InTheShed Grows Inside & Out: Jump In Any Time

[InTheShed]

Now you are pulling legs again Shed. Order the dam thing now. You are talking about one dollar here and one dollar there. The difference is not that big. Tomorrow Samsung, Osram or Cree will have another super chip in their machines and then you got another variable to hesitate over. The most important thing of this is the driver. It's with that you power your future leds with, it will definetly survive your leds. If you get a MeanWell that is.

C'mon Crazy! You went through 7 peltiers and 2 pumps and at least a couple of radiators and you're telling me not to do my research first? I'm making sure not to be like you!

It's two lamps each with 4 strips, so the total intended max draw is 400w and yes in the high 70's % of max.

My intention was to keep this build under 250 wall watts though so I could only be running these at 60%.

Don't worry about these numbers, check out PPFD measurements for QBs and such that use the same diodes to get an idea of the output.

If every board I'm considering is using the same chips, I don't need to compared PPFD, do I? I can just use lux since those specs are stated by Samsung. If all the chips are the same then more lux should be higher PPFD, no?

Yep, sounds about right, then you just have to price in heatsink, drivers and bits.

I'm okay at $200 for the strips as that should put the total build somewhere around $300 total if I'm not buying 2 drivers. Can I not run all 8 boards on one driver?

We're also over on my wall watts. My electric bill has gone up enough with the hot tub (which will share the same 60A breaker that it's supposed to have to itself!).

Rider's double strip F series 1.2192m (4') fixtures came in at 868 diodes (288x3) and if I ran them at 77% I'm under 250 watts. That's more diodes/sf, and even if they run hotter than single strips they won't be as hot at 77% as 8 strips with 2 drivers will they? I can't mount the drivers outside the shed (though they won't be on the strips).
For reference:
SI-B8UZ91B20WW Samsung F-Series Gen3 100W FB24B double row led strip 3000K
17340 lux each, 46v, 103w, 288 diodes each (total 868 diodes)
3 x $58.66 = $175.98
Mean Well HLG-320H-48A 320W LED driver
1 x $84.10 = $84.10

Stay with me folks, I think I'm making progress with your help! I'm really not trying to frustrate anyone here

 

[InTheShed]

Light discussion break! I hope we'll get back to the lighting discussion soon (so I can order something and get Crazy off my back ), but I wanted to update y'all with the beginning of the quadline training for Peyote Critical.

I may have mentioned StankClips® before when I was training my Haze Xtreme (that turned out to be a male), but I want to give another shout out to @Van Stank for this cool idea. Here's a pic:

20181123_130420.jpg

• InTheShed
• Nov 23, 2018

Peyote Critical with StankClips®

What you do is take a small piece of pipe cleaner and connect the new growth to the fan leaf just below it. What this does is enable you to start to train the growth outward long before you could ever actually tie it down. As those branches grow out, you slide the pipe cleaner out with them to keep them flat. Less chance of breakage when you do finally attach it to the edge of the pot since it's already headed that way.

 

[Graytail]

I crunched some numbers for F-series ...

The price from Arrow is currently $12.80 for 10+ strips. That's the si-b8v261560ww model at 3000K. If you got 16 of those it'd be $205 shipped.

They'll run about 22 volts, so 16 of them will draw about 352 volts. At 700ma, a 240H-C700 driver can handle up to 357 volts. They deliver about 2800 lumens at 700ma, so you'd be running 45000 lumens total, and drawing about 250 watts. And 72 diodes per strip x 16 = 1152 diodes total. The setup would run at 180 Lu/W.

Digikey currently has the HLG-240HC700a for $62.37. (Arrow doesn't have it now.)

So that setup would run you $267, plus U-channel, wire, wagos, thermal tape, etc. You'll end up over $300.

 

[InTheShed]

Oh okay Gray! Are we kinda back where we were yesterday with your list that read:
10 strips at 25 watts each (1050ma),
14 strips at 17 watts each (700ma) or
20 strips at 12 watts each (500ma)?

I couldn't find the si-b8ut261560ww in the F-gen data sheet. The 3000K boards all have a V in them.

Would a similar setup in the H inFlux series be that much more expensive and are there distinct advantages to that price increase?

Thanks for jumping in so late!

 

[Graytail]

Crap, sorry about the model number mistake. It's SI-B8V261560WW.

That $25 price on the H-Influx throws everything off. You don't get the additional lumens for the dollars. The aluminum backing is certainly nice, as are the 301B diodes, but still ... $25 a pop?

 

[InTheShed]

Gotcha, we're talking the F562B series at 4335 lumens, 23volts, 25.8 watts? Arrow is a lot cheaper than Digikey then because Dkey is at $16.70 per over 10.

25.8*16 = 412.8 watts
69,360 lumens

Are we talking about the same boards?

 

[Graytail]

Uh ... no. I'm talking 16 strips at 700ma. They'll be 15.4 watts each.

Or you could do 10 and save the cost of 6 strips.

And we found that $18 price for the H-series so that wasn't as bad. Apparently, those weren't the Influx?

 

[InTheShed]

Still unclear on what the milliamps means...never took anything electrical in school! Does that mean I'm not running them as high as the listed specs in the data sheet? To wit, am I running the 400 watt boards at 60%?

