Chinese driverless COBs

Klompen · Sep 3, 2018

Hi everyone! I have been away for a long time now due to homelessness and other issues. We acquired a property and I will be adding a secret grow space soon. It will be a couple months before I can start growing there but I am already trying to plan things.

I went on a Chinese electronics site and ordered a pack of 10 50W driverless grow COBs(6040 type blurples basically). I do a lot of scrapping so I think I have everything else I need to turn them into a grow array. I sure would love to know if anyone here has any experience with them. I could only find 2 grows online with them and both were informative in only some ways. For example; one guy used them to grow a strain he had never grown before. He produced beautiful plants with tight buds, but it yielded less than he was used to with the HPS light he usually used. Not being the same strain though its very hard to know.

If anyone could provide some advice on how much space to have each of these cover that would be great. I'll be mounting them in a reflector though because they have a 180 degree dispersion, but that shouldn't be an issue really if mounted properly. With 500W of them I was thinking of doing a scrog type grow over a 2ft by 4ft area. Will that work? Can they cover more than that?

As far as genetics go, I have some crappy strains that were bred outside in the Midwest so I'll have to make do with that unfortunately. I have "Blue Hash x Northern Lights", "Northern Lights #1", and some "oops" hermie seeds from my Trainwreck x Sour Diesel" grow. I have medical issues and my health has suffered greatly from being without cannabis for over a year now, but I am really looking forward to having something to smoke again. My state has legal CBD but its not the same at all.

Anyway its great to be back at IC Mag and I look forward to being around longer this time!

Cvh · Sep 3, 2018

Welcome to the forum!
Sounds very interesting. I'm curious how those leds will perform.
Be sure to create a grow journal when you are ready to start.

Klompen · Sep 4, 2018

Thanks! I used to post here a lot as MagicCannabus but I can't figure out my login. Anyway the LEDs will take half a month to a month to arrive(gotta love ordering stuff from China), and it is going to take me at least a month or two to get the grow space built. I'll update as I am able! I tried to do outdoor this year in 7 patches but nothing germinated so far(but who knows. its been hard to get out there lately). Not 100% sure what went wrong. Hopefully I get this indoor going ASAP though. Even crap reefer is better than no reefer....

MJPassion · Sep 4, 2018

This is the first I've heard of Driverless COBs so I'm interested in what you get & how they perform.

Maybe Gypsie can get your old account back for you too.
:tiphat:

brickweeder · Sep 4, 2018

Looking forward to watching this perform. You can see the AC L and N terminals, so the COB must have an embedded LED Driver chip. Hopefully the embedded driver has good longevity and is efficient. Make sure to sink them good.

Klompen · Sep 4, 2018

MJPassion said:
This is the first I've heard of Driverless COBs so I'm interested in what you get & how they perform.

Maybe Gypsie can get your old account back for you too.

Yeah I suppose I could bug him about it some time. Maybe not the biggest deal though either. I had a pretty bad root aphid problem and sort of quit coming around and then life got to be quite a mess for a while. Just happy to be back whatever name I have to use

Klompen · Sep 4, 2018

brickweeder said:
Looking forward to watching this perform. You can see the AC L and N terminals, so the COB must have an embedded LED Driver chip. Hopefully the embedded driver has good longevity and is efficient. Make sure to sink them good.

You are correct! There's a current regulator built into the chip. The main downside to this approach though is that they have a 60Hz flicker. So I kind of wonder if I should wire every other COB out of phase with the one next to it so during the dark cycle of half of them the other half is at its peak light output. It would effectively make the flicker 120Hz instead of 60Hz, but I am really not sure how safe it is to reverse the wiring. I would assume since its AC it shouldn't really matter though right?

There is this Youtuber named Bigclivedotcom who has done some great videos about these "driverless" COBs(not for growing though). I would recommend his channel in general because he does some great teardowns of cheap and/or dangerous Chinese electronics among other things. He is the one who brought up the issue of the flicker and made me aware of it. There are some versions of this concept that supposedly eliminate the flicker but they are more expensive.

I'm not always keen on "Cheap Chinesium" as Youtuber AVE calls it, but in this case I am looking at getting an LED light that is an actual 500W draw for 24 dollars for the drivers plus whatever crap I have in my scrap pile to put them together with for cooling. My current plan is to split a thick-walled copper pipe section I have and hammer it flat to create some copper squares to mount each of these on, and then soldering those squares to an aluminum structure of some kind that I can attach fans to. I easily have a few hundred computer fans and other types so I am sure I can make something work. I'll probably wire the COBs so each one has its own switch between it and a central set of terminal posts that I will also run a small outlet off of so I can attach the power adapters for the fans to it as well. Then the entire assembly will have its own cord running to the wall AC so that I can put the whole thing on a timer. I'm going to try to design it all for humid environment so its as waterproof as possible.

