Is it worth building your own LED? (Smaller grow)

I've never built an LED to save money. For me it comes down to a few key reasons; 1) being able to configure your fixture/output/spectrum perfectly to suite your needs/hopes/dreams 2) to utilize the latest and greatest in tech and 3) because I enjoy it.

If you're looking to pinch pennies but you're not into DIY, I wouldn't bother because if this isn't a labor of love for you, you're wasting your time and to me, wasted time is worse than wasted money.

Kind Sir said:

Hey bud, it’s my first rodeo with LED and I wanted to build my own. I heard you can save a decent amount of money DIY, not sure how much you actually save and if it’s worth the trouble reading on it.
HLG thread is how I found your comment, and browsed their products. I made a thread about if it’s worth it to DIY.
I’m curious what products you used to build yours?

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I went with HLG Rspec boards.

3 Rspec boards w/ heatsink combo $260 shipped
1 HLG-480-C2800A, 1 Headlight connector, and 60g Thermal Joint compound $120 shipped

I had all the other items on hand, chassis wire, butt connectors, shrink tube, wire tool, 8A power cord.

These are pretty simple to assemble...if you can put together Ikea furniture you can build these HLG kits.

Most of the DIY tutorials use WAGOs. I like butt connectors with shrink tube, I feel its a bit cleaner.

I'm in week 4 of flower in a 36"x60"x72" and I all ready had to raise the light to the max and start tuning it down a bit because it was crushing that space. I also ditched the stupid PC fan and have a 6" clip fan blowing over the heatsink. It worked great, at 450W my boards where a chill 40C