I apologize if this has already been posted over and over.. I looked, but didn't find answers.. I am building an LED strip light for a 5x8 room. I decided to use LT-Q562A strips.. I am thinking 10 strips spread out along the 8 feet. Where is the best place to buy these strips?? And what driver(s) would be best for 10 strips?? I am sure I will have other questions, but I believe I have everything else figured out.. there's just so much info about drivers online that I can't decide what is good info and what is not.. Thank you!!
Why these strips? I use two web engines to search for electronic product codes. I use Octopart and Findchips. Unfortunately neither of those engines are finding these strips. Alternatively, you can search Arrow Electronics for their supply. I would need to have a description of these strips prior to answering this query. I'm still wondering why those strips? Personally, I am biased to Samsung diodes, and their strips. Sometimes, I find some of the dated strips for cheap, like $3 a pop. I actually compiled a list of product codes to search recently. I will attach it as a .pdf file. You should probably read up what the codes stand for; for example, the L09 series indicates a 2' strip aligned with two rows of diodes (lm301b diodes). Looking up the L09 under HinFlux strips (in the .pdf) shows four codes; these are different color temps (3000, 3500, 4000, 5000 K). The first one is 3000K (SL-B8R5C9H2AWW); typing in Findchips shows me: Those are Canadian $ (as I'm in Canada). At $25 a pop, this is a good deal. Unfortunately, I do not see them on Arrow Electronics, where I would prefer to buy them since they offer free shipping and have been very kind to me in the past. Alternatively, I would suggest you look at two other sources for strips, namely KingBrite Electronics (who are on top of their game) and GoDaddyLights, which offer some ok packages, reasonable prices, but sometimes dated products. Personally, I like to get the most modern diode and strip, and I'd probably check KingBrite for strips first as I find DIY is sometimes more expensive in the long run.
@trojangrower I do not have a good answer. The information online is almost too much and those strips seemed to catch my attention. However, I am more than happy to use something different. My current LEDs are the blurple style Viprospectra. And they are starting to go bad.. I lost the reds on one and everything on another.. I am down to the bare minimum and am trying to build new lights before any more are dead. Samsung strips were the others I saw mentioned a lot..
And, I am not 100% stuck on DIY. If I can find a kit, or an assembled light that works for a 5x8 room that is not crazy expensive, I will go for it.. I just want to get the most efficient lights for the least amount of money.. The only other problem I have to solve is the horrible water at my new house.. I will likely need to instant an RO filter in my basement so I can produce 50 gallons of good water once a week or two...
the strips are no big deal, the leds are what brand even model is vital VIP is the par value for each led not strip, as the par will offer you the correct position rather than guess or build to your light, to the pot size as per me last year I threw it in and got 3 Migros array4 now array12 lol, and so glad I did no more solder burns one reason why this brand over others was the amount of PAR/Umol specs available online, from many different resources good luck
well, I gave you the links to the search engines and the product codes; like I said $25 CAD for L09 Hinflux is nice, I think I paid upwards of $50 for mine at the time. Those Hinflux strips come backed on aluminum, but I added more to make sure they kept cool; they aren't the best heatsinks. I already suggested KB lights for their innovation and use of modern diodes. I'm sure the migro lights rocks as well. also, 5x8 room = 40 sq ft and it's recommended to use ~35W of high power LEDs (actually 35-50 but yea whatever). 35w x 40sqft = 1400 W for that area. That's a lot of light. The Hinflux runs at ~50W per strip, so you are looking at 28 strips. I think you could probably get away using SSM-1K5S31AMx Inventronic driver, but I'm not 100% sure; I'd talk to the supplier first, but that costs about $225 CAD. So rough $700 CAD for the strips another 225, lets round it off to $1000 CAD; this doesn't include the shipping or the messing around. Now you have to hang them, support them somehow, but they are lightweight, still though... compare with an 800W kit from KB we'll say about $850 all said and done, 2 x 800W kits like that, about $1700. You get nice hangers, proper heat sinks, drivers (two of em), brand new modern diodes with some reds, shipping, etc. You can shop there check it out. I've done the DIY strips; I can still do it, as I am kinda set up for it, I've gone into good detail building them Samsung HinFlux L09 build but I personally would still order the strips from KB (or Migro if you like, or wherever; I suggest also checking out that GoDaddy link I flashed earlier).
I appreciate the info!! I have a month or so to decide, so I will likely go with the $1000 all in option.. It saves dollars and I really enjoy a project
So, I waited and waited and did lots of research and in the end I bought LED kits from HLC. They had a good sale and I needed something so I went with 2 rectangular pictures with 2 QB288 boards on each.. I still have 2 Viparspectra V1200 lights that are a bit over 500W of actual power each plus a couple of the V900 lights that I can use to top off the room.. I will try out the HLC lights and see what happens.. Sent from my SM-S928U using Grasscity Forum mobile app