Note that these and most fixtures come without bulbs, which are expensive enough to double the price. Also check into other places that ship for free, which Home Depot did for me for my 4 tube 4 foot T8 shop light (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia-Lighting-4-Light-Grey-Fluorescent-Heavy-Duty-Shop-Light-1284GRD-RE/202968125) which also lacked bulbs. Free shipping is often a real positive making something even cheaper than driving to pick it up.

Timer and bulbs came from my local ACE hardware.

"which are expensive enough to double the price."

Not if you wait for the bulbs to be on sale. A typical sales price for some unpopular brands of T8 and T12 bulbs is $1 each. My favorite T8 fluorescent for home lighting is Sylvania Sky White which is sometimes on sale at Menards. $35 for a case of 12, which comes to $2.92 each. Of course, the bulbs are usually on sale at a different times than the fixtures.

Agreed that the bulbs are a bit less of an expense than the fixture, but generally only a little. I do not need a case (remember these things cost to recycle when they burn out, too, they may not be put in the trash), only 4; so your cheap case gives me 8 bulbs that I have no need for and significant additional expense over what I paid to get the four I needed. I do not need the bulbs at some nebulous future date either. Nor am I going to be driving long distances to pick or pay for surprisingly high freight charges either.

I live by myself and have found out the very interesting fact that buying in bulk is wasted money and product, if it is not needed or cannot be used up. It actually is often more economical to pay a bit more per unit for just what is needed and can be used up in a reasonable amount of time. Many sales are not savings at all but can be spend-thrifty. I have and continue to learn that hard lesson myself; so this is more self examination than anything else. Take it for what its worth or not...

BTW specialty plant bulbs are almost never on sale and run significantly more than any run-of-the-mill T8 fluorescents. I don't see that I have a need of them myself; so I run the standard 4' T8s.

"Agreed that the bulbs are a bit less of an expense than the fixture, but generally only a little."

This thread shouldn't be "generally" about anything because it is specifically about bargains and bargains are exceptional, otherwise, they wouldn't be worth mentioning. You are doing the public a disservice by diluting the bargain notices with excessively verbose irrelevant content.

It sounds like you may live in a rural area and not have much storage space. I live in an urban area and have plenty of storage space. There are several Menards, Home Depot, and Ace stores within 2 miles of my house and, more importantly, they are close to supermarkets that I buy food from therefore the added driving distances to these hardware stores are negligible. I think that neither of our living situations is typical but, unlike you, I am not going to lecture people about general economics based on their assumed storage capability or driving distances to hardware stores. Other people know their living condition and can make their own decisions based on that.

You obviously operate at quite a different scale than I do. That means that sales have an entirely different meaning at my level, that difference is a very big part of my point. BTW I no more buy on Ebay than I do at Walmart. I select my vendors pretty carefully, and price is only one part of the equation. I live on a small city lot in south Minneapolis, and neither I nor my neighbors have extra space. Sorry my assumptions are not the inaccurate ones here.

I will leave this thread now and bother you no more.

This 10W LED grow light chip, at $2, is about half the price of others probably because the red component is 620nm rather than 660nm and it has unusual driver requirements:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10W-Red-620nm-Blue-450nm-8-1-LED-High-Power-Bright-LED-chip-Bulb-Lamp-Light-/141806772968?

Not that it matters, but, it is much brighter to the eyes than similar 660nm chips.

Also, you will need a driver such as this,

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-4-7x1W-LED-Driver-Power-Supply-for-Light-Lamp-Bulb-12V-16V-MR16-DIY-4W-7W/261590965932?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D35559%26meid%3D4c73d3546f67425e916d0912fa53f7b7%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D261590962943

which, at $1.15 each, is a bargain because I paid $2.50 for the same driver. Shame on me!

Love that 3w red led find aruzinski- thanks! I am going back to individual red and blue led's now after playing around with the COB's. Much healthier leaves/fruits on tomatoes, peppers and beans.

Household A19 LED bulbs, 800 lumen, <= 8.5 watts, $2.29 :

https://www.menards.com/main/electrical/light-bulbs/led-light-bulbs/sylvania-8-5-watt-a19-2700k-led-light-bulb/p-1444431911156-c-7482.htm?tid=3495763189872296746

https://www.menards.com/main/electrical/light-bulbs/led-light-bulbs/sylvania-8-5-watt-a19-5000k-led-light-bulb/p-1444431905573-c-7482.htm?tid=3495763189872296746

https://www.menards.com/main/electrical/light-bulbs/led-light-bulbs/8-2-watt-3-000-k-a19-general-purpose-led-light-bulb/p-1444429992990-c-7482.htm?tid=2471604090911431578

Good deal here on cree cxb2530 led cobs...

https://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut2827

I am using 4 of those in my 2x2' growing test panel but jury is still out for me. I like the simplicity of only mounting 4 components and wiring with the plastic COB holders is a breeze. But my red and blue LED's in the 2x2' area next to it seem to be producing deeper green leaves and more fruit on the same plants- tomatoes, peppers and beans.

