Ran into my next lights..

[Prom]

I think I give those a go.. the numbers they put are hard to believe

https://de.aliexpress.com/item/4000214530976.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.62c35a088UVHxM&algo_pvid=48d3ac56-f090-46a2-9c1a-0b8f966c99d5&algo_expid=48d3ac56-f090-46a2-9c1a-0b8f966c99d5-10&btsid=0ab6fa8115907396166023780e8ff5&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

wups.. is a german link.. and I have troubles finding the product in english description. My main issue is this one:

Power: 120 Watt

Voltage: 48V

LED: 248 pcs Samsung lm301h led + 36pcs 660nm + 4pcs UV + 4pcs IR

Flower Footprint: 4.5 'X4.5 "oder 5'X5 'DECK (2 kits)

 

That would be 240 Watt for a 4.5x4.5.. 

Edited May 29, 2020 by Prom
german link

[Aeradix]

56 minutes ago, Prom said:

I think I give those a go.. the numbers they put are hard to believe

https://de.aliexpress.com/item/4000214530976.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.62c35a088UVHxM&algo_pvid=48d3ac56-f090-46a2-9c1a-0b8f966c99d5&algo_expid=48d3ac56-f090-46a2-9c1a-0b8f966c99d5-10&btsid=0ab6fa8115907396166023780e8ff5&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

wups.. is a german link.. and I have troubles finding the product in english description. My main issue is this one:

Power: 120 Watt

Voltage: 48V

LED: 248 pcs Samsung lm301h led + 36pcs 660nm + 4pcs UV + 4pcs IR

Flower Footprint: 4.5 'X4.5 "oder 5'X5 'DECK (2 kits)

 

That would be 240 Watt for a 4.5x4.5.. 

PPFD map?

[Prom]

I ordered 4 of those: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33027516518.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4de029ft

350$ inclusive 2 weeks shipping.. took the 3000k mix 660nm versions and have a test.. 240watt for a 1.2x1.2  wanna see that for myself. Wanna put 2 1.2 tents anyhow for the Swazi Gold to auto breeding project.. sweet for a test. I let 2 QBs compete with one of my TS3000. Still a bit unfair in my opinion  but I also have to get a par meter.. the new V3 diodes seem to be a little bright 

[CreX]

im trying to see what makes these QB's different from all the other ones on this forum...and i cant find the difference

they are LMB301H diodes in the same form factor.

i do feel though that 4 of these lights is better than 1x TS3000 

and as for their claim of 240w in a 4.5x4.5... i call nonsense lol its the same tech - for a 4x4 space you will need 4 of those panels.

have you spent the money yet? because i shit you not, @Master_G is selling the same spec board manufactured locally

you may have seen me reference him a lot of late... i just cant bare to see okes blow all their cash on lights costing more than 10k, when they could get way more bang for their buck

[CreX]

58 minutes ago, Prom said:

I ordered 4 of those: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33027516518.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4de029ft

350$ inclusive 2 weeks shipping.. took the 3000k mix 660nm versions and have a test.. 240watt for a 1.2x1.2  wanna see that for myself. Wanna put 2 1.2 tents anyhow for the Swazi Gold to auto breeding project.. sweet for a test. I let 2 QBs compete with one of my TS3000. Still a bit unfair in my opinion  but I also have to get a par meter.. the new V3 diodes seem to be a little bright 

shit, only seeing this now. 

my Germans pretty poor, but i dont see those lights coming with a power supply?

[Prom]

No driver.. but you get them also with cooler for 10$ more. Rather skeptical about those numbers.

the h also only seems to indicate the hydro section from Samsung, more environment resistance to the b version... but same light emitting capacity. Will even go dimmed option on the driver.. 

First I want to see those boards beat the TS before I jump.. friend has the b boards in new.. so we can even run a direct compare and (thank god) he ordered a good par meter  so i can skip on that one.

[CreX]

21 minutes ago, Prom said:

No driver.. but you get them also with cooler for 10$ more. Rather skeptical about those numbers.

the h also only seems to indicate the hydro section from Samsung, more environment resistance to the b version... but same light emitting capacity. Will even go dimmed option on the driver.. 

First I want to see those boards beat the TS before I jump.. friend has the b boards in new.. so we can even run a direct compare and (thank god) he ordered a good par meter  so i can skip on that one.

