Help With Strip Spacing for 800 ppfd

welight said:

I would not lay the strips out evenly, its a waste as you will get centre hotspots, wider in the centre than the edges

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i lay them out evenly and dude! if you have reflective side walls they are spread pretty much equal, the buds on the outer edges of the room seems to be a bit bigger, i dont know if it is due to getting more light form the reflection of the walls or if they get less light and performed better.

Sour Wreck said:

i like what you have going. looks like it does very well growing.

i currently have 16 f strips being driven by a meanwell hlg-480h-48a covering a 4x4 area. so far i am pretty impressed.

i have 1 more hps to eliminate in the flowering room as soon as i save up for more strips and a driver.

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Thank you man! and i have a 480w driver aswell, with the square tubing i am running now they stay quite cool, i want to do like 8 strips on a 480w and put them a little further apart, i know effietncy goes down, but startup cost also goes down alot!

wietefras said:

There really is no hotspot with strips. They are so spread out, where would a hotspot have the space to appear? What you do see is a bit of a "dark area" around the walls where there is slightly less light, because you lose it on the walls. However if you put more light there ... you mostly end up losing more light on the walls.

There is only a minor difference in uniformity when you space the strips closer to the walls than in the center and you end up with slightly less light overall because more light is lost on the walls. If any measurable effect is caused by this at all, it will most likely have a negative effect on yield.

I ran some simulations and it really only mattered a few tenths of a percent in average light intensity and uniformity really wasn't any different at all.

It's funny how there were people spacing their strips/COBs away or even going through the trouble of angling them away from the walls. Saying this is better. Yet now there are also people who do the opposite and put their strips closer to the wall. Also saying this is better. As usual in cases where people claim that two opposites are "best", the truth usually is that there is no benefit in either.

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yes read what i said above, my buds near wall looked bigger.

Shadrock15 said:

I appreciate the feedback but at the moment hotspots are last in my list I was hoping some-one would recommend a/ the proper driver for the f- series strips i pictured above. And if anyone had an opinion on the 1ft vs the 2 ft strips that would be awesome I dont mean to disregard the comments above but my current situation is an empty spot not a hot one lol thanks in advance folks

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If you don't get price discounts id say get the longer strips as they make for less wiring.

shimz said:

Meanwell HLG-240H-24A will run those 8 in parallel at around 75% of max. You can dial down from there to get the output you require.

Use the size strips that fit best in your space.

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i would use less strips to keep startup cost down, you can easlity cool 5 x 44" strips on a 240w driver.

wietefras said:

Well at least you don't waste time figuring out the "optimal" spacing pattern

Problem with picking a driver is that it's also based on personal preference. Type of wiring, efficiency, multiple smaller or one big driver etc.

Guess it's more a check list to arrive at what to use than a sinlge piece of advice.

For the F-series you could get a 1050mA constant current driver (Serial wiring) or 700mA if you want to go nuts on efficiency. Or go for a 24V constant voltage driver (parallel wiring).

Here are a lot of handy pages with info on what this all means: http://ledgardener.com/diy-guides/

One you decide on which route to go, just pick the drivers with the amount of watts you need/want.

Or simply copy what someone else did. Ledgardner lists a lot of example fixtures for different sizes grow.

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^^this.

Shadrock15 said:

In the case of the f strips my build will be 24x24 covering a 35x29 in area so shadowing and wall distance aint an issue. Nor will spacing on my propsed light bar. Each strip will consume 2.75 in. And the edges of alu panel will be covered by 1/2 in aluminum L channel - my issue is being confused by how to run all 8 strips in series and not parallel and what driver would do. I assume that the strips will run in parallel because V- is so high <--- (pun) lol - ne way, i just want to know what driver would get me min. 220-240 watts after any driver loss - and still run at 48000 limens and up since that is the only way i can come close to calculating par/ ppfd - if some one can suggest a driver (personal preference doesnt matter to me ) because i dont have one just to het the strips to run efficient with good penetration and safely soooooo yeah that. I appreciate the post from SHIMZ my only question is 24v enough and if I ran a 240-48v in parralel would that be too much for the strips and do i need cc-cv or just cc or just cv and i want one that is dimmable internaly any help plz plz
I not that worried about all the manusha i aint micro managing I just want to build my my light 240. W for 250-260 bucks - na mean thanks guys

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decide what strip you going to use, get a matching driver and order the parts.

butterbudface said:

i lay them out evenly and dude! if you have reflective side walls they are spread pretty much equal, the buds on the outer edges of the room seems to be a bit bigger, i dont know if it is due to getting more light form the reflection of the walls or if they get less light and performed better.



