Hi Guys So my new toys arrived yesterday.... 3w 15000k Cool white x 15 3w 6500k Warm white x 15 3w Royal blue x 2 3w Deep red x 2 3w Full spectrum x 2 I also ordered various lenses to play around with - 15, 60 and 90 degree angles 2 x 30cm Extruded aluminium heatsink I ordered the drivers from improved living but find they get extremely hot - Does anyone have a suggestion or an alternative? Next to get is a decent low profile cooling fan and some arctic silver thermal adhesive to stick these suckers down.
Hi Wazi, I remember the excitement when I got my goodies I run 6* 3w LED chips on my 1 ft in parallel for +- 6 hours a day with a 5v, 1A driver (it was actually a charger ). I found that although most 3w are rated at 3v, they can actually handle 5v without hassle. Then on my 2ft I decided to run 1 * 25w (rated at 34v) cold white (8000K) flood light chip. Powered up by a 24V power supply and a regulator to increase the voltage to 34V.... The above driver methods worked out cheaper for me since the power supplies were easily accessible. Hope this helps
Thanks @koganm I will look into that for future projects. But for now I have the LED and going to try them. I have been messing around on makersled website and have found some cool info as well as a layout planner. Here is my basic design. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
For sure bud, i still use my chips although i ordered so much that it does not seem to get finished ... I assume that you going to connect them in series?
Yes. I have ordered a 4 to 6 3w LED drivers. Going to test them before though. I'm just concerned about the heat build up on the drivers though. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You should not have a problem with 2*LED's on the 6w driver. Why not just get one 60 - 65w driver instead?
I have a 5 channel controller currently. I would like to keep using it so I need to dim the seperately channels. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Will do. I can start assembling and testing soon. I just want to wait for the dimmable drivers to test them. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You can try LED Select on BidorBuy. He has an excellent thermal paste and very nice power supply units. Also, RE your drawing and the lenses. Just be careful of trying to focus too much of your light down to the bottom. The moment your stems start growing they'll effectively grow out of the light zones. You'll still have some scattered light that gets to them. But the red stems will take strain first. I made the same mistake the first time around.
Will do. I can start assembling and testing soon. I just want to wait for the dimmable drivers to test them. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks. I didn't really think of that. I will have to an around with the lenses and see if they will be worth the trouble. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Using the lenses are fine. You might just have to lift your light unit a bit higher to get coverage sorted out. Or plan your scape layout and use your lenses accordingly. I.E. Use the lenses in front where the carpet will be and the LED chips as is toward the back so that the light is more spread out and will catch the stems.
Hi Wazi You ask for any suggestions and I will explain to you wat I did as I do not like any off the LED controllers on the market. First I want to correct @ coganm on his statement that 3w will work on 5v. Not true. The forward voltage of most 3w LED's is 3,2-3,8v except for the red ones which is 2,4-2,9v if I remember correctly. Applying 5v to them will blow them instantly. Been there dun that. The only reason your LED's are working is because you are overdriving the 1A 5V power supply. 6x600mA=3.6Amps. Wazi wat I have done is to connect 6x LED's ( of which 1 was a red LED) in series , to a 24 volt 4Amp psu. I use a LM 317 voltage regulator to current limit the LED's to 500mA and run 4 banks off them in parallel on a 2foot lank. Do not need to use a cooling fan as on my build they do not get hot and your heat sinks are better than mine. Pieter
Cool. Thanks for the info. That explains why the current driver got so hot. I have ordered 3x of these http://www.improvedlivingpe.com/#!/...chip-power-supply/p/59551631/category=8495386 I plan to run 3 x banks of 5 and then use 2 normal drivers to run the remaining 5 leds. The main reason I went with the selection is they are cheap enough and dimmable. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
So just received my new drivers. Turns out I ordered the 20 w versions. So I can run 10 to 12 3w LED. Nice build and very nice Heatsink built in. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Planning phase.... I realised I might have bought a bit to many leds for the project.... Lol. I have decided to go with 3 rows of 7 leds so 7 x 3 = 21 in total x 3w assuming all the LED are accurate and deliver the claimed wattage I will have a total of 63w there will be a mixture of cool white 6500k and 15000k royal blue and red and I'm going to put 1 x full spectrum LED in the mix. I'm going to be using q bond as the glue instead of the Arctic silver. It has a much higher temperature resistance. And don't worry... I have not forgotten about the thermal paste... I will only be glueing the 2 corners just to secure them Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