The B and H are just its efficiencies i think?

the H being marginally newer and marginally more efficient than the B range.

the Mars TS3000 uses epistar diodes - which arent bad - but the 301's are better over all.

your ts3000 has all the same spectrum ranges with the UV and IR and extra red diodes, just lower spec diodes. pity the form designes arent similar so you could get a watt for watt comparison.

i feel your ts3000 will beat 2 QB288's, but not 4... even 3 QBS might give one TS3000 a run for your money.

[Prom]

friend with the B boards was a bit irritated about the H boards i have shipping  it just seem to stands for their horticulture series LED's. Stronger environment resistance, moisture and dust. But not more light total. Saw reports of people saying has more power.. Samsung says otherwise  - I go with Samsung on this one.. but as said.. he has the B boards coming from JoBurg.. mine are with UPS.. 2-3 weeks.. lets see hehe I avoided EMS very much. Hope some private courier terminates for them. What driver size would you go with 150 or 200? Boards are set for 125watt... still hard to believe.

 

[CreX]

8 minutes ago, Prom said:

friend with the B boards was a bit irritated about the H boards i have shipping  it just seem to stands for their horticulture series LED's. Stronger environment resistance, moisture and dust. But not more light total. Saw reports of people saying has more power.. Samsung says otherwise  - I go with Samsung on this one.. but as said.. he has the B boards coming from JoBurg.. mine are with UPS.. 2-3 weeks.. lets see hehe I avoided EMS very much. Hope some private courier terminates for them. What driver size would you go with 150 or 200? Boards are set for 125watt... still hard to believe.

 

I'll take your word about the Horticulture bit... I know that they are practically the same effeciency... Just the h is more efficient by like 2% or something.

They are liked over the b range, but only because they are newer and more efficient and cost the same. 

I'd get a psu that can run all 4 boards at the same time... Meanwell have a 480w driver that will do the trick... Otherwise 2 240w drivers will also work... I would avoid getting a psu per panel for simplicity

HLG-240H-48AB or similar

HLG-480H-48AB or similar or is it the 52A you need... 

@PsyCLownwill know

[Prom]

Good advise  I think i stick to the 240 i use on the TS too.. need one backup unit for all lamps i run.

Where in SA is the best place to shop LED drivers or should I just do another import order for those 5?

Edited May 29, 2020 by Prom
48ab should do the trick for both lamps

[Master_G]

Lol the h purely has the spec sheet written for horticulture. No difference in the LED spec or price.

[PsyCLown]

1 hour ago, Master_G said:

Lol the h purely has the spec sheet written for horticulture. No difference in the LED spec or price.

Exactly, I believe the H does has a slightly different coating though although could be wrong.

 

@Prom regarding the LED drivers, upto you really. I'd also suggest 240w for 2x QB288's or 480W for 4x QB288's, you could get away with less though depending on how much power you're going to be giving them. If you want to give them 120W, they may get a bit warm and I'd suggest having your fan for air circulation blow over the heatsinks... Typically people do not run QB's that high, I personally don't at least.

 

Meanwell's HLG range comes in 480w and has a higher efficiency and longer warranty than their ELG and XLG range which both have a 240w version.

As for which version of the driver you want, depends on what you want it to do in terms of dimming and operation etc. Are you happy to dim via potentiometers on the driver or do you want an external knob to dim with?

[Prom]

i took the hlg240h-48b and ordered 5 from digikey.. 71$ for one and free international express shipping.. not complaining so far.. standing at 700$ for the 4 QBs and 5 drivers.. one spare. Lets see how much customs bite off 

I make 4 single lamps out of the boards. More flexible to hang, rather curious how they will compare 

[Prom]

We had a quick look on the 301B and the TS3000 and measured some PAR with a Apogee SQ-500 Quantum Flux tool.

 

First hehehe don't mess with the TS3000 ^^ Also saw.. I can go quite some up in hanging distance.. flower distance of 30cm she hits around 1250 micromol at center (to much without permanent CO2 generator). The 301B reached 1150 on center.. but the Lamp has also a different layout for the boards. Monday we make a test environment and set some measure points in a empty 1.2x1.2 and see how they compare as soon as the new lamps arrive. He has B boards lamp shipping (SA local).. my H boards will be faster from China... and the SA guy wrote him last week, lamp is done, gets tested and shipped. Nope.. nothing shipped.. empty promise. When my China boards are here Monday, they were a week faster as the SA local lamp, which was apparently on stock. (Who else beside me thinks that was a blatant lie?)

