My 8 solstrip DIY light

This is my first DIY LED build and there's not much talk about these lights on IC so felt I should share the fun i've had recently. They are basically QBs in a strip running the same high efficiency samsung diodes.

As you see here, this rig is 99% finished, still needs a couple more bolts pinning her stiffer and final mounting wire and carabiners etc and thread lock on all the bolts then a final final wipe down.

8 X2 Solstrips (original one sided connector models) on a 1" x 1.5" Aluminium frame, bolted onto the 1.5" side. The heat sinks the strips are stuck to have a 1" space for mounting at each end leaving 0.5" free of the 1.5" side of the ally. On this driver (HLG 240 24a) the strips can only pull about 270 maximum watts between them I think so these strips can only pull around 33 watts tops and even with the dimmer all the way down it's insanely bright..

Pics say 1000 words..



You can wire these lot's of simpler ways than I have I wanted to try and hide them as much as possible so I bolted a 1.5x1.5x1.5cm U rail to the side with all the power connectors and then got an L shaped piece to go on top and hide the wires, which required tapping screw holes to mount. I used rubber grommets to protect against any wear on the wires as there would have been lots without them.






^ Wieland quick connectors for the power lead so the light can be really easily moved around if needs be. They're a bit expensive but imo totally worth it. I was also tempted to wire in a digital multimeter with a display on the top so I could see what the unit was drawing and how dimmed I had the LEDs but there was no point as running 8 X2s on this driver could only be within really safe tolerances for the strips, they can't be overrun on a 33 watts tops setup. I did a 7.5 cm gap in between strips, 10.5cm mounting hole to mounting hole, which is a bit close compared to how some have done theirs, I've got more strips on a lower wattage per unit for best efficiency and hopefully longest lives.





I used a mix of spectrums as you can see.. 4 x 3.5k, 2 x 2.7k and 2 x 5k for a total around 3.6K.. This runs very cool and is very bright. This is aimed at flowering and I want to make another couple smaller 6 strip vegging lights. This will do for a 3' x 4'to 4' x 4' area me thinks.

Best vibes brothers and sisters!

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Discovered, again , that i'm safer blacksmithing steel at 1800 degrees than trying to tame the fiery tongue of a dreaded soldering iron lol, the wagos were a dream. Also I don't know why I went for that distribution of strips but I can change it whenever I want and swap them around..

ciao

Looks awesome man!

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If this is going to be used for veg and bloom I suggest moving the 5K to the middle with a 3.5 inbetween then the rest on a separate o/o switch

Heya PF!

Good call yeah I kind of wish it had been a 9 strip light that could be flipped to bluer or redder for veg/bloom.. That might be a later version..

This is just for flowering for now but the imbalance of colours is a bit annoying. I might swap out the 5ks and just do alternating 2.7 and 3.5s.. I kind of wanted a little extra blue in there but oh decisions decisions lol. I was thinking like with the sun going from bluer to redder at high noon to bluer again through the day I might get away with this spread but I'm not sure if that logic works in a grow box..

I 'm just glad it's over and I can hoover all of the aluminium shards out of the carpet now.. Ha not been totally popular with the ladies lately, well the human ones anyway..

Any criticisms and advice on how to do it better is definitely welcome as i'll probably be making a few more of these.

I cant wait for this one, pulling up a chair...

I wish people had some Par results of these kind of lights vs quantum boards... I know it would be far more evenly spread than something like a HLG 550 4 quantum board setup but maybe lower numbers overall.... Which fixture height could fix anyway.. We shall see

Lost in a SOG said:

Heya PF!

Good call yeah I kind of wish it had been a 9 strip light that could be flipped to bluer or redder for veg/bloom.. That might be a later version..

This is just for flowering for now but the imbalance of colours is a bit annoying. I might swap out the 5ks and just do alternating 2.7 and 3.5s.. I kind of wanted a little extra blue in there but oh decisions decisions lol. I was thinking like with the sun going from bluer to redder at high noon to bluer again through the day I might get away with this spread but I'm not sure if that logic works in a grow box..

I 'm just glad it's over and I can hoover all of the aluminium shards out of the carpet now.. Ha not been totally popular with the ladies lately, well the human ones anyway..

Any criticisms and advice on how to do it better is definitely welcome as i'll probably be making a few more of these.

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I would run the bars the opposite way to get more coverage

Dr.Young said:

I cant wait for this one, pulling up a chair...

I wish people had some Par results of these kind of lights vs quantum boards... I know it would be far more evenly spread than something like a HLG 550 4 quantum board setup but maybe lower numbers overall.... Which fixture height could fix anyway.. We shall see

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I know, I don't think the QBs distribute light all that evenly but i've not seen any data yet on them.. Lot's of people saying that more strips run at a lower wattage allows the plants to practically touch them and still be really happy.

I think since fluence have found a similar bars of LED lights system to be the most effective with all their r&d then strips might be better.

PetFlora said:

I would run the bars the opposite way to get more coverage

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Nice thinking yeah my space is a tight 3x2 atm so i'll see no loss but in larger spaces with multiple rigs then that would make sense to send more light out laterally from a longer thinner light source if that makes any sense and I understood you correctly

I'm looking into 800 chip boards now {Basically something like a quantum board 800}.... They are like 1'x3'. Super cheap when you order from factory...

It would be pretty expensive to get the 4' 2 row strip style lights, and run them low wattage\high efficiency and fill in the footprint.. I think its smarter to just run them high wattage and get the umol out of them\footprint out of them.... but..... It would be nice to literally make a wall of lights and run them low power\high efficiency like the 800 chip boards...

