BUD LIGHT The Quantum Board Build

Indoor Growing Lighting
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So being a first time grower the first thing I did was go to the bay and buy the cheapest lights I could find. I patted myself on the back for getting such a great deal. Then upon investigation I realize I purchased a bunch of Chinese junk. All the manufactures over rate there products and the LEDs that they are built with are old technology from 2014. Even US companies where doing it. What to do what to do? So while investigating a new light that I needed for flowering I ran into this guy who was making his own lights. His name was Grow Mau5 and I intently watched all his videos and learned a lot about LED lighting. Building my own light looked pretty scary. I knew nothing about COBs or drivers or Cree or Vero29 or Quantum boards so the task seemed daunting. I got to the point in my grow where I needed to order a flowering light or build one myself. So I had to make a decision and make it fast.

The light I wanted cost $1050 on sale and $650 for the kit. After adding up all the parts separately I came to the conclusion that I could build the light I wanted for around $550. Still scared about what I was about to do I ordered all the pieces for my light.

  1. 4-QB304 boards with heat sinks
  2. 2-Meanwell drivers HLG 240H-C1050B and 2 dimming potentiometers

I choose the Quantum board because it is the most efficient light on the market as we speak. Each board is like a huge COB light and has 304 Top Bin Samsung LM561C S6 bin diodes on each board.

I was trying to emulate the HLG 550 which you can see at horticulturelightinggroup.com

I purchased my drivers and dimmers from RapidLED and they came very quickly. HLG is the only place you can buy the Quantum Boards and most of the time they are sold out. So I waited cause that’s all you can do. In the mean time I kept on watching more videos on how to build these lights so when the time came I would know what I was doing. So 2 weeks later they came in the mail. I was really excited and nervous at the same time. Now all the pieces where here and I had to put them together.

I carefully wired everything together. Making sure and double sure I was doing it right. Then everything was together and all I had left to do was plug it in to see if it would work. I nervously grabbed the end of the plug and walked over to the outlet and plugged it in. SUCCESS! It seemed like it was brighter than the sun. So I checked the dimmers and they worked flawlessly too. At that moment I was really proud of myself. I had taken a risk and it paid off. So here are some pictures of my accomplishment.

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All the components where mounted on an aluminum frame which I also built.

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The 2 driver where wired into one plug using WAGO connectors

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The boards run very cool with just one 10in fan blowing on the heat sinks.

Board spacing was 9" on long axis and 6in on short axis

All 4 boards run at 493 watts at full power. you can run less if you use the dimmers.
This light is as powerful as a 1000 watt open ended HPS and you can see about 50% less heat.
It’s Efficiency is 2.4 umol/joules which currently is the best on the market.
PPF is 1265 umol/s max
I selected the 3000K light spectrum because that’s what they made the HLG 550 with.

So that’s why I haven’t posted much lately been very busy with this project.

I hope this has inspired many of use who wish they could find a good light to build one themselves as I have no fancy training and I’m just a normal guy who wants to grow some good weed.

Happy Growing
@Aquaponic_Dumme @latewood @Donaldj @Tonyb @Countryboyjvd1971 @TheDuke @Nug-bug @bob31 @Majiktoker @peachfuzz

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Nice job @MAXHeadRoom I like what you’ve done
I’ll be watching to see how well they work out for you
So your saying each panel is equal to a 1000w hps

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All 4 together are equal to a 1000 watt HPS open ended light. Its almost a copy of the HLG 550 light except they used QB288 boards and I used QB304 boards giving me 64 more diodes total. They also used a little more powerful driver and wired all 4 boards into one driver and I have 2 drivers one driver for 2 boards wired in a series
@Countryboyjvd1971

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Interesting @MAXHeadRoom Keep us posted on how they are performing! Very nice informative post. Thanks for tagging me. $550 is still more than I could afford to spend at one time, but I do follow your logic!

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Dude! Nicely done. That resonates with me (get it? haha) as that fits in with my build it myself philosophy. Copy me too on any further projects or grows?

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On our podcast; “Growing with Fishes”, we have had the owners and techs behind Spectrum King and Black Dog LED companies. I learned a ton about COB LED and the potential.

Our company is in the process of producing custom frames and heat sinks. We also planned on using the passive cooling like you did. On the other hand. The information we got from Black Dog suggested a strong argument for using enclosed systems with excellent fans.
I believe the link to the Black Dog show is in the aquaponics section, posted by Aquaponic Steve. If not I can get you the links at youtube, growing with fishes podcast.

BTW. Every Thursday we do a show with experts from across the world and everyone learns a bunch. Beware; It is a stoner webcast. :slight_smile:

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I am also at this minute waiting for a call from California to ask after the quality of Quantum boards.

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That’s a big quad light setup. I’ll bet a lot of growers could do a 2 module build instead of 4. That’s gotta bring the cost down.

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true @Myfriendis410 I don’t know enough about this to ask the right question so glad you said that. @MAXHeadRoom Would that be the case? A 2 module set would be about how much if you did it the same way?

@latewood Thanks for the reminder. i’d like to catch the weekly podcast. But I’m not really sure where to find that info?

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I figured out You Tube subscribed to Potent Ponics channel that way I will get notified!

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@Myfriendis410 @bob31

So each board cost $75 you could run these 2 boards with one HLG 240H-c1050B driver at $69
Heat sinks are $8.75 each and dimmer is $6. Aluminum frame $15

Total $257.50
Should be able to cover a 2x3 area for flower 3x4 for veg

I built mine to cover a 30x36 inch SCROG

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very informative! Maybe a winter project for me! Thanks again for posting this and do keep us updated on the performance or any ups/downs! @MAXHeadRoom

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@bob31 @Myfriendis410
They also sell kits that come with everything you need so this might be the way to go just starting out and then when you build up your confidence and knowledge you can build your own from scratch.
They (horticulturelightinggroup.com) are all sold out of almost everything they offer so everyone wants one right now or they have a poor business model LOL.

Check them out

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Thanks @MAXHeadRoom I will brother!

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@bob31 @Myfriendis410 Also ledgardener.com is a site like this one except for building LED lights. So you could get help if you run into trouble. Also a great site for knowledge

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SometingI see that no one seems to being paying attention to. The frame is part f the heat sink. The frame used here is too light a piece of aluminum to do the job efficiently. COBs need to be kept cool. When heating up LED lamps lose a lot of intensity.

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First though is to watch the podcast.

@latewood, heat dissipation is gonna be key in any electronics. I would say that you are right on.

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@latewood
I guess it didn’t show up in the pictures but each board is attached to a heat sink that is 1/2" around the parameter larger than the board. The picture with the thermometer on top of the heat sink shows the temperature of the light at max operating wattage and it is only 82 degrees. This is less than your skin temperature. These lights run very cool but yes you do need heat sinks

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That’s actually really awesome. You could advise your light on eBay and such and charge less than the competition, I’m 100% sure some people just don’t want to have to build it for themselves :sunny:
Inspired me to do it in the future though, very GJ sir

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@latewood you’re not completely wrong about adding fans, but the info you received from particular manufacturers targets their particular setups.

As diy builders, you target a couple things. 1. Budget, 2. Coverage, 3. Efficiency. Your light will put out xxx amount of photons per watt. Adding fans draws more power and costs more money. If you can effectively cool your chip/board without the use of fans, your light is more efficient and the cost is less.

Also, as op stated the boards are mounted to heatsinks. They’re just not the oversized pin heatsinks you’re probably familiar with for cob builds. With a cob you have a small area to remove heat from, the boards have much more surface area to attach sink to. Meaning they can be effectively and efficiently cooled without the use of bulky heatsinks.

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