Anyone else waiting for Samsung strips?

Humple said:

So... Any grow pics? It sounds like you're saying that these Nichias diodes are superior to Samsung's (for growing), so I assume that you must have plenty of real-world, growing-performance data?

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would love to say yes, but a lot of our customers are in non legal grow places and not really willing to share data, be happy to provide some discounted strips for diary builds here, but please dont ask unless you willing to diary the build, had too many people promise to do this stuff and dont
Cheers
Mark

Humple said:

Not going after him. Just asking for more info. But I remain unconvinced (though open to the possibility) that spectrum matters more than efficacy. Still waiting for hard, real-world data on that one. Same for ChilLED's mixed-spectrum boards (on the spectrum benefit issue). I'll be very happy to be proven wrong, as that opens up many possibilities for builders.

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couple of weeks in (I know its not the magic herb) but top left is 5k Optisolis, other 3 are commercial grow lights of varying type. based on customer feedback we see about 5-10% grow gain in material albeit a very short period

welight said:

Boys we will build strips of any kind to order, but I am not going to lay out a PCB for 5 pcs, what do you want
Cheers
Mark

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I would buy a few 5k optisolis strips to try out in a 2x4 I'm currently running 1500w of lm561c 3k and 1200w lm561c 27k in 2 different tents

welight said:

couple of weeks in (I know its not the magic herb) but top left is 5k Optisolis, other 3 are commercial grow lights of varying type. based on customer feedback we see about 5-10% grow gain in material albeit a very short period

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No offense, but that doesn't exactly peg the needle on my convincement gauge. Hope some forum peeps start journaling your lights so we can see how they perform.

Humple said:

No offense, but that doesn't exactly peg the needle on my convincement gauge. Hope some forum peeps start journaling your lights so we can see how they perform.

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Off course it doesnt but you asked so I gave you what I have on hand. If I consider the original Qb build by CaptainMorgan I dont think anyone at that time was convinced about mid power. Like anything it requires a little leap of faith by those that like to jump.
If I can draw an analogy to mainstream lighting, they have used mid power leds for a long time, and dont really care about 200+LPW, they want cheap, what they do care about for example in task lighting is spectral performance, in other words for task lighting how do people work/perform/feel under light, the analogy is under lights that are production based efficacy is more important, but the cost to run has to me contextual in terms of plants dont give a shit about cost to run they want to be washed in a light that drives their behaviour, 3 to 4k no doubt does it but is it really the only option
Cheers
Mark

Randomblame said:

So still much more expensive than F-strips lumen's/$ wise.

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Well..... Not really. It depends on how you compare them. If you are only looking at lumens/dollar at test current, then the F-series wins out:


at $15 and $24 respectively, it comes out to ~290 lm/$ vs ~240 lm/$. But look what happens if we equalize the efficacies:



Now we are at ~290 lm/$ vs 345 lm/$ - and still at a very respectable 167 lm/w efficacy. Let's look at what we get if we run the F series softer to match the H-influx:



Now its down to 205 lm/$ to 240 lm/$ - still favoring the H-influx by a good margin.

If it was simply about lm/$ then those two dollar, 9000 lumen Ebay COBs would be the best buy available.

Well, if you look at it from this POV, that's right!
But who buys new more expensive strips only to get the same performance as before?
When I do, then I'll use it to make my lamp more efficient, like an upgrade. Just reaching the same level makes no sense to me if I want to modernize my light. And if I make a new light, it has anyway to be better than the old one. In my case that means I'd need 20 2footer to replace my 20 2ft. F-strips and I would need around 480 bucks to realize it with L06 strips for ~+10lm/w more.

Of course that only applies to my point of view. Anyone who just wants to build a good lamp is certainly well advised to use H-inFlux or Q-series. But I think the price increase does not correspond to the performance jump. We are talking about 8-11lm/w increase in efficiency, depending on the spectrum, and therefore the price increase is too large in my eyes.
I think that Samsung has just realized that they have unknowingly opened up a new market (growlights). Why else do they recently start to produce QB's for HLG? Growers are used to accepting higher prices for good products and for Samsung it's a great opportunity to increase sales and, most importantly, make more profit.
In fact, the LM301b costs probably not more in production than LM561c, and more diodes are being only used on the L03 and L06 strips. All others have less diodes than comparable F-strips. The minimal wider PCBs are maybe just a bit more expensive. But all in all, they do not cost Samsung much more like the production of F-strips, surely only a few cents if any.

Randomblame said:

But who buys new more expensive strips only to get the same performance as before?

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You're getting more lumens per dollar at the same efficiency - thats essentially a price drop. OK, let see what they look like at the same lumen/dollar. I'll start with 237 lm/$:




So that results in 173 lm/w to 177 lm/w. Not a huge difference, lets try to match them at lower and higher numbers. Lets start with the F series test settings of 291 lm/$:



that gets us to 167.7 to 171.7 - about the same difference still favoring the new chips. Let go up until we max one out:


A little bit more of a spread - 161.7 to 167.3, but this is supposed to be all about efficiency, so lets look at the soft end, say 150 lm/$:



Still a small difference in favor of the Hinflux.

