The new grow light
On the topic of mars hydros, I really wanted to build a “quantum board” as chips these days are so much more efficient and better at light distribution than single cob chips (I cant remember reading, think it was a Growmau5 video where he said the people at Cree couldn’t understand why people were using them as grow lights because they were so terrible and a better way would be smaller cobs spread out - or could just be the Mandela effect), and I wanted to make use out of old parts so I took apart my 900w mars and got help from @anon58740919 to what chips I could use with the drivers I had and went for Bridgelux EB 2
So I designed a new light that would feature 20 of these strips, 4 drivers with 5 each attached in a series.
This is the rough design I’d be building.
So I detached everything in the old light to only have the drivers and the top bit with the switches and the hangy bits
I’ll be using the screw holes in the lid portion of the light to fix 2 angled aluminium and then fix strips to the underside of them. They dont need cooling, but the fans will still work which isnt the end of the world, plus the wiring was very well done I didnt want to undo it all. Very well built lights (except for the diodes burning out).
Caution: I am bad at carpentry and building things so nothing ever goes the way I want it to. this could have been done much better but I dont need it to be perfect and I’ll probably end up rebuilding it for a new purpose anyway so I dont need to waste time matching up every single mm
Drilling holes for the mounting brackets
I had to replace the original screws with bolts to make them properly secure
I didnt take pictures of the drilling process but this was one done and the rough layout of where each light was going to go plus their mounting holes. Lots of drilling, took me a long time. I really should invest in a drilling machine that can do perfect holes because mine are always out
Now the hard part was one, I epoxied them to the bracket. Now you’re probably wondering “why didnt you just bolt them?” thats a great question. I, in my infinite wisdom, didnt think to line up the mounting holes of the strips to the bracket and drive a bolt through all 3 layers, I was only thinking of the mounting of the underside bar. OH WELL
They all setting.
Testing the wiring. At this point I decided, because I cant dim these lights, I’d use the flower switch for half and the veg switch for the other half. So 5 on one side, and 5 on the other.
The final light. My fingers hurt a LOT after pushing those wires into those terminals
Making sure to tape up those soldering terminals!
The tent before
About 429w (give or take 20w)
After (and yes, the light is too big for the tent. Stupid me thought the tent was 1500 not 1200mm. I’ll probably end up just replacing that tent anyway, its not very good quality and has tears in it.)
248w total for 4 drivers
I might invest in a light meter to see how much output it has but I know it’ll be more than the old diodes for sure, and with half the pull.