The Cheap and Efficent LED Lighting Thread

Growroom Design
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Not sure if they have been mentioned but I have had good results with V-Tac led units for veg. They use Samsung diodes (not sure which ones) but maybe you can figure it out. I am guessing they are LM302N. They spec 2400lm for their 20w 2 foot units but do smaller and bigger ones for EU folks

Handy since they are IP rated plug and play 230v in. No driver needed. Veg plants love it anyway (and tissue culture)

Not expensive either. They work out about 0.76 GBP per watt for 2 foot models. Obviously not cutting edge LED tech, but are good quality for the price and available in various colour temps.

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Here’s the datasheet plot of operational range. With 34V you’ll get the full 6.6A output on the high end.

Are you asking what the plot signifies? The hard vertical line on the right is the current drive max capability. The curved lines are approximately constant power lines where the converter is in power limit. The horizontal lines are compliance voltage limits.

I’d say if you were being conservative, running 4 boards in parallel as suggested by @Mr.Sparkle would keep you in an efficient region of operation probably around 10.5-10.7K lumens/board with maximum light output and the full 240W of power.

For an idea, imagine you are pushing 2.2A/board with 3 of them. It’s about 75W per board, and an efficiency likely right around 180lm/W, equivilent to 13.6kLm * 3 or 41kLm total. Probably not the best longevity, but they’d work fine for a while.

For 4 boards at 1.67A you would be sitting just below 33.8V (call it 33.7V) or 56W per board, and an efficiency likely 190Lm/W, equivilent to 10.6kLm*4 or 42.6kLm total.

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So, I received two xlg-240-h-ab drivers. Connected them up (swapped out for drivers that were in use). And I’m having some issues. I don’t know what the fuck is going on.

Before connecting the driver, I turned it’s internal pot up all the way (Io pot). I think I turned the external dimmer down all the way before plugging in (rapid led cased potentiometer). The lights would flash slowly. They would turn on for maybe 1 second, then off for 2-4 seconds. I was up on a ladder, doing it in place, and so my thoughts/notes are kinda scattered. I did not expect any issues so I was kinda… surprised (and concerned, about the drivers or the boards).

I tried a couple things but honestly, it’s hard to remember which weird behavior belongs to which thing I did, hah…
I unplugged AC, and decided to try something, with one fixture (two qb648s). Tried it with no external pot - don’t remember exactly. Tried turning down the internal pot all the way, with no external pot, then light was on solid (not flashing) and as I slowly turned up the internal pot, at a certain point the light would turn off…

Do you think this could be related to the issue?
Something like, when turning up the Io (current) I can only increase a certain amount before … maybe the voltage drops below 54V? (inversely proportional?) I duno.

I took one driver and fixture down just before “night/lights out” time. I’ll try and get some numbers or idea of what is happening. But I could use some guidance from someone on what to try.

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initially that driver would of been set at its default so turning up the io screw all the way you were asking the driver to produce more than it rated output which is possible, the on off flickering is cause your hitting its internal protection.

With the dimmer connected turn it to full if its not connected it will be at full, but what you will want to do is either connect that driver to a watt meter and turn that IO screw till you hit “240w” which will be 260w on the meter as the driver has a efficiency factor of .92 so working at 240w it will be pulling 260 from the wall.

If you dont have a power meter you’ll want to measure your current with a multimeter and voltage too, voltage is the easy one with just measuring off a positive and negative side of your circuit, current though you will have to measure inline just make sure your on the right setting on your multimeter as you could pop its internal fuse and safety wise, but you turn that iO screw up till you hit that 6660ma your asking.

But measuring driver side for that 240w you will want your voltage and amperage to equal out to that 240w “VxA = Watts” which is a little math and you may have to go back and forth a coupel times if you dont have two meters, but again your not gonna be a able to likely hit that 240w due to the previous mentioned 6660ma max of the driver and the voltage your circuit will be running at, so just tune it to that 6660ma max and leave it, and measure your voltage if you want and that will be your output on the driver side.

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Last night I did some testing, after I panic posted, hah. I was up pretty late. Then, I was looking for those “guide to meanwell drivers” videos from ledgardener, particularly I looked for the one on how to use DMM to measure current. It’s only measuring current in parallel wired setup that I can’t wrap my head around. I watched them in bed on a phone… need to re-watch.

I took notes last night on testing. I’ll try to condense and post them.

Thanks @Mr.Sparkle

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@Mr.Sparkle Please let me know if I should move this topic and/or start my own thread for it. It’s long, and maybe is a bit off topic. Thanks.

