Horticulture Lighting Group HLG 550

@dbrn32 I have some minor maintenance experience and from that I always foresee possible problems.
I don’t like anything that I have to pull the cord to turn off, but mainly for control reasons, such as staggering what lights I need on or off during veg. I start with half the room/ two lights then all four once the canopy grows and I transplant. In addition, switches help for maintenance purposes or if I’m working directly under the light or if a driver or panel goes out I can flip a switch without having to climb a ladder over my tent to reach outlets. I usually run my power from above for cleaner feel and less wire hazards and because it’s more direct into the tent.
As rule of thumb I try not to manually change settings on timers for whatever reason, I know it has an overall off and on but once or twice in my growing infancy I have took one too many bong rips and left timer either on or completely off when I wasn’t suppose too…lol…with a switch for each light, i dont have to mess with the timer and it will keep its functiions no matter what.
As for the potentiometer, can I bypass it for now until I figure out the pot needed? Do I just connect the two dimming wires together?

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@dbrn32 I will also try to contact trc, the have awesome customer service, and I will let you know what they say. I contacted them about running the dc leads 10ft on 16 awg and they calculated a 3v drop, if I remember right, for that set up. They recommended 10 awg to avoid that drop and took the time to do the calculations. I’m call about the pots soon.

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As for the potentiometers, you would actually do the opposite. Leave the dimming leads open to run at full output. I usually put a wire nut or heat shrink over each lead so they don’t touch.

I guess where I was I was going is that you can just dim lights when working underneath them. Assuming you want at least some light when working in there? They’ll dim to well below a suitable level for that. So I don’t really see any reason to be messing with timers or unplugging lights for routine stuff like that. It doesn’t address the issue of going from veg to flower though. I run mine up top too for same reason, but I’ve never needed a ladder. I just reach up an plug/unplug as needed. If you need switches, by all means get them. I’m just not sure what makes the most sense to use for that, sorry.

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10 awg on the dc side of your driver?

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@dbrn32 Yea it would be simpler to go on without switches and unplug. The gavitas have the dimmer that turns them off when set to external. That is what I would consider badass for this setup…but I got to move forward or forever tinker. Yea I hope I didn’t misunderstand the customer service rep. They called back while I was driving so couldn’t take notes but I’m pretty sure she said 10 awg. I told her I had 16, but she said for a ten foot run to the led then ten foot back using a total of 20 feet I should use 10 awg if I don’t want that type of energy loss of 3v or something. I could be wrong but I’m use the 16 awg. I am sure I would use more energy cooling those drivers then what is lost in the wire. It gets extremely hot around this time of the year so the less stuff I got to cool, within the tent the better.

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I’m thinking you misunderstood, or the person you talked to wasn’t qualified to give you those specs. You’ll never get 10awg into the connectors on the qb. I’d be pretty impressed if you got 16awg into them if it’s stranded.

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@dbrn32 I’m assuming that once the wire got to the qb, the use of wago connectors or something to step down to solid 18 awg would be in order, then the same for the returning wire coming back? I’m not to sure but I will verify once I call about the potentiometer. Either way I went with 16 awg the I plan on using 18 solid at the boards.

I did remember her giving the data to engineer or something, and once the calculated it out she got back to me. She said ten feet round trip would be 20 ft, maybe that is part of the miscommunication? I’m glad you here to help, I like that voltage drop calculator.

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That calculator assumes 10’ run is 20’ of wire. See footnote st bottom? If I had to guess they missed a decimal movement somewhere in calculation and then just rounded up to 3 volts. Besides that, you’re plenty good on headroom from supply voltage Hlg-320h-c1750 constant current voltage max is 183 volts. 3 qb 288 at that current will drop like 162 volts. So even if it did drop 3 volts in the wire it wouldn’t cause a problem. But it won’t, so I wouldn’t worry about it. The 18awg solid is super easy to work with, I’d run that straight from driver to boards if you’re looking at 10’ away.

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@dbrn32 hey thanks. I ended up ordering the hlg 240 2100 b drivers 2 qb per driver. How close can I mount the drivers to each other? I am building something to mount them out of leftover angle iron, and there is about a quarter inch between each driver. I plan on mounting a fan to blow into the drivers.

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@dbrn32 this going to be on the outside of the box so I can carry or hang if I need to. Going to be like a suitcase with dimmers in the middle. In addition my light frames are going to be able to break into four peices to fit into a 47x9 inch box for storage in the future.

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Outside of your grow area the drivers will probably be ok like that, but they will get a little warm so don’t bury them behind stuff

Those are the original heatsinks, you probably would’ve been a little better with the slate 2. Just keep an eye on temps when you’re close to running near 100%. Otherwise looks really good.

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@dbrn32 Thank you, stripping and wiring these took a little longer then I hoped…lol. as for the heat sinks, I really hope they are slate 2, that’s what I ordered, just double checked. How can I confirm the difference to make sure I got the slate 2?

@dbrn32 okay I got it. Called up hlg and spoke with Stephen, they will be getting back to me. They are definitely the slate 1 when I ordered the slate 2. Thank you for catching that, I’m newbie at this and would have never noticed.

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No problem. I was pretty sure we discussed getting the slate 2, so I wasn’t sure what happened.

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@dbrn32 Hi, just got off the phone with hlg, wrong heatsinks…shit happens. I run a little e-commerce myself as day job, do all my own shipping so I can understand the mistake. They have excellent customer service. They offered to refund for the heatsinks if I keep them or send a replacement. Since I tapped these heat sinks in some parts they said I should keep them if I want for future projects. Awesome…guess it makes up for having to reconfigure my aluminum rails since the other heatsinks are a lil bigger. Glad I didn’t finalize the removable wing nut holes yet because I’m have to make the tracks holding the heatsinks wider.

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