LED Retailers...

[rives]

The way retailers market LED lights is # of LED's x their watt (3 usually) = wattage.
The Blackstar 240 has 80 3W LED = 240W.

This is frequently correct, but there are exceptions. The Lumigrow, for instance, actually pulls what the name infers. The ES330 pulls 330 watts and the ES165 pulls 165 watts. There are others that stick with this convention. If you look at the charts on the first page, you will see what each of them actually pull. You might want to be careful of the models that are named as oneshot said - many of these manufacturers are driving there leds at far less than they are capable of because they don't have the cooling to push them any harder. Again, spend some time getting familiar with the charts, the information is all there.

 

[Hold Your Fire]

I see that Cali Light works used 5w led's while most are 3's. I notice they are made in th US, too.
Are 5's better?

I'm a total LED noob, but have a 2x2 space to fill, thinking it may be time to test the waters.

 

[oneshot]

http://ledgrow.eu/

This guy is starting to sell his panels. 33 LEDs per panel, don't know if all of them are Cree XP-E, up to 45 watts, somewhat adjustable? 240USD including powersupply. Someone should mail him and ask the bins he's using Just wondering how they are cooled, didn't see any heatsinks or fans?

I like that panel. 45W doesn't sound like much though :/ They could be passively cooled like the EVO panels.

This is frequently correct, but there are exceptions. The Lumigrow, for instance, actually pulls what the name infers. The ES330 pulls 330 watts and the ES165 pulls 165 watts. There are others that stick with this convention. If you look at the charts on the first page, you will see what each of them actually pull. You might want to be careful of the models that are named as oneshot said - many of these manufacturers are driving there leds at far less than they are capable of because they don't have the cooling to push them any harder. Again, spend some time getting familiar with the charts, the information is all there.

Definitely. That's why I mentioned the first post Was just using my light as an example.

 

[Megas]

This thread needs a list to the actual manufacturers websites. It's like you google something and you get 5 mother companies selling panels too.
So I saw a Grow LED Hydro 240W do well against the blackstar 240, so I googled this GLH 240. I can't seem to find it anywhere. Anyone know if they sitll make it?
http://bubbleponics.com/forum/showt...ar-240W-side-by-side-with-Grow-LED-Hydro-240W

 

[rives]

I know that the fellow who owns GLH has done a lot of shuffling around with his models and names over the last year. He renamed them all based on the power drawn to try and get away from some of the confusion that you have noted. Oddly, some of his units used more power than their name would infer. I think he used to have four models, and now I only see three.

http://www.growledhydro.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=0

 

[oneshot]

This thread needs a list to the actual manufacturers websites. It's like you google something and you get 5 mother companies selling panels too.
So I saw a Grow LED Hydro 240W do well against the blackstar 240, so I googled this GLH 240. I can't seem to find it anywhere. Anyone know if they sitll make it?
http://bubbleponics.com/forum/showt...ar-240W-side-by-side-with-Grow-LED-Hydro-240W

http://growledhydro.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=0

They are SPECTRA series now. Good lights.

 

[Megas]

I know that the fellow who owns GLH has done a lot of shuffling around with his models and names over the last year. He renamed them all based on the power drawn to try and get away from some of the confusion that you have noted. Oddly, some of his units used more power than their name would infer. I think he used to have four models, and now I only see three.

http://www.growledhydro.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=0

Shux, they seem to be really nice panels but a little too much for me.
Finding something for $300 is harder than I thought $300-400 adding an extra $100 who would you go with?
Company in North America.

Anyone have experience with a HTG UFO (not round) 7 Band 240w LED Grow Light?
http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-7-Band-240w-LED-Grow-Light.asp
I didn't see it on the first page

 

[RaNgEr RiCk]

Just found this story.

http://gizmodo.com/5890719/scientists-create-230+percent-efficient-led-bulbs

 

[joejusttyped]

Damn that sucks my blackstar 240 is actually a 135 :/

I wanna upgrade and get a secondary panel this year, was thinking about a GLH 180 or 300 if I have the dough to spare. Is there a different brand I should be looking at or is growledhydro good enough?

 

[GP73LPC]

k+ for all the led info man

what's the word on the evo led lights?

I like it they have no fans, silent.

thanks again

peace!

there are two threads here...

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=215147

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=221916

maybe one could get a very good performance out of the evos using other supplemental lighting; in my head the best would be t5s. introducing hids to the mix would defeat the point of low consumption low heat.

I'm thinking two evo led 90 v3 plus bloom t5s for flowering.

for vegging just plain good t5s, 70% blues and 30% reds.

did a quick calculation in my head and would need about 2k dollars to get all the lights up and running though, kinda pricey. but very low heat, more silent and less consumption, many pros and just one con, price.

no IR from the LEDs either...