XLG-240-H-AB Testing (Parallel Wired. Home run for each connection, no daisy chaining).

  1. DMM connected to xlg dc output pos. and neg. (measuring voltage). No leds connected. No ext. pot.
    -Io pot. at min. = 58.08V.
    -Io pot. at max. = strange voltage fluctuations that seem to correlate to the led behavior I saw last night (lights on for ~1 sec, then off for ~3 sec, repeating). With Io pot. at max, voltage drops from 58V slowly down to about 9V or 10V, then back up to 58V, and repeats.
    -Q1: Why is turning Io pot. to max (CW) turning the voltage down? Must be because it’s turning the current up, and voltage and current are inversely proportional. Maybe I answered this question…

  2. DMM connected to xlg dc output pos. and neg. (measuring voltage). Leds connected. No ext. pot.
    -Io pot. at min. = 53.14V.
    -As I turn up Io pot., voltage increases (brightness too), until it gets to around 55.5V, then the voltage dips (and brightness too) to around 53.2V. (If I try to turn Io pot. up quickly (to max) after this the light might turn off completely).

  3. DMM connected to xlg dc output pos. and neg. (measuring voltage). Led connected. Ext. pot. connected (note: rapid led cased potentiometer) and turned all the way down.
    -Io pot. at min = 51.40V when plugged in (and light turns on).
    -Q2: Shouldn’t the light not turn on when plugged in in this case? What about “dim-to-off” feature?
    -Ext. pot. turned up to max = 53.02V.
    -Ext. pot. turned down to min, then turn Io pot., does barely anything to “brightness”, and voltage = 51.87V.
    -If I turn one pot. (Io or Ext.) all the way first, and then the other, I get the behavior where the light turns off at a certain voltage - right around 55.5V again. (Sorry, this particular note is a bit unclear).

(Note: The external pot I was using up to this point was a “rapid led cased potentiometer”. It has a pcb inside and does a bit of “magic” internally. So I decided to try out a “standard” pot. instead.
Standard pot is a 100k ohm which I’ve tested to be 99.7k ohm. This seemed to make the “dim-to-off” performance work better/more consistent than the rapid led one, and when I turn it up I don’t seem to get the minor brightness “fluttering” when approaching 55.5V.)

Second bit of “testing”.

I kinda tried to do what I might do if I were using an HLG CC or CV driver with Vo pot. (basically, set the voltage output of the driver, with nothing connected first. OR, what I tried later; connect only the leds, no ext. pot., with Io pot. at min., plug in driver, and slowly increase the Io pot., while watching the voltage and leds, until the weird behavior or leds turning off happens. Then turn the Io pot. back down to just below where that happens.):

  1. DMM connected to xlg dc out pos. and neg. to measure voltage. No leds connected. No ext. pot.
    -Io pot. at min. I plug the driver in = 58.08V.
    -Very slowly increase Io pot., voltage decreases. Somewhere around 57.xV maybe 56.xV the voltage take a dive (down to 54V and slowly “drains” lower… and if I continue to turn up Io pot. the voltage just drops to the 40s and even lower - I stopped watching it).

  2. DMM connected to xlg dc out pos. and neg. to measure voltage. Leds connected. No ext. pot.
    -Io pot at min. I plug the driver in = 53.13V. (decreasing a bit as light warms).
    -Now as I slowly increase the Io pot. the voltage increases. When the voltage gets to somewhere around 55.1V to 55.4V (it’s hard to tell when going slowly) the voltage drops down suddenly to around 52V, and if I keep increasing the Io pot. from there the voltage drops hard, until the light actually turns off completely.

Regarding DMM use. It’s the parallel circuit amperage testing that I’m struggling to understand the setup for. I know the meter has to be “inline” to measure current. But this is even less straight forward than it is for series wiring. I don’t “daisy chain” boards when I wire in parallel. I give each board there own equal length of wire for each connection all coming from the same wago/terminal block (each connection gets it’s own “home run”). So I don’t know how to connect the DMM to measure amperage.

In the LEDG video, it sounds like he as two of his four boards daisy chained (Link starts at correct time for parallel).

I also know I need two meters to measure both voltage and amperage at the same time. My second DMM is a piece of shit (I checked voltage with it compared to my Brymen BM235).

Time for a quick break.

