Quantum Boards: Are they worth it? Why or why not?

Stone_Free

Stone_Free

Well-Known Member
Johnny Lawrence said:
I built a 300 watt, 5000k light that replaced 500 watts of T5 using Photon Fantom PCBs and couldn't be happier. Are other people having issues with them?
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I think the issue is that not many people are aware of them. Also QB's have kinda set the growing world on fire as it were and so it appears that many are fixed on buying them.
From what I know/can tell they are well worth buying. Great price and product backed up by a guy with knowledge and integrity.
If he shipped abroad (UK) I'd buy them.
 
Colo MMJ

Colo MMJ

Well-Known Member
HiloReign said:
Fairly quickly pricing things, underdriving EB strips seems to have the best value in terms of light provided for money spent.

Some are saying they don't get hot when driven under 700mA with no heatsink. No heatsink would make it the cheapest option I can find.
Even if you don't plan to run them soft, aluminum C channel and a fan (cheap) will cool strips driven at higher currents.

As for myself, I've got 6x 2ft EB strips on the way to see how hard I can drive them without heatsinks. $55 for 6 strips and shipping. Driver Im going to use cost $50 brand new adjusts from 525-1050mA, around 132w at 1050.
Frame will be made with a $10 section of aluminum angle... Bits and pieces to hold it together, wires, wagos, etc I have them all but another cost for you to take into account.

Fwiw I'm no expert, just another enthusiast. Someone else may have a better option.
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Hopefully you will do a thread on building and running your strips. I think it would be great. May I ask where you bought the 6 strips?
 
Colo MMJ

Colo MMJ

Well-Known Member
Humple said:
But the Photon Fantom boards are actually cheaper than Quantum Boards. I don't see why the price would inhibit adoption? Seems like there should be a few more threads highlighting builds with these boards, especially when we see so many posts about the competition (HLG, ChilLED, DIY strip builds, etc.). Just seems odd.
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My impression is the HLG guys provide great service while the Photon Fantom guy is a one man company making boards on the side. I am not saying that as a negative. I think he has his own grow and this is something he does on the side for now.

They both seem to offer good products. Far better than the burple crap that Amazon pushes with phony reviews or reviews by newbies who have no clue. .

..
 
Moflow

Moflow

Well-Known Member
Stone_Free said:
I think the issue is that not many people are aware of them. Also QB's have kinda set the growing world on fire as it were and so it appears that many are fixed on buying them.
From what I know/can tell they are well worth buying. Great price and product backed up by a guy with knowledge and integrity.
If he shipped abroad (UK) I'd buy them.
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He does!
 
smokebros

smokebros

Well-Known Member
OP - asking if they're worth it is all subjective. Personally I feel like Quantum Boards are worth the price, so if someone asked me "are they worth it", my response would be a big "YES!".

Overall, COB's and QB's are fairly similar. They might not belong in the same chapter, but they definitely belong in the same book. Both offer great performance and both bring different attributes to the table.

It's all contingent on what your specific needs are. Both types of lights are going to provide the necessary lighting to grow great plants, and both are a step above HID lights.
 
Budies 101

Budies 101

Well-Known Member
I built my own PCB so I don't use Quantum boards but the idea is similar. My light is like 2 1/2 QB's as one... That all being said, I have build I dono, 15 or so CoB lights and 6 PCB lights. To be the differences are that it's significantly cheaper to build PCB lights as I only need 4 of my lights to cover a 4x8 or as in my case a 5x10. It takes 6 of my cob builds to cover that same 4x8 5x10 seeing as they are 200 watt light VS PCB is a 300 watt light.

The PCB build is noticeably better lm/w, 170 lm/w I believe is considered fairly top of the line where as most our cob builds seem to run about 140-160 lm/w. Time spent building the PCB lights is 10-15 once you get the process down, my cob lights take well into an hour and I ALWAYS seem to wire something backwards, that a personal issue tho haha.

In the end I only have to build 4 lights over 6 to cover the same space. The cost per light, PCB vs CoB is very similar but I need 2 whole less lights so the cost is far more to do cobs.

Both grow great.

I don't care for QB's because the size, that's why I built my own PCB. If they could build a light that is 40 or so inch long I'd probably have bought through whoever sells QB's. Also QB's are always out of stock.