This is frequently correct, but there are exceptions. The Lumigrow, for instance, actually pulls what the name infers. The ES330 pulls 330 watts and the ES165 pulls 165 watts. There are others that stick with this convention. If you look at the charts on the first page, you will see what each of them actually pull. You might want to be careful of the models that are named as oneshot said - many of these manufacturers are driving there leds at far less than they are capable of because they don't have the cooling to push them any harder. Again, spend some time getting familiar with the charts, the information is all there.

http://ledgrow.eu/

This guy is starting to sell his panels. 33 LEDs per panel, don't know if all of them are Cree XP-E, up to 45 watts, somewhat adjustable? 240USD including powersupply. Someone should mail him and ask the bins he's using Just wondering how they are cooled, didn't see any heatsinks or fans?

i have bookmarked one of his grows in my LED Results: Grams Per Watt thread...

I see that Cali Light works used 5w led's while most are 3's. I notice they are made in th US, too.
Are 5's better?

I'm a total LED noob, but have a 2x2 space to fill, thinking it may be time to test the waters.

welcome man... just keep in mind those Cali Lightworks are not drawing 5 watts per LED, probably only 3, so expect the 200w to be 130-140w and the 800watt to be 550-600watts...

This thread needs a list to the actual manufacturers websites. It's like you google something and you get 5 mother companies selling panels too.
So I saw a Grow LED Hydro 240W do well against the blackstar 240, so I googled this GLH 240. I can't seem to find it anywhere. Anyone know if they sitll make it?
http://bubbleponics.com/forum/showt...ar-240W-side-by-side-with-Grow-LED-Hydro-240W

putting up links to all these retailers would probably violate the TOU... I was happy it got to continue as is...

thanks for the links...

Shux, they seem to be really nice panels but a little too much for me.
Finding something for $300 is harder than I thought $300-400 adding an extra $100 who would you go with?
Company in North America.

Anyone have experience with a HTG UFO (not round) 7 Band 240w LED Grow Light?
http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-7-Band-240w-LED-Grow-Light.asp
I didn't see it on the first page

you should spend as much as you possibly can afford. it will payoff in quality...

Just found this story.

http://gizmodo.com/5890719/scientists-create-230+percent-efficient-led-bulbs

thanks man

Damn that sucks my blackstar 240 is actually a 135 :/

I wanna upgrade and get a secondary panel this year, was thinking about a GLH 180 or 300 if I have the dough to spare. Is there a different brand I should be looking at or is growledhydro good enough?

lots of good ones; lumigrow, evo, onvi, welthink, among others...

 

[GP73LPC]

Just found this story.

http://gizmodo.com/5890719/scientists-create-230+percent-efficient-led-bulbs

thought i would quote the thread so people would read it here...




Scientists Create 230-Percent Efficient LED Bulbs

Light bulbs have always required more electricity than they need to produce light because the energy conversion process—changing electricity to light—was inefficient. But an MIT research team has just shown that an LED can actually give off more light than what it consumes in electricity.
Incandescent bulbs are the poster child of inefficient energy conversion. The devices heated a filament with an electrical current which not only produced light, but a lot of waste heat as well. Fluorescent bulbs, CFL's, and even conventional LED's all generate the same waste heat to varying (albeit much smaller) degrees but none has ever reached 100-percent efficiency—a mark known as "unity efficiency."
The team from MIT posited that while the bulbs energy requirements decrease at an exponential rate (halving the voltage reduces the input power by a factor of four), the lumen output would decrease linearly (halve the voltage and the lumens drop by half as well). This means that at some point, the amount of lumens the bulb is emitting would be more than the amount of energy spent—essentially "free" light.
Granted, this point occurs only when using minuscule amounts of electricity to power incredibly dim bulbs. In their experiments, the team was able to generate 69 picowatts of light from just 30 picowatts of energy. They did so by harnessing waste heat, which is caused by vibrations in the bulb's atomic lattice, to compensate for the losses in electrical power. The device also reacts to ambient heat in the room to increase its efficiency and power the bulb.
This process cools the bulb slightly and could eventually be employed to manufacture "cold" bulbs that don't generate any heat, only light. And, since the same physical mechanism from these tiny bulbs can be applied to any LED, they likely will be.

 

[GP73LPC]

k+ for all the led info man

what's the word on the evo led lights?

I like it they have no fans, silent.

thanks again

peace!

here's one more for ya...

this one runs the evo against the new onvi snake 42w...

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=219831

 

[bombadil.360]

here's one more for ya...

this one runs the evo against the new onvi snake 42w...

