Hey all, I'm attempting to build an air-cooled qb96 rig. I have my lights and everything purchased (a special thanks to tboneshuffle for helping me pick out the 96v2s) however the biggest obstacle has been to purchase and cut the metal that the led boards will be mounted to. I've finally purchased the metal at a metal supply shop today, and I'm currently looking for a metal fabricator that is capable of cutting the holes for my light. I wonder if I could get away with just mounting the heatsinks on the metal, and putting the led boards on the other side of the metal, making the sheet part of the heat sink. Put some computer silver cooling gel between each. Hmmm well see what this fabrication might cost, but that might be an option. Is anyone an electrician or does anyone have an informed opinion about whether sandwiching the metal like that would work? Here's my stripped down hood. And here it is with the new metal. I'll be starting a proper breakdown of my build as soon as I get this metal situation figured out, but wanted to start the thread so I had a place to muse, and see what people think. Peace.
Did you get the pin heat sinks ? I have some small 12 volt project fans that I place face down on top of my pin heat sink and that's really all you need to run these lights pretty hard . Its about a $20 fix
Man,you gonna have a cool setup there...pun intended,lol With air running thru that hood, that plain sheet metal could be your heat sink....Right or wrong? They say you can peel and stick those boards to a heat sink OR some suitable aluminum extrusion... OH...Is that sheet metal aluminum?
I've got some, but metalwork sucks and this shit is thick. Might have gone a little over the top getting this sheet. Excellent. I did get the pin sinks, and was planning on mounting them inside the hoods along with the drivers. I'm actually trying to take heat completely out of the equation. I'm in socal, and want to try to get away with growing with no ac in summer. I think this is going to do it if it works. Its aluminum, and that's exactly what I was just thinking. Maybe I'm trying to reinvent the wheel here. I bet if I attach strait to aluminum it would do what I want without the sinks even. Hmm think I'll contact hlg and ask.
Maybe just sealing them up in the cool tube is the answer, cause they put a good amount of heat out of the face side also. If you do sandwich that big piece of metal another one of the tacky thermal pads that come with it would be a good choice rather than the glues and gels. Should be interesting
Thought about putting them inside, but then I'd have the glass to deal with and it can be a bitch to keep clean, and will alter the light slightly. It's not perfect, but will significantly reduce heat though, which is the best I can hope for I think. Good idea on the pads.
Just curious but why air cool, wouldnt it be much simpler to just use the pin heatsink that comes with the qb96elite?
Hey dude, I am using the pin heat sink inside the hood. I'm just trying to take the little bit of heat these make out of the equation in hopes that the air cooling takes the majority of the heat out of the room. If I can just deal with heat from outside I may be able to cut out ac in the summer months. I may also be uselessly doing this, hopefully it works as expected, but only time will tell. On a side note, Spoke with the dude at hlg, he said just.sandwiching the aluminum will work, so that's what ill do to save me time and money.
I feel dumb I just found this out myself but in order to get your temps to drop dramatically you need an intake fan 2"smaller than your exhaust fan. Also you want the intake fan taking air from outside fresh air (preferred method) or from another room. The exaust fan though can blow back in the room. It's ok to exaust back into the same room with a filter on because you would be having perfect air movement with fresh air to boot. Should drop your temps down considerably. Also an ocilating fan as well. If you can intake air from outside. Then you will want to get a window AC vent kit. Adjusts to fit most windows. Man setting up an indoor grow is expensive as fuck. Once you get all the materials though, it's like $20 here $20 there. Oh and of course the electric bill haha. So remember when it comes to growing the term 'you get what you pay for' absolutely applies'. So spend the money and the rewards will come eventually.
Right on, I've had my environment dialed in, and already run an air cooled hood, so this won't be a huge change for me beyond the difference between hid and led. Apparently LEDs ideal temp range is 80 to 85, compared to hid with its 75 to 80, so with the addition of co2, and some silica early on, I should be able to withstand the temps of summer. I've had a sentinel chh4 for over a decade that controls my environment, and a well designed room that keeps me in the sweet spot for temps.
Oh yea. During the winter I will probably want to shut off the intake. I won't be growing constantly. I don't sell and it's all personal. So harvest then relax some. Been getting back into red dead redemption 2 again. Big update coming soon.
Sweet, not a gamer, but I know a lot of people love that game. I'll probably do the same thing with my flower room. I grow all year long though, so during the winter I'll have to turn off the fan to keep some of that heat in the room when I need it.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to drill some holes and get started. Today was a flop, too much other gardening to do before work.
Ugh, got bombed with work and finally had time today to start the build. I drilled holes, and mounted the heat sinks. I've had to trim them down some so they could fit in the hood. Not pretty, but should be functional. Gonna go to a computer store and get some silver computer chip stuff to put between heat sinks and metal. Then they'll get permanently screwed on. This is the schematics I used. I also poked holes on it to make a screw guide.then I used the guide to make markings on the aluminum to drill the holes. This is what it looked like after holes were cut.
I've found that the biggest source of heat with my 96's hasn't so much been the lights themselves but the ballast, especially when they're running at 90%+. Are you mounting the ballest(s) in the hood as well, or are they going to be outside of the tent/room?
Thats what I've heard as well. They're gonna be mounted in the hood, hung back to back in the middle of the flow of the fan in the same place the bulb would be inside, so it gets sucked through the hood.
Put together the ballast to be installed in the hood. Got some thermal paste for the heatsinks, and will be using the supplied thermal pads on the outside with the boards. Hoping I'll be able to do a final construction this weekend. Pics and all. Still need to thread the mounting holes for the boards, and put it all together.
This looks really interesting. I've been talking about this for years. The drawback with leds is you can't hook them to the exhaust fan to help eliminate the heat. Wish you would have tagged me in it. I missed out on helping plan it. When mars was asking the community about what they should do for a new light a while ago I told them to build a large qb type board and mount it in a rectangular vented hood. They built the Mars Cob instead. I don't think it sold very well. If they followed my advise they might have made one of the more popular fixtures today.
Sorry dude, I'm forum retarded and don't know how to tag people, glad you made your way here. Should have sent a dm in retrospect. My apologies brother, you were my spirit guide when I was figuring out what lights to buy. That's funny about Mars, they seem to ask the community a lot, no surprise they didn't listen though. I have to believe there would be a demand for a light like that if it was plug and play. Bet it would have taken things in a new direction too.