COB Chip Integrated Smart IC Driver

[Firebrand]

I have four of these chips/mods up and running, everything seems to be alright, but I do have a question.

How hot is too hot?

I used the CPU heatsink that I described in the original post, the Dell 9y692. I was hopeful that I could mount 2 mods on each, but the sinks are slightly smaller than what is needed to fit two mods, so I ended up with one mod per sink.

When these get warmed up the sinks get hot to the touch, not enough to burn skin when touched, but enough to make it uncomfortable to touch for more than a few seconds.

I'm not that familiar with heat ranges for LED's and I wonder, how hot is too hot?

Is what I described too hot?

Should I be looking at further, more active cooling? Muffin fans perhaps?

Input appreciated.

(As a follow up, I was able to finally solder the speaker wire to the mods)

 

[Firebrand]

So anyways, the reason I asked about the heat in the above post is because I have two other LED fixtures that are both 100 watt, and those have comparable heat sinks (aprox. the same surface area) and get nowhere near as hot, although those both have small muffin fans for active cooling. So I'm thinking that I should be looking at incorporating an active cooling fan for the latest build.

The other fixtures are one with six Bridgelux 17 watt chips, and one with ten Ebay China 10 watt chips, both of those seem to be much cooler to work around.

I'm going to have do a rework on the newest fixture, I need to better sanitize the wire harness, and figure out a shroud for fan mounting and overall cooling, and maybe install wing type reflectors to curve down the sides of the 120 degree beam angle.

I'd like to post photos but at the moment I'm kinda ashamed of my knarley roughed up build, as soon as I clean it all up and make improvements I'll try to get photos posted. Also, I should add that the newest cheapo chips have and are working well going on to their second week of service, initially I feared that I might have failures with the chips, but so far they seem to be working alright.

I'll try to update as I move along.

 

[Firebrand]

Update:

I haven't done any cooling upgrades. At day 37 of 12.5 off and 11.5 on, one of the four modules stopped working. If we do the math it figures to 425.5 hours of use, a very short life in the LED world.

A 25% failure rate at 425.5 hours is very bad obviously, but the sample is so small that it might not be true, could be an anomaly, or perhaps it stems from insufficient cooling.

More as I move forward, lets see if any more of them die.

 

[Phagoos]

If you see black spots showing up in your cob then thats a typical indicator that they get too hot. As some point it just completely burns out.

 

[BurchSung]

Hi...i am a new user here. As per my knowledge [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]both are clones from same mother that was already blooming.I put them in a 1gl pot and direct to a 12/12 light cycle.
[/FONT]

 

[Traveller x]

Cob

Cob

Hi guys, can someone explain me the difference between use a led glass lens for cob and don't use it.I mean, is it really necessary?
Sorry for my bad English!

 

[Medfinder]

I spent $12 on these, I did a little on line research, posted a few videos, did a little writing, and if I can save others the aggravation of buying and dealing with an inferior product then it's worth it, on the other hand, if these are a viable option then that's alright too, either way it's win-win.

I am in effect giving back to the community that has given to me so much, I'm thankful.

well... there flying of the self!

More than 10 available / 28,567 sold


https://www.ebay.com/itm/110v-220v-...var=551930516470&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

i am using 1600 lumen 14 watt screw in bulbs without covers in 1 x 4 adapters. dollar per bulb 99 cent only store.

 

[Klompen]

I just ordered 10 of these at about 2.40 each so 500W for 24 dollars is not bad! Its going to take a little while before I can gets started on these in earnest though. I have to wait for slow shipping from China plus then I have to build the cooling fixture and I also have to build the grow space(concrete work is involved). Hopefully I'll be running this setup in about 2 months!

 

[Klompen]

i'm happy with these leds..
Attention is getting very hot,i use them on water bloc.https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=71092&pictureid=1753027View Image https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=71092&pictureid=1756895View Image

sorry for my english.

Thank you for posting this! What has your experience been with them? Do you find that mixing the different color chips actually helps? I ordered 10 blurple(aka "full spectrum") 50W chips but after doing some research noted that some folks say that mixing in some 6500K(aka "cool white/daylight") chips seems to improve results. I also ordered 4 of the daylight chips to mix in. That should give my entire array a draw of about 700W, or about the equivalent of a single-slice toaster. I'm thinking of putting the blurple cobs in pairs down the outside edge and the daylight chips in between each pair. What's the total draw of your fixture? It seems like you have quite a few chips on there! How hard is it to cool your array?

 

[brickweeder]

...my eyes aren't what they use to be, and I'm not set up for scope soldering, and the lands on these mods are tiny.

I have the same issue, but use an Optivisor when soldering, magnifies enough for me to get the job done, and is completely hands free. Dab of solder on the land, tinned leads, short touch with the iron...voila!


The optivisors (or knockoffs) are definitely worth the money and you'll find that they become an essential tool for many things. Plus, if you use them in conjunction with a loupe, you can really see the trichs nicely.

 

[brickweeder]

...How hot is too hot?

...When these get warmed up the sinks get hot to the touch, not enough to burn skin when touched, but enough to make it uncomfortable to touch for more than a few seconds.

I'm not that familiar with heat ranges for LED's and I wonder, how hot is too hot?

If you can, email the seller for a datasheet...they usually have efficiency graphs that plot current v. temp. Most of the datasheet sheets for COBs that i have seen show max current dropping off drastically anywhere from 80-100 degrees C (over 175 degrees F). It sounds like you need to mount a fan on your heatsinks and/or increase their surface area, although adding fans is probably cheaper than substantially upsizing your heatsinks. There are plenty of inexpensive variable 12v 1 amp power supplies (less than $6) that can drive your added cooling fans. The high temp was probably the main reason for the short life of that one cob.

Another reason for the higher temps with these COBs could be because they have the driver built in and their heat goes into the same sink as the COBs. Your other LEDs that produce less heat probably have external drivers with cases that are also designed as heatsinks.