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=219831

thanks man

although that thread is not that objective, since the guy using the snakes is the manufacturer; as Ive found out in other spanish speaking forums. still, the snakes do look pretty good, just not much info on them, like what kind of leds they use etc...

also contacted the evo guys to ask if they had fixed the wiring issues discussed at another thread here at ic, the habeeb thread if I remember correctly, and got an answer that I dunno what to make of yet, since they gave me all sorts of info but did not directly answered me my specific question on wiring. but that could be since they fixed it or something, afterall, people from the habeeb thread got in touch with them a few months ago and made them aware of the issue.

I've been looking at the phillips leds for growing, looks interesting too; just gotta be able to assemble their strips into functionable lamps.

 

[oneshot]

I think I am going to buy one of these e.shine system lights. The sales guy told me some interesting stuff and the more research I do, the answer is still the same. It leads me to believe the LED market is even more profitable than I imagined! These US resellers are making a killing.

 

[bombadil.360]

hello oneshot,

e.shine, looks good, and very affordable prices. had not seen them before.

two things that I do not dig too much are:

1. they say this on the type of LEDs they use:

"LED Type: Epistar & BridgeLux / Cree or Lumi LED for custom requirements LED"

what does this really mean? you only get Cree leds if you custom order it? how much would the price go up?

2. the lamps have fans! which means noise... why can't they use a heat-sink instead?

other than that, they look really good. just need to research on their 'default' LED diodes' brands and see if they're quality.

and the noise from the fans can be dealt with one way or another...

a led ufo of 90w costs 108 USD... compare that to a 42w lamp that costs 200 euros...

peace!

 

[GP73LPC]

i'll add the e.shine systems lights to my charts... thanks

 

[oneshot]

hello oneshot,

e.shine, looks good, and very affordable prices. had not seen them before.

two things that I do not dig too much are:

1. they say this on the type of LEDs they use:

"LED Type: Epistar & BridgeLux / Cree or Lumi LED for custom requirements LED"

what does this really mean? you only get Cree leds if you custom order it? how much would the price go up?

2. the lamps have fans! which means noise... why can't they use a heat-sink instead?

other than that, they look really good. just need to research on their 'default' LED diodes' brands and see if they're quality.

and the noise from the fans can be dealt with one way or another...

a led ufo of 90w costs 108 USD... compare that to a 42w lamp that costs 200 euros...

peace!

1) The main led's in their growlights are Bridgelux LED's. They have CREE only systems available for their aqua line. The epistar I believe were in the older systems.

2) Yes the lamps have fans, I am not worried about that. The individual light sections are using heatsinks. The fans are just to exhaust out of the case. The Blackstar 240 I have currently has fans. Their 4G lights are made out of a new material and have much better cooling. I am not sure if they are passive or not though. I decided to go with the 126x3W 3G light.

http://www.eshinesystems.com/grow/3g-126x3w-led-grow-light.html

The reason?? This is HGL's 126x Penetrator light for 70% less. e.Shine makes that light for them. Since HGL is going to their new X2 lens, e.shine is allowed to tell people now. The lights are all modular inside as well. It is 100% HGL's light without the dumb cost or dealing with HGL. I get the same warranty as well and they ship all the parts to me DHL free of charge. It's a modular setup so replacing parts is plug and play.

They also are the supplier of Advancedled's Diamond series of lights.

http://www.advancedledlights.com/3w...iamond-series-leds-extreme-3w-led-technology/

I'm surprised e.Shine hasn't been on the lists already considering they make one of the more popular lights but just OEM and not stickered up. When talking to the sales rep last night a lot of people don't buy from them because they ship direct from China. Well, so does HGL lol. They dropship from the factory. I am comfortable buying from China direct as my 2nd business deals with importing stuff from China daily. The $600-$700 I am saving to buy direct is worth it

 

[sx646522]

What was your total cost for how many units shipped to your location, oneshot?

The reason?? This is HGL's 126x Penetrator light for 70% less. e.Shine makes that light for them...It is 100% HGL's light without the dumb cost or dealing with HGL.

You sure?

Looks like a knockoff to me. Look at the casing, and in particular the front emitter section...

These look more like the HGL units, down to the last detail:

126 x 3w

80 x 3w

Note that Ledstar also has a Website, but it isn't nearly as up-to-date as their 'baba sales pages. Typical POS Chinese site. (i.e. none of their new stuff. I take it most if not all their sales come from the Chinese manufacturer conglomerate sales sites, like ali and made-in-China)


There are also a few knockoffs w/ 15 LEDs per 'module':

Here and

Here

Just do a search for 'X-lens' on Alibaba and you'll find 'em.

Since HGL is going to their new X2 lens...

The whole 'X-Lens' concept that HGL has been spewing all over their site sounds like snake oil market-smarm salescrap to me. If you read the description on the third link above, you'll see that it's just a double PMMA lens over the LED.

