My Kill-A-Watt will read actual draw from the outlet, so to me it's worth checking it out just to get that measurement.The amp draw might be related to lack of power factor correction in the drivers. In other words, represents VA rather than Watts.
I'm fine with harsh if it's called for. I think this was an interesting use of LEDs that are now obsolete.Kill-A-Watt should read something along the lines of the 615W and will also check the power factor and Amps.
For comparison, when I build custom lamps customers can get ~300 PAR W for $1500 and double the efficiency. If they build it themselves they could probably get 500 PAR W for $1500. So they way I look at it, generic LEDs/epileds are not suitable for grow lamps, half baked engineering. Harsh I know, but I believe you would be much better off using the HIDs.
$$$ is reason one. I think SDS looked into it. There are companies out there to do it but it costs significant money and a perfect or great phosphor blend is gonna be trial and error so more money. Also you will most likely run into situations where different percentages of spectrum may help or hurt your plants, confusing results if you don't really know what's going on. Plus people here want results really, not science. You're herding cats. These are some reasons why COBs and adding monos to your COBs is probably easier to attain the results you want to get than from the thousands of dollars in R&D you will spend. I like the idea it's the practicality of it all. Now if you got ultra deep pockets and time then it's another story.Why wouldn't it be possible for us to make custom phosphor coating ?