I finished my build, and I took some pictures of the process that I’ll go ahead and post here to try and hopefully show some of what I learned.
My personal goal: Reduce necessary wattage in my 2x2 tent by 20%
Currently I’m running a COB light at 100 watts, and I have to keep it at 16.5 inches or I burn my plants… I figured if I can build a strip light as wide as my tent, I can reduce wattage because I can get the light more like 12 inches above the plant at 80 watts.
Here we go…
So I started with 2 pieces of aluminum angle, 3/4 x 36 inches x 1/8 thickness. This is pretty much the default metal to use for COB lights, though I’m sure there are many other ways to do it.
Safety glasses/goggles are a must IMO when cutting or drilling aluminum. Getting the flecks in your eye is bad news.
I’ve got a sharpie and a measuring tape, and a good ol hack saw for cutting… Put a new blade on it just for the occasion.
I used a clamp to clamp it to my horrible plastic table, held the other side with my hand and sawed away.
I cut 2 pieces 20 inches long and 2 pieces 11 inches or so.
20 inches is because my tent is 24x24 but the negative pressure from my exhaust makes it more like 21x21 toward the top.
Next I drilled holes in the corners with a 7/64 drill bit and used 1/2 inch #6 screws to put the frame together
The frame was a little wobbly still at this point so I decided to put a couple bars across the middle. These are 3/4 inch wide, and I cut them to 20 inches.
Here is a pic of sort of thinking about placement:
Here is the bars installed:
I thought I could put the driver on them and so I mocked it up. Later I realized this was a mistake:
At this point I decided it was a good time to drill holes in the corners for hanging. I used a large bit, big enough to fit some small karabiners through.
At this point I realized that the bolts that held the driver to the bars would push down on a strip, bending it outward. So I found a new location to mount it on the side:
I measured the strip placement like… I dunno 1000 times, couldn’t get the measurements right and eventually just kind of laid them on there and moved them around until I measured the spacing was even. I marked holes, and drilled them out with a 5/32 drill bit. 5/32 allows a number 6 bolt (machine screw) to fit through with a little wiggle room.
I started wiring, using wagos that take 5 wires each. I needed 3 on each side to hold 10 wires on each side and be able to connect the wagos to the other wagos and the driver. The green wire from wago to wago is 14 guage, and the gray wire from wago to strip is 18 guage. The current between wagos will be greater than the current to the strips so the larger wire is better here according to ledgardener.com (where I get much of my info for building lights)
I used a zip tie loosely holding the wago to the frame until I had everything wired up
One thing that sucks about strips is that you have to use solid core wire. It looks pretty ugly when it’s wired up because the wires don’t have much give to them like with braided wire.
You can see here how I also added a potentiometer from Rapid LED. 10$ including shipping, comes with a case and wires up real easy.
At some point I wired the driver to a waterproof IPV6 connector, and wired that to a power cord that connects to the wall…
I forgot to take pictures, but It was something like this… but not sure which ones exactly:
FX Junction Box Outdoor Waterproof IP68 Electrical Cable Connector 2 Way M20 Plug Wire Range 5 to 12mm External Cord Boxes 2 pcs
Plugged it in, and lucky it worked the first try. I had it all the way dimmed down, and when I used a meter, it was only pulling 6 watts. At full power it only pulls 92 watts.
I also used liquid electrical tape to cover the spots on the strips that are intended for soldering as mentioned in some posts up above this one.
This is the light I replaced. My previous DIY COB. It would pull 150 watts from the wall at max, but I dimmed it to 100. Notice the wiring and etc. is similar, but much much simpler. It’s a great light, but I burned enough plants in hell with it that it was time for a change.
Conclusion
For me this was a worthwhile project, though I really think for most people a store bought solution is just fine. The Spider Farmer model that is 160$ on Amazon uses great diodes and driver and the grows I have seen with it have come out great.
However, that light is 11x10 inches and mine is 11x20. That is a significant difference, and after testing with a lux meter, I can absolutely run this light at 80 watts from the wall and get the same readings I was with my previous light. I also can dim my light easily with a little knob where the SF1000 requires you to take it apart, and by default runs at 100 watts. I dim my lights all the time and experiment with different heights and wattages etc so that would not work for me.
My light cost probably 150$ and 10 hours labor… again this was worth it for me but I dunno if it would be for most people now that the tech has gotten so cheap. I wanted to run at 80 watts, that’s a 20% reduction in wattage and my tent is 2 degrees cooler now on average which for me is a huge win.
I will say that strips are much harder to build than COBs… I have built 3 COB lights of varying size, as large as a 24x24 inches with 4 COBS and the hardest part of those is getting the holes in the aluminum angle to line up with the heatsinks.
Strips have so much wiring, measuring, drilling that they become real time consuming. On top of that, they take up so much space that it’s hard to find places to put drivers and wagos etc.
**Overall, I’m very glad I completed this light, and I’m excited to see what it can do 
**
Here is a pic of it hanging above my flood and drain amnesia haze CBD:
She grew most of her life under my COBs, but will finish out under this light.
Thanks to everyone in the thread that helped me with my questions, and all the info posted here, it’s been a huge help.
Good luck in your gardens!