The problem with all (optical-grade) lenses (whether plexiglass, or low-iron, high quality, solar window pane glass) is that you'll lose about 4% upon each transition from air-material and back due to refraction losses (i.e. 8% total), so putting two back-to-back also means you've lost ~15% of your total radiant energy, instead of just 8%.

(Usually, that 8% is an acceptable loss, given the angle reduction gains from using a single lensed system)

Since most add-on lenses are Lambertian anyway (which means that the intensity continues to drop off markedly at the edges vs. at the center), you're not only further reducing (concentrating) the beam into a smaller area, you're also losing (a larger % of, vs. the middle) peripheral intensity while doing so.

Does that sound like a good idea to people? I'd rather have as even a lighting pattern as possible for each emitter, myself.

This won't be as visible to the naked eye, but a light meter will definitely pick it up.

I decided to go with the 126x3W 3G light.

Hope it works for you. When you get it, of course run a journal! I'm sure some folks here would be interested...

-----------------------

I don't know what other people think, but running that many watts into the same space (i.e. all that heat in a metal casing) as the old 1w boards, even not running the emitters at max, is a recipe for disaster.

The whole 'bunch-of-LEDs-on-a-puck' concept is wrong, thermally irresponsible, and perpetuates the traditional problems presented by HID point source lighting - namely, inconsistent coverage, distance-to-canopy, poor thermal management, varying intensities, and all the rest.

The EVOLEDs are a step in the right direction, at least. A good compromise between lighting-directly-over-the-plants, and the high cost of aluminum (heatsinks, etc.). I'd still prefer it if they spread their emitters out farther apart, though I understand their reasons for not doing so.

(I run scrog, not trees. To me - and many people: Uniform = Better.)

---

If it looks more like a wide fluorescent fixture running the length of your garden (than a 'buck-on-a-puck'), folks, it's good.

(Watch your head, though. If people prefer to keep 'em on a puck purely because they don't like to duck - or can't let go of long-held habits cultivated from growing with HIDs - well then, that's your problem, folks!)


Cheers,

-SX

 

[oneshot]

The light was $289.95 + $81 shipping DHL express. Which usually is overnight once they have it in my experience. $370. Was hesitant to post the #'s.

I know the whole X thing is marketing, but it really was the only way for me to quickly distinguish between the HGL lights out currently/future

I am fairly confident that they are the suppliers of the 126x. As far as the other HGL lights in the lineup, I have no idea. He only said they made the 126x for them and they aren't making their future ones. The advancedled thing is also true as well. They don't even redesign them or reskin them like HGL does. It's not hard for a company to stamp out a new case design, especially ones who make the cases . I don't think many chinese knockoffs would go to the effort to put in modular designs either and offer the 3yr warranty. e.Shine have been making aquarium lights for awhile too and I guess is their bigger business. The e.Shine lights are also daisy chainable, like the HGL lights. They are all Bridgelux LED's, you can get Cree bulbs in the lights as well. I just don't know what to 'pick' for Cree bulbs so I had them use Bridgelux.

Also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wFC...DvjVQa1PpcFMQyaRwz6CSxL7_qddJx_SDPFmXdmi_o9M= - This is the 1w version

Even the round unique electrical cord plugs. There is more evidence to lead me to believe they are the same lights than to deny it. If they are in fact 'fake' they are the best fakes I have seen. If someone has a shipping invoice from HGL on their 126 penetrator, we could compare addresses even.

As far as those other ones on aliexpress, they have different # of LED's and the power cords are run from the top. HGL lights don't run power cords at the top. Well at least the 80x3 does. The 126 says 120 LED's. The 120x3 has the power cord on the side. They are also only using Red/Blue LEDs?

The e.Shine 4g lights are going towards the 'EVO' lightbar trend:
http://www.eshinesystems.com/grow/4g-led-grow-light.html

They have a 96x3w in testing right now. I was going to get the 60x3w but I went with the 126x3w instead. I might be able to get the 4g in for next grow as a test. The company is pretty easy to deal with.

I agree with you on the thin flat style of LED lights but I don't have the $$ to invest in those EVO lights right now, I have to maximize what I have with the funds. If I was going full on room configuration, damn right I would dump into EVO lights I went with a trusted configuration that many people have used. I am not the one you want experimenting. I'll leave that up to god Phaeton! lol

Purchasing this light was more of a 'hmm I wonder' decision than based on maximizing potential. It's also another light to add to the growing list of retailers. I will have this on a Kill-A-Watt as well and anything else you guys might want to test. This has the potential to be a good choice in the list of lights. If it ends up being crap, oh well. My Blackstar light is just not cutting it and if this light is the 126x Penetrator, I should see a major difference I am still in the return window of the Blackstar as well.

 

[Highlighter]

I'll be watching with a lot of interest, as HGL's 126x Pro has been in my sights.
good luck!