Yeah, its not a huge jump, but you gotta keep in mind this is the first iteration of this product series - the F series are already at Gen 3 and I'm pretty sure there won't be a Gen 4. But I don't doubt that we will see an H-influx Gen 2 product by years end or early next year, certainly by next summer. I think by the time we see a Gen 3 product there will be a substantial difference. Just look at the difference between the F series gen 1 and the gen 3's. Arrow actually still has a shit load of Gen 1 strips.

I do not doubt that they are better! Exspecially the L06 strip is most interesting for me because of better diodes "and" higher diode count. I think only that they are too expensive. And the difference to the L04 strips is even lower. And just because F-strips was gen3 production it was not cheaper. The form factor was the same, yes, but the number of LEDs and internal layout was not equal to F-series gen.2.

BTW,
There is also an old inFlux series(see digikey), the only differece is the H- infront of inFlux. But not exact the same layout.

Digikey mentioned old and new ones..
https://www.digikey.com/products/en/optoelectronics/led-lighting-cobs-engines-modules/111?k=&pkeyword=&v=1510&s=52424&s=52425&s=52426&s=52427&s=52428&s=52429&FV=ffe0006f&quantity=0&ColumnSort=0&page=1&pageSize=25

And inFlux L09 looks like H-inFlux L09:
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/samsung-semiconductor-inc/SL-B8T7N90L1WW/1510-1351-ND/5958910

The samsung calculators are very unreliable. I've got the h influx double going into the sphere at 3 different currents in august...well see how they do.

Another thing worth to mention is, that they use probably only the 2nd best flux and a mid voltage bin on H-inFlux strips. With other bin combinations I get no matching numbers.

I'm sure they are sk flux and the lowest voltage bin. But there's overlap and temps to consider. I'll ask samsung.

Look at the effiency numbers below. Lowest voltage + top flux bin would be ~195lm/w and only 31w.

You could be right but i dont trust calculators. Ive emailed samsung direct to ask them which flux/voltage bin they use..

Ryante55 said:

I think it depends what your going for both sides are right effeciency is very important but say you have 200lm/w with a lacking spectrum vs 190lm/w with a super full spectrum that 5% effeciency difference might not matter. And if your space limited running higher ppfd should yield more per square foot. A good example is outdoor vs indoor growing outdoor you can have 1400-1800ppfd and the plants look amazing try that indoor with a less ideal spectrum now you can only run 1000-1100ppfd. I wish chilled wasn't so expensive I would love to try them out

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Spectrum has very limited effect. This has been shown over and over. While efficacy has an almost linear effect on yield. Add 5% light and you yield almost that amount extra too.

Worse still, to produce a supposedly "better" spectrum (with more red), the efficacy drops. Negating any effect the improved spectrum ever had.

The reason CMH performs better than HPS is because people don't understand what they are comparing. A 400W SE HPS in a cheap ass reflector will have an efficacy of 1.3umol/s/W at best. A double ended CMH in a top of the line hood will have an efficacy of 1.7umol/s/W (counting light on the plants, and not bulb efficacy). That's a huge difference in efficacy while the spectrum will have negligible effect. And in reality it's probably even bigger because people are comparing old run down HPS bulbs and dirty reflectors to their new CMH.

Ive use all the lights discussed cfl,hps,cmh,strips,cobs,qbs and the spectrum has a great effect on phenotype expression, just as much as nutes, temps etc has.

830 lamp cmh weed was ok. 830/942 lamp weed was some of the best ive smoked. Just like vero 3000k 90cri weed was nice but vero 3000k 90cri/4000k 80cri was better.

Just my opinion based of limited experience.Its all personal preference really but I know what i like to smoke

Im playing with 1750k veros and uv this run.

diyled said:

You could be right but i dont trust calculators. Ive emailed samsung direct to ask them which flux/voltage bin they use..

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Yeah, at least the values for 3000°, 3500° and 4000° k seems to be concerned, it seems that they have messed up something and use the same numbers for different spectra.
Do not forget to let us know what Samsung has responded to your request. I'm really curious what they say..? Did you ask for Q-series too?

diyled said:

ve use all the lights discussed cfl,hps,cmh,strips,cobs,qbs and the spectrum has a great effect on phenotype expression, just as much as nutes, temps etc has.

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i agree to an extent but i think all phosphor leds are a little more similar to each other (at least in the 2700k-5000k ranges we usually deal with). i get a lot of people obsessing over 3000 vs 3500k when the differences are very subtle. i think 3500k 90 is my favorite though. plenty of flower power and not too much stretch

Randomblame said:

Yeah, at least the values for 3000°, 3500° and 4000° k seems to be concerned, it seems that they have messed up something and use the same numbers for different spectra.
Do not forget to let us know what Samsung has responded to your request. I'm really curious what they say..? Did you ask for Q-series too?

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models definitely aggregate errors. remember the bridgelux v29 calculator that gave over 300 lm/W for low currents?

Yeah, but a little more blue can really have a noticable effect.
I've first recognized that as I added ~5% in 420nm to my old Cree 3500°k/CRI80 COB's.