 

We also had the sensor in the outside sun and that was a way bigger eye opener. Around 2 o'clock, the thingy was reading 2200 micromol.. so more than enough to actually run some plants outside. Light duration still the issue, but down here in the Southern hemisphere you can do what is a absolute no go in Europe. So I revise my statement done before.. yes, you can grow in winter.. sun packs still a punch. Just duration and temp.. had 7 degrees this morning... germinating seeds would not survive that temp.

 

@PsyCLown They give 1 QB of mine with 125Watt.. I prefer to run em not hot.. and 2 QBs on one HLG-240H-48... might be to much or the thingy runs hot all the time.. 250 watts.. na, I run one driver per QB.. and have a spare. If I run into any issues.. have no real down time on the lamp. Each TS also has a driver for each board (2 510 boards)).. I like the setup. If the driver fails, the lamp is not going dark.. just 50% loss. 

[Aeradix]

5 minutes ago, Prom said:

We had a quick look on the 301B and the TS3000 and measured some PAR with a Apogee SQ-500 Quantum Flux tool.

 

First hehehe don't mess with the TS3000 ^^ Also saw.. I can go quite some up in hanging distance.. flower distance of 30cm she hits around 1250 micromol at center (to much without permanent CO2 generator). The 301B reached 1150 on center.. but the Lamp has also a different layout for the boards. Monday we make a test environment and set some measure points in a empty 1.2x1.2 and see how they compare as soon as the new lamps arrive. He has B boards lamp shipping (SA local).. my H boards will be faster from China... and the SA guy wrote him last week, lamp is done, gets tested and shipped. Nope.. nothing shipped.. empty promise. When my China boards are here Monday, they were a week faster as the SA local lamp, which was apparently on stock. (Who else beside me thinks that was a blatant lie?)

 

We also had the sensor in the outside sun and that was a way bigger eye opener. Around 2 o'clock, the thingy was reading 2200 micromol.. so more than enough to actually run some plants outside. Light duration still the issue, but down here in the Southern hemisphere you can do what is a absolute no go in Europe. So I revise my statement done before.. yes, you can grow in winter.. sun packs still a punch. Just duration and temp.. had 7 degrees this morning... germinating seeds would not survive that temp.

 

@PsyCLown They give 1 QB of mine with 125Watt.. I prefer to run em not hot.. and 2 QBs on one HLG-240H-48... might be to much or the thingy runs hot all the time.. 250 watts.. na, I run one driver per QB.. and have a spare. If I run into any issues.. have no real down time on the lamp. Each TS also has a driver for each board (2 510 boards)).. I like the setup. If the driver fails, the lamp is not going dark.. just 50% loss. 

TS also has the 3 year warranty fulfilled in South Africa by Aeradix 

[Prom]

2 minutes ago, Aeradix said:

TS also has the 3 year warranty fulfilled in South Africa by Aeradix 

My inner feeling wasn't wrong ^^ the TS3 is a really good lamp.. and we talk really good. For the price.. very hard to beat

[Aeradix]

2 hours ago, Prom said:

My inner feeling wasn't wrong ^^ the TS3 is a really good lamp.. and we talk really good. For the price.. very hard to beat

Always good to have independent validation. Especially by someone who knows what measurements are important.

[CreX]

@Aeradix what's the price of a TS3000 new?

[Aeradix]

13 minutes ago, CreX said:

@Aeradix what's the price of a TS3000 new?

Close to R13 000 with the latest exchange rate.

[CreX]

Oooof! Still out of my budget lol

Thanks

[PsyCLown]

@Prom I also dislike running my QB's very high, even 90W is a bit on the high side although they're capable of it. People just thumbsuck power figures now to help make the product appear more powerful. Also with additional diodes they can handle a bit more power.

If running passive cooling, you may want to monitor the heatsinks though and considering moving your air circulation fan to blow over the top of the heatsinks a bit - keeping them cool will help prolong the lifespan of the diodes.

