that was my next question .... how many watts is running them soft per strip ? (my quick dumb math says 16 watts max per strip?)
I like your enthusiasm but keep in mind the strips are only a fraction of the cost. Like the 500watt build guide i linked uses 24 strips in parallell, the driver for that is $127, then the wire, plugs, connectors ect. Aluminum for the frame and heatsink if you run hard. You'd spend well over $1000 just in drivers for 250 strips.
280 min order ?
Yea its because they will order another manufacturing run from china, where its an old SKU they put high minimums on it. They seem to never discontinue anything they just make minimum purchase to be their cost for a new run. Manufacturing 101.
For sure, but for instance my spider farmers were $1000 for a total of ~630 watts if I'm lucky lol. I have the capital to be able to build the lights, if I choose to, or I might just sell the strips... regardless I'll find a use for them or they'll go to someone who will be stoked to save a buck haha.
Yes it all depends on your space and how you want to do it. For me because of a changing space between veg and flower i made mine as each a seperate light for a 2x2 area with its each its own driver. Was signifigantly more expensive as i used four $55 drivers for a 4x4 instead of one $127 driver and 36 strips instead of 24. I have 600 watts in that 4x4 tho not 500.
This is the exact boat I find myself in, but I think the meanwell xlg series drivers offer a wide range of affordable options to power these sale strips that keep popping up. $35 for something like the xlg-150 and keeping the strips running to where they need little to no heatsink seems to be the ticket for a cheap build. I didn't buy any of these strips, but probably would have if I didn't just buy 8 more of the f-series double strips on the last price drop. I've got 16 of those to deal with before I buy much of anything else.
Im guilty of that too, I was originally searching for dual purpose veg/flower lights for a 2x4 space but with the deal i ordered 54 strips instead of the 18 i might need. I just cant see them ever being cheaper and i know ill make use of them eventually.
For sure, I wish I understood it all a bit more clearly, but I'm slowly coming around. Yea, the deals they've been running on the lm561c diode strips has been nice and I hope to see some nice builds around.
Personally, from a learning and understanding perspective vs just copying someone elses build, i found the ledgardener.com site to be very good. For understanding drivers, constant current vs constant voltage drivers,series vs parallell wiring, A vs B dimming, what the different numbers mean they have videos in the fundamentals section that i found it very easy to understand. They also have many builds in the diy builds section including a number of builds using these strips in different sizes and configurations. You should check it out if you want to understand it more.
yea , i been reading that site all day long.....its about all i need to learn what i need to know. i already have basic electricity knowledge.
can you send some part numbers or links please ?
