The Happy One
Well-Known Member
Like most of us I have tried various forms of LED lighting in an attempt to shave operational costs and footprint in my small incognito grows. Most were actually very pretty to look at and gave everything a yummy grape and cherry look, but that was about it. It certainly couldn't compete with a 1000 watt HPS much less a 600 watt HPS. My blurple's were pretty though, but buds were never very impressive nonetheless.
Fast forward to Oklahoma's Medical Marijuana legalization. I said many, many years ago IF Oklahoma ever legalized, I'd be right there in the middle of it.
And so we are. One of the items I've spent a great deal of time in research (I mean a LOT) was in lighting. Not only that, but if we went large scale, what it was going to cost to run what we have ran over the last 35 years or so?
A lot. So much so, our 10,000 sq foot facility was going to cost a small fortune, plus bringing in enough power to run them would be no small feat. The more research I did, I kept coming back to LED and the claims on how improved it has become.
My first project was a COB build. I had to be able to replace a 1000 watt HPS or no banana. After much research I built the array to cover a 4x6 area for flowering. I ended up with 16 cbx3590's. Overall, it's an impressive light, no doubt, but what a pain to build, and I need 32 of them for our first room.
I have performed one grow under these, and the results were impressive. They aren't the "blurple" lights of yesteryear, that's for sure. Anyway, as nice as they perform, they were a royal PIA to build, and I need 32 lights per room and we have 6 rooms to bring online, so this isn't an option for this country boy, though the light stays in my personal 6x12 flower room.
While all this was going on, I was introduced to the Samsung LM-301 chip in the form of an HLG-550 with four Quantum boards. I must admit I was impressed. As I dissected it with my eyes and some hands on attention I realized these little LED's not only put out a bright light, but they actually put out some heat and looked promising as all get out. As I further inspected this light, I came to realize HLG screwed the four Quantum boards to an aluminum plate about 1/4" thick. It was pretty hot, so it was removing a lot of heat from the boards no doubt. They Meanwell driver was bolted to the same heatsink and it was as hot as the heatsink itself. My first thought was why didn't they at least put a standoff between the driver and board heatsink?
Anyway. I watched this light running for months at our local hydro shop in a very poorly ventilated area, and it did run hot but ran and ran and ran.
I then purchased a PAR meter to see if all those YouTube videos bragging about the Quantum lights were really true. Guess what? They are. So much so, the decision was made. The Samsung LM301 won.
Then came the problems. First off, I never could get hold of anyone at HLG, and every time I attempted to order, they were on backorder. They couldn't keep these lights on the shelf. Great for them, but bad for me.
I kept searching for an alternative and came across a company using these same LM-301 chips as HLG. I sent them an email and the next day I had a reply. I made arrangements for one of their 4 board light kits to test. When it arrived, the first thing that impressed me was the frame was constructed of 80/20 aluminum channel, and had all the cool hardware to assemble it. I kid you not, this stuff is like an Erector Set for adults. The frame is about three and a half feet square, so it's not small, however because of how the 80/20 system works, you can slide the boards around with ease.
Here's a shot of one side of the frame. This hold two Quantum boards and two dedicated heatsinks. There is a 1"x2" piece of 80/20 for the crossmember that ties two of these frames together for a 4 board Quantum setup
Here's a closeup of the board itself attached to the included heatsink. Each board has it's own heatsink. I really like that. Everything is also pre-drilled and tapped for easy assembly.
Here's a closeup of the front side of the heatsink.
Yes, that's not just one light, but three of them waiting for wiring and driver. We are assembling 32 of them now, and as of today we have 30 assembled!
The LED room will consist of four rows and eight lights per row for a total of 32 lights in the room. I've built sixteen 4x8 tables with rolling tops so once everything is in here there isn't a lot of room to play around. I needed a way to adjust the height of the lights without having to drag a ladder out and struggle, so I built a cable pulley system using four boat winches, some 3 inch garage door pulleys and some 1x2 square tubing.
Here you can see how the Uni-strut is connected.
Fast forward to Oklahoma's Medical Marijuana legalization. I said many, many years ago IF Oklahoma ever legalized, I'd be right there in the middle of it.
And so we are. One of the items I've spent a great deal of time in research (I mean a LOT) was in lighting. Not only that, but if we went large scale, what it was going to cost to run what we have ran over the last 35 years or so?
A lot. So much so, our 10,000 sq foot facility was going to cost a small fortune, plus bringing in enough power to run them would be no small feat. The more research I did, I kept coming back to LED and the claims on how improved it has become.
My first project was a COB build. I had to be able to replace a 1000 watt HPS or no banana. After much research I built the array to cover a 4x6 area for flowering. I ended up with 16 cbx3590's. Overall, it's an impressive light, no doubt, but what a pain to build, and I need 32 of them for our first room.
I have performed one grow under these, and the results were impressive. They aren't the "blurple" lights of yesteryear, that's for sure. Anyway, as nice as they perform, they were a royal PIA to build, and I need 32 lights per room and we have 6 rooms to bring online, so this isn't an option for this country boy, though the light stays in my personal 6x12 flower room.
While all this was going on, I was introduced to the Samsung LM-301 chip in the form of an HLG-550 with four Quantum boards. I must admit I was impressed. As I dissected it with my eyes and some hands on attention I realized these little LED's not only put out a bright light, but they actually put out some heat and looked promising as all get out. As I further inspected this light, I came to realize HLG screwed the four Quantum boards to an aluminum plate about 1/4" thick. It was pretty hot, so it was removing a lot of heat from the boards no doubt. They Meanwell driver was bolted to the same heatsink and it was as hot as the heatsink itself. My first thought was why didn't they at least put a standoff between the driver and board heatsink?
Anyway. I watched this light running for months at our local hydro shop in a very poorly ventilated area, and it did run hot but ran and ran and ran.
I then purchased a PAR meter to see if all those YouTube videos bragging about the Quantum lights were really true. Guess what? They are. So much so, the decision was made. The Samsung LM301 won.
Then came the problems. First off, I never could get hold of anyone at HLG, and every time I attempted to order, they were on backorder. They couldn't keep these lights on the shelf. Great for them, but bad for me.
I kept searching for an alternative and came across a company using these same LM-301 chips as HLG. I sent them an email and the next day I had a reply. I made arrangements for one of their 4 board light kits to test. When it arrived, the first thing that impressed me was the frame was constructed of 80/20 aluminum channel, and had all the cool hardware to assemble it. I kid you not, this stuff is like an Erector Set for adults. The frame is about three and a half feet square, so it's not small, however because of how the 80/20 system works, you can slide the boards around with ease.
Here's a shot of one side of the frame. This hold two Quantum boards and two dedicated heatsinks. There is a 1"x2" piece of 80/20 for the crossmember that ties two of these frames together for a 4 board Quantum setup
Here's a closeup of the board itself attached to the included heatsink. Each board has it's own heatsink. I really like that. Everything is also pre-drilled and tapped for easy assembly.
Here's a closeup of the front side of the heatsink.
Yes, that's not just one light, but three of them waiting for wiring and driver. We are assembling 32 of them now, and as of today we have 30 assembled!
The LED room will consist of four rows and eight lights per row for a total of 32 lights in the room. I've built sixteen 4x8 tables with rolling tops so once everything is in here there isn't a lot of room to play around. I needed a way to adjust the height of the lights without having to drag a ladder out and struggle, so I built a cable pulley system using four boat winches, some 3 inch garage door pulleys and some 1x2 square tubing.
Here you can see how the Uni-strut is connected.