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At 13:52 and following, he shows the way I have the circuit wired, with each connection being a home run (though I’m only testing a two board fixture at the moment).
But he’s using a 5 port wago. But; the dc output (take the positive for example) takes up one of those ports, then each of the 4 pos. connections to a board take up a port. That’s 5 ports used already. You can see on of the 5 ports has a red wire going down screen to another 2 port wago, where the pos. probe is connected. So where is the fourth pos. wire run? Do you think he put two of the wires going to board into one of the 5 port wagos?

Oh, when he said “clamp ammeter” I remembered I do have one. I was thinking of this a couple days ago, wishing I had one, haha. But it’s another cheap one, mastercraft, and it doesn’t seem to measure DC. It only measures AC current, it’s garbage. I might be shopping for a decent clamp ammeter now.
I heard this referenced by LEDG:

Now I’d have to decipher this info though. If anyone has a good recommendation (quality, accurate), fire away.

Edit: Watching vids on wiring ammeter to measure dc amps. Definitely got something figured out and a proper reading. Just not sure if I did it right (current for one board or both).
This one helped:

Edit 2: Before even posting Edit 1, I started testing and trying to work it out. Was playing with it for the better part of the day, and night, haha. I think I got it figured out, and I’ve got some numbers, and more importantly I think I may have got some things sorted now.
(I see your two replies there now Mr.Sparkle, I’ll reply tomorrow or later. But just quickly - I’m not talking about the qb132 boards I mentioned maybe last week. I’m working with qb648 diablos, which I sought help with maybe a few months ago. So not 36V boards, more like 56V boards. They’re properly wired in parallel, and I’m measuring DC volts and amps. Thanks a lot, man.)

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didnt do a full read yet but will come back later, just watching the kid.

First he driver is autoranging for voltage so nothing connected it will go to max voltage, only when led are connected should you be getting a true voltage reading of what the boards are drawing.

Second make sure your measuring DV voltage not AC just to put that out there as your gonna get some off measurements otherwise.

For you to be getting that 55-57v to me that says they are either not actually wired in parallel or your not measuring in DC as those boards as stated should be in the 32+vdc range so lets figure that out first and ill get back toyou on the current hook up and further read

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… Amperage measured inline you connect one probe to where the positive side comes out of the driver and the other side would go to the wago or connection point where all your other positive wires are essentially where that driver lead would be otherwise.

Other thing for the possible voltage difference is are the board different than the ones you linked previous ? As in the older 56v boards

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Yea. In post 326 I think, I just forgot to mention, again, that I’m working with qb648 boards - the boards I bought these drivers for. When I asked about the qb132 boards I was just asking because I wanted to know what other uses these drivers might have for me, eg: with my qb132 veg lights.

Thank you.

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well yeah missed that part for the QB648 in the second last post above as it was buried at the end, so because your now using those xlg-240-h for qb648 which previous we were talking about drivers for QB132’s, issue is you might and possibly are hitting a voltage cut off just cause the little info i could find was they are rated max current of 5a but at 56+v which i dont know if thats at max current or if you just need 56+ to run them, if the former as you turn up your current and your voltage draw is greater than what that driver can provide then it will hit its internal protection.

But saying that the IO screw in the case if say using two of those boards wired in parallel heck maybe just one if the voltage stays low enough but either you wont have the potentiometer anywhere near turned all the way just cause being up at the 56v range you’ll only be able to get around 4.3a before going over that 240w the driver is designed for, so whether your hitting a voltage threshold or likely just the current threshold i dont know for sure as thats where measurements need to be done more so.

As for the dimmers and Io potentiometer, you want to set your max current first with the IO pot and leave it then the external potentiometer will dim the light, and they typically turn “off” when under 10%, but again you just need to set your max current first to be at that 240w which at 56v for the driver it can only go up to 4.28a chart wise, but if running a bit lower voltage then current goes up in a some what proportional fashion like 53v would mean 4.5a and so forth “240w/voltage = max current”.

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More testing of XLG-240-H-AB with 2x QB648.

I got a grip on how to test current in this parallel, multi “home run” setup. Both for the circuit, and the individual boards, I’m pretty sure. If something looks wrong, please let me know.
I ended up using Brymen BM235 for the current, and crappy tire clamp ammeter for voltage at the same time. (I wasn’t using the clamp feature to measure voltage).

Circuit Current:

  1. Io pot. min. = 1.628A , 53.1V. (86.4W)

  2. Io pot. turned up = 5.014A, 55.1V. (277.3W)

Single Board Current:

Board 1:

  1. Io pot. min. = 0.781A, 53.1V. (41.5W)

  2. Io pot. turned up = 2.475A, 55.4V. (137.1w)

Board 2:

  1. Io pot. min. = 0.790A, 53.2V. (42.0W)

  2. Io pot. min. = 2.477A, 55.4V. (137.2W)

NOTE: “Io pot. turned up” means I turned it up slowly until just before the light acts up/dims/turns off/current starts dropping instead of rising.

