Weezard, what's up? Been super busy, I just hung the 6+2 led light in place of the 400 HPS and got back to real world issues for awhile. Everything looks good. Severe heat stress definitely improved. Plants seemed happy right off the bat; transpiration hassles diminished, too. Plants do NOT seem to be pining for any missing frequencies or intensity.

Been tinkering with the blue ratio, hard to figure anything out in a hurry. Have to wait for the plants to tell me what they like. At first, I just ran all the leds at 1.2 A. But now I've got the blue driver turned all the way down. (13.16V) Haven't checked the current draw at that voltage but it can't be much. The driver for the blues is cooler than the PLN 60-12 which is driving only 2 reds at 10.85V. Not sure I need 2 blues for the next light, at least not this month! (Already have the reds.) Might wanna do a side-by-side with 1 blue vs. 2 blues. Ideal probably varies according to development stage of the plant.

"My mistake" on the heatsink / shield things. They are not impressed with my neodymium magnet, so maybe they are anodized aluminum. Being new at this I just have a hard time viewing those things as heatsinks when they're sealed up in that plastic housing. Seems terribly ineffective.


With the supply off and unplugged, check resistance between both/each heatsink and both ouput pins, in both directions.

Totally open. Nuttin'.

Then, fire it up and check for dc/ac voltage between both the sinks

Pay dirt. Measured 200mV DC and 1.0V AC between the two sinks on one of the drivers (Don't remember which...)
Thanks again for all of your help, encouragement, and kind words. I do intend to do a build log and show how to put together a plug-n-play like this. These prefab drivers are pricey, but folks with heat issues will find it worthwhile, and simple to do. I'll start a log in this forum or the "grow log" section if that seems more appropriate. I'll build the light and photograph the steps within a week or 2, but it may be a while before I can begin the tutorial.

Also want to retest the leds for Vf after 25 days of 12 / 12 which is 300 hours of operation. I read somewhere the leds may burn-in during this period and I wanna check it for myself--see if I've grown a sub-10.6Vf "current hog."

Regards, Hermie