Big plans.
Last night my wife and i decided that we are just going to buy another house instead of remodeling our current one… So I’m starting this thread (really for my own documentation right now) to start brainstorming ideas.
The plan up until yesterday was that I was going to remodel our lower floor/garage in our current house in Alaska while my wife finishes grad school but we decided to just buy a house near University (out of state) and rent this one out so I’m going there.
The only thing I really know so far is that I definitely want to go LED and am leaning toward solstrips.
My budget is not really limited… I’ve set aside roughly 15.000 USD but I really don’t think I will need to spend that much as while I’m away for two years, I’m not going to go huge… just quality for myself… and then in two years I will do the big room back in AK.
Again, would like to thank OG for all the help over the past year… This is really exciting for me.
So yeah- right now I think I’m leaning toward solstrips- Going to finish out my current CFL grow here in AK and will be in the new place by the end of July. I wish i would have done something like this back before I went out and bought a bunch of CFL bulbs last year as I probably would have skipped that (but at the same time im glad i spent a year working with a lesser setup as i will appreciate the high end that much more…and really had to hustle those lumens to get even fairly decent results with CFLs)
Any suggestions welcome, I’ll update as it unfolds.
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Love to see pics of the new place.
Keep us posted!
99
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The solstrips sure are nice but I am a COB man to the bone 
I like the extra penetration power they offer compared to other LED solutions.
Sounds like a mad plan, a crazy budget you got there, you can build every hippies wet dream growroom with dat money 
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I need to actually research COBs before I make my decision. I hesited even posting that budget but i definitely appreciate informed input so i felt it was an important detail as my last grow was hyper-budget-limited.
I cant wait to get started. What does cob stand for? From what I can tell from random posts its a homemade type of sheetmetal based fixture… enclosed lighting, etc.
Is it a reflective based thing or are the LEDs stronger on COB? I definitely don’t want to be limited by lumens in any way…after a year with CFLs I feel that I’ve paid due on the low lumen counts.
What I was liking about the solstrips is that I can lay them anywhere… I Was thinking of possibly experimenting with side lighting as well as top lighting… maybe even some bottom-up lighting. But I’m guessing there are some rules of themb when it comes to lighting angles that I have yet to learn.
(
@Baudelaire
@anon58740919
)
Do you all think LED is the future of lighting right now? Is HID making a comeback of any kind?
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Cob (chip on board) are a more concentrated form of LED lighting. Good power good penetration.
Strips. Good even spread. Good heat dissipation. Modular form. Less hassle for the diy builders.
Both have their upsides and downsides. But both imho are much better than hps.
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Appreciate that i will start looking at old threads…what you just described sounds pretty good tbh. I’m not an electrician but i can learn just about anything.
I mean im not limited to one or the other i could use a combination of lighting.
What would you say is an ‘advantage’ or positive trait of a solstrip? Feel free to take your time, I’m in excited mode so i could go all day,lol.
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Maybe @LED_Seedz might be able to assist you a bit. I believe he is a room building consultant.
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PCBs have good light spread and heat dissipation allowing for passive cooling and even coverage. COBs generally need a thick heatsink and sometimes a PC fan for active cooling if you want to run em super hard. i think generally they’re similar in efficiency unless you really care about a couple percent (i don’t lol). they’re both kinda modular allowing lots of customization. the new quantum boards are using LM301B diodes which are maybe 8-10% more efficient than the LM561C diodes but it’s really not worth the money HLG charges for boards.
how big of a room or canopy do you think you’ll have?
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Like @legalcanada asked, both COBs and LED strips can be used with great success. I think COBs are best for larger canopies of say 32 s.f. or more, where they can be deployed in groups and position higher from the canopy so that their light can spread and even out across the canopy. COBs used in configurations of a few (1-6) emitters are prone to hotspots and dark spots.
LED strips distribute the light across the canopy much more evenly, reducing or eliminating hotspots and dark areas, even when positioned a few inches from the canopy. They are also much easier to work with in terms of heat mitigation. COBs always need hefty heatsinking and/or active air cooling, which often becomes the most expensive and difficult aspect of a COB system.
-b420
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Having recently built a rig combining cobs and strips i’d say it comes down to the size of the space. A small space is best lit with strips i think, but that could get very expensive in a large room, so i’d probably go with high power cobs in that case.
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Great information, thank you.
Strips sound like a logical step considering it will likely be a closet-like space for the next couple years. Will make the final choice when i actually see the space. Will update when i have that info.
much appreciated.