Setting drivers for use, and external pot.

  1. Starting Amps = 1.635A (Io at min.)
    Starting Volts = 53.0V (Io at min.)

  2. Max Amps before dimming behavior = ~5.1A
    Max Volts before dimming behavior = ~55.2V

So, I set at 5.138A and 55.1V (roughly, it’s a little tricky to do this because the driver is constantly balancing or adjusting volts and current as far as I can tell):

-Next, I connect ext. 100k ohm pot. (99.7k ohm in reality) to XLG.

-Then with ext. pot on min. I plug in XLG.
-The light does not turn on (this is what I want).
-As I turn up ext. pot. the light turns on.
-I can turn the ext pot up to its max. and the light gets brighter and stays on.
-55.1V and 4.956A
Q: Why isn’t it 5.138 (A: Maybe because ext. 100k ohm pot. is only 99.7k ohm in reality?)

Same test with rapidled cased potentiometer:

-With ext. cased pot. on min. I plug in XLG.
-Light briefly comes on (~1sec), then turns off (good…I guess).
-As I turn up ext. pot. the light turns on.
-I can turn the ext. pot. up to its max. and the light gets brighter and stays on.
-55.2V and 5.128A.

Note: Nope, still does not “dim-to-off” properly. Regardless of which ext. pot. used. When plugged in with ext. pot. at min, it turns light on. Not good.

So. I have set both of the drivers at around 5.014A / 55.3V, put the fixture and driver(s) I used for testing into the room now. Connected ext. pot. and turned it to min. Then when I plug in the lights (they both share one AC input, joined by wagos) one of them stayed off (like it should, or like I want) and the other lit up. If I turn up the ext. pot. they both turn on, then turn back down maybe one will dim-to-off, and the other wont, or both wont.
Very frustrating. Regret purchase.

So, I’m wondering about something @Mr.Sparkle mentioned. He said something along the lines of “set it to where the power = 240W”. I was considering this, and was going to test this out and see if it made the “dim-to-off” function work properly, but I’d been doing all these tests and had not lights over the plants in that section, plus no lights over my veg (as I had to borrow their hlg-320h-c2100b drivers and hadn’t reconnected them) and was kinda fed up with it for now, haha.
I also wonder if the power (amperage and voltage) settings I set the drivers to is…safe or not. Because by “calculations” it’s about 277W…?

Thanks for letting me post this here. Maybe nerds will find something interesting here.

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So the xlg drivers can be over driven but they will prematurely start failing over time due to increased heat load, they aren’t as robust as the HLG’s, so that’s why I consistently say to run them at there "rated max"or under, if you say have a fan blowing across them and can keep that heat load in check they can be over driven for awhile, in my case a couple years but don’t be shocked when on one day for whatever reason your lights are off when they shouldn’t be and a simple on off restores them to workingnor the driver has completely failed, I have one dodgy driver that periodically turns off, like one ever month and half but it was overdriven by 10-15% and in a bad air circulation area, but hey it still works 5 years later

As for the dimmers make me wonder if that rapidled one doesn’t go down to zero ohms and instead only has a 10-100% range

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So your suggestion would be, maybe, to connect both my meters to the driver+light combo again, to measure V and A, and dial in the Io pot. until the their produce 240w (mathematically)?

Edit: And thanks for taking the time to read my “notes”.

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yeah or at least ballpark the amperage just for longevity and safety sake, say 4.4a

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Thanks again, man.
I will do that tomorrow. They get hot, even the HLGs. Maybe I’ll fry an egg on one.

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if you have a spare pc fan kicking around and a random 12v wall wort from some old router or something it will help, that or placing them where they get some air exchange

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Thank you so much @thainer

I got a 100w one cheap on sale with prime free shipping,

And it’s been working great. Getting my plants healthy in the extra overflow space I needed better lit.

It does have a short cord though

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Killer light I run 1 myself atm with a ts1000 in my 3x3

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Viparspectra XS1500 Pro and XS2500 Pro are on sale right now on German Amazon (prime members only) and eBay (prime day without amazon plus 8% off :laughing:)

XS1500 Pro 137.99€
XS2500 Pro 183.99€

(8% off with code POWEREBAY8)

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