Help Me Pick a DIY Light (cob vs strip vs Ali Board)

[saintminer]

Running 3 of these boards at 200 watts each with no heat-sinks may still come out as a good viable option in all reality. An HLG-600h-48A Would allow me to run 3 boards at a nominal 200 watts each and that's also higher wattage and a nice even distribution amongst a remarkable amount of diodes. And I remember that member on RIU, I didn't know he went with 800's from meijiu! If I'm not mistaken he only had board temps of 40c ish at this wattage and could run them 12 inches away from his plants for a nearly even 700-900ppfd. I would basically be putting heatsink cost into more diodes by doing it this way, and the slight efficiency bump between 561C, B or Y is not really of significant consequence to me.

[saintminer]

I'm also in Canada. just about finished my veg light build. once you factor in aluminum and thermal tape and what not. it's not so cheap anymore. so I think what I'm going to do for my 4x4 flower light is 4 atreum 288.2 boards as they come with the heatsink and then get a driver from digikey. shipping on 4 boards is 32 USD and digikey is free next day shipping on the driver. boards should come to about $435 CAD unless there's duty.

That's not too bad either. the 32USD for 4 boards does not include heatsink costs does it? That seems like quite a fair deal

[unkle_psycho]

Running cool and soft on the chinese board will save quite a few of the lumens lost to not being real lm651c's. One of the chinese boards covers an area of three atreum boards, which would have better diodes, and perhaps even more of them? Given the same overall power I imagine the atreum boards would not need heatsinks either, the maker hangs out here so he could probably test that for you.

How much more would three atreums cost over a china-board?

[unkle_psycho]

Maybe he would do you a deal on a bunch of these? The lm301b version without heatsinks seems to be 59$ Three of these discount boards would be about 130$... with the best diodes 180$. Up to 80w without heatsinks, so you could easily run 3 of these at the same power levels as the 800 diode board.

https://atreumlighting.com/products/360 ... -lm561c-s6

[Grower]

In the US you have many options and buying off china/alibaba is not always the best option money wise

[unkle_psycho]

I'm quite confused with these chinese shipping costs. I was always used to getting free shipping from China. Slow but free, and quite reliable.

Even in Europe digikey has free deliveries for orders over 50e. I ended up with bridgelux as a budget solution, and I'm quite satisfied with the price compared to what China had on offer (after delivery costs). I payed 280e for 750w worth of drivers and leds, although I'll have to add lots more leds since I won't be running them at 100%

[Calenk]

That's not too bad either. the 32USD for 4 boards does not include heatsink costs does it? That seems like quite a fair deal

ya thats with heatsinks.

[saintminer]

Again, thanks for the input everyone. Lurked long enough but definitely been productive actually voicing some questions and concerns.

So I've got in touch with meijiu and my total for 3 boards shipped to me would be 352 us (457 CDN). If I do take this route (I'm currently trying to get in touch with atreum) I would be able to run 3 fotop 800 boards at 200 watts each and given other people's test results that would be possible with no heatsinks. The spread would be quite nice given the 3 foot lengths of these boards, minimal wiring, and ample amount of diodes to distribute the load. Very minimal wiring and I would only need an hlg 600h-48a if I'm not mistaken (and obviously our ac connector, some wagos and whatnot)

A question about atreum though... How are we certain these atreum 360 boards are genuine and not just a resell of lower bin leds? 6 of their 360 boards would be $430 cdn for 6 boards. Running 6 boards at the wattage of 80, which is the highest the say they can handle without heatsinks, would reach 480 watts. Still a viable option but I'm just down to weighing whether it's worth worth being the guinea pig on 600 watts of even distribution or a potentially reliable 480 watt american made version.

[saintminer]

I'm quite confused with these chinese shipping costs. I was always used to getting free shipping from China. Slow but free, and quite reliable.

Even in Europe digikey has free deliveries for orders over 50e. I ended up with bridgelux as a budget solution, and I'm quite satisfied with the price compared to what China had on offer (after delivery costs). I payed 280e for 750w worth of drivers and leds, although I'll have to add lots more leds since I won't be running them at 100%

Speaking to the shipping costs it totally depends. China and south korea get subsidized shipping in the USA. Certain modes of shipping such as e packet air mail stuff. This wouldn't really be applicable to what we typically order since they are either heavy items or large items. Typically these items would be defaulted to DHL or EMS. Asking them to ship by sea can save about %50 if you are doing a larger order but definitely note that it will be about 1 month or 2 and nobody will rush for you. Definitely why it is beneficial doing group buys and saving shipping cost. Having 50 or so of these 50 tops stuck in a shipping container would drop shipping cost substantially. Just finding 5 friends who want 10 boards would be the iffy thing haha.