Cheap LED Strips : A Viable Alternative

Growroom Design
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#282

Hi Tank, welcome to OG.

Your armoire is big enough for a scrog net, when you switch to photos, but for autos it’s best to let them just go natural or check out Trevor laheys auto grow or toastytokes, to see how they train autos without slowing them down. Your only problem is height but with a bridgelux made light you will only lose 4 inches if you keep your hanging wires tight to the frame and remove the carabenas from the ratchet hangers. You can add a dimmer for the veg side, if your worried about burning seedings.

I find fluffy buds are more to do with the heat from the light rather than amount of light or where there is no air movement. I will get small fluffy buds if they hang down the back of the pots away from the light and air movement, if the branches hang down un noticed.

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#283

Good Day what a great read :slight_smile: lot of great information

being a grower that has only used HID lights other than 4 foot shoplights (T12) over clones

I am confused but I would love to learn more

I looked at the BXEB-L1120Z-35E4000-C-B3 in the 1120 MM size in warm white

I was thinking about use 10 strips over a 2 foot by 4 foot to do work with clones and some

early vegging

is it better to mix warm and cool lights?

How does one figure out the watts per strip? as I am trying to figure out a driver to drive them

one driver ? or two?

I see that you can wire the them parallel or in series is one better the another?

I will keep reading and thank you OP for the great read

all the best

Dequilo

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#284

Run 6x of them 4 footers on a meanwell HLG-240H-42a n mount em on 1.25" 1/8" thick alum angle w kapton double sided thermal tape n a few screws w/ plastic washers to isolate the elctronics so there aint no leakage 2 the frame via them screws.

All yer questions r answered by visiting this link n scroll down 2 the builds fer yer size space n read.

All I did was take the 4x4 bridgelux eb2 build n half it fer ya. EZ n cheap!

No sir. Latest research w LED spectrum n cannabis out of a NASA funded FDA approved lab at the Utah State University shows there aint no benefit 2 changin spectrum from veg to flower if yer usin modern white LEDs like wuts in them Bridgelux strips. 3500k will be great fer both veg n flour.

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#285

Thank you Sir just what I was looking for :slight_smile:

I may end up doing the 4 foot by 4 foot

thank you again and all the best

Dequilo

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#286

Yeah 3500k work for both veg and flower and are that kinda that happy middle ground, im not saying that a mix of more towards the blue side of the spectrum is nicer to view your plants under cause it is imo, but for growing plants more efficiently energy conversion wise at the plant they prefer the redder side of the spectrum, and not to get into how white leds are just blue leds with phosphor coatings…

I just went with only 3500k on my last light build

But drivers wise also look into the xlg series as well, “xlg-240-l-ab” and if considering lighting a 2x4 most typically go with the 560mm strips to build out light just cause you can usually sneak in an extra strip off the driver vs going with the 1120mm ones.

But is using a xlg-240-l-ab you could run 8 of the 1120mm strips off it, or 17 of the 560mm.

and your wattage is determined on how you run your strips, nominal values for the 1120mm are 39v at 700ma which is 27.3w, or the 560mm are 19.5v at 700ma = 13.65w, but say you run higher current which also drive the voltage a little higher then your consuming more power because of that

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#287

Ok guys help me out here. Planning a light for my 4x4 got 2 options. Option 1 34 4ft strips which would require 5 drivers out lose 2 strips and 4 drivers or do 4 panels of 17 2ft strips and 4 xlg 240 l ab drivers. Strips would be 3500k. Also are uv strips available anywhere?

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#288

I think you want your grow to be seen in outer space :wink:

I have a 24x44 inch frame with 16 2ft strips and a 240 l ab driver 17 is your max on a 240 but I like even numbers. Works very well in flower, I have another in the veg tent the same size but that has just st 12 strips at the moment, they didn’t have enough when I ordered, I need to get 4 more, which is a bit over kill for veg but I can swap it about into my flower room, a if I need to with 16 strips.

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#289

So you think 34 4foot or 68 2 ft would be excessive? I’m replacing 1000w hps and just built a light for an ex member for a 2x2 with 17 strips and it puts out pretty good

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#290

I bet it does :sunglasses:

A 240w Driver with the 17 strips would probably be equivalent to a 600W HPS I think, the one I have in my flower room is next to an 600W HPS and I think its doing just as good, but the trichs are better with the LED, some of the buds that are on the plant under the HPS are hanging under the LED, and looks like those buds have superior trichs to me, than on the rest of the plant.

From the Youtube light demonstrations I have seen with LEDs, 35w a squ ft in veg is good, and 50w a sq ft in flower is optimal, but if you dont have to worry about your power bill there is always room for more :wink: your 2X2ft 240w driver 17 strips would give you 60W a sq ft.

Have you thought about putting some up the sides as well, instead of all above. Give better lower down penetration.

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#291

I think I understand all of this, but want some feedback/advice. I’m designing out a 2 ft x 3 ft internal dimension stealth cab and trying to price everything out. I’d like to be able to both veg and flower in this space and be able to dim as needed.

