knna

All of them are good models made for good companies that are the leaders of the LED market (only Nichia and Toyoda Gosei are between them, but their models interest us way less). SSC (Seoul SemiConductor) is a little smaller than the others, but is growing very fast and surely will reach that size soon.

Of the four you have mentioned, that I agree are the best contenders, the most reputated, quality wise, is the Cree Xlamp. Very well built, specially the new XP platform, offers the largest useful life for a given operating condition of the four. Its downside its generally more costly than the other alternatives.

Lumileds Luxeon are very hard components too. Made to last. But their perfomance is currently below that of the other three, and good bins are very hard to find and expensive, still more than Cree. Good choice for NorthAmericans, as they can buy the components directly from Future Electronics, they are interesting to to the first prototype. But not so much if you want to build an high perfomance lamp.

The Osram Golden Dragon and the SSC P4 (and some other models) are very well build too and offers perfomance leveled with Cree by cheaper. Depending of the source, they may be way cheaper of just a little. Digikey sells Osram directly in NorthAmerica at good prices, so its a nice option (I would suggest it).

But as all those models have a wide range of luminous bins, what have better perfomance depends of the best bin of each that you can buy. For example, although Luxeon have parts of minimum 100lm at 350mA ("1W"), its really difficult to get them. Usually the best you can buy is 90lm parts and sometimes, the 80lm part.

It happen the same with the other models. For example, in white, the Osram GD is selling coolwhites with minimun 97lm (KZ bin). But if you choose a lower bin, of course you can get a way lower price, but the perfomance will be way lower than expected. Same if you choose to buy a Cree P3 bin instead of a Q5 or R2 bin.

Those are examples of whites, but its the same on other colors. So the most important thing to remember is that bin is the important data, way more than the model itself, if you want to know the permomance.

Another thing to consider is what models are hand mounting friendly. Cree are the worst on it. The XR model is possible to be hand mount, but it requires some soldering skills. The XP simply cant be mounted by hand soldering, and you need a hot plate. This is the main reason I dont advice Crees for our DIY LED lamps, not their quality or price.

Luxeon had parts friendly for hand mounting, but they have discontinued it: Luxeon I, III and K2 are still on sale, but just until the end of stock. You need to go now to the Rebel package, which is really a PITA to hand mount, still worst than Crees.

On the other hand, Osram GD and SSC P4 are really easy to mount by hand. Coupled with their excelent quality-perfomance/price relationship, they are what I reccomend most. I think Osram is better in that, and aditionally, is easier to buy. The downside with Osram is they dont sold individual bins, as the other manufacturers does. This allows them to have reduced stock, thus the selling price is lower, but on the other hand, you never know what bin you are going to receive until you have the package in your hand. Only if you find a group of bins which mimimun bin is good enough is advisable to order them, or you are playing with luck. To overcome this problem is why I buy Osram on large quantities and sell individual bins, known before ordering. Unfortunatelly, I dont know any large distributor that does it.

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knna

Its difficult to say in general, as components prices varies a lot depending of the source. You can see same LED on sale at up to double/half the price from one shop to another.

Drivers may have an important impact on final price. Im using drivers able to drive long string, that aditionally are cheap, so they dont raise the cost too much. But in general, comercial drivers are way more expensive and can drive much shorter strings, so probably the main difference in price will be due the driver costs, more than other components. Due this, if you cant get access to a good driver cheap enough, for a large lamp makes sense to build your own driver.

I havent enter on this because there are many drivers topologies and the best to build depend of the configuration. For lamps for small spaces, that are where LED lamps are currently cost effective, you wont need many drivers. For large growing spaces, Im not advicing to use LEDs as only light source, but as supplemental lighting, to improve spectrum and light distribution.

As reference, with the components I use, we are getting similar results to big HPSs using about 75% of the watts. Its when competing with small HIDs or CFLs when LEDs may save currently half watts, but not when compared to very efficient high wattage HIDs.

