Sounds good, I have one and a half pieces left over from when I drywalled my work shop, so I will have a play with that first, there are some strengthening up techniques I learned doing suspended cielings.
I did order one of those dimmer switches as well anyway, as I thought it was something important 
Meh lol I ordered 1 and got 3 by accident lol
Didn’t hook one up but that may still be a later thing
If you’re looking to cut costs it kind of is important. Gives you the ability to consume less power when the plants don’t need it, and also if you have high intensity issues you have the option of dimming it a bit instead of raising the light.
Besides, the L-AB drivers cost a few dollars more BECAUSE they have dimmer outputs on them, so you might as well hook them up 
Fill me in on info ?
Y aint ppl goin with 4 footer strips instead of 2 footers? Less wirin n better driver combos. Easier build. Lot less mats.
N cheaper 2 boot. Win Win Win.
Cover a 4x4 fer bout 65 cents a watt w them EB2 4 footers.
Gave bad info (damn stoner brain)
I’ve handled the 2 foot strips and if the 4 foot are of the same materials there is a lot of flexing going on when handling them. They also fall into a higher shipping cost group because of the packaging.
Shipping is still a pain on the 2 foot strips at 22 inches inside a 24 inch box limit it’s a tight fit…
Not really an easier build, as you would have to make at least 2 center supports to support the big sag these strips have. The 2 center supports would end up being the same material amount as 2 frames half the size so definitely not less mats.
Better driver combos? Well if you mean the HLG series sure you can get higher wattage drivers, but an HLG-480 is more than double the cost of an XLG-240 so it’s still cheaper to buy two XLG drivers than one HLG. With that said the cost isn’t a whole lot more and if I were building a single frame 480w light I’d just go for the HLG.
Neither of these reasons are why I went with the 2 foot instead of the 4 foot, though. I chose the 2 foot simply because you can’t fit a 4 foot strip in a 2 foot space. If I had 4 foot strips and wanted to reconfigure them for a 3x3, 2x2, 2x3, or any other format it would not be possible, would have to buy 2 foot strips. But not if I built everything from 2 foot strips. Unless I’m going @Mr.Sparkle scale these will fit in as low as a 2x2 and anything larger, 10x10 even. I also didn’t want one big light, I wanted the option of raising each section individually should one plant grow faster/slower than the others.
There’s also the lower cost to replace, should one ever fail, and lower chances of failure because all your eggs aren’t in one basket.
The 4 foot strips and 2 foot strips both are rated at 175lm/w so no difference in efficiency.
This is the reason I chose the 2 ft strips over the 4ft ones. My grow is constantly changing, I hate wasting money on redundant equipment, and 2ft strips are easier to repurpose if I wanted to go to 2x2 instead of the 4x2, there is not much savings getting the 4x4 either.
Thanks for clearing that up Trevor! Must have mixed it up with something else I read.
There’s definitely some savings, as @orange said it works out to about 65-70 cents per watt as opposed to the 83 cents per watt your current build comes to. But anything under a dollar per watt is “very cheap” so they’re still both cost effective.
You’re basically paying an extra $10-20 in the end for long term convenience, and for you especially where your grow is always changing it was a no brainer.
Disagree on both yer points. Who builds wo strappin these to angle alum? No flex there. Shippin is $8.99 any size from Digikey. Just got a 7ft x 10" tube from them w 4 footers in it for $8.99 shippin 1500 mi away in 2 days.
See above bout angle alum. Advantage of EB strips is ability to run high wo heatsinkin. Still always need support even tho u got smaller strips err else theys fragile. Same fer all strips brands n sizes. U also want two seperat frames - each 2x4 fer positionin.
Disagree fer a buncha reason. Easier cuz HLG-480H-42a has 2 leads so yous can easily wire ea fixture I mentioned separte. HLG is 3% more efficient than XLG so your TCO is less over its lifespan. HLG has 2 more years warranty.
I hear ya bout flexibility but I assumed yer grow was stable. I like set it n ferget it. Failure aint in my lexicon n I assume RMA under warranty.
Reasonable minds can disagree. Thx fer bein reasonable.
What I meant with this, is that a 2x4 frame which would normally cost a tad bit less than two 2x2 frames, would end up costing the same because you need to add center supports for the 4 foot strips that would exactly equal in length the extra material needed to build two 2x2 frames. Even the 22" strips sag and flex without a support in the middle. I was lucky where my strips had an upward sag due to shipping, but if they didnt have that they would definitely be sagging and I put a center support in anyways just to keep them straight.
Also, cant stress enough that the aluminum isnt necessary and that wood will work just as good and is easier to work with.
Again, not knocking the 4 foot strips if I still ran larger scale grows or had a seperate 4x4 space I’d likely run them depending on whether I had the cash up front to buy all the components or not.
Which is another advantage to split/multi-driver builds, in that you can piece-meal purchase the components as you are able to afford them and still have a working light.
That’s why all of this is exciting, and I love that the low cost of these particular strip builds are making high quality LED lights accessible to everyone. They are modular, scalable and easy to assemble. They will outperform pre-built systems 3x the price with generally better coverage and comparable efficiencies to even the highest end systems.
I think a list of build options with pros/cons to each and parts lists for sourcing would be helpful for those that are still a bit confused although I’m unsure if its beyond the scope of this thread.
@TrevorLahey if yer 1 caveat is size fer not usin 4 fters I agree. Aint got the space u aint got the space. I disagree bout angle alum builds flexing. Maybe if yer metals real thin? L or U channel usually dont flex at all less yer usin stuff thin as metal studs.
Taker easy.
does the 19.2/39 V ballast apply for the EB Gen 3 340mm strips? Looks like 10.5 V So for those a 12V base would work if confined to 340mm strips.
If I read right with 340mm strips could use -
7-13 strips w/ a XLG-100-L-AB (71-142 Vout) 12 and a dimmer for efficiency?
or
100 watts /340mm strips power --> 10.5 V x 700ma~7.4 watts per strip into a 100?
The gen 3 slims in the 340mm length the nominal voltage for them is 10.9v at 700ma , so yeah your math is correct in that…
142v / 10.9v = 13.02 strips but with some buffer built in in case you decide to say over drive them up to 800-850ma then 12 strips is the safe bet regardless
Oh… well I guess I missed that memo… It’s kinda tricky but it most def can be done 
and screw all that HV meanwell shite, why buy when you can wire? Weeny tryhard DIYers
Which one should I buy ?
All of them
They are cheap… get a few and test em…
Personally for my next build I will be going with the Gen 3 Slims and be running them on side by side on a 25 mm pieces of C section aluminium. I have previously used thermal paste and screwed the strips down to the heatsink material, but next time I think I will use some thermal epoxy and simply glue the strips on to the heatsink… They fail so rarely that it doesn’t even matter that they are can’t be removed later IMHO. Some people here run without any heatsinking at all… that’s not something I would do because it’s going to have a detrimental effect on efficiency if you decided to run the strips hot… say at 1.0 amp, but again that’s just me.