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I have almost similar situation as you do, switching from HPS to LED. Except that I am not moving anywhere and my budget is kinda limited. I did a huge research about LED and I think that in your case Cree CXB 3590 mounted on a big radiator would be the very best solution. If you have money, you can pick up more COB’s and underpower them to get more lumens for a less watts.
I’ve considered the led strips myself, but there are certain disadvantages to them, so I will stick with COB’s.
Cree got handy product characterization tool on their site, where you can look at your setup more closely. I aimed to make as much lumens as 1000 W HPS, and it got me to 12 CXB3590 running at ~2100 mA. If you have unlimited money, you can base you calculations on 1400 mA, and it would be approximately 20 COB’s to make as much light as 1000 W HPS, considering proper cooling (correct me if I am wrong)
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Are you looking for a DIY type of set-up or a pre-packaged ready to go fixture? Or, something in between? Do you have a strong preference either way?
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Before I joined OG I just assumed I would be buying a pre-built, $2,000 LED fixture; “spectrumking” my Colorado cousin suggested.
Now that I have been on here a year, it seems that there are better options out there… i like the idea of being able to DIY but I am not opposed to either option as long as the results are there.
This is all very new to me so I will have to evaluate the new space before i can make any sort of real decision. - i did a lot of research back in the late 90s on MH/HPS and had also figured I would need to completely overhaul the HVAC in my house but with the advancement in light tech, it seems that the wattages and heat levels have gone down so I’m going to be learning as I go.
@ReDaWaCu - thanks for the reply man- I will have to do some reading on what you just typed there - I very much like the idea of having the lumens of a 1000W HPS lmfao- didn’t even know that was possible with LED… but again, I am just diving into this as we speak so i have a lot of research in front of me.
So what I’m gathering is that the strips are going to be more like a CFL in that their limitation is intensity/penetration in comparison to other LED options? (much better than CFLs I know but im not feeling particularly clever with the analogies right now).
I’m guessing they dont heat up like CFLs either…with my current house i can set up as large an exhaust as i want right into my garage (through minor sheetrock). but I’ll have to take a look at the new place when we actually pick one out before I can determine how thats going to work… I tend to like not having to deal with a lot of heat… that is probably my only preference right now…
but again, i don’t want to sacrifice quality anywhere (1-2% is fine @legalcanada).
Sound sliek I’ll want some sort of COB setup at least in combination when I setup my large grow area in AK… new place is going to be a smaller op. that is for sure.
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well it’s kinda debatable cobs have intensity but the thinking is with more individual sources of light there’s more angles and chances of light making it thru the branches with the PCBs, but cobs or boards if the canopy is too dense it’s not really making it thru anyways.
it’s too bad youtube has been a piece of shit lately but LEDgardener and growmou5 are two great sources of information if their videos are still available, i think the former doesn’t do cannabis videos so should still be up no problem. you can find PAR results and efficiency numbers etc.
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I’m thinking solstrips are going to cover me for the next couple of years with a 3 - 4 plant area. Still leaning toward those. I mean I’m sure I’m going to be impressed considering I have only used CFLs.
For a small, personal rotation they sound almost perfect.
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Solstrips with their own heatsinks (solsticks) make an easy diy build for someone with basic electrical knowledge and they run at low voltage so are much safer than most of the alternatives. You can also add more of them to a rack/ladder frame later if you want 
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thanks man yeah - going to start looking at some setups today.
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I disagree with the characterization that LED strips using quality diodes and properly powered and positioned have intensity or penetration “limitations”. The core technology in COBs and SMD strips is exactly the same. The only significant difference is that with COBs all the diodes are grouped together in a highly compact area, creating a single point of emission for the light, and a single point of emission of waste heat. SMD strips spread out the light, and the waste heat, over several centimeters. That allows them to be placed closer to the canopy without sacrificing consistency of illumination (creation of hotspots and dark spots) or creating issues with burning and light bleaching.
With those advantages put to use, watt for watt, Samsung SMD strips will out-penetrate the best COBs every time.
-b420
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wow… well i just found out tonight that it doesn;t llook like we are going to be buying a house after all so that means renting in Montana… damn.
I think I’m going to have to put these plans on hold … that really makes me very very sad… on hold is the key term though… will definitely pick this back up asap…
Wow. now I’m going to need to start scraping the barrel for jobs in missoula… ouch.
im not heartbroken that the place we were considering didn’t work out… but god damn i was excited to upgrade the grow room and keep going with this… going to need to store the genes for 2 years.
@99PerCent one time mentioned to me that dark, cool, dry space (in a box, inside multiple bags, in a garage) is ok for a couple years but that anything longer i might want to look into freezing techniques… Any recommendations for roughly 2.5 yr?
Also- and this is a stretch- anyone live in missoula montana?lol
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