I just contact HLG Canada for the 120’s and they don’t carry them here. I’ve looked at Alibaba also, and plan to look a bit more this weekend as the price and shipping speed is great.
I’m just outside of Toronto, Ontario. Go Raptors!
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SolStrips use the exact same Samsung technology as HLG boards, on 40 cm (16") rigid strips running at 50 watts in CCT ranges from 2700-5000K. Three SolStrip X2s, or two X3s, equal a 288-chip QB, for about 30% less. Sold with matching heatsinks and in fully assembled SolSheet 150w and 250w lamps, for about a dollar per watt.
@cdnBuddy, don’t kid yourself on the Vipar, ain’t no way that lamp will pull anywhere near 300w. This review measures it at 136w true watts - typical of the Burple crowd to use the old “HID replacement watts” fraud. It also measures a maximum PAR of 300 at 24", which means it doesn’t reach the intensity to produce quality cannabis flower at any point in the light field, let alone across an area of several square feet as a true 300w LED lamp should. Your current SolStrip Rack produces 400% more PAR light than that Vipar ever will.
But LED household replacement bulbs are the MOST expensive LED option, because they are the least efficient of all LEDs. About 50% less efficient, and very poor spectrum. They are not even less expensive on a lumen per watt basis (true wattage - again, ignore the “replacement watts” number, unless you want to grow “replacement cannabis”).
You can waste a lot of money in LED if you presume all LED is the same - same quality, same efficiency, same output. They are not the same at all, and if you don’t do your research up front you will spend quite a bit more on your education…
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Quantum boards although are good lights for growing the spread from a single board will only be good enough for a single plant. Solstrips you can configure in such a way every inch of your tent is reached allowing more plants to be grown within a limited space like a 4x4 tent. I bought blurples and they grew ok but nothing I’ve used light wise comes close to solstrips. My rig is around 39w a foot and I’ve still easily managed the 1gpw we all want. 
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Thanks @slain for pointing that out, I noticed that with an Afghan #1, now I don’t know if it is still a good move to change to LED, any ideas with this?
before
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This is another option he should look into. You can buy Samsung strips and diy it yourself. I understand the sol-strips, but there are cheaper options of same quality.
We should be showing him where to order Samsung strips from in Canada! Or qb’s.
350 watts for $700 is an outrageous price markup in my opinion.
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Ask them if they have any 132 also. Or any of there v1 boards. They’ve come out with v2. The efficiency is negligible in gain.
Also if your in Canada what’s your power cost? If your gonna need heat in some months go with HPS or CMH. You can use that heat and it will give you a cheaper option for more Coverage. Also HPS grows some donkey dick buds.
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That’s why you get several like the strips and make a frame that allows you to place them. The four I have in a 2x4 give me coverage corner to corner.
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12 strips running at 50w each. 6 x 2700k and 6 x 5000k
Grow before last they ran at 480w and I got just shy if 1.5 gpw. 4 plants were in big bubble buckets though.
Solstrips are my best grow buy ever. The driver/power supply is what hurts the most
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I posted this in another topic
Actuallty that doesn’t look too bad, Iv’e seen them much more stumpy but more red is the answer. So some 3000K or 3500K strips. That will get you more like this:
AK47 at 3 weeks.
$9. One per strip. I just mount them next to each other on some upside down ally channel in banks.
Get 10 of these
For $305.83 USD and then $75 USD for the drivers to run them, maybe $100 on wire, terminals, heat shrink and the ally framing and it’s what… 80K lumens for less than $500. It’s a no brainer IMHO.
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The only measurements that count outside the spectrum IMHO is the actual amount of wattage consumed and the amount of lumens/watt. All those ‘equivalent to’ claims are total bunk.
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Dilemma is solved, another solstrip rack. What a first harvest! 4hrs of trimming, not fun lol
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In his beginning statement he said he paid $700 for 350 watts. That’s why I suggested diy. Are the sol strips really a dollar a watt? Cause I’d be interested!