 

[InTheShed]

Uh ... no. I'm talking 16 strips at 700ma. They'll be 15.4 watts each.
Or you could do 10 and save the cost of 6 strips.
And we found that $18 price for the H-series so that wasn't as bad. Apparently, those weren't the Influx?

Ahhh, the old H series! Rider said:

both H and F Gen3s do use the LM561C. In fact, the F Series is using S7 bin chips in the 80CRI line now.

which would explain why there's not such a price difference. Maybe PGR can justify the price difference between the F and inFlux. Otherwise I'm leaning toward the old school boards.

In the meantime, do you know why we have such different numbers from what I came up with for both watts and lumens based on the data sheet?

 

[Graytail]

The C700 driver delivers a constant current of 700ma, no matter how you wire things, and it will stay stable up to its top voltage, which for the 240H is 357 volts. The C1050 delivers a constant 1050ma up to 238 volts. They both deliver a max of 250 watts. Voltage x amperage = watts.

So there's no turning up and down - that's the current - each strip will get a constant amperage and constant voltage in these drivers. There are also drivers that are either constant voltage OR constant current. The HLG-240H-24 is a constant voltage driver. It delivers 24 volts to everything.

But there's an adjustment screw on the a-type drivers that lets you turn the wattage down if you need to. The drivers start at max whether its 700ma or 1050ma and then you can turn them down.

You're still stuck on rated specs. Keep in mind that these are meant for standard replacement of common fixtures, so they're "rated" for their expected use. Whether the car has 400 horsepower and maxes out at 167 mph isn't at all important. We're not operating it at any percentage of its rated power.

As PGR pointed out, the datasheets are kinda vague. It looks like the only defined numbers are for the rated specs. They don't offer the rated current for the min and max tables, only the typical. I did some extrapolation from the Lu/W numbers, which are also confusing. It doesn't look like the H-Influx Lu/W is much better than the F-series.

 

[CraZysWeeD]

C'mon Crazy! You went through 7 peltiers and 2 pumps and at least a couple of radiators and you're telling me not to do my research first? I'm making sure not to be like you!

Well you are not digging these out of the dump right? As soon as I ordered the "Digi-Key" Peltier and pump it worked. I had not in the close this much help doing that. You are going to do just fine with these strips.

Still unclear on what the milliamps means...

Milliamps is the value of current the thing demands to produce light. Yesterday the only way of controlling this was through higher or lower voltage. Today with these nice drivers you can set that value regardless of what volt is coming out of it.

 

[InTheShed]

Ohhhhh, so it's the driver that is the governor on the carburetor here! Is there a driver that could drive them to the 400 watt potential (that I could dial down for now) in case I ever move out of the shed and into one of my kids' rooms (assuming either of them ever really leave home )? I'm wondering if a different driver would future-proof this build without greatly increasing the cost.

 

[Graytail]

You got it now, yes. The driver is the governor.

And sure, you could get a 320H driver for 320 watts and turn it down to 250, etc. They're not that much more either, $90 from Dkey?

 

[InTheShed]

What about a 420 watt driver? Is that overkill? $30 extra to future-proof seems like a easy spend.

 

[Graytail]

Yeah, 420 is overboard. But a 320H will take care of a lot of your resistance points. You get more power for any future plans. You get more voltage too, (305 volts @ 1050ma) so you can add more strips later. You can lose 6 strips to pay for the extra, run 10 of them at 1050, and have gobs of room for expansion if you decide you need more.

 

[InTheShed]

Nah, all I did was add $30 for a higher voltage driver so I like the sound of 16 strips for 8 sqft. Two strips/sf is a good number! And if I'm still close to the $330 mark all in then it sounds like a plan!

Which 320H driver am I looking for? There seem to be loads of choices!

 

[Graytail]

It just occurred to me - the milliamps are the power. So for what you're talking about, you'd want a 1400 or 1750ma driver etc, to run the strips as hot as you can go, and then turn the driver down to something tolerable.

And then you need the wattage to get enough voltage to run as many strips as you have.

Does that make sense?

 

[InTheShed]

LOL, as long as it does to you! I feel like I have a vague understanding of the strip side, I'm still lost on the driver side of this equation. I just want to be able to run them at the 400w spec if I want but for now run them under 250w in the shed!

I'll buy a kill-o-watt thing for the outlet to see where I am when I dial it down.

 

[Graytail]

Heheh, I gotta hit the sack, but this gives you a whole new set of numbers to play with.

The drivers can be turned down to half, and you need at least half the maximum voltage to stay stable. So you wouldn't want to go much bigger than 1750ma, I think. That'd be a max of 40 watts per strip. I'll have to go through the voltage numbers tomorrow to see how to power 10 strips at half power.

 

[InTheShed]

Heheh, I gotta hit the sack, but this gives you a whole new set of numbers to play with.

The drivers can be turned down to half, and you need at least half the maximum voltage to stay stable. So you wouldn't want to go much bigger than 1750ma, I think. That'd be a max of 40 watts per strip. I'll have to go through the voltage numbers tomorrow to see how to power 10 strips at half power.

16 strips! Thanks for your help Graytail. Have a great night's rest.