Ok, so this thread didnt turn out the way i thought, but then again better for that. Youve had lots of advice for all kinds of setups, and id say i think theyre all good bets. Its often better to take advice from everyone. Personally i dont like to make decision for others, i like to get people to get to the place where they can make the decision for themselves. Cutter has great stuff, i especially like them for their specialty custom stuff. The only thing ive not seen recommended here is the 90cri + uv options; but i dont know if cutter has stock of the strips or if growlights australia has stock of their board. In either way youve been sniffing around the right trees for 4 pages. Cutter nichia kits seems like a good deal, i didnt realize they came with driver and all, its an awesome price.
When you come to these kinda decisions its a good idea to try to calculate re leveraging diode count, with respect to cost. If you have one option thats a lot cheaper but around 10% less efficient, think the vesta strips, versus another, think crees or nichias, calculate how much it would cost to just get twice as many diodes of the cheaper version. If it works out the same, which it many times do, at least when i was buying in lots, then go for twice the diodes at half the power. Youll gain back those approx 10% by running each diode at half power, or half wattage per $$ if that makes sense. But the benefits of running soft doesnt end there, having twice the diodes and thus half the power per diode have many more benefits: lower temps, which saves the diode from deterioration and also gices a comparative efficiency boost due to lower temps; better spread and possibility to lower hanging heights, (this may be more of an issue with boards or if your running like 50w per strip) and just having that extra capacity of having the max wattage higher. In this case i havent made the numbers on all the alternatives but i dare say that vestas might not be the best option here. They are indeed cheap, but cutter nichia kits, at 280something £ are great value if they come with a driver which is already around 100£. Maybe get those 4extra strips for your kit so you can run them at around 25w a piece, no matter what strip you choose.
Cutter has some excellent stuff so look around, im especially a fan of some of their 280mm 2 channel strips for uv and far red, and their 5050 solstrips with pc reds. But these items opens a jar of worms when it come to connections.
Also, it might be a point to see if mark can get you 2 x 240 drivers instead of a 480 driver. Im glad to see Cutter is still on point in covid times, and i hope, Mark, Ben and families are all doing ok.