Which LED strips would you buy?
- Thread starter diggs99
- Start date
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
Led-tech.de have some red sup strips with osrams. Maybe a bit extreme on red, you could mix them with all whites
Last edited:
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
@diggs99 and @welight :Hey Mark,
I spoke to Teknik last week about this project, my current strips and what i should do , after all was said and done, we decided im just gonna buy more J series and Teknik is gonna help me configure a nice spectrum , going to get you to customize some stuff for the next builds. End result, im gonna need another 50 or 60 J series along with a few more goodies
Whats stock currently like on the 3000k 90 cri?
One thing that would be great would be to know the hows, ifs and which regarding mixing the cutter 48V strips together, like solstrips (nichia/cree/lm301b) and the more basic strips with all white diodes. For things like eod far red or a little touch of uv or what not the solstrips are a steal. Also if one is working with extrusions for mounting the strips many times theres no space to put extra diodes with out having a separate extrusion.
But many times the stock and attractive versions are limited: i find myself in the situation that id like to use some crees (nice 90cri options) and some lm301bs (great priced and efficient) using the same driver for all white channels. And if i knew i could do it without problems: looooads of cree SSK-1560ZGE-3090CR with 2 or 3 solstrips (any brand would do!) with far red on the mono channel and have all the whites on the same driver. It would be the easiest implementation ever if it actually works without problems. I realize there would most likely be some unbalance in how current gets divided between strips but how much (so little it wouldnt matter) and is there a way to make this work?
If so then id rec diggs to look into the solstrips with monos, there is plenty of cool things one could do with a build like that.
Edit: dont wanna clogg up diggs thread, mark if you would be into looking into this then let me know and ill do a copy paste in the solstrip build thread, that way it would be more accessible to other builders. Knowing how to do this would be an incredible added value to your strips
Mrgoodsusa
Member
How many 2 foot strips needed to run them like you say over a 4x4? Thanks
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
At around 8w per strip and asssuming 480 w about 60. But really if you check out Cobs build he does it with quite a lot less. Maybe 400w would be enough.
Mrgoodsusa
Member
Hi. Ive seen other post of you buying lights from china.... do you think strips is better route if money isnt a issue? Thanks
Mrgoodsusa
Member
Thank you.
cobshopgrow
Well-Known Member
@Mrgoodsusa i think it still worth it to DIY a bit as you hardly get a better spread of the light for your money.
if one is ok with DIY, thats a given.
TBH i would need to make my mind first and clac bit around to give a concrete advise for a 4x4.
Rockets advise sounds good, to my humble opion 480W well spread will do the job for sure.
could be in real life without CO2 your plants are more happy at a 300-350W.
playing around there myself.
60 strips is for sure a nice overkill and should give a almost unbeatable diode count.
if one is ok with DIY, thats a given.
TBH i would need to make my mind first and clac bit around to give a concrete advise for a 4x4.
Rockets advise sounds good, to my humble opion 480W well spread will do the job for sure.
could be in real life without CO2 your plants are more happy at a 300-350W.
playing around there myself.
60 strips is for sure a nice overkill and should give a almost unbeatable diode count.
diggs99
Well-Known Member
I think some of the lights coming out of China are fine, ive never bought any myself, everything i own came from Aus and Cutter electronics.
Yes i feel strips are the best option but im biased, i own all strips lol
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
Strips/boards os all relative and price is always an issue. The nice thing about boards is less connections and you can use them to light corners in a way you cant with strips. I mean technically you can get as many diodes and as good spread as strips with boards.
Strips is a lot of work and what people seem to miss out on somewhat is that even a completely homogeneous diode spacing the centre will have a hot spot due to cross lighting, which will become more pronounced with higher hanging height. To get this even you have to either work with spacing or with power in order to conpensate if you want perfect even spread. But this is maybe splitting hairs as were already much better than standard light designs.
Theres nothing stating that you cant use both aswell.
wietefras
Well-Known Member
This is not true though. You do not get a hot spot in the center, you get less light around the walls because light is lost on the walls.
This might sound like potatoes potatoes, but if the space is big enough you will see a perfectly uniformly lit "center" of big proportions and still only a smaller strips of darker areas next to the walls.
If you hang the light higher the difference between center and walls will actually become smaller. At the expense of more light loss on the walls. So that's why we don't do this. Also spacing the strips closer towards the walls does this. It only loses you more light on the walls.
Light uniformity will always be a compromise. It's never going to be 100% even. So what professional growers use is the rule of thumb that the darker regions should still get 80% of the average light intensity. So if you light at 800 μmol/s/m2 average, you'd still want about 640 μmol/s/m2 minimum.
The biggest benefit of strips is that you can generally hang them half as high as boards. Which means that you cut your light loss on the walls about in half. This can be huge savings if you are using a small tent.
In a 2x2 tent using a single QB you will lose easily 40% of the light on the walls at 18" and even 55% at 24". With 2 strips you can cut that loss about in half, by hanging it at 9"or 12". So strips are a huge benefit in "small" tents. Plus the lower hanging height will come in handy because those smaller tents tend to be lower in height too.
With a 4x4 tent the loss would be half of that since there is relatively only half the wall space. Assuming you hang 4QB in that tent and 16 strips. So you'd lose 20% with the QB and 10% with the strips. Still a pretty significant saving. You'd then still need a 2.75μmol/J QB to get the same amount of light on the plants as you'd get with a 2.4 μmol/J led strip. All that marketing with high efficacy and then you waste it on the walls.