As for multiple drivers, well, it also depends how many QB's you are running... I am running 2x drivers at the moment, so even if one driver does die (very unlikely to happen anytime soon after purchasing a new unit), I still have light going so not the end of the world until I get to take a look.

I do have spare drivers so I could do a swap out and get at least some of the lights up and running again.

 

With their 3 to 7 year warranties, I really don't think one needs to worry much about a Meanwell driver dieing within its warranty. Not saying it is not impossible and I have not actually used one for that long, although they have been making power supplies for years and I imagine they'd use quality components and caps etc. to ensure the drivers last at least for the warranty period. Otherwise you just get it swapped out under the warranty I guess.

 

Curious to get some figures from you of how a QB with LM301B/h diodes compares against a TS3000 in terms of PAR and such.

6x QB288's at 450W vs a TS3000 which is 450W if I recall correctly? Spacing of the QB's would need to be optimized to ensure a nice even spread.

That puts the QB's at 75W per QB, could try 5x QB288's vs a TS3000 as well but I personally dislike running the QB's higher than 90W each.

They're more efficient when run a bit lower, although if you have access to a quantum sensor, you can do the tests and see what the sweet spot is I guess. Will be curious to find out  

[Prom]

Sooo ^^ I continue this one.. and was half the day preparing the battle of the boards 

My main focus is this one:

I do not look for more yield, I would like to reduce my energy consumption and have the same yield.  

 

Based on that, I decided to let 3 QBs 288 IM301H with 125 Watt.. I didn't measure that today, had a issue with the wifi and busy enough. I get the proper numbers over a smart plug tomorrow. But lets run factory.. 125 Watt a board, 375 Watt on the QBs against the 450 Watt (also using the number from the smart plug, same source of error). 75 Watt less on a 1.2x1.2 area, I would enjoy that. 

 

The TS3000 is a finished product, so it will compete as it is. The QBs i build into 4 lamps, 3 will go into the battle ^^ Those lamps I hang spread over the canape. To get fair numbers, I measured the lamps on the same black non reflective surface with different hanging distance to fixed raised spots to eliminate any ground light wash. I used 30, 45, 50, 60 70  cm distances and leveled lamps.

The first I learned is that I was so completely wrong about my hanging distance, rather shocked I got those 976g per m2  I was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY to close. Damn.. that quantum flux meter is a eye opener. Mars tells you to put the TS3 on 30-45 cm for flowering.. no ^^ don't do that. Go 75 cm distance for veg and 60cm for flower.. rest is waste and to narrow foot print. If you use a CO2 generator.. crank it up if you go on 30 cm 1280 micromol... Big BADA BUM 

The QBs will go 65cm for Veg and 50cm for Flower. They are 80 micromol weaker spread over the canape, but we still talk 75 watt less. So this could be a very interesting compare. 

I let 3 strains run and will have spares to make swaps for genetic lower plants. I try to be as fair as I can be. Both sets will get bottom feeding over a 1.2x1.2 tray. Biggest harvest over all strains wins.. i dropped the seeds today 

As my Fastbuds seeds are with the Post Office ^^ and I am bored. I went Nirvana seeds.. Bubblelicious, Blue Cheese, Blueberry Kush.. all autos  what else!

[Prom]

I sort the plants and distribute to each section, QB and TS3.. curious if the QBs can match a TS3

But I should have enough to choose from and make a even distribution of good genetics. If you ask yourself, what is the spray bottle doing there.. I use it to easier feed (Root Juice, BioBizz, 4ml/L) the back rows.

 The Arena 

[CoolJ]

On 5/29/2020 at 10:52 PM, Prom said:

i took the hlg240h-48b and ordered 5 from digikey.. 71$ for one and free international express shipping.. not complaining so far.. standing at 700$ for the 4 QBs and 5 drivers.. one spare. Lets see how much customs bite off 

I make 4 single lamps out of the boards. More flexible to hang, rather curious how they will compare 

Hi man, I'm not sure if I missed your post but was was the customs fees for the $700 worth of goods?

[Prom]

^^ give me 2 months and I tell you  the yield will tell.. rest is guessing. So far.. both sides are about same speed.. but that says nothing at this stage. All difference will be in flower. Distances for germ, veg and flower I measured with a quantum flux meter for both. I try my best to have conditions for both the same.. I also placed the corner TS and measured the side wash, so it is more or less same for both sides.