To start with, I'm sure there are others using this type of product already, however I haven't seen this exact type of lighting mentioned at all around here so I thought I'd toss it out there.
TL;DR crowd: This is not your typical LED rope lighting. The brightest "super bright" rope lighting on the market is maximum 80 lumens per foot. The LED ribbon lighting (note the different term) I'm working with is 230 lumens per foot.
Okay, here goes...
We all know about LED rope lighting and LED lighting in general. Generally speaking, it is seen as good secondary lighting in most applications. In our hobby, it is mostly used as supplemental lighting to fill in the shadows and dark areas where regular lighting can't reach. LED lighting is widely viewed just not being bright enough to get the job done.

LED Super Ribbon on a reel
I'm glad to say that is no longer the case. Now, I'm not here to say that LED lighting is going to replace the use of CFL's and standard fluoro's when it comes to our hobby. What I am here to do however, is to broaden your view in terms of what's available these days in the LED lighting market. It's time to expand your mind beyond the simple low-light output LED rope lighting we've all come to know.
In the last few years, the industry I work in (closely tied to LED lighting as you might have guessed) has seen a lot of rapid development in terms of application-specific LED lighting. Most importantly, the brightness of the LEDs has improved while the cost has come down. There are also now literally hundreds of companies in Asia manufacturing and exporting these products, as to be expected.
When I got into mushroom cultivation, I began to think of the potential applications for this brighter type of LED lighting for use as a main source of lighting for the growth cycle. I took the plunge and decided to try some "super bright" LED ribbon lighting for my first grow, rather than mess about with CFL's and fluoro's.

This is what it looks like close up
I ordered my LED ribbon from a company called Orient Lighting. They are a wholesaler of lighting, however you can order samples from them directly if you're willing to pay a lot for freight. These guys (and about a hundred others like them) supply all kinds of cool LED lighting for accent lighting and all other sorts of purposes. I have some of their
color chasing RGB lighting installed under my bar, it's the coolest shit ever. Makes for a great trip toy, let me tell ya that much!
The ribbon that I am using is the brightest white LED ribbon available on the market today. I'm sure there are brighter ones in development, and there might already be brighter ones on the market (such as the
SMD5050 strips which are comparable), but the point is that this is pretty much as bright as you can get until the next wave of super bright SMD LEDs come out.
The model that I am using (
datasheet) comes as a flexible ribbon on a 5 meter (16.4') roll. Depending on supplier, the cost works out to about $7.30 per foot. Every 1.5" there is a cut mark for custom lengths. I simply measured and cut lengths at 16.5" to fit over top of my fruiting chamber. Each cut location has a power terminal, so it's easy to simply connect a connector to the end of the LED strip for easy installation. The best part is, the strip has 3M tape on the back of it, all you do is peel off the backing and adhere the strip where you want it to go.

SGFC with an LED twist!
The ribbon has 3 LEDs every 1.5", so my 16.5" lengths have 33 LEDs each. I'm using 4 lengths over top of my FC for maximum light output, and also because I have a nifty 4-way power connector that is easy to connect these things to. Each LED outputs 9.5 lumens of light, which doesn't sound like a lot but when you add it up, the 4 strips put out 1254 lumens which is a considerable amount of light.
I should also add, the strips do warm up a bit, but nothing major. As you can see from the pics I have them installed directly on the ceiling and there isn't any issue with heat dissipation, etc. Since it's 12VDC there is low to no risk of fire using this type of lighting. The only risk point for fire would be the power transformer, as long as you're using a UL/CE/cUL/CSA certified (depending where you live) transformer you'll be fine. I don't recommend installing the ribbon on the ceiling like I have though, now I'll have to paint it a bit when I pull the strips off. D'oh!