So when you think between a 150W HPS and a LED setup, you can use 75-80W of LEDs, but if you are thinking on replacing a 1000W HPS, you will need about 700W of LEDs, that are a lot.

For compensated spectrums with red, blue and white, cost using the components I carry is about 1.7 €/W (about 2.5USD/W at the current exchange rate, very unfavorable to USD lately), including LEDs, drivers and heatsinks.

Cost of mounting material, as kapton tape or copper tape is a minimal part of the total cost.

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hanzer000

Knna, thanks for the info.

I have another question for you. If I wanted to have the equivelent of a 400W HPS in my 20inchX19.5inchX59inch area, and I already have a 150W HPS, what would I need to add LED wise to get to that equivelent?

Thanks again.
Ruben

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Im as looney as a goose, anything I say shouldn't be taken seriously. I have fits of a paranoid schizophrenic and make things up! Trust me

knna

A surface area of about 2.71sq ft. 400W/2.71=147.6W/sq ft. Sure its an overkill level.

It would be possible to install near that light density by distributing it along the height of the cab. But not using just toplighting. On a cab like that, using anything bigger of 250W of HPS would be a waste.

I say this to show doing "equivalences" is very tricky.

But I understand that you want to grow in that cab using the highest light density it allows to use. It would be around 600 uE of HPS spectrum, that is aprox the emission of a 400W, but distributing it along the 4' of height avalaible for plants, give or take. Due the better distruibution and spectrum of the hybrid setup, we may use about 60% photons, so you will reach your target using about 360uE. But as you want the max production from that reduced space, you can use still a little more.

The 150W HPS (what model?) gives off about 150uE, once derated the optical losses. So you will need to add another 200-250uE with LEDs. When using together with the HPS, that provides de yellow and far red, you just need to use red and blue LEDs. As the penetration of the 150W is not excessive, it would be advisable to use some white LEDs on the bottom, but only there. Blue and red LED I carry, when running relativelly hard, gives off about 1.15uE/W. So you can add up to 200W of LEDs in order to get the cab plenty of light. Notice that way less would be required to match the results of a 250W HPS or of a 400W HPS (that would be just a little over the 250W, due the caracteristics of the cab). A setup like this, with 150W HPS+200W of LEDs seek for the absolute max production possible in that cab. But adding just 100W of LEDs will resut in very good results too, better that the only 250 or 400W HPS alternative, while it would be easier to manage temperatures.

In this situation, I usually advice to start adding just 100-120W of LED and see results. The good thing about LEDs is you dont need to choose at the start the final power to use, but you can go adding more until achieving the desired yield. And always take in mind that when using an small cab, space limits the achivable yield. Once you past a given light level, not excesivelly high, each increase of light increase yield, but each, say, aditional 50W gives a samller increase than the previous. This is called the law of decreasing returns.

It means that the first 100W of LEDs added to the HPS will increase yield very noticiably, but further increases in light will increase yield, but way less than the first watts. And finally, it will be a point where more light wont iincrease yield at all (that is what will happen if installing a 400W HPS, that a significant part of its light cant be used effectively).

With the reference of 1.7€/W, it means that you would need to invest about 170€ to add 100W of LEDs, and 340€ to add 200W, give or take (probably a little less due you will use more red LEDs, that are the cheaper, than when building a setup with only LEDs).

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mx5spd

Knna

I promise this is my last question. Suppose you have two LEDs with different VFs. Does it matter which one is close to the Power supply?


Thanks for all your help

OzricTentacles

It's not the voltage important it's amperage, the efficience of led is related to current, in serial when you put a serie of leds in a line, it's the led will demand the voltage needed for the amp. gived.

