Fanleaf's Huge 42 COB Array Build Plus Other Builds

Bit more progress guys. I have all of the power ran on the "IN" side of the control panel.
I'm waiting on the power output jacks I bought for the output to the drivers and she will be all finished. When I'm not on my phone I will go through any more pictures I have unexplained how I wired everything inside the control box.
Here is the 3 power in plugs and switches.
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Sent from my android from outer space!
 
freakbudz420 said:
This is incredible buddy! I'm not sure how I missed this before. I love LED. It's amazing seeing it come down the home stretch :). Can't wait to see a journal with that bad boy in action!


Sent from my iPhone using 420 Magazine Mobile App
Click to expand...

Won't be long now. I got most of the connectors I need to finish a bunch of cords. Only waiting on one more delivery. I figured if I'm going all out like this I may as well use nice cords. All of them hand made and you guys will soon see the cool connectors I used for special purposes. Had to make 9 cords 11 feet long for power to all the drivers and 9 more cords 11 feet long for the dimmers and 3 cords to run from the drivers to each of the 3 cob panels.
I'm going to post a bunch more details here with pictures but also a youtube video walking over the whole setup from A-Z wiring in the control box included.
 
I'm Definitely in!
 
fanleaf said:
Won't be long now. I got most of the connectors I need to finish a bunch of cords. Only waiting on one more delivery. I figured if I'm going all out like this I may as well use nice cords. All of them hand made and you guys will soon see the cool connectors I used for special purposes. Had to make 9 cords 11 feet long for power to all the drivers and 9 more cords 11 feet long for the dimmers and 3 cords to run from the drivers to each of the 3 cob panels.
I'm going to post a bunch more details here with pictures but also a youtube video walking over the whole setup from A-Z wiring in the control box included.
Click to expand...

would you believe the fact you are going above and beyond on quality cords has me the most interested. One of the things I love most about diy is the control over things like cords and plugs. The details people come up with are most interesting.
 
Im using 12mm 2 pin aviation plugs for the dimmer control wires guys.
As far as the wire on them I actually chose to use RG58U coax because its small and very flexible. The cords are each 11 feet long and the RG58 coax only induces a resistance of 0.5 ohms so that worked out excellent. The other end of those cords shown have the same connectors which plugs directly into the drivers. Doing it this way allows me to have all of the drivers outside of the grow room so I will have less heat to contend with. Even though these are very very efficient a good amount of heat will radiate from the drivers so it's nice to have the option to have them outside the room. Basically for some of you that don't quite understand Kama all nine knobs on the front of the control panel will control the dimming function of the nine drivers and these cords go to the dimming input on the drivers.

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Sent from my android from outer space!
 
Now, on the drivers themselves I chose to use a standard plug just for ease in any situation.
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Now on the control panel Im using 9 of the C13/C14 plugs to run the power from the control panel to each of the 9 drivers.

The only reason Im using 9 seperate power cords is so the 9 meters can tell me what each driver is using.

Now, the biggest drivers are 320 Watts which will be about 2.6 amps so the power cords to each driver can be a quite thin wire gauge without heating up or having a voltage drop.

I chose to use a very nice rubberized cord. I bought 120 feet of it online. Its 18 gauge 3 wire. That wire is great for up to 8 amps so with my 11 foot long cords that will only be pulling a very maximum of 2.6 amps (usually even lower) using this cord has far less than a 1% voltage drop! That is excellent!

So I have made nine of these chords shown below that will plug into the control box with the computer cord style end and the other end will plug into each driver to power them.

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Sent from my android from outer space!
 
I wanted to mention something important for prolonging the life of your led units/lights. I've read a bunch on possible issues that can shorten the lifespan of your lights. Electricity fluctuates with surges and brown outs. To avoid damage to your led units plug them into a rated surge protector. They are good for approx a year and potentially save you thousands. This is all based on what I've read but like most expensive electronics a surge protector can save them from damage due to electrical fluctuations.

BTW Fanleaf, this is badass!! You're the main reason I've started planning my cree cob build. Thinking a 9 cob cree unit in my 3x3. Do you think that would be enough?? Will be best bin available. Peace!!
 
Shaggn said:
I wanted to mention something important for prolonging the life of your led units/lights. I've read a bunch on possible issues that can shorten the lifespan of your lights. Electricity fluctuates with surges and brown outs. To avoid damage to your led units plug them into a rated surge protector. They are good for approx a year and potentially save you thousands. This is all based on what I've read but like most expensive electronics a surge protector can save them from damage due to electrical fluctuations.

BTW Fanleaf, this is badass!! You're the main reason I've started planning my cree cob build. Thinking a 9 cob cree unit in my 3x3. Do you think that would be enough?? Will be best bin available. Peace!!
Click to expand...

9 of them in a 3x3 would be fantastic! You could do the same as me in that case. Run them soft and low. You can do that on 2 Meanwell drivers. I could figure out driver options if you want but the 2 drivers would probably be 2 different models to do it. 5 on 1 and 4 on the other. That's no biggie but just needs to be figured out. Would you be running all 9 of the same color? Or adding 1 that's more blue for veg? Lot's of people just run all 3500k or even 4000k but I wanted mine to be more tunable than that.

Very true about the surge protectors! That would suck to burn up 42 of these chips! That would be a $1900 mistake. (ouch).
 
I was thinking of running them all 3500k as ive read it is best. Although I'm still researching to decide best cob color/placement. This will be my first unit to build and will be for bloom only. I will be building a veg unit after. I'm sure I will continue building more haha.
 
Cool man. I love the 3000k's for bloom myself. My opinion is that the small loss of light output you do get with the 3000k vs the 3500's is made up for in spectrum. Now the 2700k's I wouldnt even consider though.
Im far from someone who knows it all but just be sure you research with the most up to date info out there. For instance bins and light output has changed a bunch when looking at 2 year old info. My 3000k's have a lumenous flux at over 11000 lumens. It used to be way lower on that chip when a lot of this stuff was first being tried.

Sent from my android from outer space!
 
fanleaf said:
Very true about the surge protectors! That would suck to burn up 42 of these chips! That would be a $1900 mistake. (ouch).
Click to expand...

Shaggn said:
To avoid damage to your led units plug them into a rated surge protector. They are good for approx a year and potentially save you thousands.
Click to expand...


Need to update/get new surge protector, I keep forgetting. :thanks:
 
Anyone wanna follow a cree cxb 3590 42 cob superpanel build?

I've been obsessing over supply websites for the last few days trying to piece together the right items. I'm sure my family wouldn't complain if they never heard "this site has x item for..." again!

Do you happen to have any tips for finding the right model number for the 3590s? Cutter is backordered and arrow has about 9 different options for each color but I can't quite figure out the difference other than price. Thank you for all the great info and for documenting this project.

Hoping I can do the same as I try to light this 5x9 tent. (Any thoughts on the number of cobs for that size tent would be welcomed! I was thinking 22-24?)
 

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