I was looking at SGS Vertical systems on youtube thats what gave me the idea\reminder. They have the plants touching the lights almost..... stacked 4 shelves high... Running the lights dimmed low wattage\high efficiency.

https://www.ledgrowlightsdepot.com/...ng/products/smart-grow-goldeni-led-grow-light

I dig their style..

They dont even use heatsinks either which if anything I'll take that idea, and just use plain sheets of aluminum to save the majority cost of these strip lights if i do go for the 4' strips instead.....Especially if you run them high efficiency style with more strips.

Interesting I've read a lot of shady stories about ordering through alibaba or whatever direct to factories when they make people wait a year pretending that they need enough buyers to do a run to try and encourage you to buy more or the LEDs not being top bin or high failure rates etc but for sure that's a no brainer.

Yeah i've also read peeps say as well that it makes more sense financially to run them hard and use less of them because the lifespan is really good with them being run hard anyway and they aren't that expensive but the driver and materials kinda are, I was really lucky to get a good deal on my strips/stix.

Yeah I think it really would be smarter to run them harder, and actually push for umol plus get true footprint out of them at the same time... Instead of worrying about electrical efficiency and piling a wall of lights in there with no penetration power basically...

Cool good points here that i'm glad to be learning.

I think in the limited space i've got in all dimensions and having to SOG fairly aggressively with a decent amount of tying because of height this setup will pay off for me, but this serves as food for thought for anyone thinking of doing the same because I agree...

So to summarise then consider running the strips the other way, use less and run them harder. or use more and have it as a veg and flower light and run the strips on a switch. Wish i'd found this thread before I started this lol.. I probably could have done six strips the other way round just being run at nearer 50w and saved on the extra two strips for another light. Live and learn and share brothers and sisters

I was looking into Uv earlier... You should add a Agromax UVb 4' t5 on the side{s} too!! That will add in all the UV, and blue you need.. Perfect true full spectrum.... Should get glorious terpenes, and cannabinoid profiles out of it. Especially if you like Sativas like me buddy mang! Plus extend the footprint a tiny bit, and fill in a tiny bit of whatever gaps inbetween the Solstrips.. Plus way easier than adding\wiring any leds for spectrum... UV is way more important than IR\far reds anway.

Peace... Love it

Yeah that's a nice idea, when I stop using CMH completely for leds in flower I will need to add the extra UVs in the final weeks from somewhere so that's a good shout.

I really love this light. I'm super looking forward to my first run with it.

Lost in a SOG said:

...I might swap out the 5ks and just do alternating 2.7 and 3.5s.

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First off, nice clean build...great work. I do agree on the 2700 + 3500 over the previous mix with the 5000s. Personally, I hate the look and feel of the 5000s. I run a veg cab with 3500 samsung strips, and it works great...more than enough blue for good veg and aesthetically pleasing. I recently changed a 3500 + 3000 cob set-up to 2700 + 3000 (swapped the original 3500 for 2700), and it is now performing better in flower, so in your set-up, I would go 2700+3500 for flowering. Again, hats off to your clean build.

Glad to see you got these and are starting the build. I've got a couple of these lights and fucking love them.

These are a mix of (3) 5000K and (6) 2700K. They are on separate dimable drivers for a total of about 360-watts.

brickweeder said:

First off, nice clean build...great work. I do agree on the 2700 + 3500 over the previous mix with the 5000s. Personally, I hate the look and feel of the 5000s. I run a veg cab with 3500 samsung strips, and it works great...more than enough blue for good veg and aesthetically pleasing. I recently changed a 3500 + 3000 cob set-up to 2700 + 3000 (swapped the original 3500 for 2700), and it is now performing better in flower, so in your set-up, I would go 2700+3500 for flowering. Again, hats off to your clean build.

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Heya bud

Thanks for posting and the kind words. I think I do agree now and probably will go to a 2.7/3.5 mix for flowering from here on in and maybe change back to cmhs for the last couple weeks but first ill try the light again after converting..

Yo Reiko bro

Nice idea so you can use it right through just adjusting the weighted k.. I may convert this light into a 2 in one veg/flw light..

These lights give amazing penetration, probably because the spread is so good as well as tech. I'm getting a par meter now finally but I suspect I maybe over did it light wise on this grow, leds aren't so easy to gauge brightness just from your eyes.. Even on the lowest wattage it had no trouble getting light right down and all around the plants.. I'll report back what the figures are coming out of this thing anyway..

Lost in a SOG said:

Discovered, again , that i'm safer blacksmithing steel at 1800 degrees than trying to tame the fiery tongue of a dreaded soldering iron lol, the wagos were a dream. Also I don't know why I went for that distribution of strips but I can change it whenever I want and swap them around..

ciao

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Most folks who don't solder try to twist the wires together and heat it all up at once and glob the solder in. Doesn't work like that.

The trick is to get solder to flow into the wires individually first, then solder them together. Your soldering iron shouldn't be touching any wire or connection for any longer than 4 or 5 seconds at the most. Ideally 2 or 3 seconds is all it should take to get solder to melt and flow where you need it to.

ETA: And don't use those GD soldering guns! Those are meant for much larger wires than what you are dealing with. A 25-50 watt pencil style soldering iron, preferably with a variable temp base (but not crucial), is what you need for 95% of your soldering needs. I've been soldering for 30 years, and needed one of those guns maybe twice in that entire span. If I had big wires to solder, I used a handheld torch.

Having said that, those Wago connectors (you called them Weiland's, which are who manufactures them I believe) are exactly what you should have used for your AC power. You should really only solder low voltage (under 90 volts) wiring, imo.

Great tips there thanks!

The Wieland connectors are just the quick click connectors on the main power lead, a bit hard to make out as they're black.. I think wago make wago connectors..

I'm only going to use wago connectors for these projects and no soldering from now on, its easier from the point of view of altering things and as you say are well rated for the draw I'm using..