Klompen · Sep 4, 2018

By far the best grow log I could find using this type of COB is this:

https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/6040-f2525-a1-cob-legit-or-cheap-knockoff.406436/

He was a little disappointed with the yield compared to his 600W HPS, but it was also a strain he'd never grown before so I take that with a grain of salt. He also did not train the plants to account for the differences in the light. I would still say he produced some impressive plants.

Klompen · Sep 4, 2018

I can't find an edit button but that last post should have read "400W HPS" instead of 600W

brickweeder · Sep 4, 2018

Klompen said:
...The main downside to this approach though is that they have a 60Hz flicker.

WTF? Their circuitry apparently doesn't include an adequate filtering circuit after they convert the ac to dc...sorry, but those COBs need some work.

MJPassion · Sep 4, 2018

Klompen said:
I can't find an edit button but that last post should have read "400W HPS" instead of 600W

Once you reach 50 posts you'll get reg member privileges.

Klompen · Sep 4, 2018

brickweeder said:
WTF? Their circuitry apparently doesn't include an adequate filtering circuit after they convert the ac to dc...sorry, but those COBs need some work.

Well there is a reason that I was able to buy 700W of them for 31 dollars lol

Klompen · Sep 4, 2018

MJPassion said:
Once you reach 50 posts you'll get reg member privileges.

Oh yeah I forgot lol.... My old account MagicCannabus had been past 50 posts for a very long time

brickweeder · Sep 4, 2018

Klompen said:
Well there is a reason that I was able to buy 700W of them for 31 dollars lol

$31? Can't really argue against $31 for 700W including the drivers, even with the ripple...didn't know they are that inexpensive. Looking forward to seeing their results.

Klompen · Sep 4, 2018

The "daylight" COBs are like 1.77 each. The blurples were about 2.45 each. Bigclivedotcom on Youtube did a review of this style COB and they seem to draw true to their rating more or less.

I think I am going to wire them up in two fixtures with 7 in each; 5 blurples and 2 daylights. What I am not sure about is if it is ok to run half of them out of phase with the other half. It would do a lot to reduce the effective flicker of the whole fixture. They're effectively dark about 30% of the time, so if i alternate their peaks the overall fixture should never be completely dark at any given time and the frequency should go from 60Hz to 120Hz. That's my current plan but I am not an electrical expert. Hopefully someone experienced will weigh in on it. Does knna still post around here? That guy was a wealth of knowledge on all things lighting....

Tex24 · Sep 4, 2018

Several of these are running right now in professional grows. I'll post when we get results. We had the mfg. go back and make us a custom unit just for what we are doing. It is very cool.

GMT · Sep 4, 2018

Hey magic, welcome back! Hope things workout for ya bud. Check out blynxs micro grow thread and his store bought screw in led lights thread. Just in case those don't work out for you.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=314806

Klompen · Sep 4, 2018

GMT said:
Hey magic, welcome back! Hope things workout for ya bud. Check out blynxs micro grow thread and his store bought screw in led lights thread. Just in case those don't work out for you.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=314806

Thanks its good to see you again!

methias · Sep 5, 2018

I have tried a few of the full spectrum 50 Watters. Put them on heat sinks with fans.
They all died.
Now I am doing 12 volt 50 watters with a meanwell 12-350 power supply.
It has 350 watt output and holds 12 volts steady.
Same fans and heat sinks only now I am using the cheap Chinese cobs and they are not dying.
Still have to wait for the slow boat from China.

Hope you have better luck with yours.

Klompen · Sep 5, 2018

methias said:
Hope you have better luck with yours.

Thanks I sure hope I do too!!! Sorry to hear they've done so badly for you. Can you please tell me in what way they died? Did they just flat out stop working, burn up, develop dark spots, or what? What voltage and frequency is your AC? Do you have any idea what temperatures they were running at?

Chinese driverless COBs

Active member

Well-known member

Active member

Observer

Well-known member

Active member

Active member

Active member

Active member

Well-known member

Observer

Active member

Active member

Well-known member

Active member

New member

The Tri Guy

Active member

Active member

Active member