Are they the 3000k cobs? Similar wattage draw? I havent been using cobs long, just made a light a week ago, so I havent had a chance to do any tests yet, but research leads me to believe they work well....

Yes, the 3000k COB's (CXB2530-0000-000N0HU230G)

These
are the 80 CRI so put out a bit more light per watts than the ones you
listed. They are $19 at digikey if I remember. I am running them at
900ma to get the best efficiency out of them. But they are still using
128 watts total for the 4 of them, and the Red and Blue LED panel I am
comparing them to is using 97 watts plus another 20 watts of white LED's
(so I can see!) so pretty comparable energy.
Don't get me wrong though, the COBS are working and I have been eating lots of veggies produced under them! I
will probably do a more serious comparison now that I have things
growing hydroponically because my plants seem to be much more consistent
vs when I was growing everything in soil.

Will be interested to see any comparisons. Maybe 5000k cobs would be a better option for leafy greens/veggies... I think most cob growers are growing a specific species of plants....

From what I have found, about the best compromise for the cxb2530s is 500mA, they are right about 50% efficient at that current. 900mA will bring them down to about 43% efficiency.

True, but then I would have to drill and tap for twice as many screws haha! Seriously though, that might work better anyway. I have only two lights over each tray at 900ma and would rather have 4 to more evenly illuminate the plants when they are closer to the lights. I have to keep them 6-8 inches over the plants now to keep the light even. Since the COB prices seem to keep going down it is probably best to have more at lower current/better efficiency and better coverage. Will give that a try for my next expansion!

Funny though about the species being grown by most people indoors... I got a lot of good info from those folks but alas I am growing just vegetables. That is why I went with the 3000k COB's. But it sure seems like many of the plants I have grown have been doing just as well if not better under the 6500k XT-E's of my original setup.

The drivers Im using are good for 30 - 50v at 650mA so I put 1 2530 @ 3000k and 1 smaller 9v cob on each. The 9v cobs are 5700k, to add a bit of blue boost. I havent used them enough to know if this makes a difference or not, and its a pretty makeshift setup, Ive got 2 of the 5700k 9v cobs and 5 36v 3000k cobs attached to a heatsink I got from heatsinkusa, the 1.8" wide x 42" long one, fairly reasonably priced... Ive got some of the cidly aquabar lights that use 3w leds that are 6500k, 2700k, 660red repeating and they seem to work great!

Comparison picture of my 75gal aquarium with 2 48" florescent 'grow' tubes replaced with 2 36" aquabars using about the same electricity. Night and day difference and plants went crazy!

Im using a different spectrum for my aquarium than my plants, but measured from my phone app, they LED lights, measured at 12 inches below the light, are about 4x as bright as the old one, in lumens.

This heatsink with fan for "CPU VGA Video Card " is being sold for $1.34 (bargain):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Latest-Cooling-Fan-Heatsink-Cooler-For-CPU-VGA-Video-Card-DMX/172218774358?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D36861%26meid%3D9fec3b65fcbc41ebb38012335da16bdd%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D262453359890

It appears to be the same as the ones for 10W LEDs being sold for $2.65 (not a bargain):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10W-High-Power-LED-gold-Aluminum-Heatsink-with-fan-light-Cooling-Cooler-DC12V-/151991925593?hash=item23636cbb59:g:F6UAAOSwFqJWhdC6

As you can see here,

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10W-Cold-White-6000-6500K-High-Power-LED-10W-Driver-44mm-Lens-10w-Heatsink-kit/252404211912?_trksid=p999999.c100623.m-1&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160323102634%26meid%3D26de59530335488087d76cd4a03335f9%26pid%3D100623%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D151991925593

the holes on the heatsink can be used to mount a lens and reflector for $2.90 (not a bargain). But, the holes on the lens mounting bracket needs to be extended inwards about 0.5mm because the fit is not exact. Easy enough to do with a hand drill. A picture of the completed assembly is shown in my post here:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3036793/post-your-led-light-setup-veg-and-effective-coverage?n=38

In the Menards advertising insert of today's Chicago Tribune, they advertise Hillsboro LED bulbs, "general purpose 60 watt equivalent" 2 pack, and "65 watt Equivalent BR30" (single) for $1.99. Those are the lowest prices I've seen.

In Menards' advertising insert of today's Chicago Tribune, they advertise American Fluorescent shop lights for $9.99 after a $5 mail in rebate, limit 4.

Also, Catchmaster mouse traps 4-Pack for $0.88 ! Wow!

In Menards' advertising insert of today's Chicago Tribune, they advertise LightingScience (brand) LED 60 watt equivalent bulbs 2 pack for $1.77 after 11% rebate. The bad thing about these kind of bulbs is that sockets and reflectors for them are much more expensive than the bulbs. Otherwise, it would, in a practical sense, be an outstanding bargain.