Hell the rig I’m running in a 4x4 could do a ,4x8 @ about 25 w per.
32 4 ft strips with 4 xlg240l ab drivers testing one panel with 16 strips and 2 drivers 2’ away you could feel your skin getting hot but strips cool to the touch
One of the two panels
My lights in flower at 30w a sq ft cost overall a dollar a watt with everything I needed to build them.
Thats very bright, that panel is 60w per sq ft real LED power, which in comparison to a HPS light would be somewhere around double the light emitted to 120w a sq ft roughly.
The heat your arm is feeling is it actually cooking from light radiation 
you could use it as a tanning salon 
Nice job on the build looks like a very solid construction. I like how you mounted the driver’s, mine are just hanging by wire down the side of the tent.
Thanks for the compliments brother. No wonder my plants didn’t like it turned all the way up lol I’m running all 4 just over 50%. How well do you think the 32 strips would do in an 8x4? I could build 2 more frames and spread them out better. I was just thinking that 25w/sqft. Wouldn’t be enough, but that’s 25w of true power
I think you could split the strips in half and run one 240w driver per 8 X 4 ft strips on a 2ft by 4 ft frame to bring it down to 30w a sq ft. Thats what I have in my flower room, and the plants produce the same as if they were under my 600w HPS,
That’s how they are wired now but two drivers per panel. I’m swapping from a 1000w hps. I’m wanting to get an 8x4 instead of the 4x4 but not if I can’t maximise my yield. I could always get 8 more strips and another driver and run 40 for close to 1020 w which would only 32w per. How did you come up with 30 for the 4 driver setup? If I remember right it worked out to 812w after factoring driver loss
You have 2 x 240w drivers running 1 frame of 16 strips covering a 4ft x 2ft area 8sq ft. 480w divided by 8sq ft is 60w per sq ft, when reduced by 50% becomes 30w a sq ft.
You say you are losing 148w from efficiency or 37w per driver, which I did not account for, I didn’t realize they lost that much power. If that is the case then my flowering lights are only giving 25w a sq ft.
So you have 406w per 2ft x 4ft light frame or 50w a square ft. So reducing the frames by 50% of the strips and 1 driver would give you 25w a sq ft or equivalent to roughly 50w a sq ft, if you were using a 1000 HPS ballast light.
With a 1000w HPS you would get 62.5 w per sq ft in a 4x4 ft tent equivalent to roughly 30w a sq ft, LED so you would need to bump it up another 40w per frame, for 4 frames, in an 8ftx4ft tent, if you wanted to keep it close to the output of a 1000w HPS.
Bearing in mind you have a better footprint of equal light distribution over the space, compared to an HPS 1000w light 62w per sq ft, 25W per sq ft of LED might not be far off.
Now knowing that I am only getting 25w per sq ft with my flower lights, I am even more impressed with these strips performance, which as I said, I find comparable to my 600W HPS light for growth.
Depends how much cash you have to spend I suppose, a few more watts of light is not a bad thing to max it out, but if you are only running at 50% because its to much for the plants going any higher. Personally I would try it at 25w per, with 4 frames of 8 strips, and see if its enough, if not, get a few more strips and add another driver to run the extra strips per frame. That’s what I would do, because I am broke 
there is no point for me adding cost of extra power or light parts that I cant use because I have enough already to get what I want.
You can test in the 4x4 with 2 frames of 8 strips and 2 drivers to see if it is OK, before scaling up too make sure. Its a lot of fucking about with the frames lol.
I hope that makes sense, these things usually do, in my mind after 4.20, but not everyone else lol.
I’m thinking this plants problem is I swapped lights mid flower. Buds got super dense and really frosty but are foxtailing I guess you’d call it.
That could be too much light. Try one of those free light meter apps on your smartphone. They’re not overly accurate, but it can give you a rough idea of how much light is going where. If you have another veg light or something going compare the readings with that to get your bearings with the new light.
I made my new veg space with cheapo screw in LEDs, I hung them like 12" from the plants. When I used a light meter I found that they were brighter there than my 400 hps at like 18" away. I have them like 2ft+ from the canopy now and it’s perfect.
Long stoner story short LEDs can be more intense than you’d think! 
Yeah a sudden big jump in light will cause fox tailing, I had the same problem when I put my first LED homemade light in, half way through flower. I have also been light burning my veg plants forgetting that these Bridgelux strips are very intense. I am maintaining a minimum of 16 inches off the canopy atm in veg and 20-24 in flower as those lights are 40% stronger than the veg.
