Holy shit! That is true bro. I read this thread and I get even more intimidated about DIY lights. I’m old, shakey hands, vision not so great and I’m really high. That’s why I love my HPS. You plug it in and forget about it for 3 or 4 years. I need about 400 watts plug and play LED. LED is what’s up and I’m going full on to get one for my flower tent. Like you said…save and take it a day at a time. Got my sights on this years 4/20 sales. Take good care…
We’ll get you sorted with some plug and play options by then @oleskool830 i’ll just keep and eye out for whats around to see whats decent price wise and output, just as a refresher i presume your just thinking your flower tent at the moment but i can’t remember what size your running for that ?
any ideas what that lettar “b” mean?
scheme from manufacturer 
b - back?
The first picture is series, which will require higher voltage but pass less current. I’d recommend the second picture, which is in parallel, and what the manufacturer recommends.
As far as the “b” it’s just the negative terminal… not sure why it’s labeled that way.
@zavorotnuck Maybe that’s the B reference for the second generation?
Actually + - b b + -b b it’s perfect bcoz i don’t need for wago connector. Actually i have this But! that bird need to be slim and white bcoz i say what i say dears. Zuv.
Thanks @Mr.Sparkle! It’s a 4X4 tent and I only flower in it. Man I appreciate your help. Stimulus checks are coming so I’m ready. I don’t know why I would need a dimmer. If I’m gonna start it up I like to floorboard it! I’m thinking 400-450 watts? Your thoughts are appreciated. Be safe, well and lifted.
Blessings…
Will be looking closer to 480w of current led light on the lower side to 640w on the higher.
Well right now and on say budget side of things, Shane of Migro “youtube” had these as doing pretty well and at about $100 a pop pretty decent you would want 4 of for your 4x4, as realistically they would cover a 2x2 ignore there naming though as these are only 130-150w a piece.
Also advantage of going with a couple units is if ever one fails its just one unit vs having to replace a full array, disadvantage is more hang points and cables, but id rather go for cheaper replace ability.
https://www.amazon.com/Spectrum-Sunlight-Hydroponic-Thermometer-Hygrometer/dp/B083LSSHMK
That or say the Vipraspec p1500, same deal with them you’d want 4 of them little less efficient apparently and pricier but same realm of light
https://www.viparspectra.com/collections/pro-series/products/pro-series-p1500
@oleskool830 I don’t think you should go with a budget knockoff / no-name Chicom brand light for flower. You’re a good grower and you deserve something that will take your grows to the next level. Save your money for another month or two and get something a little higher end. The budget lights are the bottom of the barrel for people starting out, or for people who don’t know better and make impulse purchases, but none of those are going to give you the results you want in a 4x4. IMHO. You know what they say about a fool and his money…
Agree with @Mr.Sparkle that you want something with a dimmer so you can turn it up or down as needed, like during really hot days dim a little bit. And something that can give you more output than you might think you need. I completely agree that 480w is minimum you would need, and that’s from a really high end latest tech LED fixture. More realistic for your budget and plug-n-play requirement is 600ish watts from a middle of the road fixture that’s a couple year’s old tech.
Either way, you want name brand, not that no-name junk from Amazon. IMHO! I think something like a Timber Cypress-8 in 3000K or an HLG 600R or something like that would be great. You might even be able to work with an HLG 550V2 Eco that would be at the lower end of the scale.
There’s a $25 off coupon for Timber (code= RIU) and a 10% coupon for the HLG lights (code= RIU10). If you lived closer, I’d build you a kickass light for $600 or $700. 
But the price range you’re probably looking at for something at retail next year is gonna be around $700-$900 like the ones I mentioned. It seems like a lot, but keep in mind that the cost savings from lower energy bills and much better temps with the swamp cooler during summer will mean your higher yields will come at lower cost, probably giving you a ROI of 2-3 years compared to HPS. And there’s no bulb changes and they last for a long time, unlike HPS where you’re supposed to change the bulb every 6mo…
The hlg600R would be a good option or any of those if the budget is there, just offered up the cheapie budget options is all.
Another popular semi cheap.
