Build my first diy LED

So I wanna make a light for a 2x2. To replace a Mars blurple.
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/hlg-185h-c1400b/mean-well-enterprises?utm_campaign=arrow_findchips_2018&utm_currency=&utm_medium=aggregator&utm_source=findchips&utm_content=inv_listing

And

https://horticulturelightinggroup.com/pages/qb132-board-guide

My plan is an aluminum frame and these components.
Thoughts? It's a small flower tent. I wanna dabble in diy led. Any helpful comments please.

How many boards?

Check out http://ledgardener.com/ I found it very helpful

It's a 4 pack of boards and I wanna run them in series.

I don't know how many watts that is, or what but I understand how to wire them.

hempisphere said:

I don't know how many watts that is, or what

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That is determined by the level of amperage provided to the board(s). Each 36v board @ 1400ma consumes 50.4 watts. (ish) 2000ma - 72 W, ect……..

That will work. I usually leave a couple of volts unused to let the driver run cooler. But it costs more. Utilize a dimmer too. In veg you may want to dim them a bit.

Does the Mars hydro have a driver in it I could use? I have 2 cheapie lights already, a Mars and a yaetek. They both produce nice, but I want better and although I don't understand fully why, I'm told these light boards are better,.....

Hey man, good luck on your LED venture! Keep in mind that the HLG-185 usually outputs over 200W. The HLG-120 is a much better choice for a 2x2 tent. In fact i run an HLG-185 for a 2x4.

If you compare a grow light Watt for Watt... Lets say a quantum boards (or similar) and the blurples, the biggest difference will be the spectrum and efficiency.

Blurple is based on old scientific studies where they found that some very important photosynthetic receptors can be stimulated by targeted blue and red light and produce healthy plants.

More recent science found out that almost all of the light between 360 nm up to 700+ nm is used by the plants for growth. (even green, blue, yellow, Uv, far red, IR, etc)

Basically, a broad and unified spectrum (quantum boards) tends to work better than a separated and targeted spectrum (blurple). Also the blurples are usually marketed in a very misleading way, claiming they're equivalent to much more powerful HPS lights... When mostly that's not the case.

Only recent LEDs are much more efficient than HPS. HLG offers a 550W Quantum Board light that can substitute a 1000W SE HPS. And while this is the case, most of those blurple lights are actually really cheap and old LED chips. Which, If anything, have to be compared to an HPS watt per watt, and not with their misleading equivalencies.

hempisphere said:

Does the Mars hydro have a driver in it I could use? I have 2 cheapie lights already, a Mars and a yaetek. They both produce nice, but I want better and although I don't understand fully why, I'm told these light boards are better,.....

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You get more photons per watt out of a higher efficiency light like HLG in comparison to older LED tech. So you can use like 30w per square foot instead of 50w.

Have a look for growmau5 on youtube, he does a good mars hydro hack to use an old light and replace with better parts.
Im sure there are lots of similar vids too.
Problem with cheap LEDs is every part of them are less efficient, the diodes and the drivers, the heatsinks are minimal.
For a 2x2 I would probably just do a strip build or buy a HLG135w kit but if you enjoy deconstructing things and reconstructing then its all good fun.

Good luck with the project.

coreywebster said:

growmau5 on youtube

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Start here. Watch the DIY for Noobs. That's where it all will start to snowball.....You'll never be the same.

...and down the rabbit hole, he goes.