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Usd to cdn exchange rate is a killer, a long with getting hit with $100 on duty.
I’m also a lazy bastard and purchased the frame which I could have made myself.
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Yeah that’s why I don’t deal with Americans no more. Always DIY to save a few quid. But those benefits are negated when you pay more in duties than you do for products.
Citizen COB LED all the way. Quite sure you will get free shipping from estonia too in Canada. Save the gimmicks and fuckery and build what you wanna build maybe you’ll stumble on something cheap and great
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I’m avoiding the duty this time around, so that will be some good savings. I’m not DIY kinda guy, and have been 100% satisfied with my solstix, as I was just trying to be a cheapo and get something else.
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I’d really like to build a cob next. Is the penetration that much better than qb, ya know deeper, thicker buds lol.
Do you have a build link? I was gonna start with cobs then qb seemed a lot easier and less heat. Now I need a heat source for winter but not HPS heat!
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I prefer COBs myself. I’ll drop you a PM after I finish work mate
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A lot of misinformation/confusion here. To clarify:
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Duties and fees are determined, and paid to, your home country. There is literally nothing we can do to change that. FWIW, we pay no duties whatsoever for most Canadian and British goods imported into the US. You should demand the same of your governments (or accept it for what it is.)
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Same with exchange rates. The Canadian dollar and British pound change their value daily. We simply convert our USD prices to the customer’s currency at the time of sale.
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A SolSheet O, capable of +150 watts of premium LED power, sells for $149 USD, or about $1/watt, USD. The SolSheet X is $199 for +250 watts. SolStix rack kits are an even better value, at $29.99 per 50w stick of SolStrip + fitted heatsink, plus $49 for the pre-drilled mounting rails, wiring harness and connectors. If you can operate a screwdriver and a wire stripper, you can put together a three-foot SolStix Rack that will perfectly light a 2x4 ft area for $260 + driver + shipping. (@cdnBuddy, we use a new shipping process that eliminates the truly outrageous broker fees that UPS was charging our brothers to the North, which should shave at least $100 off your next Rack order.)
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Drivers are the biggest area of shipping expense because they are so heavy. They are also widely available in Canada, Europe and the UK. If you want to save some money, learn how to cable a driver and order it from a local distributor.
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Not sure how ordering these components to Canada from Australia is going to help with the shipping and duties issues. The driver you link to is a 220v AC, won’t do a Canadian on 120v AC much good. And usually, if you are powering more than 3 or 4 strips, going with a single larger driver to power them all is much more cost effective and will get you a better quality and more efficient power supply, with dimming, waterproofing and better circuit protection.
Also, just a note since you’ve referred to it twice, “lumens are for humans”, PAR is the best measure of light intensity for plants. There is a significant difference between the two.
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Sure thing, only it’s not always more cost effective all the time as indicated, and there is no ‘one size fits all’. Besides, redundancy in a light is a good thing. All lights fail and losing the whole light because of one strip is simply poor design IMHO. Also though I would not typically power a lot of strips with these, but rather build a custom supply from a large PSU, I have found that to be the best overall solution because it can be easily expanded and be integrated with and arduino based timer/relay setup. I’m figuring the OP is not stupid and can work out a likewise option if they so chose to, it’s good to know what the options are. Again redundancy in my opinion is a key part of any quality light design, so wherever possible single points of failure are best avoided. Also the OP could buy from Digikey where shipping will be free if they spend more than $100. We also have taxes and duties in this part of the world so I am sure the OP can work it out. Our dollar is about similar.
Thanks. I am aware of the difference, thing is though that for the average Joe, PAR is going to be about as useful as tits on a bull, no offence. Again, lumens in this context is being used as a crude but useful measurement of brightness, so as a simple measure, a combination of wattage, lumens/watt in combination with the colour spectrum graphs delivered by the light is for the most part a perfectly adequate way to ascertain how ‘generally’ productive the lights will be. So PAR being between 400 and 700 nanometers, all you need to do is to aim for the maximum efficiency in the luminair output between these two values as indicated in their spectrum graph.
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