So about the same as your screw in bulb light? You’re getting almost twice the amount of light per watt with the strips. Pretty cool isn’t it?
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Ok so how does that work. I plug in my kill o watt meter and my bulb light is giving me 77 watts and the led strip light is giving me 40 Watts. Am I too hung up on the watt thing?
Yup. We generally don’t care about lumens, but since they don’t give us par readings we’ll use. It.
Do you have efficacy on your bulbs? Or a lumen rating? Most are 90-100 lumens per watt. Your strips are 175 lumens per watt. That’s almost twice the light energy produced per watt.
Bulb is 13 w 5000k 1600 lumen @dbrn32
I find this all very interesting. This is just so much to learn. I want to be able to say there’s a 100 LED light and there’s a 60 watt but the 60 watt is better.
That’s pretty good for a bulb. But also points out one of the flaws with using lumens as a rating for horticulture. A lumen is a photometric unit that’s based on how humans perceive light intensity. It’s weighted toward green wavelengths. Colder whites produce a lot more blue which produces more photometric energy, therefore colder whites measure higher on a lumen scale. The problem is our flowering plants respond better to a wider spectrum of light, that’s not produced as well from most colder whites. That’s why you see most of us using the warm whites. In terms of radiometric energy (what plants care about) 3000k and 5000k of the same diode are generally about the same, even though they measure differently on a photometric scale. It’s just that the warm whites provide more of the light we want.
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@dbrn32 I always thought and read that 5000 - 6500 K was for Veg and 2700 K - 3000 K was for flower. Now I have both types of LED light bulbs. One for veg and one for flower and I change them accordingly.
If I were to think in Lumens what would be the equivalent?
These are the lights I use for veg and flower respectively. I am in the process of eliminating the CFL’s (Getting harder to find) I purchase my LED bulbs at my local dollar store. They are $4 a piece.
I have two 7 bulb splitters in my flowering tent with the 3000k LED bulbs that’s 14 bulbs. Plus I have the following China light which I think is pretty good for the $. PLease let me know what you think.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B078HW9P2D?tag=greenrel-20
Like I said I am saving up for the QB boards or do yo think I am okay with what I have. With the girls I have in the 2 x 4 tent flowering right now the colas are bigger then I have ever grown. Now I don’t know if that is the light situation or what I am feeding them. Probably both.
Now with the light we just built I don’t really know where to utilize it. I was thinking for veg in one of my large buckets or hang it in my tent.
Another thought was to use it in my seedling cloning area. Right now I have seven lights shining down. Would be nice to replace with one or two built boards.
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You’re correct about the color temps. But the reason we do that is entirely based on the light spectrum produced by the different color temps. Think in terms of cfl’s. They are really weak in light intensity compared to our other options. So plants are going to want to stretch anyway. So it becomes more important to counter that with blue wavelengths, that the plants naturally want to respond with tighter node spacing. As light intensity goes up that becomes a little less important.
Sounds like you do pretty well on those bulbs, and you’re starting to see that in your grows. But I would really be guessing with suggesting how to use your lights. When I first mentioned the strips it was to kind of drop into your buckets and get some light beyond the top of canopy. That didn’t work out, but you still have a handy little light. I would maybe see if it would fit in the top of a bucket and try it there. If not, then shuffle it around and see where it works best.
The standard operating current on a qb 288 is 2100ma. At that current, it’s like 112 watts on the output side of driver and 177 lumens per watt. That’s 3000k 80cri, pretty much same as your strips. When you start looking at the big picture, costs, shipping, exchange rates, you could possibly build a light that mimics qb performance for cheaper. That double sided transfer tape comes in 25m rolls right, so you should have extra. If you have extra wire, that’s another thing you don’t have to buy. Those strips are available in 560mm and 1120mm lengths too, so sky is the limit on what you can do with them. Or, there’s a Canadian hub of future lighting solutions right? They had some reasonably priced cobs and heatsinks that you could potentially work with without paying exchange or international shipping. You’re in the world of diy leds now, so the only real limit is your bank account lol. But on performance per dollar you’ll absolutely crush any commercially built fixture out there.
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Thanks @MattyBear @dbrn32 was great help. I love the fixture and the fact that I built it (with help) myself and that makes it more special.
Don’t think I’ll ever buy another light. I’ll just build them. Still need help in selecting parts though. Might have to take an electronic class.
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I’m really quite happy with the fixtures I built using the Bridgelux 3,000K EB strips. I have a total output available of 720 watts for 24 square feet.
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Electronics class not a bad idea. But before you do that, wander over to YouTube and check out the growmau5 and ledgardener videos. So much good information there! They both make it super easy to understand, and if you have questions I can certainly do my best to help.
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And she is hung @dbrn32
How many strips and drivers does it take to produce that many watts? @Myfriendis410
I have a 24 square foot tent. What would I need strip and driver wise?
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I worked with @dbrn32 and built 3 ea 10 strip 580 mm strips with 1 driver per fixture. A total of 30 gen 1 EB strips.
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Hopefully that worked. If not, go to “My Journal Started As One Thing And Went Off The Rails”.
There’s a bunch more near the end.
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No, I have a bunch of 1 1/2" X 6" tubing that I used for heatsinks. 4 at 23" long with spacers to increase the footprint to 30" wide. Each fixture occupies 1/3 of my space.
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I am thinking of getting another tent for veg/flower. Maybe another 2x4. @dbrn32
I would like to put a diy strip light in the tent. I want to start off by building a 200 watt equivalent strip light.
What do you think of these for that purpose?
BXEB-L0560Z-35E2000-C-B3
PLM-40-700
How many strips would I need to get to the 200 watt equivalent?
Thanks
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