Thank you man! and i have a 480w driver aswell, with the square tubing i am running now they stay quite cool, i want to do like 8 strips on a 480w and put them a little further apart, i know effietncy goes down, but startup cost also goes down alot!



yes read what i said above, my buds near wall looked bigger.



If you don't get price discounts id say get the longer strips as they make for less wiring.



i would use less strips to keep startup cost down, you can easlity cool 5 x 44" strips on a 240w driver.



^^this.




decide what strip you going to use, get a matching driver and order the parts.

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Well yeah thats sort of the point of the whole queastion what driver matches 8 of the f strips any suggestion. Or..... well thanks Shimz for at least giving my something. Ill keep looking. I just want to know what driver will effectivly piwer 8 f strips in series if poss

Shadrock15 said:

Well yeah thats sort of the point of the whole queastion what driver matches 8 of the f strips any suggestion. Or..... well thanks Shimz for at least giving my something. Ill keep looking. I just want to know what driver will effectivly piwer 8 f strips in series if poss

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If you planning on running 8 x 22" f series strips, i would go with a HLG 185 - c1050

Her is 280 wall watts covering 6 plants in a 3x4' area. 9 single row f-strips powered by an HLG 240H-24B ran at 200 watts from the wall. Another 70 watts of supplemental diodes and seems to be plenty of lighting for that area. Day 42 of flower.

jarvild said:

Her is 280 wall watts covering 6 plants in a 3x4' area. 9 single row f-strips powered by an HLG 240H-24B ran at 200 watts from the wall. Another 70 watts of supplemental diodes and seems to be plenty of lighting for that area. Day 42 of flower.
View attachment 4160875 View attachment 4160876 View attachment 4160877

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Ill say they look great are the strip running in series or parallel. Im gonna use 8 f series 23v single strips says min amp1.12 giving me 204 watts minus 2-4 for driver i would like to push a little to 1.2-1.5 amps but your 200 watts looks great. But mostly are you in series or parallel

jarvild said:

Her is 280 wall watts covering 6 plants in a 3x4' area. 9 single row f-strips powered by an HLG 240H-24B ran at 200 watts from the wall. Another 70 watts of supplemental diodes and seems to be plenty of lighting for that area. Day 42 of flower.
View attachment 4160875 View attachment 4160876 View attachment 4160877

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So 23w/sq ft? That's rad. Love to see those low wattage grows kicking ass.

Shadrock15 said:

Ill say they look great are the strip running in series or parallel. Im gonna use 8 f series 23v single strips says min amp1.12 giving me 204 watts minus 2-4 for driver i would like to push a little to 1.2-1.5 amps but your 200 watts looks great. But mostly are you in series or parallel

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Parallel wiring. 9 strips driven @ 10 amps is 1.11A per strip.

Shadrock15 said:

Well yeah thats sort of the point of the whole queastion what driver matches 8 of the f strips any suggestion. Or..... well thanks Shimz for at least giving my something. Ill keep looking. I just want to know what driver will effectivly piwer 8 f strips in series if poss

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Well thanks for nothing I guess

Again, go to ledgarner.com and find a wealth of options to choose from.

butterbudface said:

i lay them out evenly and dude! if you have reflective side walls they are spread pretty much equal, the buds on the outer edges of the room seems to be a bit bigger, i dont know if it is due to getting more light form the reflection of the walls or if they get less light and performed better.

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Dude I dont disagree that you get a result but you kinda made my point for me, your buds on the wall are bigger, reflection is more light, if you had it less even to account for that you would likely get more even buds
this is a even 3x3 layout thats effective but still not even light across the canopy

50cm is way too high. Also, you shouldn't have those outer strips so close to the wall. Try to divide every strip over the area as evenly as possible and you will have a lot better uniformity.

I used a "windmill pattern" with 4 sections of 3 strips (with a hole in the middle) and the uniformity was fine at much lower height (iirc @ 15cm). Although that was with 12 strips on 100x100cm vs 9 in your example.

Plus for someone who still needs to buy the strips for a 100x100cm space, it's probably better to get 56cm+28cm strips and put those end to end.

In the case of Shadrock15, the shortest side is 29", so a simple "ladder" of between 9 and 4 double row 22" F-series strips (or double that for the single row or Bridgelux strips) for in total 200W would work great.

The more strips you have to divide those 200W over, the more efficient they will be. Upfront costs will be higher, but depending on electricity costs you could recoup those extra costs over a few years running. Plus you will get more light from that 200W and thus potentially more harvest. For lower upfront costs go for less strips.

