Very cool! And nice spread of the boards. Did you use a fuse? Couldn’t see one in the photos.
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No need for a fuse. Its has a surge protector wired in parallel. And the driver is fail safe and reverse polarity protection. I tested it powered up and grounded the driver while it was runing and it functions well. It just shuts the light of if it shorts out.
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If anytone has questions on how to wire these drivers or light fixtures feel free to hit me up. This is now the 5th light i have built but this is the 1st of my own design and my own hand picked parts. I did all the research and learned all the info watched a lot of videos. Sourced all my own parts and jumped in with both feet and im glad i did because now i can build my own equipment and i understand how it works because “I” made it. So if you want to know how ask the person who made it. And a big shout out to… @BudBrother for helping with his parts list. This made it possible for me to learn enought to start dabbling into lights. THANKS @BudBrother your the man!
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Hey just saw this dont spend that crazy money on the emerson boards go to hlg and they have the same boards for alot less and tour light is not 650 watt it will only be 450 watts I have 2 of the same drivers they the hlg-480h-c2100b means 480 watts at 2100 milliamps is what is can push the drivers only have about a 90 to 93% efficiency meaning it may at max pull 480 watts from the wall but because of the conversation from ac to dc you only get 90 to 93% of that I would also recommend buying a dimmer from rapid if your only using the 1 driver theirs will work but if you get another one and want to tie the 2 drivers together you must buy a 50k ohm dimmer the one from rapid is a 100k ohm and wont work for 2 drivers
This is the rig I built 2020 aluminum rails 4 v3 red growmau5 pucks, 2 HLG 288 v2 rspec, 2 HLG 288 v2, 2 HLG far red flower initator boards, running on 2 hlg-480h-c2100b, with a hlg apc-12-700 driver for the far red strips these are the numbers in LUX that I get from the tops of my 6 plants and using a conversion calculator at only 450 watts from the wall I’m pulling over 600 ppfd
Convert Lux to PPFD - Online Calculator | Waveform Lighting here is the calculator
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The boards come in 5 different spectrums the 660 would be the deep red
https://horticulturelightinggroup.com/collections/quantum-boards/products/qb11-quantum-board
Then the far red 730 nm
Get 2 of the 660nl strips for 25 each then 4 far red at 9 each spending only 88 bucks plus drivers and shipping as opposed to 200 for 2 strips of the same thing run the 2 660 down the middle then the 4 730 in the corners that would be a sweet upgrade
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@xgx13xgx nice build i jave a lot more equipment to play with now also. now have 2 more lights i jus got today. And i just found a source for scrap aluminum sheets for more light builds
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Sweet only suggestion I would have is not to use sheets stick with rails only because think of a aluminum sheet like a kite in the wind you have air being pulled from the top and a sheet of aluminum will act like a kite adding resistance if you use rails it’s open and does not create that much resistance thus will help keep the lights cooler and will help better circulate air inside as opposed to a pocket
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Nice ideas. I wanted an eemerson effect board and exotic booster board from rapid led
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Impressive…just want to point out that the Mean Well driver will output a max 480W, which means (assuming your LEDs are drawing the full 480W) that you would be pulling more than 480W, as you mentioned efficiency is in the low 90%, so you might be pulling 520W-530W from the wall outlet.
Also a fuse is highly recommended guys, not trying to be a buzzkill here. If the input filter caps in the MW power supply were to short your house circuit breaker wouldn’t trip, but that supply would go up in flames - not good.
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Wouldn’t a surge protector do the trick???
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No I’m afraid not. A surge protector will protect against voltage spikes. A fuse will protect against too much current being drawn.
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So another driver would alleviate that problem correct?.. 1 driver per 2 boards
No, basically you want to use a fuse for any electronic component that you might plug into a wall outlet. It is a standard safety requirement, especially at the current power and current levels we are talking about. The typical house circuit breaker will kick in above 15A, but it doesn’t take anywhere near that much current to cause a fire if something goes wrong.
Of course these MW drivers are very well designed, but there is no integrated fuse to my knowledge (I’m using the HLG-320H-30B for my prototypes), so it’s something that is consider mandatory. I personally wouldn’t want to run my lights all day while I was at work without fusing in place 
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Interesting and always more protection is better!. I love to over do. This light is almost to my liking but not yet. Thats why’s its in another tent just waiting. What type of fuse are you using? Edit: I have directly grounded this light out while running. And it the driver just shuts down and does nothing.
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I haven’t found an inline fuse for your setup yet, will keep looking. But here is where you want to get to. I know you don’t have an enclosure to work with but if you do, or even just a metal plate to mount it too, then you could use an AC power entry module with built in fuses (and switch). I crimped terminals on to all of the bare wires, and then connected them to a simple terminal strip for the output wires (to the LEDs), and connected disconnect terminals (they ara literally called disconnect terminals, female in this case) to the metal tabs on the AC power entry module - It’s kind of hard to see there on the right. Anyway, hope that helps! I love this stuff!
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I was asking about your surplus of extra lights was looking for a few support bars to install horizontally in the canopy. Just curious if you had something laying around ? Shoot me a message about something’s you might want to part with. I’m taking in lights in trade for genetics.
I need to clean out what I have. Figure maybe a few swaps could happen.
That is incorrect @sgs_solarx a hlg-480h-c2100b isn’t max pulls 480 from the wall and is with the efficiency only pulls around 450 or so. I have 2 of them running right now hooked up to a killawatt meter and at max I’m pulling from the wall just over 900 I forget the exact number but when lights go on I will crank it up and take a pic 480 and 480 is 960 and again when I cranked mine all the way up I was getting just over 900
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And you are incorrect here as well the meanwell hlg drivers all have built in surge protection
This is the spec sheet for the 100 series driver but the same rules apply for all meanwell drivers and honestly if you are that concerned and want added protection go to home depot and buy a 20 amp GFCI outlet and swap out the wall outlet you will not pull more then 20 amps no way so lose the box enclosure and get a 15 foot extension cord and do what I did in the next post trust me so much easier
Just a suggestion go to home depot and buy a 15 foot 16g extension cord . Cut the female end of the cord off about 1 foot, and attach the positive and negative of the cut piece to the driver remember what wire is positive and negative then take the long piece and hook the cut end up to your lights. Then plug in the male and female end and plug the driver into the wall.you now have a 15 foot extension from the driver to the lights meaning you can put the driver outside your room eliminating heat and weight from the room and frame I did it and will post the pics
I have mine set up with a 5 foot cored from the wall to the drivers then a 15 foor cord from the drivers to the light with a female off the drivers then a male end off the lights doing this allows me to not only have the driver outside the room but also when it’s time to sanitize the room I pull the plug from the junction box pull out the light and cord separately making for a much easier move out and clean up
https://www.meanwell.com/webapp/product/search.aspx?prod=HLG-480H-C here is also the driver spec sheet link for the 480 series and you will see the hlg-480h-c2100b pulls max of 481 watts at 93.5 efficiency gives you 449.735
and to make it even more sure I am friends with the cofounder of Horticulture Lighting Group his name is Amit and they are based out of westerville ohio about 45 min from me, I talk to him on a regular basis about any and all questions about the drivers and boards 
not going to put his phone number out there
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