Thats what I noticed as someone who has both cobs and PCB and quite a few of them.
 
Rider509

Rider509

Well-Known Member
Dave455 said:
What about the Samsung F double strips ?
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After testing 8 H-Gen3 against 4 F-Gen3 44" double row strips I've relegated the H to my tattoo shop lighting. Consider that 288 leds per strip is the same as the QB288s, and they are the same chip however the Samsungs are now using S7 bin chips. The F is a 100W strip but can be driven to much higher levels. Four strips and a HLG-480H-48A wired parallel is an excellent 515W combination.

edit: I'm a huge fan of the design of the QB boards and would likely have gone that way if I could have snagged eight of them in 3500K.
 
HiloReign

HiloReign

Well-Known Member
Colo MMJ said:
Hopefully you will do a thread on building and running your strips. I think it would be great. May I ask where you bought the 6 strips?
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Digikey is where I got mine and I will be starting a journal probably around next week~

Rider509 said:
edit: I'm a huge fan of the design of the QB boards and would likely have gone that way if I could have snagged eight of them in 3500K.
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I also would have bought QBs if they were just in stock.
 
Randomblame

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
Rider509 said:
After testing 8 H-Gen3 against 4 F-Gen3 44" double row strips I've relegated the H to my tattoo shop lighting. Consider that 288 leds per strip is the same as the QB288s, and they are the same chip however the Samsungs are now using S7 bin chips. The F is a 100W strip but can be driven to much higher levels. Four strips and a HLG-480H-48A wired parallel is an excellent 515W combination.

edit: I'm a huge fan of the design of the QB boards and would likely have gone that way if I could have snagged eight of them in 3500K.
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Whow! Really interesting "sun-surf-boards", mate!
But two things!?
How do you know the Samsung strips now use S7 bin, latest datasheet(Samsung website/F-Series_gen.3_Rev.1.0) still says nothing about bins? And for which, F- and H-Series or did you mean on QB's and it is just a typo?

But what's really interested the people here(me incl.),
how did you make the PCB's and how did you the soldering job for 720 LED's per board?
Do you have access to a pizzeria and the 4' pizza oven.....,LOL?
Would you open an own thread to show detailed how you made your boards?
Would certainly be the most visited thread for a long time when you detailed show us all how it goes.
 
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Rider509

Rider509

Well-Known Member
Randomblame said:
Whow! Really interesting "sun-surf-boards", mate!
But two things!?
How do you know the Samsung strips now use S7 bin, latest datasheet(Samsung website/F-Series_gen.3_Rev.1.0) still says nothing about bins? And for which, F- and H-Series or did you mean on QB's and it is just a typo?
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All the F boards I received from Digikey are S7.
IMG_3016.jpg

But what's really interested the people here(me incl.),
how did you make the PCB's and how did you the soldering job for 720 LED's per board?
Do you have access to a pizzeria and the 4' pizza oven.....,LOL?
Would you open an own thread to show detailed how you made your boards?
Would certainly be the most visited thread for a long time when you detailed show us all how it goes.
Click to expand...
I made a 720 led PCB? Wow, I musta doubled up on my Adderall by accident! :)
Random, or should I call you Mr Blame, doesn't everybody have a PCB printer and reflow soldering station at home? I suppose a pizza oven would suffice but how would you ever get the smell out of the lights? I just woke up and the coffee hasn't kicked in so I'm a little confused... and I'm sure once my synaptic connections begin functioning it'll be obvious, but right now I'm wondering where the number 720 came in?

edit: I'm beginning to see that I may have applied some math magic that you wouldn't understand. Hell, I don't even understand it. Maybe after I replenish my caffeine circulatory system.
edit edit: nope, still don't see 720. :)
 
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Randomblame

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
Rider509

Rider509

Well-Known Member
You got S13s? They must like you better. :(
I'd asked about this on my strip build thread but no one seemed to know. Well damn. It's more likely that these strips are a kitting combo of S4-S6, although the data sheet does show an S7 bin LM561C in 70CRI. I'll admit it... it was a wild leap right into an ASSumption.
 
Rider509

Rider509

Well-Known Member
Now I’m curious to know what that Samsung S code means. The FB24Bs I just unwrapped say “3500K - S06”. Time to dig in and unravel the mystery!
 
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