings us up to date.
so with the last build not playing nice with the meshteks i had to go back to the drawing board, obviously i had the strips and heatsinks to reuse but i would have to go back to one driver per channel and dim with old school pots.
when i designed and printed the endcaps and wire tunnels ect on the last build i was trying to keep them as simple and as small as possible because the bigger and fancier they are the longer they take to print, each endcap took over an hour to print and i need 150 of them... add in the little doors and the brackets ect and it starts to add up big time...
but after assembling the last light i knew i had to make them a touch bigger as it was too tight to get all the wiring pulled through, also by this time i had a bit more experience in fusion 360 so i thought i could make them look a bit nicer aswell...
i built one light for myself which uses 45 of the 3 channel strips @ 6ft x 4.5ft, and one for a friend with 30 strips at 4ft x 4.5ft.
old endcap vs new
endcaps on the heatsink with solid core wire, one for each channel...
solid core terminated in wagos ready to be linked to the corrosponding channels...
mid way through wiring...
nearly done... one of five...
pt 2 incoming...
so with the last build not playing nice with the meshteks i had to go back to the drawing board, obviously i had the strips and heatsinks to reuse but i would have to go back to one driver per channel and dim with old school pots.
when i designed and printed the endcaps and wire tunnels ect on the last build i was trying to keep them as simple and as small as possible because the bigger and fancier they are the longer they take to print, each endcap took over an hour to print and i need 150 of them... add in the little doors and the brackets ect and it starts to add up big time...
but after assembling the last light i knew i had to make them a touch bigger as it was too tight to get all the wiring pulled through, also by this time i had a bit more experience in fusion 360 so i thought i could make them look a bit nicer aswell...
i built one light for myself which uses 45 of the 3 channel strips @ 6ft x 4.5ft, and one for a friend with 30 strips at 4ft x 4.5ft.
old endcap vs new
endcaps on the heatsink with solid core wire, one for each channel...
solid core terminated in wagos ready to be linked to the corrosponding channels...
mid way through wiring...
nearly done... one of five...
pt 2 incoming...
Attachments
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ilovereggae
Well-Known Member
trying to be productive at work before I split for the weekend. yeah that's gonna be impossible now. I literally just zoned out of a conference call drooling over this and just got asked a question and had no clue what they were asking me lol.
mind blown. gotta level up and get another build posted this weekend so I can keep up.
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
It took me like 3.5 hours to download all the software and download the new sketch up to export STL files. But I finally got my first print started.
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MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
It worked!!! New fave toy!! This little retainer will keep me from having to use any screws on my build. Pins the last 2mm of the strip down.
ilovereggae
Well-Known Member
So not quite done yet, waiting on wire for the power cord and 5mm screws for the endcaps, but decided to go for some QB288s at full power to see how they compare with running at low current.
Each board gets its own 150W driver. 3 V2s and one Rspec. Going into a 4x4.
Got another fixture up next that will use all 10 of my V1 boards running at 40-50w each so they don't need heatsinks. Will be the comparison to this fixture I just posted. this will use a 80w driver for 2 middle boards, a 200w for the 4 corners, and another 200w for the outer center 4 boards.
Each board gets its own 150W driver. 3 V2s and one Rspec. Going into a 4x4.
Got another fixture up next that will use all 10 of my V1 boards running at 40-50w each so they don't need heatsinks. Will be the comparison to this fixture I just posted. this will use a 80w driver for 2 middle boards, a 200w for the 4 corners, and another 200w for the outer center 4 boards.
grotbags
Well-Known Member
exelent work man!, you are handy in sketch up!!!...
grotbags
Well-Known Member
looks like the print turned out nice. looks like you used the supplied pla?, i have used petg for my prints it handles heat a little better and is a touch more flexible but pla will work fine.
grotbags
Well-Known Member
looking good! on the 10 board build is the idea behind the multiple drivers so you can set a more even ppf over the canopy?. corner boards ran hardest then the outer middles a touch less and then the center two a bit less again?...
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
been using sketch up on and off for work and play for last 12-14 years or so. They made us use it on our final design project in university and I hated it. But weirdly it was so intuitive and accessible. I went back to it on my own. Lol
Ya just the supplied roll in silver. I'll be picking up some more colours and material types to experiment with.
when this shit gets cheap enough I want to use for making heat sinks.
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ilovereggae
Well-Known Member
exactly! and this way I can run them @ 6" off the tops for really good penetration. I ran a similar setup before w 12 boards in a 4x5 closet and was able to get an almost perfect 800 ppfd across whole canopy. that was using these giant heatsinks tho so it was super heavy and I had to hang each sink separately, which took an hour to get them leveled and spaced out evenly every time I needed to adjust anything else like my fans or exhaust.
this way it should be really simple to hang level and center in the tent.
also, I did the math, and the bigger Vesta build I wanna do is going to be @ $500 once I buy strips and drivers. Decided to just use the QBs I had on hand for the rest of the summer. Once I make a few more strip builds w the Samsungs for friends, I'll flip the $ into my Vesta parts.
ilovereggae
Well-Known Member
Also credit where it is due, @Rocket Soul is who originally gave me this idea