cheap blurple drivers

so a couple years ago when I got my initial set up to grow, I ordered a kind k3 l450 light. less than 24 hours after my purchase I had read enough and cancelled that order and went with a timber cob light. there must've been an error with a drop shipper or something, as I was fully refunded for my purchase but still received the light a few days later. i had the kind light hung for a week or two tops until the timber light finally arrived. since then it has been in a closet after fully dismantling it.

I'm left with 4 of these three channel drivers (one 12v channel for the small fans which i thought is kind of useful) and was wondering if it's even worth trying to re-purpose them into something. With 32-50vdc @650 ma I was looking at the vesta 2 foot strips and think each channel would power one strip with both channels wired in series together at around 30 watts per strip. So i'd be looking at 2 strips wired into each driver. Also, cold even wire the 2700k and 5000k channels seperate so I could at least have control of running one or the other color temp at a time if needed for half the watts. Don't really need or have the space for a new light, but figured it'd give me something to play around with while not costing much at all during these crazy times right now. I know these drivers are probably pretty inefficient, couldn't find any datasheet after a quick search, but hope the offer some kind of use even if for a short lifespan.

Would love some feedback on this or if anyone has some kind of ideas as to how to save from throwing out the drivers.

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/bridgelux/BXEB-TL-2750G-3000-A-13/976-1731-ND/7899252 -- these are the exact specs to the vesta i was thinking may work.

here is the driver in question..

Honestly, the tuneability of that Kind is pretty dope. The reason they suck so much ass is the price tag. If they were comparable in price to other blurples on the market, I would probably reccomend Kind over anything else just because of the built in controller.
I'd suggest you don't rip it apart and salvage the drivers. Just use the light as is for side, supplemental or a veg light.
It can be adjusted pretty finely right? Like you can turn down the reds, whites, blues all individually 0-100% correct?

Airwalker16 said:

Honestly, the tuneability of that Kind is pretty dope. The reason they suck so much ass is the price tag. If they were comparable in price to other blurples on the market, I would probably reccomend Kind over anything else just because of the built in controller.
I'd suggest you don't rip it apart and salvage the drivers. Just use the light as is for side, supplemental or a veg light.
It can be adjusted pretty finely right? Like you can turn down the reds, whites, blues all individually 0-100% correct?

Click to expand...

the one I had was the older tech, not dimmable at all and ran pretty hot for my small space of 2x2.5ft "main" tent I use. I figure if i re-built it into some kind of strip light I could possibly run a full cycle in my other 2x2x4ft tent without much more investment. I've been using my timber 2vl in there, but think the strips might give me just a little bit more room for error with the hanging height.

I initially took it apart with the thought of re-wiring it to run at half the watts for around 135 actual watts from the wall and only having to use two drivers for the 8 "pucks". Maybe I had it wired wrong to achieve this, but could only get 2 of the pucks to stay lit, the other two would flicker. I am very new to all this diy stuff and could have had it wired wrong. I'll post some pictures i took of the insides as i was taking it apart in a second.

so each led cluster was wired to a single channel on a driver. each driver was powering 2 clusters. I still have everything fully dismantled and in a box in storage, but will go grab it to play around with it this weekend sometime and be able to post specific pictures if you need them.

So grabbed all this stuff today and re-wired it up real quick just for shits n giggles. I wired two "pucks" in parallel to a single channel on the cheap drivers, before it was one channel to each individual puck. I cut the connector off the power cord and reused it, so only slapped a few wagos and used a little extra wire from my supplies. With everything on including the fan it was pulling 50 watts. I then re wired four pucks in parallel to the one channel for 25 watts.

Would you guys hang these up next to some standard white leds for the bit of blurple spectrum or is it not really worth it even driving these cheap leds a lot softer? I know the kind spectrum charts are probably pretty suspect, but definitely majority reds in it. I have 2 qb v1s 3000k on a double heatsink that could combine nicely with a strip of these on each side. Could even grab a cheap xlg-50 and have some dimming as well.

Let me know what you think about using these as supplemental lighting like this though. I know I saw a few random threads a while back about reconfiguring old cheap led stuff.

Sorry for shitty pictures..

loco41 said:

So grabbed all this stuff today and re-wired it up real quick just for shits n giggles. I wired two "pucks" in parallel to a single channel on the cheap drivers, before it was one channel to each individual puck. I cut the connector off the power cord and reused it, so only slapped a few wagos and used a little extra wire from my supplies. With everything on including the fan it was pulling 50 watts. I then re wired four pucks in parallel to the one channel for 25 watts.

Would you guys hang these up next to some standard white leds for the bit of blurple spectrum or is it not really worth it even driving these cheap leds a lot softer? I know the kind spectrum charts are probably pretty suspect, but definitely majority reds in it. I have 2 qb v1s 3000k on a double heatsink that could combine nicely with a strip of these on each side. Could even grab a cheap xlg-50 and have some dimming as well.

Let me know what you think about using these as supplemental lighting like this though. I know I saw a few random threads a while back about reconfiguring old cheap led stuff.

Sorry for shitty pictures..

Click to expand...

Id say yes, go for kind supplemental to your hlgs.

Just wired up 2x 4k f series strips in parallel to a single channel, pulled 31 watts from the wall. Wired the 5k QB v1 up to other channel and left them on for an hour or so. After the hour it was pulling 62 watts total. Driver was just a tiny bit warm to the touch, barely even noticeable. Cheap strips and free drivers seems nice, even if the driver is probably pretty inefficient or am I wrong in my thought process? I definitely feel better about using some kind of better quality driver in the long run though, but these could be fun to mix n match something for now. Might set up another little small spot to play around even a bit more while I'm stuck here.

@OneHitDone I'll have to set up some kind of different spectrums in the tents for you after this round of kale. I've got a few things at hand, most not built, but could mix some things up on a small scale if you wanted to see something specific. Right now I've just got a 3k qb tent and a 3500k cob tent growing some greens. I always say I'll finish these leafy greens grows out, but always end up neglecting them for a bit and chopping them down for the worms or something. No cannabis grow right now though so should end up finishing these out. I'll have to post up in the lettuce thread, just transplanted today.

Oh yeah, most deffinetly run that Kind shit along side of your whites. My last run i supplemented with a bunch of rgb boards heavy red & did awesome. Plus it made oz or 1/2 # fill whole bags like hps buds but with all the bag appeal of leds+ colored. Bigger buds but still dense. Colorful too! Do it!!!!

Finally got around to actually wiring up some bridgelux strips to get a feel for series/parallel wiring now. I learn better after actually doing things, so this makes me more comfortable with xlg drivers for an actual build with these.

Two f series in parallel on one channel and the other channel is 2 bridgelux in series then 2 parallel to the driver.

Finally got around to picking up 20 of these https://www.arrow.com/en/products/si-b9w111560ww/samsung-electronics that I have been posting about, so I wired them up to a channel on this driver in 2s2p to see how they handle 325ish ma per strip. At the wall, they are pulling 34.5 watts after 30 minutes.

Would be far from an efficient set up it seems, but some cheap 90cri spectrum is hopefully useful somewhere. Not sure if I'll throw some on a flower light, but want to try them with some veg set ups first.

Also pulled some of the old blurple "pucks" off the heatsinks for the first time and I didn't realize the lenses would pop on and off so easily. Will the bare leds without the lenses be more efficient and run cooler?