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Building LED mini clusters


fredfish01

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RapidLEDs Borealis is a Z multichip.

 

Its $125 each though. But its only 4 channel, dumb move there.

 

If it were 6 channels and had less limes, I would consider it. The cost relays the cost of the Z UV emmiters which are $16 each retail, the Borealis has more than a few of those, like 5 or something.

 

http://www.rapidled.com/borealis-luxeon-z-array-37-led/

 

 

I still think they should have called it the Corona or Corona Light, with the 12 Limes it has.

 

 

Seeing as how you want the lime, that may be a perfect cluster for your build.

 

You would need a hefty HLG power supply to light 3 or 4 of those, probably 2. Plan really low to the water mount, which isnt a bad thing.

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Those 12 Z limes don't mean that much on the Borealis board. They peak at 245lm @700mA each, 2940lm total.

 

You can get 2904lm with 6 of Steve's Rebel ES Limes (484lm @1A). The gap between the other Z leds and their Rebel ES counterparts is far smaller. It just looks like a lot of lime on the board it really isn't.

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Trivia.

 

Philips is marketing these Zs with really tight placement. 100 or so chips Right next to each other.

 

Videos are on youtube. Crazy close.

 

125C max temp instead of usual 85C. I think youre getting close to melting solder if you go any higher.

 

Those 12 Z limes don't mean that much on the Borealis board. They peak at 245lm @700mA each, 2940lm total. You can get 2904lm with 6 of Steve's Rebel ES Limes (484lm @1A). The gap between the other Z leds and their Rebel ES counterparts is far smaller. It just looks like a lot of lime on the board it really isn't.
I dont really want any, actually. I cant think of a build that I would intentially put them in, myself.Im fine with just regular plain old white.
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Pretty sure most lead based solders, which typically have the lowest melting points, don't melt till 183C (361.4F).

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Ps,

 

Philips makes K's in multichips, in case the OP didn't know. 4's, 8's, 12, 16's, and 24. In royal blue and whites.

 

Some though made aren't available unless you buy a lot, not stocked at the usual places.

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So you are looking to do 16 3-ups which at roughly $12 a piece is $576. 9 reefll economy clusters are $540 and they include a ton of below 455nm coverage which you are not going to get at all with your plan since besides cutter and reefll no one sells violet LEDs on 3-ups. You also are not going to be able to use lenses on these 3-ups which will reduce your PAR dramatically. Personally I would go with either 9 reefll or 6 Radion pucks anything outside of that is going to be sub-PAR (pun inteded!) :-)

I've looked at the reefll clusters. I'd be interested in either of the top two, but they are a little out of my price range.

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jedimasterben

Pwreef, LGB sells violet 3 ups. Rapid sells violet 4 ups.

The SemiLEDs N5TL-U that Rapid sells has less flux at 350mA than a single LEDgroupbuy violet at 700mA. Two LEDgroupbuy violets at 700mA handily beat the Rapid quad violet at the same current.

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I may not have clearly stated my intent in the original post. I know there are large multi chip boards out there by various manufacturers, but I want more, smaller clusters to get better light spread. The ideal would be 7/8 led clusters, 12/13 ups are less than ideal, but probably OK.

 

Dave. Depending on the mix, your clusters hit a reasonable price point for DIY. You have a PM.

 

I know Phillips makes the Ks in 4/8/16 ups, but now you are back into evil cluster territory and that is not what I am after.

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  • 2 weeks later...
fredfish01

My parents must have dropped me on my head once too often when I was a kid.

 

I've done the numbers and, after you factor in the cost of a soldering station, for a 9 cluster setup, I save about $50 going with my own clusters vs those from Nano Box. And, as a bonus, I get to do hundreds of extra solder joints! :rolleyes:

 

I just can't shake this need to try things out for myself.

 

Here is what I think I'm going to do as a first step.

 

Order the following:

 

3 RB + RB + WW 3-ups

3 RB + RB + Lime 3-ups

3 Blue + Cyan + red 3-ups

3 Blue 1-ups

1 Violet 3 up

 

Using these I can test 4 + 6 LED clusters with inconsistent colours between clusters (6 clusters + Violet) and 9 up clusters with the same colours in each cluster (3 9-ups + Violet). I have a bunch of pure copper 2.25 x 2.5" heat sinks that I can use for testing so that I can move each mini- cluster around easily. I'm hoping that those heatsinks will handle two three-ups if I actively cool them.

 

The plan is to try the mini-clusters at a bunch of different spacings to see how that effects light spread and colour separation. It might take a little while to set this up as I have one other DIY project that needs to be completed first.

 

I'll start a thread on the testing when I get everything together.

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