That's the beauty of parallel wiring, you can add as many or as little strips as you like to the driver. Within reason

wietefras said:

Also, you shouldn't have those outer strips so close to the wall. Try to divide every strip over the area as evenly as possible and you will have a lot better uniformity.

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I agree - just place the outer strips at 7 inches from the wall, space the rest evenly within those two. You'll have a little fall-off around the outer edge but it won't be huge, depending on the reflectivity of the walls maybe 20% or so. Compare that to the typical panel type of light that has a 50-70 percent fall-off.

Shadrock15 said:

In the case of the f strips my build will be 24x24 covering a 35x29 in area so shadowing and wall distance aint an issue. Nor will spacing on my propsed light bar. Each strip will consume 2.75 in. And the edges of alu panel will be covered by 1/2 in aluminum L channel - my issue is being confused by how to run all 8 strips in series and not parallel and what driver would do. I assume that the strips will run in parallel because V- is so high <--- (pun) lol - ne way, i just want to know what driver would get me min. 220-240 watts after any driver loss - and still run at 48000 limens and up since that is the only way i can come close to calculating par/ ppfd - if some one can suggest a driver (personal preference doesnt matter to me ) because i dont have one just to het the strips to run efficient with good penetration and safely soooooo yeah that. I appreciate the post from SHIMZ my only question is 24v enough and if I ran a 240-48v in parralel would that be too much for the strips and do i need cc-cv or just cc or just cv and i want one that is dimmable internaly any help plz plz
I not that worried about all the manusha i aint micro managing I just want to build my my light 240. W for 250-260 bucks - na mean thanks guys

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I prefer to run parallel because it allows easy expansion along with an efficiency boost when you add more strips. If you insist on series wiring, the meanwell HLG-240H-C1400 doesn't quite have enough voltage for those 8, but it should work since it is very close and those 'A' version drivers give you a bit of headroom there.

shimz said:

I prefer to run parallel because it allows easy expansion along with an efficiency boost when you add more strips. If you insist on series wiring, the meanwell HLG-240H-C1400 doesn't quite have enough voltage for those 8, but it should work since it is very close and those 'A' version drivers give you a bit of headroom there.

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I'd be careful running the HLG CC drivers outside of their operating current/voltage specs. They *may* work OK but sometimes they just seem to do weird shit like reduce the current (and overall power) by 30-50%. I've seen a couple of people now with that issue.

butterbudface said:

If you planning on running 8 x 22" f series strips, i would go with a HLG 185 - c1050

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So that would work better than say a 240-24 v

nfhiggs said:

I'd be careful running the HLG CC drivers outside of their operating current/voltage specs. They *may* work OK but sometimes they just seem to do weird shit like reduce the current (and overall power) by 30-50%. I've seen a couple of people now with that issue.

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i appreciate the help gentle men i will pit this up for you to see as i thing i found my stiff im gonna use a 240-1050 A as rhe voltage range is between 114-225 so for the 8 strips i got
23v x 1.05 = 24.15 v
X 8 = 193v with room for 2 more strips if needed should give me between 200 and w i believe roughly 193-202 w ddpending in the driver 27.5 w per sq ft unless i toss in another strip which I may do im trying to keep cost at 250 close to a buck per watt. So I may use the ELG 240-1050 as for some reason its 10 bucks cheaper- at that i coud pop in 9 strips but that changes cost of frame work too. As some-one stated the 1 ft rseries 23v ( same as the 2 ft) i can only get 8 of them so might get 2 for the edges and 8 2ft. Giving me 241v just under driver capacity for series and the strips will run .05 light hopefully giving more than the 171 lm-w. Any thiughts please. And Shimz it was your post that got me some direction so to did NFHIGGS- sorry if I came off salty just hoping for straight answers to what I know are fairly crooked queastions lol- anyway any thought on that setup- personaly i know the wattage seems low for the 7 sg ft im working but the strips should murder what im using now 2ft t5 and mars 96 reflector<--- dont laugh to hard i did grow some killer nugs but..... well you all know how sorta not great that setup is

That cc 1050 driver you mentioned would work too and give you a little more headroom for adding strips, but at the expense of a bit of the maximum power the driver will put out.

I will defer to Mr. nfhiggs for running close to max, as I do not have direct experience with that exact configuration.

Shadrock15 said:

So that would work better than say a 240-24 v

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"Better" is highly subjective. The 240-24 model will get you up to 250W of power - 35W per square foot. No need for more than that. The 185-1050 gets you 200W a bit under 30W per square foot. IMO the 240-24 is a better choice for that reason. If you want CC you can always go with 240-1050 model