The Chinese Quantum Board Knock Off Builds

[Rocket Soul]

This thread has been really valuable for me in my projects and I have a lot of respect for you and all you've done to try to help people here.
My panels are alibaba Kingbrite. I've had very good luck with the gear I got from them. Both the boards and the meanwell drivers.

I have a mixture of different versions of their QB288 boards.
At first, I resisted getting the "waterproof" versions because I didn't want to lose .001% light output (or whatever it is) but in later orders, I always went for it.

I think I've seen you on ICmag now. I wasn't surprised as I noticed this thread went idle.
Most people over there don't know how much great info has been shared here in this thread. I'm sure you are gonna generate some epiphanies over there

Silicone bubbles over the diode sounds right. I knew it was a soft compound which made me worry about what I used to clean. I'll let you know how the alcohol works.
Thanks brother :tiphat:

Yeah im there aswell, theres a lot more going on there in general. Ledsection in total is very low on news and peeps dont diy anymore as it seems like the biggest interest was cheaper leds which is readily available by now. Me and a few die hards still diy. Also icmag has a lot more people close to where i live and and some very active euro/international sections.

Thx for all the kind words - i try to learn and share and help, just like those who came before me, and its nice to see others doing the same

By now our grow has several generations of leds, from fotops thru to uvb supplementstion, and im getting closer and closer to find something i feel can be seen as a perfect combo of yield, quality, potency and that subjective "growers feel" category: when the lights are just a breeze to work and grow with (like cmh) and you always like the growth pattern, smell and how the plant looks, when everything comes into place.

I was pretty much sure i had it down but then i saw some indications it could be done even better so im back again looking at papers and diagrams for some final tests to chase those final points on quality and yield before i make some custom led gear to hopefully take to market. Its damn close to the GLA gear which i also have, which may in the end even come out on top of my own faves, id recommend them to anyone.

Currently im not looking at efficiency in the same way anymore - not the absolute cardinal property of a light, it only determines how many watts you need to get conditions for good. If youre over 2.5 its close enough that spectrum plays into it more than efficiency: a really well designed flowering spectrum can change your results up around 10-20% from the looks of it. That takes those 2.5ppf /w up to be competitive with a 3/w light of more standard spectrum. The same thing that makes for good efficiency is what makes some led weed a bit more boring in quality, and all the growlight market is chasing the same thing. And in any case you can over come a slightly lower efficiency so easily, you just have to use a little more watts. 10% doesnt seem a lot for me if youre able to hit the full register of what your grow can do. But still a bit further to go, everytime i get close to ordering either me or my partnered growbuddy have a cashflow problem and cant get the order in, or i see something new and shiny i wanna try and include.
When i get it sorted ill drop a line and some pics here.

 

[Cptn]

... im getting closer and closer to find something i feel can be seen as a perfect combo of yield, quality, potency and that subjective "growers feel" category: when the lights are just a breeze to work and grow with (like cmh) and you always like the growth pattern, smell and how the plant looks, when everything comes into place.
I was pretty much sure i had it down but then i saw some indications it could be done even better so im back again looking at papers and diagrams for some final tests to chase those final points on quality and yield before i make some custom led gear to hopefully take to market. Its damn close to the GLA gear which i also have, which may in the end even come out on top of my own faves, id recommend them to anyone.
When i get it sorted ill drop a line and some pics here.

Hell yeah brother.
After all these years of spectrum experimentation, it does seem like we should be on the brink of another "level up" of understanding how to use these lights to best approximate nature.
Looking forward to your revelations.

 

[Rocket Soul]

Hell yeah brother.
After all these years of spectrum experimentation, it does seem like we should be on the brink of another "level up" of understanding how to use these lights to best approximate nature.
Looking forward to your revelations.

Things are moving along
ive got my design finished for a 3 foot strip with some nifty features. Awaiting the 3D mock up for now. Basic features are 420 diodes, 12 of them monos in series of 3, 840x30mm. This fall i will start with some prototypes in order to lock down a good led mono supplier. Then some final testing with my test partners: even though i feel i have solid results with my main spectrum im fairly sure that there are a few decimal points to be gained by tweaking it a little further. Also need to design appropriate supplemental channels to go with the tweaks.

 

[Rocket Soul]

Heres the 3D mock up. Ive set up my strips so they can take a standard ledstar pcb mounted on top for any type of supplement you could wanna add. Already have a provider for 4up ledstars so you can get a nice composed supplementation channel. One of the diy-iest strips ive ever seen

The mock up: is not the greatest; hard to spot those mono clusters.

 

[TheHouseOfGreen420]

whos buying under canopy lighting from alibaba?

 

[dwc420letsgo]

whos buying under canopy lighting from alibaba?

i was about to get a pair of two 160w but the shipping makes it almost the same cost as the growpro's I ended up getting

 

[Rocket Soul]

PCBs are in and prototyping this week. Here they also shown and validated the pcb design; you can mount a standard ledstar to the strip directly and solder it up or replace yourself. With more advanced supplementation like uvb this is key as the diodes do not last as long as white diodes: integrated in the pcb architecture this would make the strip somewhat useless after a few thousand hours of uvb.
Also notable 4up pcbs in 4S config; can be made custom with any 4 cree footprint 3535 diodes, doesnt have to be the same voltage. We used this type of diodes on another test version of this spectrum adding "exotic blurple" violets/uv and wide reds 630-730nm to fill out missing parts of the standard white spectrum.

