Cheers bro yer a pal and i recon gaz is a lucky bloke indeed having you build his rig. I know first hand just how much work it takes. I’m lovin my combined rig and would not change it but if i build another for a pal it will need to be all strips 
btw got the meter already, just need to get an enclosure for it to go in now 
What size is the carbon filter in your picture mate?
That was a wee 4" filter a friend got as part of a kit but didn’t use so we found a use for it. It’s quite a bit smaller than the 4" rhino hobby that’s in there now.
I’ve got the rhino hobby one too, I ordered it thinking it would be as small as the one in your picture but as you say it’s a canny size bigger.
Aye it’s almost twice the length and a lot heavier too. Did you know you can swap ends across on the Rhino? supposed to get longer life . I usually cant be arsed though
Aye mate, a read it on the site a got it from.
I was thinking earlier on I wonder if I could chop it in half nd mcgyver it up 
I’m using the one I built with the pencil cups for now which is working great.
I only have a couple of Blue mystic growing which is low odour anyways but I’m a bit dubious whether it will work with some super stinky stuff 
Fetch it to mine and we’ll stick it on my tent for an hour. If it manages to stop the smell from the AK I’ll fund a production run 
Have a look on alibaba.com you can get a quantum board kit you put together yourself for about £120 everything included.
Yeh been there it was the postage costs that put me off. Got Solstrip racks now anyway so well sorted
I’m in the market to diy my own light soon.
Can someone guide me to what I’ll need?
I’m terrible at searching it as I can’t find the right keywords
It’s a broad subject so you need to narrow it down. If you can afford Solstrips and can do fairly basic diy i’d go with them. If you have a low budget but have good diy skills cobs might be worth considering. You need to start with the area you want to light and aim for around 35W per sq/ft. How you get that depends on your budget and skills
SolStrips are what I’m going for, but cobs work as well. I just need to know what I’m in for for each as a SolStrip build costs me around 180-200, but it’s worth it. Cobs I can make even cheaper, but in both cases my buddy wants to make one with me and he fixes electronics for a living, so he’ll be the one soldering everything.
I personally have a low budget, but I can save if I have to. His budget is around 200. I’m just trying to figure out what I want as to achieve 35w per square foot I don’t need a lot.
I’ll be putting it in a box that’ll be no more than 4’x5’x7’ to fit in the room I’ll be using. I believe I should be able to use a 150-200w with those dimensions. I realized I didn’t add what I’ll be using when asking for help
I can also make a SolStrip like light from scratch if I had to. For my purposes it might be better if I make it from scratch with the LED strips and all the parts needed. If I can have someone point me to what I’ll want to order I’ll make a list and once it all comes in I’ll post the progress updates here
4’ x 5’ is 20 square feet! if you build a 200W rig you would have 10W per square foot in that space. You could start seeds with that…you could probably grow mushrooms but ganja is out of the question
You’d need 700W to get 35W per square foot in a 20 square foot space.
Good to know. I was being stupid and forgetting to calculate height in that math🤦🏻♂️
What would I want for a box dimensions and wattage combo?
Height doesn’t factor bro. You need the floor area of your grow space (the lit area) in square feet. You said 4 x 5 x 7 so that normally means it’s 4 foot by 5 foot by 7 foot high. Ignoring the height you have a floor area of 20sq/ft (4 x 5 = 20) To light an area of 20 square feet at 35W per square foot you need 700W of led light (20 x 35) this is never done cheaply so your budget will need to be a lot higher or you can reduce the size of the space. A 2’ x 4’ space can be adequately lit with 280W which might be closer to your budget.
You can also count on about $1-$2 per watt to build a light.
If I went the cob route I’m asking about 100w 4000k 80Ra CRI cobs at about 14 per cob.
About the same to buy a SolStrip, but I still haven’t factored in the heatsink cost yet. As it stands rn I’m in the process of of ordering 10 of them once I get the spectrum graph and efficiency rating
It’ll cost me about 600 for the 10 100w cobs and the 100w drivers, but I already know that that combo will be bad. I’ll need at least 1250-1300w total for all LEDs to run safely at 80% load in the driver and to my knowledge 100w each for 100w drivers is a fire waiting to happen. Thermal runaway is very likely to my knowledge using 100% load at all times.
Can someone help me choose a driver(s) I’ll need to power this setup? The LEDs alone will only cost me 150. The drivers seem excessive at 1 per light
Research much my friend. Have you checked out a site called led gardener?