Cheap Vegetive LED Strips?

Hi again,

Im looking for some cheap LED strips for a 2 x 1 x 2.5 ft veg/clone tent.

I dont want to do DIY, just something cheap that will work from ebay or something. Its just for starting seedlings/clones and keeping them veg until Im ready to flip them.

I usually use 2 x 55w T5's, but the bulbs are buggered and I dont like the heat it produces.

would something like this work? http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/5PCSx0-5M-25W-LED-Strip-Plant-Grow-Light-Bar-Hydroponic-Home-Gardening-Supplies-/122421724076?epid=1667514718&hash=item1c80e743ac:g:Ug8AAOSwB-1YtSR2

I would like to keep it under $50.

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Cheers

or this http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/4X-Rigid-Bar-12V-5050-SMD-LED-Camping-Light-Kit-RV-Camper-Cabinet-Strip-Lights-/172794549751?epid=862813380&hash=item283b5b95f7:g:WJcAAOSww9xZFIdh

??

I dont want explosive growth, and will usually vege for 3-4 weeks before being moved to a 315w CMH flowering cabinet.

hey mate I know you said no DIY but these take minimal work to get going, just join some cables, add a plug and stick the strips to some aluminium about 1mm - 2mm thick. Drivers included.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5x-TCI-Linear-LED-strip-board-23W-4000K-3540lm-154lm-W-CRI80-Drivers-included-/222366306121?hash=item33c6108f49:g:BmYAAOSw2xRYa8YX

you can't get much better value. If you go this route a few people on here have used these with success so help will be around

Almost forgot - these are pretty much bang on your $50 budget

dopeonarope said:

hey mate I know you said no DIY but these take minimal work to get going, just join some cables, add a plug and stick the strips to some aluminium about 1mm - 2mm thick. Drivers included.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5x-TCI-Linear-LED-strip-board-23W-4000K-3540lm-154lm-W-CRI80-Drivers-included-/222366306121?hash=item33c6108f49:g:BmYAAOSw2xRYa8YX

you can't get much better value. If you go this route a few people on here have used these with success so help will be around

Almost forgot - these are pretty much bang on your $50 budget

Click to expand...

ok this is cool... When you say join cables, do you mean soldering? Or are they poke in connectors? what about the plug for the wall?

Cheers

Buy 4 of these

Stick them to this

Power with one of these

confined said:

ok this is cool... When you say join cables, do you mean soldering? Or are they poke in connectors? what about the plug for the wall?

Cheers

Click to expand...

yep - poke in connectors on the strips and you can use wago connectors for the driver wires for no soldering at all.

righto... back to DIY lol I knew I could not escape it.

I do have some mars hydro drivers that could be utilised.

ive never looked a dimmers before, can someone point me in the direction of a guide to adding a dimmer please? think I will go with the EB strips

Should the EB Strips be wired in series? And do I need to use thermal paste? or can they just be screwed?

confined said:

Should the EB Strips be wired in series? And do I need to use thermal paste? or can they just be screwed?

Click to expand...

Wire in series, no thermal material needed... check this out...
https://www.rollitup.org/t/bridgelux-eb-series-on-a-2-x-4-scrog.943414/

Cheers @HydroDan... Strips ordered, 2 x Mars drivers pulled out, 1 x 4 bulb T5 pulled apart to use as my frame work

thats the way. strip builds are only just DIY. So easy

Actually can only run 1 driver.... 2 strips on 1 driver would make 44.2V ... My drivers are 60W 55V - 100V @ 0.715 - 0.730A... So will have to just run 4 strips on the 1 driver... That will do

Can anyone help me find a PC Fan good enough to vent my small area and pull through a DIY filter please? Its only veg smell that may need to be hidden.