Even though i feel we have some spectrums that are fully market ready we are not going on sale until i feel we can get this perfect using local testers. I dont feel theres much point in releasing anything which doesnt make a night and day difference in crop quality, though any tester can rest confidently that we are not stabbing in the dark here, everything has had at least some testing in our test grow to find some validity; its just that we may need to see which one(s) of the proposals have the best performance.

 

[Moflow]

@Rocket Soul looking great mate.
Can you give us the dimensions of the strips, also volts, amps, watts etc

 

[Rocket Soul]

@Rocket Soul looking great mate.
Can you give us the dimensions of the strips, also volts, amps, watts etc

They are 3 "led feet" or 840 x 30 x 2mm, made to fit a 1m dimension; very common in euro tents yet poorly served by diy components. 2w /mK: double thermal handling to standard boards and 2 once copler trace.
As for amps/volts etc: this is better determined after testing to be honest as it depends on what monos go in. Violets/uv are about 3.5 V while reds are around 2 so hard to say, but somewere around 55-57V.
You can easiest think of it as a 2/3ds of a diablo board but with 17 instead of 18 midpowers per string. 408x 2835, lm281b+ pro and 12 monos; in 4 clusters with 3 separate monos available for custom. That means that at 1.4 A and around 80w operation the strips have 350mA per mono and just under 60mA per midpower; nominal or below.
If testing works out fine im hoping to bring it to market. May also do some versions of the same aetup on boards and even short strips. The idea is to be able to do both strips and boards on the same driver.

 

[coreywebster]

Looks like I missed this sexual action @Rocket Soul
Just catching up

 

[coreywebster]

#MakingDIYgreatagain

 

[Rocket Soul]

#MakingDIYgreatagain

#StopGrowingMids

 

[Rocket Soul]

#MakingDIYgreatagain

Or is it DWAG; DiyWasAllwaysGreater??
After landing here around 8 years ago in mid Diy golden age i finally have the feeling that there is a real way of getting better results than companies who chase efficiency like it was the Red Dragon. The strips im doing here (at least the first run) is going to be for some final tests for figuring out how to squeeze the maximum stimulus for quality out of your lights. The concept is fairly basic; Spectrum AND efficiency over either of them alone. Strips will be optimised for flower and highest crop value per year, if it takes 40w / square foot the so be it. Leds have moved on a lot in the last years, enough that compromising actual plant response does not make much sense any more: who cares if your 640 diodes, actinic or 90cri whites are somewhat lower ppf /w? All you gotta do to compensate that is to turn your dimmer up a 10%. Say you add just 80w to your standard meter: this is 1kwh per day of 12/12 and meter and about 30 per month: even if your paying high at 20ct /kwh it is just 6€/$ per month.
For a higher and by far more interesting quality and yield. The exchange of power for buds is always going to be favourable; if not we wouldnt be doing this. Now if your a personal stash grower you can move into above top shelf quality from growing mids, just spending those 6 quid a month. And get some more every cycle, if youre also passing some to friends you can have them sponsor your bill increase. If youre comercial you can get your extra weight and make your buds really sing: every blind test we made has been extremely obvious which is the plain white and which is the horticentric spectrum grown bud. Every light we had something at 405nm or lower stands out though ill happily admit its not as easy as just slapping some uv onto your high efficiency fixture.
There seems to have been a convergence of factors coming out of led lights and the movement towards relaxation of prohibitions and possibility to grow comercial legally: while everyone loves the whole deal theres a lot of talk of lacking quality. It could very well be that excessive breeding / and standard led lights only covering about 2/3ds of the par range properly has spmething to do with it. But it really seems like comercial in modern times, getting that killer quality to keep you in the sellers and not buyers market, has become really difficult. From everywhere i hear stories about bud not being sold by producers.
The idea is to up the game so that you can get a head of the line of everyone growing mids. And if its all just for yourself, then start growing like a boss why settle for decent when you can have that full on experience from your grow, time after time, one cut after another?

 

[Rocket Soul]

Some new updates on my strip project: my suppliers very kindly gave me some tests for the mono diodes im bringing in for my strips. Results were surprisingly good, everything came in on spec. Output was very close to the major pro brands like cree and osram; ppf/w is slightly lower as the voltages are a little higher. No biggie, means id have the same output but run about 0.5V higher voltage. Since the diodes are from an external provider to my main supplier i dont see any reason why they would fudge them and give me higher nrs, infact they would have more reasons to give me lower nrs so id go with their own diodes.

Test were made at both 350 mA (nominal power, strips @ approx 75w operation) and 700mA.
Standout results was for the 680 nm diodes, almost as good as the 660, efficiency king.

Unfortunately ive lost my main tester in Bcn after disagreements but have another really good tester im looking forwards to working with.