LED dresser cabinet, cxb3590 cob conversion

Hi friends. I'm back again, putting in some cobs into my little dresser. This dresser is 22"w x 12"d x 24"h (interior dimensions). I used to have an led panel in there, then I switched to some led bulbs, now I've switched over to cob leds.
here we go!
The cabinet originally:

It had 10 sockets installed which I would fill with led bulbs as necessary..This cabinet has been through about 5 remodels, you can see the leftover markings from the divider which used to seperate a veg area....that lasted about a month lol. 3 pc fans exhaust out the back and into a carbon filter chamber. I plan on upgrading those fans.
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I pulled out the light sockets and the strips of wood they were attached to. I had to add pieces of wood to the top left and right to narrow the ceiling just a few inches. I did this so the light frame will fit tightly in place...-you'll see later when I mount it.
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I made a frame for the cobs/heatsinks from angled aluminum:

This part went pretty smooth. It was my first time using a rivet gun so I put a few in upside down cuz I wasn't paying attention. I also drilled a few holes in the cross bars to attach zip ties to later for the wiring.
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I attached the heatsinks to the frame, and the cobs to the heatsinks:

These are cree cxb3590 cd bin 3500k... I put them in ideal cob holders. I like these holders because you just shove the wire in and it stays..no soldering. At this point I realized I should have made the holes in the frame which attach to the heatsinks, about 2-3 mm higher. If I would have floated them above the rails like that I could adjust/angle them slightly toward the center. Just a minor thing I would have done differently in order to customize the lightfoot print a little bit. hope that made sense.
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I wired them all up...I wrapped this end wire around a pin on the HS to secure it a little:

next time I plan on adding a few more holes in the frame to connect zipties to.
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Installed the frame:

Added a fresh layer of paint before I installed it. You can kinda see how I mounted it...2 screws through the frame on each side. That's also why the 2 outer frame pieces are flipped upsidedown...so that I could easier access the screws to mount it.
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went to work on the potentiometer:

I'm not good at soldering...I really don't like it at this point I was trying to clean up the left joint and soldering tip didn't seem to be hot enough. So I cleaned it on a sponge and set it down for a second to let it heat. Then it made a popping sound and I saw sparks inside the handle lighting it up. It freaked me out and I immediately unplugged it. It was old and cheap so I guess it just died. That was pretty exciting though.
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I still needed to wire the resistor to the pot...so I just used wago connectors:

I know that's probably not the safest way to do it, and I plan on soldering it in once I get a new iron. I made sure to cover any wires so that nothings exposed. Everything seems secure for now..but I plan on fixing this in the next few days.
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I wasn't sure where to put the pot...I don't want to bump it on accident ever. Turns out there was a thin piece of wood covering an old intake...it was about perfect to mount the pot into. I can put some sort of guard over this later if there's ever an issue, but I think it will be fine.
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continued....

 

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test fire:

Up and running...temps were a little warmer then I'd hoped...So I guess I'll upgrade the fans a little to help out.
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I decided to lower the frame by about 1/2 inch to improve airflow above the HS's. I had them mounted flat against the ceiling at first:

This seems to have helped airflow a bit. I'd like to be able to drop them a lil more, but there just isn't room.
In the background of this pic you can also see that I marked out my wattages for the potentiometer. I did this by turning off the fans and using a kill-a-watt to determine how much total wattage the 3 cobs were pulling. Full power is 164w, minimum dim is 21w. So divide that by 3 and you get how much each cob is pulling. I want to run this at about 35w per square foot so I marked a setting for 70watts since this is roughly 2 square feet. I also marked a few other settings like 50% and 25% power. (this is the lazy way to do it without hooking up my volt-o-meter thingie)
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I threw a few lemon hazes in there that have been kinda shaded in my other flowering cabinet:

These 3 are about 17 days into 12/12..I trained them right before this pic. Currently about 4-6" away from the cobs. Each cob runs about 21 watts or so I think. My cobs in my speaker cabs are at about 28 watts and I can get plants within 3-4 inches. Being able to dim these lights way down is really nice too...

thanks for reading! I may have breezed over a few things that are covered in depth elsewhere...if you have any questions about the setup or cobs in general please feel free to ask.

 

hi dudes..I wanted to share a few shots of how these COB lights are working out




I've been upping the wattage a little bit while I have the vertical space to not burn them ...only about 10-20w more then I will end up using.

 

thanks alot homegrown
I got 99% of my cob knowledge from growmau5's videos, they are perfect for a diy'er

 

@CannDiver Hi. I'm not sure on the cri...maybe 80? they are the 36v model also. I have them hooked up to a HLG-120H-C1400B, wired in series, with a dimmer. FYI - When you buy the driver, if you get the model ending in an 'A' it comes with an internal dimmer built into the driver(under the rubber plug) ..if you get the 'B' version of the driver, it comes with 2 extra wires that you can hook up to your own dimmer.

If you haven't purchased stuff yet, I recommend quantum boards over cobs. Cobs are still great (if you get the good ones) but quantum boards are slightly better, easier to cool, and cheaper per watt overall. The quantum board is about the size of a sheet of paper...so if you can fit that in there I highly recommend going with these new boards instead. They also have their wattage spread out much more evenly which makes them easier to cool and gets a much better light spread. Don't get me wrong, my cobs still work great, but these buds under these quantum boards are crazy fat, and I'm using slightly less wattage then I was before.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I'm always happy to help.