OzricTentacles

I've posted this bin request for led at Osram and Canadian distributors, i will tell you who will reply and what they will reply. ;-)

I'm searching for these Osram Golden Dragon Plus leds :
9 x Deep blue LD W5AM-3T3U-35 bin 3U or 2U or 1U
57 x Red LR W5AMHZJZ-1 bin KX or JZ or JY or JX
14 x Ultra White LUW W5AM-LXLY-6P7R bin LY or LX or KZ

I'm not familiar with Led but it seem to be a non-sense that the particular bin not appear in catalog,

i can't imagine somebody want to buy a CPU in lottery market like that, maybe i don't catch something but habitually with electronic devices you have good one and reject go to flee market. ;-)

Please give me some light about that.

Thanks

knna

LED's chips are semiconductors. They are built in the form of crystals, by depositing layers of metals on vapor state into growth chambers with controlled atmosfere. So its very difficult to get consistent results when building them. Always there is differences between each lot.

At any given state of the art, a manufacturer can produce most of the semiconductor wafers of a bin. But its impossible to get homogeneous result for all chips manufactured,thus the binning. In general, in the production there is a gaussian curve that determines the frecuency of production of each bin. In consecuence, manufacturers state a group of bin that you can order.

Some of them allows to order individual bins, and put a different price for each. If you want the higher bins, they are not always avalaible. Others, as Osram, dont allow it, because customers often only want the higher bins, and usually the production is higher in the medium-low bins. So they choose to only allow to order a group of bins, and you get (suppousedly) what is manufactured at the time. In the practice, distributors get them and then distribute them between their clients, so if you are an small costumer, your odds of getting a lower bin are higher. With this practice, Osram avoids to get an stock of lower bins that may be obsolete, thus they can offer a very good price.

I understand perfectly that strategy. It makes a lot of sense from the manufaturer's viewpoint. But shops shouldnt use the same practice. They should allow to order individual bins, by applying an higher price to higher bins. But the problem is they dont do it. Worst yet, rarely they say you the bin on sale. They avoid stocking too, and its a very bad practice too because retail costumers dont know the most important info about the LED on sale, the bin. Surely, this will change in the future, but for the moment there is a little no sense in this topic, that leads to the Osram LEDs being little sold on the retail level, while Osram is the 2nd manufacturer of the world (I believe, maybe is the 3rd).

As for you iniciative, its very good, asking directly to the distributor for individual bins, and let them to think if they want to do it and at what price. I see difficult to achieve it with low orders, though, but who knows, you dont lose anything for ask.

You must be aware that Osram sometimes have different groups of bins for a given model. The four letters at the end of the part's code are the range of bins of that part.

For example, LR W5AM-HZJZ means that if you order it, you may receive any bin between HZ (minimun) and JZ (max). In between them there is JX and JY. You will receive any of the four, but never a KX (indeed, it not exist, there is no production with so high efficiency). If the group is new, generally you will get one of the two inferior bins of the group. If the group is old, surely you will get one of the medium. Getting the highest bin is rare. Very often, specially if the group is the highest for that model, there is very little production of the highest bin.

For example tha white part you asked, LUW W5AM-LXLY-6P7R is only of two bin, LX and LY. There is no any bin between them. You will never get a KZ bin ordering that part because the KZ is an inferior bin. With that part, you have the guarantee of getting a min bin LX, which is 112-130lm#350mA. As far as I know, currently Osram is not producing LY bins, at least on production amounts. Surely they will do in the near future. So right now, ordering that part you are ordering mostly a single bin, LX, which is an excelent bin. Only newer parts of Crees have that perfomance level, and the Cree XP-G, of course.

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OzricTentacles

I know you prefer to use LW W5AM but for me ultra white look better, why you prefer White, much far red ?

OzricTentacles

I think the part who afraid people in DIY is the soldering, this is why Christmas UFO are very popular.

Soldering are not easy, the smoke unlike cannabis is very toxic. We are afraid to burn the led and there's not very good tutorial about that.

Osram golden dragon plus design is very simple and i try to figure how i can build a micro-connector like molded copper tape around led paw. The problem is to have a good electric contact, i will try some approach with my tester and maybe with 24k gold. ;-)

Freedom from solder, freedom from soldier ;-)