[Medicine, Man]

What's up fellas? I've been interested in LEDs for a while now, scouring through threads, and really digging the results you're getting lately. I can normally find any info I need, within threads, without asking questions, but now I need help from the pros.

I'm helping a couple of friends design their gardens, and would like to make lights for both, using as much of the same components for both as possible. I'm thinking of going with flexible LED strips with 3000k-4000k, Samsung diodes, and worked my calculations off of this particular page :

https://brightest.en.alibaba.com/pro...367.0.0.2uWIxP

(Obviously, there are about a million options regarding both strips, and sellers, and I haven't yet dealt with AliBaba, so any guidance there is also appreciated...especially if I don't have to deal with them, and can find someone comparable closer)

Now, one of these gardens will be a horizontal, over a 4x4 table with about 5ft of headroom, and the other is for a vert grow in a 4x4 tent. I have ideas for both, but the vert fixture is what I'm more concerned about figuring out the correct numbers for. All this math is hurtin me noggin lol

I guess the short question is: What are the minimum and maximum distances from vegetation should these be with acceptable PPFD?

For the horizontal garden, I don't want to be too close, and for the vert tent, I wanna make sure I'm close enough.

So, here's my idea for the vert fixture: Flexible LED strips wrapped around 6" duct, 24" long, with either a Vornado type fan under the fixture, blowing up, or a 6" duct fan installed at the top, sucking out.

Below is a diagram and my calculations, as far as I could figure. This is where I need your help deciding if the numbers add up, and I'm onto something, or if I'm waaay off. I'm shooting for around 400w power on each fixture if that would suffice, but the vert can afford to go to maybe 800w, if needed. The diodes should be about 21" from the walls, and less to the leaves, when the fixture is built.



If this seems doable to you guys, let me know how many of which drivers you would recommend, etc, and I'll build it asap, and see how well it works.

Any help, questions, or critiques are welcome and greatly appreciated!

[MicroRoy]

Good luck.

[Medicine, Man]

Thanks, Roy! It seems like I'll need it more than I thought when posting. C'mon fellas- no ideas?

[wattsthis]

Hi! I've been following the Quantum Board threads all over from different sites and told myself if I can DIY it. While searching and searching, saw The LED Gardener's blog and that he'll DIY the QBs. So maybe I can too.

Been a long time user of AliExpress so I had confidence using Alibaba. I landed on the same seller that you linked to and I already made an order.

You can customize everything you want, CRI, spectrum, alternating different spectrum diode on their strips.

Choose the 24V strips to reduce voltage drop (research on this for your build, mostly shorter strips on parallel) on your build and the non-waterproof version with silicone coating, and select a MeanWell HLG series for your PSU since other lower end MW PSU does not have power correction factor(PCF.)

On the ordering side, once you have finalized your orders, they will send you a Performa Invoice and you just pay with your CC. Thing is they will manufacture this within 3-7 days as you are ordering directly from the factories and then sent via FedEX International Economy. Hope that helps. Good day!

[wattsthis]

I can't edit post?

Originally Posted by wattsthis

Choose the 24V strips to reduce voltage drop (research on this for your build, mostly shorter strips on parallel) on your build and the non-waterproof version WITHOUT THE SILICONE COATING, and select a MeanWell HLG series for your PSU since other lower end MW PSU does not have power correction factor(PCF.)

[Medicine, Man]

Thanks, Watts, that definitely answers a couple of questions I had!

I think you may need a certain number of posts to edit. For example, you need 50 before you can PM anyone.

Have you received your order yet? I was a little concerned when looking at their transaction history, and the price ($5.20/m? Unless I'm missing the catch?) seems too good to be true.

So, basing a vert fixture build off the strips in the link above, I would need almost 23 meters of strips. That would allow them to be right next to each other, all the way down a 24" section of 6" duct pipe, providing a diode approximately every 1/2". Since they're 20w/m (100w/5m), and I need 23m, each vert fixture would be 460w. I also looked at some strips that were 120w/5m, which would come out to 552w.


Either way, I was hoping that I could just use an HLG-600H and wire all 23m of strips to it, but I'd imagine it's a bit more complicated than that?

Knowing that you can customize them is awesome, but also adds another potential can of worms to open, regarding diode wavelengths and ratios. I was going to try and go with 3500k across the board for flower and veg lights, and figured I'd try to keep it simpler, since I'll probably need to order around 100m of strips for all the different lights i.e. veg, flower, horizontal, and vert... Although, if it would benefit that much, and be relatively easy to order from the seller, I'd love to hear recommendations!

Are you saying that you think I should go with non-coated, like IP20? I was thinking of going all the way to IP66, to be able to spray plants with less worry, if necessary.