Note the sweet 4-way connector
Recently I've been wondering if this is bright enough for my little guys, and wasn't sure how to determine if I have enough light for my setup. Then I saw
this post by Mad_Hatter2004, who I want to thank for the math involved in the next part.
My shotgun fruiting chamber is a Sterilite #1925. The dimensions of the tub are 16.38"L x 13.25"W x 11.63"H. This gives us an area of 217" square inches, or 1.51' square feet.
My four strips of LED ribbon throw 1254 lumens of light on top of the SGFC. 1254 lumens / 1.51' gives us 830.46 lumens/sq ft. Using the handy-dandy
lux-to-lumens converter, that means my SGFC is receiving
8939 lux!!! I've read that RR recommends 2000 lux for more pins and heavier dry weight, hopefully nearly 9000 lux isn't overdoing it.

It seems I could even get away with one 16.5" strip (2235 lux) for each SGFC, or two strips (4470 lux). I chose to use four however to get the maximum light output without overkill. Then again, I might have to add another strip just so I can say I have
OVER 9000 lux hitting my SGFC.

If you're curious about power, my four strips draw a total of 27.68 watts. I'm using a standard 12VDC 60 watt transformer that's normally used for CCTV systems. Any 12VDC supply would work, I've even used old AT/ATX computer power supplies as a 12V supply before, they actually work pretty decent. Great way to recycle old equipment too!
Overall cost of this project was about $63: $40 for the LED lighting, $20 for the power transformer, and $3 for the power splitter. In case you're curious how much 27.68 watts of power costs, assuming it's on for 12 hours a day year long (4380 hours), my strips will use 121.24 kilowatt-hours. Where I'm from, electricity costs $0.10/kwh which means I'm only spending $12.12 to provide 8939 lux to my SGFC all year long.


Let there be light!
Some might think this type of LED lighting is more expensive than CFL lighting. I disagree. If you want to talk value, we have to look at long term costs. The LED strips are rated to last for 50,000 hours of use. That's
11.4 years of lifetime when used for 12 hours per day. Including electricity cost, and assuming I'll have to buy another power brick in that timeframe, with LED lighting it costs me
$221.17 to light my SGFC for 11.4 years.
Let's compare this to CFL lighting. We'll compare using 2 bulbs since they provide 11960 lux (according to Mad_Hatter2004's post) which is closer to the lux provided by the above LED example. Since each
CFL bulb is rated for 8000 hours you will go through 12.5 bulbs to get 11.4 years of light. At $7.49 per bulb, that's
$93.63 just for bulbs. Oh, and you've just put
over 31mg of mercury into your local landfill, but let's forget about that for a moment.
We also have to factor in the cost of the light fixtures. Let's say our two fixtures cost $15 total. Now we have to look at power usage. Two bulbs use 52 watts of power, which at 12 hours per day will use 227.76 kilowatt-hours per year. Assuming your electricity cost is $0.10/kwh, you're looking at $22.78 per year of electricity costs. That's
$259.69 over 11.4 years.
So if a new grower was planning to use two CFL's to light his/her grow area, over the next 11.4 years he can expect to spend
$368.32 in materials and electricity. Whereas if he chose super bright LED ribbon, his overall cost is $221.17. Oh, and he would be putting 0mg of mercury into his local landfill (unlike with the CFL example), which I can guarantee the mushroom citizens of said landfill would be happy about if they could tell us so.
There you have it. I encourage other growers to try this type of product out and post their results. I also wanted to add, they have the exact same product in an IP68 waterproof version, which I am planning on ordering at some point to install on the inside of my mini-MSG when I get it up and running. I'm thinking of installing it under the lid and using connectors for easy removal and maintenance, etc. I think the mini-MSG's might benefit from internal, high brightness lighting and this type of product can provide it elegantly.
In regards to the project, those are 3 PF cakes birthed about 2 days ago. I have 3 more cakes nearly ready to go in. I'll be sure to start a grow log thread with pics once I've got something to show for my efforts.
Finally, if you've made it this far by reading my monolithic post and not just scrolling through it, I'd like to offer you a nice shiny

in reward for your efforts. Cheers!