thanks for the feedback. i'm looking into the COBs now and see you get a lot more lumens for your money. one reason i was satisfied with a DIY from rapidLED is because the LEDs are all mounted and solderless. is it difficult to DIY otherwise? it would be my first time
from what i know you can save probably around $100 or more per fixture if you decide to DIY depending on who you purchase the light from. some of the better premade units are by Area 51, RapidLED, BML horticulture, lumigrow, bonasiahero / hans, and Advanced. from my understanding the more watts per diode, the better results. as you can see in the discussion above, people are moving towards the COB (chips on board) design now instead of individual diodes. they seem to give you more lumens for your dollar than buying individual LEDs. check out the COBs fom bridgelux and CREE
I've only got experience with the Mars II units, but Advanced are supposed to be good, so are Intelligent-Gro LED.
You can buy or make a separate 730 nm trigger.
If I were you I would use Cree lightbulbs from Home Depot. You have 3.6 sq ft. You need about 30-35w/sq ft. That would be 105-125w. If you used the 9.5w (60w equiv) you would need 11 to 13 bulbs.
Appreciate the feedback but I'm certain this would be a huge yield compromise. I do want to maximize GPW as dealing with wasted heat energy is a bit of a pain for me. Also much less clean than my current setup. I only plan on moving to LED for significant gains (heat reduction, increased quality).
Compared to HPS, I don't think it would be a compromise. The lightbulbs are about 90-100 lm/w. (CFLs are around 65, if that's what you're thinking of in terms of compromise.). I got 1.2g/w the last grow. (155g in 4sq ft. under 30w/sq ft).
You can certainly do better than the lightbulbs. But, for your limited height, I don't know how without sacrificing vertical space. If you want maximum grow height (as you said), the lightbulbs are a useful option.
This is what I would have imagined as close to optimum (DIY aside) for a 3ft height restricted space. How come you went to Cree bulbs from Home Depot before Hans? If they were truly better, would that not render all of Hans' R+D meaningless? (It's a genuine question. As you know I'm trying to learn about lighting options as well as other aspects of growing, so any clarification offered in these pages is always useful.)
I started with sidelighting but I like the idea of more distributed/diffuse light bathing the plant. Also, I like that they're ubiquitous and interchangeable. After an initial investment in mounting accessories, they're fairly inexpensive. I also like that they're fanless.
I don't know. Technology is changing so fast. It seems like COBs are pressuring individual LEDs for the tall greenhouse space. In shorter spaces consumer lightbulbs are the easiest way to bathe a plant with light from all angles. (There's also the SMD5730 strips which I want to play with soon.). So, I don't know where those two things leave fixtures of individual LEDs.
If you want solderless they make conductive adhesives that I think can be used instead. Try and find one with a high silver content.
I wonder if anything's really changing, or if it's just the name. What I mean is: they released the W100 which is supposed to be half an XGS-190. I wonder if they're discontinuing the XGS-190 only to reintroduce it as W190.
That's Fuckin' Dope