Need help to speculate flaws in my new setup.

Darkomate

New Member
Greetings! I have been doing alot research on leds now for quite long time. I came up with plan but it still has some problems where I need some advice.I decided to go with BL Gen 2 because they have them in stock near me so its faster and cheaper to order. So to sum it up I was thinking it would go like this. Space is around 6,5fx6,5f. So the plan is to run these in around 75% for max lumens. (Orginal plan was to have 36 both strips and run them 50%. I tought this way it would be more efficient??)

Strips:
30x
BXEB-L0560Z-35E2000-C-B3
30x
BXEB-L1120Z-35E4000-C-B3
I would run those in parallel circuit where I put 15x per driver in 5 strip rows.
Drivers:
2x
HLG-240H-20B
2x
HLG-480H-42B

But now honestly I'm still quite very new to this stuff and I'm really afraid of Thermal Runaway. Like biggest thing now is that I'm trying to figure out what kind of cooling systems I should consider and is there any kind of foolproof way to set this up without burning up my whole closet?
Thanks for reading!
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
If you mount EB strips on a small alu channel or flashing it's almost failsafe. If you drive them at 75% of their maximum (1050mA) each diode only get ~65mA. You could run them without heatsinks but you could easily bend them. Built up a frame of alu L-channels and screw an aluminum sheet to it. The strips can be simply glued on with double-sided thermal tape.

And to avoid thermal runaway turn up the voltage and current potentiometer to 100% and than search the point when the light begins to dimm using only the voltage regulator(left one usually). You need to set and leave it just a bit above this point to limit the maximum voltage. Assuming now one or more strips gets defective the voltage limit would not allow a higher current flow and there is no need to worry because of thermal runaways.
For dimming just use the current regulator unless you want to regulate it all the way down to inspect your girls for deficits.
 

Gilligans Island

Well-Known Member
Bridgelux EB2 strips create zero heat at full throttle. My first 6 frames were 1/2"x 1" x 1/8" alum. channel with a 1" x 1" x 1/8" box tubing on the ends. My last frame was made of 3/4" plywood cut to replicate the aluminum frames. 2% of the alum. cost and works fine. Unless electricity is expensive where you are at why would you not run full throttle? I also played with dimming due to only having 69" of ceiling height. No need to dim as far as the plants are concerned. I run 20,000 lumens in veg. 4000k strips 6" to 8" from the plants and 16,000 lumens in bloom 3000k and 3500k strips 5" from the plants. Have not heard of thermal runaway please elaborate. I wired my drivers at 220v and are only warm to the touch. Space your drivers away from the wall to get air flow behind them. I used a small nuts as a spacer between the driver and wall. Your gonna really like your setup when done.
 
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