Cheers

dopeonarope said:

hey mate I know you said no DIY but these take minimal work to get going, just join some cables, add a plug and stick the strips to some aluminium about 1mm - 2mm thick. Drivers included.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5x-TCI-Linear-LED-strip-board-23W-4000K-3540lm-154lm-W-CRI80-Drivers-included-/222366306121?hash=item33c6108f49:g:BmYAAOSw2xRYa8YX

you can't get much better value. If you go this route a few people on here have used these with success so help will be around

Almost forgot - these are pretty much bang on your $50 budget

Click to expand...

Yeap, well, good going Dope, you got my mind spinning with ideas of another planned build. So, that makes 6 plans now.LOL..

Seriously, these strips look like the best, easiest, possible setup on this board that ive seen thru far.

Im going to run 22 of them in a 4x3 LOL.. No drivers, no BS number crunching.

Thats 77,000 lumens in a 4x3. or 6,400 psrft. But I plan to put these on a swivel type setup so they can be adjusted.

$210 bucks, and some aluminum, for 77,000 lumens, Im on it for sure. It would take 8 cobs at 100watts each to get those numbers, and thats without the spread.

wish there was a utube vid of these. I wonder about flicker. Also, Ill need to connect these all together for dimming. WOnder if possible. Ill need a distribution hub of sorts i suppose. could you just a wall dimmer?

these little drivers have pins on them to hook up to an arduino controller of some description so you could dim them that way (although 22 strips is a lot of connections)! - there's 4 different power levels (+off) so it would allow a fair bit of flexibility through the drivers that it ships with. Dunno how smooth dimming would be - haven't messed with them to that degree.

If I were going to dim these though I'd probably get a couple of B type meanwells and run the strips in series and dim them en masse. Would be a bit simpler.

22 in a 4x3 will be brutal - these things are surprisingly bright!

DISCLAIMER: I dont know what I'm talking about really – I just fudge stuff together and make sure it's wired safely (if it works it's a bonus ) but hopefully the above is a starting point! I'd look at some of the other large-ish strip builds on here for better dimming/arduino ideas

so even tho they have drivers on them, we can still hook drivers to them?

Why not something like all wired into a junction type box, then a dimmer like a wall controlled dimmer. Its basicly just current reduction, no? I have no clue about much of this really. I like to tinker and shit on my free time. I want better lights, and this route seems like the best route. If quantum boards "Are the next best thing" these are pretty close as you can get without the price and waiting for production.

THANKS for the input to man,

They come with separate drivers (1 per strip) that you connect through the push-in connectors on the strip and then you connect/wire the drivers via pigtails or wagos and connect the cord/s (the drivers aren't "connected" as such). You can use the drivers they come with for no extra cost or you could bin them and use 2-4 larger drivers to power them all.

dunno if the drivers are dimmable the way you want them to be - they have dip switches in them but like I said above I dont really know so take what I'm telling you with a huge grain of salt.

Another approach that would be piss easy would be to have more cords (like 5 strips/drivers per power cord) and turn on 1, 2, 3 or 4 "units" at once with a rotary switch or something.

you'll be happy with these strips - they run really cool and are bright as shit

Thanks again for your feedback Dope, much appreciated.
This is for sure my next set-up, 100% without doubt. I researched setups for weeks to get to this assumption of the best, cheapest route.

Cant wait to get it started.

Im running a modded Mars300 now, that i changed the diodes in to mostly 4000k, and its kickin ass for 125 watts. So my original plan was to make exact copies of this spectrum i made, but on a bigger scale. Its a awesome veg light, and just started flower 10 days ago since i flipped, im WOWed. biggest plants Ive ever grown anyways, lol.. SO that was the original plan.

I can diode my ass off, lol.. Almost went Cobs, but since the beginning, i wanted spread over anything, and this fits the bill for sure.

Im going to keep this light for veg, and this new build will be for flower. These are 38 days from sprout, 10 days since flip. Not to bad, i think anyways. This has 650 par at 36 inches at center, So in this pic, everything is getting at least 400 par, but its only 22,000 lux.