Need light help!

So I just finished building my veg light using 4 hlg 120 boards and hlg-240h driver. I’ve assembled other hlg kits before and found the assembly pretty simple. This, being my first custom built light, I found a parts list on another thread and based my light setup on that. From the info I found it seems like the components I have should work well together but after assembling everything and turning it on the light seems quite dim. The driver is adjustable and turned to the max. That being said,when I turn the adjustment screw, the lights don’t seem to dim/brighten the slightest bit. I’m at a loss and not sure where to go from here to get it right. Any help is greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.

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you want @dbrn32. he will be around soon enough

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@dbrn32 or @Aolelon would be best to ask for this. Take some pics of your wiring to most likely something simple or over looked.

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right @Aolelon too, really good

Were they wired in series? Meaning positive lead going to first light then negative of that board to the positive of the next and so on until last board negative out to the negative of the driver? And the driver model is the 240- what?

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Yes it’s wired in series and the driver is HLG-240H-C2100a

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Ok give them two a little while to see the tags. They’ll be able to run through more diagnostics with you.

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What is exact model number of your driver?

That’s what I get for having screen open so long lol.

Can you post a pic the gives general idea of wiring? You have the correct driver, I thought boards were pretty bright at that current.

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best I can do for now but the light orientation and wiring is just like this

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I would go through each terminal and give the wires a tug. Make sure they’re fully connected to. Doesn’t the A model on those drivers have 2 adjuster spots right next to each other?

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The two knob would be cv/cc. Like hlg-240h-24a. On that driver it pretty much shoves out the voltage and let’s led or boards in this case pull the current it wants. Up until the point the current draw reaches rating and at that point it’s regulating both voltage and current. With those you can set the voltage and current.

On the constant current models it shoves out current and and allows leds to take the voltage they need. This driver (hlg-240h-c2100a) has a constant current range of 59-119vdc on output. That’s why I asked @Heisenbud about wiring. Anything outside of that range and driver will go into protect mode and regulate current or not fire at all.

As per that picture, everything looks correct. I would go back and double check that is what is actually in place. If you had inadvertently crossed two wires could easily end up in series/parallel configuration where you’d end up with 48v load that would have max current of about 6 amps. They would definitely look dim if that was the case.

If you double check wiring and it’s good, my next question would be if the boards are authentic hlg boards. Nothing wrong with grabbing knock offs, but I’ve seen some goofy voltage configurations on a couple of them. So if they didn’t come from hlg, growerslights, cobkits, or a place like that I would go back to source and get voltage and current specs. They could easily have same 120 diodes with different voltage requirement. For a quick test here, try running it with only 3 boards and see what happens. If the 3 boards don’t light up or 3 boards are brighter than 4 boards, that’s most likely the issue.

I suppose there’s always chance your expectations are too high too. They are only 50 watt boards. But if none of that other stuff pans out you could try getting driver replaced.

Thanks for that clarification.

I think even at 50 watts they still should be bright enough to be painful to look at. At least with my lights turned 75% down (roughly 50 watts) their still painful to look right at them.

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Looks like this. Ignore the state of my garage lol.

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Turns out I have qb132’s not 120s and they’re plenty bright when only running 3

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@dbrn32 seems the problem was wrong QB.

That 2100 won’t run 4. You’ll either need to return it and get a HLG-240H-C1750 or ask dbrn32 what another option would be for a single board driver. And I’d double check that running three on that driver isn’t running them to hot. Might need to dim them a touch. I’m to lazy to go back and forth between data sheets and my calculator to find out lol.

Edit. I just looked that board is rated at 2amps max. So no matter if it runs them or not that’s to high of amperage. I’m not sure if dimming would be ok or not. But definitely something that needs to be addressed.

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You got it dude. Too much current either way.

@Heisenbud glad you were able to figure that out. You’re going to need a different driver to run those boards. I believe the happy medium with current on those is 1400ma, in which case an hlg-185h-c1400a would be the driver you want. If you want to push them hard, hlg-240h-c1750a is listed as working as well.

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New driver installed and workin good. Thanks for the help fellas. Went with the hlg185h-c1400a

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Finished product

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Happy growing heisenbud
Does your light show white light? How about the light efficiency?
I am looking at UnitFarm grow bar recently, I an very interested in white led light

Lights are 4000k. Using in 2x4 veg tent and getting great light coverage. I’d say the light is plenty efficient for the space

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