[wattsthis]

Originally Posted by Medicine, Man

Have you received your order yet? I was a little concerned when looking at their transaction history, and the price ($5.20/m? Unless I'm missing the catch?) seems too good to be true.

Was sceptical at first too but they have those Golden Membership badge with a number (7 for our seller), indicating their years of membership and that being Gold means that their factories were physically verified by Alibaba on site.
Also, they have little transactions per year/months but if you look closely they amount to $000,000 so probably bulk orders.

As for my order, got the tracking number via DHL and would be arriving at most by friday.

And for the prices, those are quotations for bulk orders. Just shoot them up and they'll quote you based on your quantity. Mine was priced at $3.5/m but that was for minimun of 50m, just bought 10m and it went to $5.

Originally Posted by Medicine, Man

As, basing a vert fixture build off the strips in the link above, I would need almost 23 meters of strips. That would allow them to be right next to each other, all the way down a 24" section of 6" duct pipe, providing a diode approximately every 1/2". Since they're 20w/m (100w/5m), and I need 23m, each vert fixture would be 460w. I also looked at some strips that were 120w/5m, which would come out to 552w.

I bought the 60led/20w per meter for my horizontal fixture to provide better spacing and even light distribution. I'm running 600 leds/10 meters on a HLG-185 so I'm under driving them a little for a bit of efficiency and mostly so that I can move them closer to the canopy with softer light output per diode, reducing the Inverse Square Law. You too could just buy more leds and under drive them or the other way around as this Samsung chips are really good.

Originally Posted by Medicine, Man

Either way, I was hoping that I could just use an HLG-600H and wire all 23m of strips to it, but I'd imagine it's a bit more complicated than that?

You could easily do that but you must not daisy chain the strips for more than 5 meters as the succeeding strips would experience voltage drop and would be dimmer as compared to those nearer to the driver. I myself is wiring it all at parallel directly to the PSU every 2.5 meters to reduce the drop to a minimum. Around 0.3v at the end. If I'm more inclined, I would wire them every meter but thats too much soldering. Haha A better and economical choice would be 2*HLG-185 and I guess this is already enough or 2*HLG-240 as it goes exponentially expensive the higher we go on these drivers.

Originally Posted by Medicine, Man

Knowing that you can customize them is awesome, but also adds another potential can of worms to open, regarding diode wavelengths and ratios. I was going to try and go with 3500k across the board for flower and veg lights, and figured I'd try to keep it simpler, since I'll probably need to order around 100m of strips for all the different lights i.e. veg, flower, horizontal, and vert... Although, if it would benefit that much, and be relatively easy to order from the seller, I'd love to hear recommendations!

3500k of the Samsung diodes is more likely a 4000K of the Crees/Citi cobs as what I've read from the other site so that would be awesome from veg to bloom. Just specify Samsung LM561C 3500k 80CRI S6 bin as this are what the QB guys use. Mine was 5m 3000k, 5m 3500k. I was looking at the LM561c data sheet and combining those two has the nearest spectrum to the PhysioSpec of the Fluence SPYDRx minus the deep red peaks which they have a separate diodes for those on their fixture ( which I plan to add on my next grow for comparison.) Also going down 3000k and you'll lose efficiency so that's the lowest I would suggest we go. On my next purchase I guess I'll just order alternating 3000k and 3500k diodes on a strip.

Originally Posted by Medicine, Man

Are you saying that you think I should go with non-coated, like IP20? I was thinking of going all the way to IP66, to be able to spray plants with less worry, if necessary.

Those strips with silicone coating reduces light output, even glass lenses do so I don't know by how much but I guess worse. For architectural lighting it wont really matter as we can't really differentiate but for our plants, every photons counts! But you can try it anyways or build a higher wattage fixture to make up for the loss of for coating.

Hope this helps!

[wattsthis]

And to add up, those prices are directly from the factories that's why it's so cheap. I guess the catch is that you'll have to pay first before they manufacture it for you so they don't have stocks on hand and that you'll have to wait. Also shipping is not yet included, because on AliEpress mostly evertything is shipped free.

Also those single row led strips measure 10mm in width. They have wider strips containing 2 or even 3 rows of diodes, just things to consider while designing your fixture.

Good luck!

[AvidLerner]

real informative and good info too. been following your build. Have you considered using rectangular aluminum bars for your cooling. pull air thru the center with fans. saw your layout elsewhere.

[wattsthis]

Originally Posted by AvidLerner

real informative and good info too. been following your build. Have you considered using rectangular aluminum bars for your cooling. pull air thru the center with fans. saw your layout elsewhere.

Hi! Just to butt in, aluminum square bars are good enough for passively cooling this strips. That's one of their perks, no need fans vs cobs as heat is evenly dissipitated. I'm also using it in my build. On his design, that's a very good suggestion too, multiple vertical bars.

Forgive my mock up as I made it on the fly. Haha