I’m thinking 18x of the 560mm strips with either a single HLG-320H-20A (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/HLG-320H-20A/1866-2471-ND/7704028/?itemSeq=316445490) or two HLG-150H-20A (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/HLG-150H-20A/1866-2362-ND/7703918/?itemSeq=316445562).

I couldn’t figure out what the XLG option would be, but if I remember correctly the HLG-150s can put out around 180w, which is plenty to run 9 strips each. I also wasn’t seeing any AB options on the HLGs, but I’m doing all this on my phone so it’s possible I just missed them. Also, never soldered successfully, so I’m thinking the A option would be better than the B for me.

As for the spectrum, I’m either thinking straight 3500Ks or a mix of 5000K and 3000K. This is also where I was thinking of splitting the panel into two drivers. Running 5x5000K and 4x3000K gives a mixed spectrum of 4111K for Veg and adding in the other 9x3000k brings it to 3555K for flower. Switching to 4x5000K in the first part gives 3888K in the first assembly and 3444K with the rest added in.

Any advice on changes, spectrum, etc would be appreciated.

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#292

@ChronicMcBudz 300w would be way overkill, my old estimates a xlg-200-l-ab would fit the bill plenty, which would be 14 of the 560mm strips, and just go 3500k for spectrum as really there is no need to mix unless trying to go for a more even color for you to view them, but otherwise the 3500k are more efficent for the plants.

I’m currently trialing lower light amounts cause I ran into photo toxicity issues as of late, trying in the low 20-23w/sqft range when I was in the 35-40w/sqft range

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#293

I am finding my 30w a sq ft at 8 inches in veg, is causing problems with some plants, I have now moved the light up to 12 inches above, no change yet with the strains showing problems, I will give it another few days and if they dont rectify themselves I am moving it up again. The one in the Flower room has been great better than my 600W HPS I think, I definitely see better trichs on the plants under it. I have had that as low as 6 inches with no problems affecting those strains except some fox tailing on one of the Big Bang after I moved it from under an 8 bulb sil light, to under the Bridgelux, at 8 inches, that will happen with any light though I find if the light gets stronger suddenly near the end of flower.

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#294

Awesome! Thank you! I had a feeling I was overdoing it. That’s significantly cheaper than my original plans as well. So 14x 560mm 3500K strips and an XLG-200-L-AB. Taxes, tariff and shipping all together is $140. I can pick up the wire, potentiometer and frame materials locally, I’m sure.

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#295

Me too. :blush: …With SIL bulbs. 52w/sqft crispied things nicely, especially when over-fed. :sweat_smile:

Gone back to my dunce-stool in the corner at 34w. Doh.

:evergreen_tree:

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#296

My 60 x 60 is currently running at 50w/sqft using 4 solstrips and the plants seem to be loving all the light. It’s getting a little warmer than I’d like in the tent but I’ve not seen any bad reaction from them.

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#297

I was at 12" when I was at 28-30w/sqft currently at 18" and trialing that 20-23 and my plants perked up decently so ???

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#298

With my 2x3 cab I would run around 200-watts of COBs. I think you will be very happy with this. :+1::seedling:

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#299

I have another question… what potentiometer do I need for this? I know it said above that it’s a 100K Linear Potentiometer, but looking through Digikey there’s a ton of options. Also, what are my options to not solder? I’ve only tried it once when I was younger and failed miserably… I got the iron stuck to the piece I was trying to solder…

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#300

I like these, no soldering needed.

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#301

Mate, I am in the middle of designing my next grow space with an 80 strip SOG setup. The plan is to use the Bridglux strips this time around. What I have done previously is to use a 1000w switching PSU as the power source and then some simple CC buck or step up converters to set both voltage and current. Previously I have used the Samsung strips which run at 46v and used a 1000w 36v PSU, I then run a supply line from the PSU to a terminal block and then to a positive and negative busbar mounted on the light frame for distribution…and then I mount one or more of these $20 20A 1200W Step up modules.

These will convert between 8-60V to 12-83V at a adjustable constant current. Both voltage and current output are set by the mini pots using a small screwdriver and a multi meter.

I have run banks of up to 600w of strips from one of these for a good number of grows now and it has been solid as a rock, plus I like being able to wind down the current at the early stage of the grow… It is of course ENTIRELY possible to use a PSU from a PC server etc to step up from 12v if you wanted a cheap and reliable power source, (dell and HP ones that are cheap and plentiful) you just need to be aware of the current the supply line is carrying to the converter and make sure you use wire of a sufficient gauge to deal with it. Also it always preferable to have a PSU where the step up is not too huge or it will limit the max current the converter can output to the lights.

For the Bridglux strips I am planning of ‘grouping’ the lights in banlks of 10 and running them at 1.4 amp for about 5K lumens per strip… . So I’ll get a 1000w 24v supply and instead of the step up converter I will use a step down buck converter like this to set the voltage and current to about 250w per bank.

image.png800×800 593 KB

I’ll do some run in tests on this before I go all in, but I am pretty confident there won’t be any problems… I will maybe document it on OG if I can get my shit together :grin:

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