Hi all! I have a few questions for the QB geniuses out there, this will be my first grow and I’m confused about some stuff regarding QB’s. I just finished building my light fixture which is 4 QB288 V2’s from HLG running with a Mean Well HLG-600H-54A driver. Everything is mounted on a Slate 6 Quad heatsink, also from HLG. This will be covering a 60x60x78 (5x5x6.5) grow tent. I will be growing 4 plants in DWC in this setup (2x Northern Light, 2x Wonder Woman). On to the questions: Watts/Volts/Amps. How much should this driver be pulling from the wall? I’m measuring everything with a Kill-A-Watt. With the Io (which I understand is current) dimmed down to 50% it says it’s pulling 205 watts, 1.76 amps and 119.9 volts. At 100% this goes up to 651 watts, 5.64 amps and 116.2 volts. The Vo (which I understand is voltage) is set to max on the driver in both cases. Are these measurements in the right range? If not, how do I correct it? I don’t have any measurements for heat right now, but I’m planning on buying a temp gun to measure that, as of now I’ve only had the lights on for 15 minutes at a time for testing, the boards do give off some heat but I can hold my hand under them without an issue, the driver and heatsink do get a bit hot. What’s the ideal temp for the heatsink and driver? I saw a LedGardener video for the HLG driver series in which he shows how to fine tune the driver using both the Io and Vo pots on the back of the driver. Could someone ELI5 how to do this and what’s the ideal settings for the pots? I understand the A series of the HLG drivers come with the built in dimming pots and I can’t add a second pot for it. I see the driver has some extra wires for Remote Control, if I were to add the Mean Well remote, could I dim the lights under 50% or would I only be able to go from 50-100% same as with the driver pot? Here’s the remote I’m talking about, is this the right one for my driver? RFP-M1M3-3A: MEAN WELL : 12V-24V Wireless Dimming Remote Controller M1 : Power Supplies & Wall Adapters I’m a bit confused as to the total height I’ll have available for my plants. I’ve always seen huge plants in tents similar to mine, but now that I’m setting everything up I feel I don’t have much space to work with. The tent is 78 inches tall. My lights are at the highest I can hang them right now at 12 inches from the top, I may be able to shave off 6 inches by changing my hanging method. My reservoirs are 12 inches high so my plants will sprout at that height. If I factor in the 28 inches (max) distance I need between my lights and canopy, that leaves with 26 inches for growing space for my plants…I feel like this is tiny!!! That would mean I need to start flowering when they’re 13 inches tall. I do plan on doing SCROG and widening out the canopy to the edges the most I can since the light can cover almost the entire tent. Any thoughts? Related to last question, how close can my plants be to the lights? What’s the ideal height/dimming combination for Seedling, Veg and Flower stages? Lastly, I want to change the way I’m hanging my lights, if anyone has the exact carabiner size that would fit into the Slate 6 Quad heatsink hanging holes that would be awesome, I haven’t ordered them on Amazon since I want to be sure before I do. I know this being my first grow I have a lot to learn and there are tons of things I’ll only learn by trial and error, but I want to be as informed as I can before I start. If you want to know more about the things I have in my setup check this google sheet: Guabasa's Equipment List For some pictures of how my setup is coming along go here: Thanks for reading! Hope you can pass on some knowledge as I’m eager to learn! Happy Growing!
Don't worry about the driver pushing past it's rating at the wall draw. LED drivers are rated in output to the lights not wall draw. It's confusing because HPS lights and others are rated at wall draw and the loss in the ballast is taken into that. At 120 volts the HLG600h drivers run at a reduced efficiency compared to 240volts. Around 9% loss in the driver. That driver will also push past it's rated output by 20-25 watts or so. If you look at the HLG 600h fixtures ratings it says 620 watts to the boards. Add another 9% to that and your 650+ wall draw number makes perfect sense. Just manage the temp of the grow space with a combination of your exhaust fan and the current dimmer on the driver. You may be able to add a fan blowing on the light fixture to be able to hold good temps even at max output. LED's have a specific voltage that will turn them on at a given current level. It's known as the forward voltage of the board. You can use your voltage pot to tune in the proper forward voltage so you're not pushing too much. With the lights on turn the voltage down until the light starts to flicker and then adjust it back up until it settles back out. Then you're right in the correct forward voltage range. You may be able to get the boards to run a little cooler running at a few less volts. Especially true with the v2 boards. They will almost run on a 48 volt driver so they need significant reduction on voltage on a 54 volt driver to be in proper range. Do your dimming with the current pot and then retune in the right voltage to have the best temps at that current level. Minimum light space in flower is about 16-18" at full power. A mature blooming plant should be able to take that but some strains are more sensitive to intense light. The best approach to managing light distance and power output for a particular plant canopy is to just watch it closely for signs the lights are too close. You should see heat or light stress on the leaf tips or crumpled tips on pistils if the lights are too close. You should be able to rehang them if need be and get them as close as 6" or so from the top of the tent. That is as close as I would run them. I use an 80" tall tent and also struggle with headroom. I don't understand how people use 5 foot tall tents at all. Most dimmers included on the lights will only dim down to 50% output when fully dimmed. They don't dim the lights all the way to nothing. There may be a way to do that with a B series but I'm not sure.