LM chips and Meanwell driver.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07TS82HWB/ref=sspa_mw_detail_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I knew Timber would jump into the strip game! That’s one sexy looking light… If I were going to get another light, would probably go this route and see if they could do 2700k strips only for flowering.
Yeah man, I get it. I’m just anti those cheap golddigger Alibaba brands that hit Amazon with their splashy BS claims like “1000W replacement” and then only draw 130w with pretty suspicious diodes and low quality. lol I simply don’t want to encourage that type of predatory sales tactic by promoting them.
Dan at Timber’s a good guy. That’s where I bought my COB kits way back when. I asked him to build me a strip light two or three years ago and he said, at the time, they had no interest in anything but COBs. While the strip design is good on those new Cypress lights, I think they’re not using the most effective or efficient strips.
However, they’re certainly a legit company and I like their approach to sales and their designs a LOT more than HLG. They just gotta stop selling COB lights which are really not competitive for the money these days. 
Hopefully they’d be able to build a 2700k light, but I don’t know if Samsung makes any current gen strips that don’t have a huge blue spike.
Yes! well done!
So did something that on the surface and base values seems illogical.
That being i ordered some enough Gen 3 Thrive bridgelux strips on friday to swap out my strips on one side, just got them a couple hours ago and have my left side swapped out to them already.
Gen 2 80cri 3500k both sides “uncorrected photo”
Gen 3 98cri 4000k left side, Gen 2 80cri 3500k right side “uncorrected photo”
Reason for it being illogical is from a lumen perspective the gen 3 Thrives are about 20% less efficient than the gen 2’s in a 80cri, and i just measured mine lux meter wise at around 17% less efficient though i need empty chambers to get a true reading, also they are twice the cost per strip.
So why did i bother well first i have wanted to go to a 4000k color way coupled to a higher cri strictly for nice viewing and picture purposes for myself. Also figured why not as a treat for myself as something to play with.
Now something to bring up is the following graph below on the thrives series where that 20% less efficient nature may not hold true from a plant growing perspective, so as some know and discussed like @nube posts we don’t need much blue wave length light for plant growth and most all white led’s give off way more than enough considering they are all just blue led’s with phosphor coatings, now looks like the thrives may have an added blue peak filter to them which allows them to have such a high cri, also to note is how far out the red side of the spectrum is pushed compared to the 80cri plot which may be pointing to more effective light light use for growing.
Also brings up how lumens and lux are measured being what seems brightest to us where the peak wavelength of those measurements are centered around 555nm “green” light so it would be safe to assume that a led light that has say its blue peak filtered down by nature will read less bright to our eyes and for measurement purposes.
To sum up i guess for myself for the switch, at worse i get less efficient production though they look better for my viewing purposes which is most of the fun, and at best may come out to similar efficiencies and i doubt more but you never know ??? and i get that bonus of them looking better which was the whole point in the first place, anyways something for me to play with in the new year.
Bravo for taking the plunge!!! 
I think they look great and the high CRI light makes a big difference to the eye, if not to the lens in your camera. I read the whole ASD paper linked before and it makes sense. Even though they’re yellowish in photos, colors under my 2700k 90cri look phenomenal and much more realistic than under my 4000k 80cri EB3 Slims I use in the kitchen.
You’d suspect the extra far red will help, but I’m curious how realistic that is. I’d love to see some measured in a sphere and the % of each color band listed. Can’t wait to see how they turn out for you. Have you measured the wattage to see how they compare to the 3500k?
Yeah i would definitely like to see them measured as well, as for wattage they came out right about the same even though spec sheets say they would of been a bit more, i was fully expecting and ready with tools in hand to tune my drivers to be as close to 100w at the strips as i had just set them the other week with current and voltage measurements though these new strips ended up reading 100.5w which was only a volt or two more in my array setup so that made it easy will be interesting to see if that breaks in a bit.
So seems the spec sheets are overstated probably for legality purposes like past products ive had from them such as the vero’s and gen 2s running at less voltage than the spec sheets and specific current ratings.
DUDE!!! Thank you so much man for doing this, I’m really curious how this turns out!
Will you try to take some clones or anything to somewhat compare the growths?
Man I got to start following your journal more closely!
How many thrive strips did you get in what space again?
Are these gonna be for veg, flower, both?
