What is the crowd's opinion of TRAN Student Artist Portfolio, 27 by 40-Inch, Black?

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I built a LiteMat 4 Plus equivalent for around $1000CAD ($750USD), 200W, 2700-6000K, complete with bag, eggcrate, CCT/dim controller, all UL listed or equivalent parts

Soonwell and Intellytech produce similar size/power mats for not much more money and would save you a ton of time building, but I enjoyed having customizability / being able to vet all the parts myself

EMITTERS
I went with Berix LED, as one of few Chinese suppliers that will easily sell 24V CRI95+ strip directly to you.
https://www.berixled.com/s-95
Their 2216 240LED/m strip is probably the cheapest per watt 2700K CRI 95+ strip out there available at retail. I haven't taken a Sekonic meter to it or anything, but compared to Kino and Arri LEDs and I found it accurate; even the big manufacturers' units have slight variability in green/magenta/CCT and I found the strips are within that acceptably tight range. UL Listed. Under $300 CAD for 2 x 2700K 5m rolls + 2 x 6000K rolls

Moss LED in Toronto has ~1x4' long multiline sheets of 2700-6000K which save you time soldering strips together and reduce possible failure points. They also sell strip but I think the ML24 series is cheaper per watt (and already LiteMat form factor). More expensive than Berix though, $1200 CAD for 2 x 1 metre ML24

LiteGear sells strip but its way more expensive last I checked

There are other manufacturers out and about like BetterWay which has presence on the big shows but didn't seem to have any advantage for this dirt cheap type of thing, last I checked

Regardless of supplier, 24V is advantageous vs 12V since less voltage drop over your head cables and also going along your strip.

CONNECTORS
Phoenix connectors are possibly the cheapest and most flexible option but are annoying for easily getting yanked out (see: LiteGear S2). There are some ways of mitigating this somewhat but it will always be an occasional issue.

I went with Moss' proprietary locking 5-pin connector system to avoid those headaches and bit the bullet on a 16' head cable.

Another friend who built mats with Moss tech went with what I believe was Anderson power pole connectors and enjoyed that as another non-film cheap alternative to Phoenix but I believe with less hassle of cables pulling out.

CONTROLLERS

If you are trying to make the cheapest possible build, Moss, LiteGear, BetterWay, and even some generic Chinese manufacturers make 4-6 channel DMX controllers which have manual control mode. However its a huge pain in the ass to adjust intensity levels once you have a CCT that isn't straight daylight or straight tungsten; say you have 85% CH1 (tungsten) and 30% CH2 (daylight) set to match another fixture, and you want to dim down until it looks good on camera, you'll need to hop back and forth dimming down each channel trying to maintain the ratio

I went with Moss LED LuxBox 3. I find as gaffer a CCT control is key to make it easy for your crew to adjust as well as if the DoP asks "what intensity are we at" you can easily tell them vs trying to read multiple DMX channels.

LiteGear's controllers are smaller but more expensive than the LuxBox

POWER

Meanwell produces quality LED power supplies, available on Amazon. Its ideal to get a power supply that exceeds your maximum output by 10%. The Moss LuxBox is designed to work with the Meanwell GSM-style power supplies with the r7b connector. The 24V 220W unit is the largest GSM-style supply there is, under $100 on Amazon.

Meanwell also produces larger power supplies but with bare leads.

MOUNT

I selected the Kupo VESA mount for being basically identical to the new LiteGear style, and attached it ton oversized coroplast pad the size of an iPad which affixes to actual the mat via velcro.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/.../kupo_kg27111_vesa...

Joshua MacDonald built his with I believe aftermarket Kino mount and mating backplate which is quite legit; I decided to pinch pennies going with the cheaper VESA and have found the huge velcro surface area has been quite secure.

EGGCRATE

You can find cheaper soft eggcrates out there but its often impossible to tell whether they're 90° which I find is not very useful. I went with this 40° 36x48" grid and chopped it down, attaching new hard side velcro where necessary

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/.../impact_lbg_r_l_fabric...

I experimented with square-cell hard eggcrate similar to LiteGear on a previous version but found it was heavy and fragile

Keeping it 40" and under will ensure you can fit in most vehicles. It also becomes hard to find bags. Here's one that worked for me:
https://www.amazon.ca/.../ref=pe_3034960_236394800_TE_dp_1

Feel free to hit me up directly

Again, it took easily 20+ hrs to build a proper fixture, and that's already avoiding a lot of trial-and-error from experience. When generic manufacturers have similar offerings for not much more money, I think this route is not necessarily for everyone