Introducing CobKits.com - specializing in DIY and Citizen COBs

eminiplayer said:

I'm interested in buying this light, the 3618... could you give me a parts breakdown of a package, including driver? I have a 20" x 17" x 42"grow box... so that's 2.65sq/ft and quite limited with height at 3.5'. I'm terrible with DIY and just want to hang one big light. Do you think it would work in my space? What amp would you recommend running the driver? Obviously I want as much light as the space will allow.

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For such a small space you should consider running a bunch of smaller chips at low current rather than a big chip like the 3618... you will have the plants very close to the light so you want to spread the light and heat around the space more. The 1212s would seem like a good option for your space... maybe 4 or 5 of them at around 25W each or 700mA.

I know you say you're terrible at DIY, but I can tell you it's not easy flowering in 3.5' vertical space under high powered cobs... that 3618 will need more than 12" clearance from the canopy, and even more if you want decent coverage of your space. My 2 cents

agreed 4 1212s would be great for that space

CobKits said:

built this 4-banger today
CLU1825 3500k 80cri
140 x 80 pinfin
hlg320h-1400b

71W/cob w/dimmer maxed
gonna add a toggle to open dimmer leads to get to 74W ea
pinfins are pretty cool, 45C with my ir thermometer.

just bjbs on there, no provision for reflectors ill try to take some 3x3 tent measurements.

i feel like after my 5th or 6th one i know what i want in the rack. im gonna reduce the 4 banger from 24x24" to 21x21", eliminate those two center rails, flip the inner rails holding the heatsinks around and that will be my driver shelf. maybe 2 more passes before i go to the metal shop and say "ok make me 100 of these rails"

by keeping it as simple as possible and reducing material i hope to make it an affordable bolt-together project for anybody. Were approaching $1/watt at high efficiency in kit form thats a goal for me

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FWIW that was a very consistent 650-700 umol over the 3x3 tent at 18".no hotspots. love the spread of the bjbs only. 21" frame size woulda been better for the tent, they are a little close to the walls

MrTwist1 said:

They like the movement but not the heat. When your ambient is 87f the air is kinda hot... hence the original question.

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the only thing i could say is have a strong draft of cool air upwards to counteract. otherwise pinfins with exhaust right on top of them. at a given wattage they will produce a fixed amount of heat so regardless of which heatsink you use, sounds like its still all about heat removal

CobKits said:

the only thing i could say is have a strong draft of cool air upwards to counteract. otherwise pinfins with exhaust right on top of them. at a given wattage they will produce a fixed amount of heat so regardless of which heatsink you use, sounds like its still all about heat removal

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Yeah the air intakes are at the bottom and outtake at the top above the COBs. It is designed to flow upwards, so that one pesky fan is going against the flow. I extract the air outta that space pretty rapidly, but I would prefer if the air from that fan went up. Not much space at the bottom for a fan unfortunately.

Is the fan protected against reverse polarity or will I damage it by trying?

MrTwist1 said:

Yeah the air intakes are at the bottom and outtake at the top above the COBs. It is designed to flow upwards, so that one pesky fan is going against the flow. I extract the air outta that space pretty rapidly, but I would prefer if the air from that fan went up. Not much space at the bottom for a fan unfortunately.

Is the fan protected against reverse polarity or will I damage it by trying?

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Just flip the light bro lol

@MrTwist1 : Cheers for the advice!

@CobKits : When will you have these 1212 light engines back in stock? 3500k, 80cri (https://cobkits.com/product/clu048-1212-active-light-engine-single/)

Also, what driver would you recommend? Would like it to be dimmable...

-i dont stock em i make em to order. ive honestly never sold a 1212 light engine- theyre more amenable to passive designs i guess

driver selection depends on your overall system size, # of cobs, etc.

every driver on the site is dimmable (albeit some are on the driver and some are remote)

bobby..have you priced the Espen drivers?

sure thyeyhave 96 efficiency but the smaller ones that are 90% must be chaeap

have catalog but no prices

never heard of them before now

im pretty into the meanwells - so bulletproof and every option you could ever want. sure you pay a little more but i consider them the backbone of the system so for now thats my go-to.

meanwell makes a bunch of affordable plastic case drivers as well.

CobKits said:

never heard of them before now

im pretty into the meanwells - so bulletproof and every option you could ever want. sure you pay a little more but i consider them the backbone of the system so for now thats my go-to.

meanwell makes a bunch of affordable plastic case drivers as well.

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but what if the meanwells are not real,like knockoffs lmao. i kid i kid,im back bitchs,and bambie lives to eat another carrot

what? these Manwalls arent real? shit!

come to my neighborhood you'll take down 12 without leaving my yard. or you can do what i do and just wait for one to land on your hood

eminiplayer said:

@MrTwist1 : Cheers for the advice!

@CobKits : When will you have these 1212 light engines back in stock? 3500k, 80cri (https://cobkits.com/product/clu048-1212-active-light-engine-single/)

Also, what driver would you recommend? Would like it to be dimmable...

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Aim for around 100W for that space and that will give you around 40W per sqft which is ideal. HLG-120H-C700 would do the job and have plenty of headroom.

Thanks heaps !

got tired of looking at this 3x3 prototype frame so i made it a light

heres the universal frame with holes for 105, 120, and 140 mm heatsinks. this was sitting lonely in the corner with a few random sized heatsinks. pulled em off, adjusted the rails out to 140 and mounted 9 140mm pinfins. BJBs in parallel with 18-2 300V CLR2 wire (aka home depot t-stat wire- look for the CLM2/CMR2 marking!)



i just used wagos, im going to mount them on the wago222-500 clips that @itsmetobyt showed us yesterday. so i left a little slack

3 cobs per hlg-185h-48A driver, ~75W per cob. 3500k 90cri clu058-1825



not too bad, maybe 2-3 hrs total to mount the 9 heatsinks, mount 9 chips with paste, run all wires. the drivers will be remote so this is ready to hang, just going to cut up some 16 or 18 ga orange extension cords for the driver-to-cob wiring. tested it in the shop with the meter, every cob looks uniform, 1400-1600 umol @ 6" @ 900mA. have yet to see an issue with the parallel drivers, they work great in every build ive done or seen. even with teh slight differences in Vf per chip im seeing very uniform illumination. im thinking these heatsinks could withstand dropping a cob and the resulting 4.25A hitting the other 2 cobs (112W per cob). would be hot but not catastrophic.

Lets go with the frames already geez.........

haha you dont want the prototypes! ive built it - but now i have to DRAW it. i havent used autocad in about 4 years

Any idea when CLU48 1212 90CRI will be in stock?

which color

Oops, 3500

will have 90 this week