COBs vs Rigid LED strips vs QB

I have spent the better part of the last week building out lighting fixtures. 6 in total.

Here is my current setup:

4 - COB fixtures
1 - Rigid LED strip
1 - QB

As i was building the out, i noticed 1 thing. COBs are a LOT more work and seem to cost more.

One of my lights is a VERO 29 COB fixture. I paid 25 per cob, plus 25 per heat sink, then maybe 10 dollars for a cob holder, wire adapter and reflector holder. So that puts me about $60, i'm sure there were shipping costs, but most of my things have shipping costs, so lets ignore that for now.

I have 8 cobs on that fixture, so that puts me at $480 for the fixture. Say i run it at 480 watts, thats $1 a watt. Really not bad in the grand scheme of things.

My QB light on the other hand cost me $75 per board, plus 15 per heat sink, I am only running 3 boards, but i should be running 4. so i am going to make this a 4 board light for this example. The total on this gets me to 75+15 x 4 = $360, assuming Im running this at 480 watts, it puts me at 75 cents a watt. These are also a ton less work to build out. No thermal paste, less drilling, less wiring, etc.

My Bridgelux rigid strip light contain 10 - 48 inch strips, they cost about $15 each. They do not require a heat sink but do require a hell of a lot more metal to make the fixture, in my case i have about 46 feet of 1 inch aluminum L bars. so maybe $60 worth, my other lights require about half that, so lets say $30 to even things out. That puts this light at $180 dollars so 37.5 cents a watt. This light was also quite a bit of work, about on par with the Vero light.

Then i have 3 COB lights running getians COBs, Getians are mid grade cob, not crappy like a $2 ebay special, but not a Vero. I am running 10 of these cobs, on smaller heat sinks per light. But still require holders for the cob and reflectors. These ran be about $19 per light all in, so $190 per fixture. So about 40 cents a watt. These were a lot of work, enough so that I will never build another cob light with these again if I can help it.

From LM/W stand point, i think the VERO cobs or the QBs might get me the best numbers, then the rigid strips, then the getians cobs.

So i am trying figure out why i would run cobs again, at this point i don't see anything really jumping out at me to do that.

Ive built lights with all 3 and id agree with everything you say apart from pricing.

I pay a lot more for qbs and a lot less for cobs so it depends where you live and who your suppliers are really. Strips are looking like the future for the price point.

Id be interested in a umol/$ number for each light if you can? Any pics of your builds

key4 said:

Ive built lights with all 3 and id agree with everything you say apart from pricing.

I pay a lot more for qbs and a lot less for cobs so it depends where you live and who your suppliers are really. Strips are looking like the future for the price point.

Id be interested in a umol/$ number for each light if you can? Any pics of your builds

Click to expand...

where do you live? From horticulturel ighting group the QBs are $75 each. I suppose if you live out of the country, shipping and tariffs may eat you alive. I could use citizen cobs, they seem to be a better price, it was just my first big boy light was with VEROs, I didn't really build it this week as much as take it apart from my first build and redesign it. But back when i got them, they were about $50 for the cob and heat sink, i could have used active heat sinks, it would have been cheaper, but im not really a fan of that method.

Bridgelux just released their gen 2 EB strips. I can't find them retail yet, someone told me they can be had if I want to buy 400 of them, which i do not..

I did find some really great wire to use when hanging DYI fixtures. Well it was great when i got it, but....

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ALPHA-WIRE-725-BLACK-RETRACTILE-CORD-18AWG-1FT-EXTEND-5FT-NNB/311535103168?hash=item4888f06cc0:g:5HIAAOSwCypWp3qK

I paid $10 a wire with free shipping. Someone i guess had a big box of them and was clearing them out. Now they are a bit more. But they are awesome, but not awesome enough for their current price.

I will post some pictures tonight.

Nice builds man, I did a rigid strip build, came out to .13 a watt.

crappy ebay strips, but they are going strong. I messed up by using 10pc 5000k and 10pc 3000k, and going to change out the 5000k for 3000k. They like the 3000k much better it seems.

$24 strips
$16 driver,

ofcourse all the other crap to build the box, not included, but as far as lights and driver, the main components, im not hatin on them just yet, 5 days flipped, so now the interesting part starts,lol..

InTheValley said:

Nice builds man, I did a rigid strip build, came out to .13 a watt.

crappy ebay strips, but they are going strong. I messed up by using 10pc 5000k and 10pc 3000k, and going to change out the 5000k for 3000k. They like the 3000k much better it seems.

$24 strips
$16 driver,

ofcourse all the other crap to build the box, not included, but as far as lights and driver, the main components, im not hatin on them just yet, 5 days flipped, so now the interesting part starts,lol..

Click to expand...

I used some strip lights for my lettuce farm using allibaba strips. They were integrated, so they came with drivers. They worked out to about .24 cents a watt. They did great.

I see you covered all your bases. smart move. pcb and strips are the present now. I ask myself that same question re: why buy cob's any longer?

I now use pcb Samsung LM561C 200w boards instead of cobs. I also use flexible strips constant current. They work great if you understand circuit dynamics and lm/w for LM561C diodes performance.

I got an email from one of my suppliers, that just finished testing the new Samsung LM301B diode compared to my current LM561C S6 bin diode pcb board and the difference was 10lm/w at a price increase of 33%. Hit mew up if you want to see a copy of the report.

here is a pic of the ebay strips, flipped 4 days ago. these are 46 days from seed, the smaller ones are 14 days from seed. 2 small are coco/FFOF and the other 2 are Kindsoil/FFoF. Kindsoil is about the same as coco right now. They are in flower mode also. so basicly 12/12 from seed.

I do think i have 2 males. the big one on the far left, and the tallest of the small green 40oz containers. We should know in a few days of the bigger one.. Hope Im wrong, lol.

The 3 bigger ones are KindSoil/FFOF mix. I topped 12 days ago,

Seems they really got rockin in the last couple days, seems they finally hit the kindsoil mix. 11 days was a bigggg difference.

But for $40 light/driver combo, not to bad.. Going to change out the other 10 strips of 5000k and put in 3000k for sure.. This is using 110watts

key4 said:

Ive built lights with all 3 and id agree with everything you say apart from pricing.

I pay a lot more for qbs and a lot less for cobs so it depends where you live and who your suppliers are really. Strips are looking like the future for the price point.

Id be interested in a umol/$ number for each light if you can? Any pics of your builds

Click to expand...

I agree.

My PCB build is cheap because I made them so I'm not paying for someone else's builds. Build costs are around 280$ at 320watts.

My cobs were like 15$ a peice CXA3070 AD bin but they are really good according to the stats, better than many CXB's... Long build, lots of issues and costs a bout 220$ to build a 240watt light.

I like the PCB builds and PCB lights the best. More power, perfect size, easy build, better spread of light and keeps amazing me with how they grow... amazed, not like "oh cool" no nooo... "Amazed."

At this point i will only do PCB builds.