I recently purchased (2) 300 watt LED grow lights from a retailer in China.
These lights have 100/3w LED chips divided amongst 4 circuits at 25 chips per circuit (4 separate drivers contained within). The drivers are labeled as 55-100 volts DC output @ 500-550 mA.
As shipped the color spectrum breakdown is as follows, 72 red, 16 blue, 6 white and 6 infrared, each and every LED chip has its own resistor.
The lights were designed for Marijuana growers, hence the over abundance of red LED chips, apparently red is the desired spectrum for flowering Marijuana.
I am not a Marijuana grower and the lights are somewhat ineffective for starting vegetable sprouts, thus as they currently are structured they are of little use to me. The project here is to modify these fixtures to a more vegetable friendly white/blue spectrum, at issue is the difference between the voltage/current requirements of the red and white LED chips.
I attempted to change out several reds with whites and found that the threshold for replacement was 3 swaps, anymore and only the reds in the circuit light bright enough to be useful, the whites appear as unlit or lit dimly. When only 3 reds are replaced with whites the circuit lights all chips brightly.
The following are the detail characteristics of the different chips.
Red, 2.3-3.0 driven volts @ 550 mA
White, 3.2-3.8 driven volts @ 700 mA
The resistors are micro type surface mount and it is difficult to identify the properties of each.
So, I am now stuck with only being able to replace 12 total out of the 72 reds? Should I call it a day and stop where I am at, or is there a cost effective solution to get more red out and get more white in?
I am at an impasse.
These lights have 100/3w LED chips divided amongst 4 circuits at 25 chips per circuit (4 separate drivers contained within). The drivers are labeled as 55-100 volts DC output @ 500-550 mA.
As shipped the color spectrum breakdown is as follows, 72 red, 16 blue, 6 white and 6 infrared, each and every LED chip has its own resistor.
The lights were designed for Marijuana growers, hence the over abundance of red LED chips, apparently red is the desired spectrum for flowering Marijuana.
I am not a Marijuana grower and the lights are somewhat ineffective for starting vegetable sprouts, thus as they currently are structured they are of little use to me. The project here is to modify these fixtures to a more vegetable friendly white/blue spectrum, at issue is the difference between the voltage/current requirements of the red and white LED chips.
I attempted to change out several reds with whites and found that the threshold for replacement was 3 swaps, anymore and only the reds in the circuit light bright enough to be useful, the whites appear as unlit or lit dimly. When only 3 reds are replaced with whites the circuit lights all chips brightly.
The following are the detail characteristics of the different chips.
Red, 2.3-3.0 driven volts @ 550 mA
White, 3.2-3.8 driven volts @ 700 mA
The resistors are micro type surface mount and it is difficult to identify the properties of each.
So, I am now stuck with only being able to replace 12 total out of the 72 reds? Should I call it a day and stop where I am at, or is there a cost effective solution to get more red out and get more white in?
I am at an impasse.