Hey Everyone,

First post here and also my first attempt at a DIY LED build, I wanted to share my experience and hopefully help someone out, much like this entire community has for me. This build was inspired by the Falcons post about cheap Bridgelux EB Gen3 strips from www.futureelectronics.com. I got 20 of the BXEB-L1120Z-35E4000-C-C3 strips landed in Canada for about 260$ and found some 48" aluminum wall slats for 10$ each on kijiji. They are similar to these: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Gladiator-9 ... /204648561
For a veg tent fixture I wired 12 strips in parallel to an HLG-480H-42A driver, which I found for cheapest on www.mouser.ca. The driver was remote mounted and I used some 30A luminaire disconnects on each of the power feeds, this made mounting in tent really easy:
I also built a couple of fixtures for a friends vertical garden with the remaining strips, we wired 4 strips in parallel to an HLG-185H-42A and mounted the drivers directly on the back of the fixtures:
5-pole Wagos where used for connectors and each wire to the strips was kept the same length. Cheap thermal tape from amazon was used to mount the strips and seems to be working great, the entire fixture is barely warm to the touch after 18 hours of running. I got some cheap stick on cable mounts from amazon to keep wiring tidy. The wiring diagram is exactly the same as follows with different hardware obviously:
Setup for both fixtures was almost exactly the same so I'll only explain what I did for the 480H. During power up I had an electrician check my wiring and connect two multi-meters measuring current and voltage across one of the strips. Both the Vo and Io adjustments where kept at 0 and the Io dial was slowly turned up to maximum, my target was 0.95a and 39.1v across each strip. The Vo dial was then slowly turned up util voltage read around 39v, the fixture was left turned on for an hour or so to watch the thermal runaway. After voltage was stable, we turned back down the Vo dial a small amount to exactly 39v and watched the multimeter to ensure it no longer rose. The Vo adjustment is what I'm using if I need to dim the light. Overall I'm extremely happy and the price came to about 95 Canadian cents per watt, plants are thriving under the 3500k color temp and I've always preferred it for veg rather than 5000k. Any recommendations or suggestions are much appreciated, this is after all my first shot at a DIY light fixture. Thanks again.

Man, that looks awesome! This is your first build?

Kudos for having a sparky go over it with you. Nicely done.

Hey gvbz, awesome job on that light!
I'll have to look into EB Gen 3's for a little veg box in my future.

LEDG wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 12, 2020 4:31 am

Man, that looks awesome! This is your first build?

Kudos for having a sparky go over it with you. Nicely done.

Much appreciated, this is indeed my first build and I owe it all to this awesome community. About a year ago I purchased 2 pre-assembled ChilLED Logic 660 fixtures for my flower room, so I do have some experience growing under LED lights and have been extremely impressed with the results.

I don't have any significant electrical experience, so having an electrician around is almost a must when dealing with the larger drivers.

J.R.R. wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:00 pm

Hey gvbz, awesome job on that light!
I'll have to look into EB Gen 3's for a little veg box in my future.

Thank you sir! I'll post some vegging result pictures in the near future, I'm about 10 days above ground with my current seeds and so far growth rates are damn near the logic 660s.

Awesome build my friend

Was there a reason to keep the wires all the same length?

bilabong007 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 12, 2020 8:14 pm

Awesome build my friend

Was there a reason to keep the wires all the same length?

I'm not sure the exact reason, just heard it somewhere on a parallel build video. I know that voltage/current across each strip can sometimes be different, so maybe it's to help with that.. But that also has to do with manufacturing and the diodes themselves.

Maybe someone else with more knowledge can say if wire length to each strip makes a significant difference for parallel builds.

So long as the lengths are within reason it wont change the effect much. If you can make them all the same length its better.

I imagine it's due to balancing each leg to drive each strip equally. I asked as I didn't think the odd inch or 5 of wire would matter, but in your build you have made a very neat point of doing them the same length. Devils in the detail.

5 inches won't really make much of a difference. 1 meter will