@beacher I tried a few but I max them out. They even maxed out under my 1000w hps so they are pretty useless lol
I’m roughly 16" away. I turned half the strips off and bumped the others up to 75% I’m not going to sweat this run. I’m running a 150w cob and 2 4foot led shop lights that claim to be 250w each so they should be ok once getting into the flower tent. This is what my buds are doing
Yeah I’ve had that problem in the past. I turned down my hlgs and it’s not happening now
Thinking about chopping that one already since the buds aren’t getting any bigger anymore just growing fingers lol the first pic if I open it up it looks like a hand lol
Ya the meter on my phone maxes out pretty low, but my girlfriend’s goes to 100,000 lux+ so I steal hers when I need it haha
Good Day All,
Quick question (which may have already been answered somewhere although I can’t find it) Bridgelux offers tuneable Vesta series product in a tray-style layout, for the added cost is there any added benefit? I see that the ones I have linked below have 2 runs of LEDs if one was to go with this configuration could I half other area coverage calcs?
The want: Build panels/array that is comparable to my Mars TS3000 for less cash, looking for panels that will do 4x4 area each so that I can cover a 16 x 4’ area with 4 panels. Watts wise, the TS3000 runs dual meanwell drivers with total 450w draw, however, I am seeing that most folks are driving their Bridgelux at a much lower push. Any and all insight is appreciated.
Forgive me ineptness surrounding this, not asking anyone to do the work for me but could certainly use a pointer or two.
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/bridgelux/BXEB-TL-2750G-3000-A-13/976-1731-ND/7899252
well the vesta are older and being so a good deal less efficient light output wise like 30-40% compare to the EB2 series.
and tunable light output you can always mix and match color temp strips to get what you want or run them different temps on different drivers that are dimmable and achieve the same thing. Really just would be running one strip vs two.
but looks like the 560mm strips are out of stock…
which i should maybe bring up seoul semiconductor has some comparable cheapish strips till the EB2’s may be back in stock, or i guess eb3 slims at twice the price of eb2’s
Hey Spark thanks for pipping in!!
It appears I was a little late to the game with the EB2, ergo I was looking at Vesta…
I understood the tunable aspects and thank you for further clarifying, I guess what I meant to ask was; is there an advantage in the configuration or was it simply a matter of light density when the strips are butted together comparably single rows of strips? Seems like a single strip in the right configuration is providing more than enough.
I will take a look for comparables. Thanks again @Mr.Sparkle !!!
@Mr.Sparkle Thank you for all the info you are providing and your help, solid GOLD!
It looks as though the comparable units from Seoul Semi are roughly 2x the cost but aside from that are very similar. I have assembled a bit of a cart aside from cost would this be suitable for making a 4x4 ish array (strips every 3.5" over 4’ x 4’ area)?
https://www.digikey.ca/short/zmnnh4
Using your math from the original post I am looking for around 5000lm/ft2 over an area of 32 ft2 (4x8) so I would be looking to generate 160000 total lumen. The strips spec a 202lm/w efficiency and a current of 1.3a max.
I am unsure of how you calculated output of the strips to provide a corresponding amount of strips? Found a calculator based around this equation but I’m not sure if I am merely overthinking it.
The luminous flux Φ V in lumens (lm) is equal to the power P in watts (W), times the luminous efficacy η in lumens per watt (lm/W):
Φ V(lm) = P (W) × η (lm/W)
Edit: Shopping Cart re-linked, the strips in question also linked
ill help you out further tomorrow.
But as with a discussion with @Kayoes earlier on Discord, future electronics has these pretty cheap and comparably cost wise they are only 10’s of cents more per strip when comparing lumen output.
i grabbed the 3500k example for the below link
As for the whole light output vs area just to simplify with current tech and these light lets just say your looking at 25-35w/sqft of light, yes over simplified but say with the strips above and for your 4x8 space you would be looking at between 44-66 of those strips as its better to run them at nominal than to have them overdriven on the high end but i would guess they also would probably be run off of 4 xlg or hlg 200w to 240w meanwell drivers when all is said and done as they are the decent driver options.
But i’ll help further tomorrow, and im sure some others can chime in too ;), also consider though buying some prebuilt commercial units such as marshydro, spiderfarmer, kingbright and the likes even if more expensive and or unknowing quality wise may be an easier route for a bigger space.
But other wise we’lll get your squared away on a potential setup.
Thank you kind sir, Absolutely no rush, super grateful
