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LED Help Please!!!

FLAgreenthumb

FLAgreenthumb

Active member
OK..ok i know everyones always asking which brand is best but Iam going to be buying lighting for a 4x8 canopy...and I know I want led..
The front runner is lush lighting, with kind and growblu in a tie at second...I also like the Hydrogrow 189x and the SOL9 450w... i would like to spend as little as possible...lol

any help would be greatly appreciated....:smoker:
 
F

flae

I use a lighthouse 720 and have top quality results.

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3dDream

3dDream

Matter that Appreciates Matter
Veteran
I am only lighting a small space and originally was going to buy a chinese led light. I did not like the idea of buying junk, but I also did not want to wire up a dozen lights. If you want the most quality then you need to make your own. It is the only way to get the most bang for your buck. I spent my money across the parts: 25% heatsink, 30% led, 40% driver, 5% extra stuff (wire, thermal adhesive). When it was all done I spent less money and I have better parts; It just cost me time. My setup can be cooled without a fan because I purchased the biggest heatsink I could. I designed it to be that way. I find most of the led's I have seen are designed to be cheap, not long lasting.

Best of luck!
 
3dDream

3dDream

Matter that Appreciates Matter
Veteran
PetFlora, that is the junk I am talking about. That light is waaay cheaper than the parts. The heatsinks are smaller than a pc heatsink, the drivers are half the wattage they claim, the case is made of tin, there is no mention of the light intensity, and if I have problems I have to ship it across the planet. Most of the US based sellers seem to be middlemen for the chinese junk. I don't need people who make junk more expensive. Ok, I am done ranting. Sorry, I think it can be done cheaper than that.
 
F

flat9

Member
The hydrogrowled 189x will NOT cover a 4 x 4 canopy if your idea was to use two of them for your 4 x 8. The 336x will cover about a 3 x 3 area. In fact most LED models out there don't adequately cover a 4 x 4, sans the Sol 9, which from the reviews and info I've read was specifically designed to enhance the coverage and has a pretty amazing reflector design. For a flowering footprint, the 189x it will absolutely rock a 2 x 2 area, but not much beyond that. The Sol 9 model is much better at coverage, but as there are fewer photons concentrated in one area, not as good penetration. See in particular the PAR graph from HGL's website for the 189x here:

189X_04.png


This graph is showing you PAR over a 3 x 3 footprint. Focus on 24" height, and note how narrow the peak is in relation to the entire footprint -- by the time you get north of 1000 umol/(s - m^2), which is where cannabis thrives, you're essentially looking at a 2 x 2 space at best.

For a 4 x 8 space, if you can keep the temperatures in check (which may require an A/C), 8 of the 189x's would work wonders. W/ my kill-a-watt meter I measured these lights at about 270-280 watts, so this would be like throwing about 1100 watts over that area. Of course, Gavita 1000 DE Pro will do pretty well over that area too for the same amount of watts, so don't get caught in the LED mentality for your only options.

Oh and also, don't waste your time actually ordering from HGL if you go with the penetrators. The EXACT same lights can be had from BSLED for about a third of the cost, delivered to your door w/ a 3 year warranty in about 3 or 4 days.

PS Reference on PPFD and photosynthesis rates for cannabis:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3550641/
 
F

flat9

Member
Grower's House also has been doing some great PAR testing on LEDs. Check out their website, and also this:

http://growershouse.com/images/ALTEST_infographic_1.pdf

It actually seems that you're best of using a CMH bulb in that 4 x 4 space out of all of the lamps considered. Well, sort of. I'd take the Kind given these test results, and here's why....

PAR is the total area underneath the 400 - 700 nm region, but this area is not weighted by the rate of photosynthesis. In other words, I'd take the same number of watts at 660 nm over 500 nm in a heartbeat, even though both contribute to photosynthesis. California Lightworks came up with a much better method of doing a weighted integral to evaluate PAR, with the weights being the rate of photosynthesis at the particular wavelength. Called "adjusted PAR," this should be the industry standard, but unfortunately no one uses it yet:

http://www.californialightworks.com/info/CLW_Pres.pdf
 
F

flat9

Member
Hi PetFlora I have used the BSLED units and they in fact provide HGL with their pods for the Penetrators. There are also tons of documented grows on autoflower.net with them.

Here are the differences between BSLED SP Series and HGL Penetrator Pro Series:

-- The HGL units have a more spiffy power supply that lets you toggle some of the LED pods on instead of all of them, which is nice for seedlings and early veg.
-- The HGL units have quieter PC fans


To Made-in-China bashers:
Finally and pre-emptively, to whomever says something like, "cheap Chinese crap," congratulations, as you're an idiot. A large portion of the LEDs that Cree make are made in China. Furthermore, I doubt you'd claim that Apple computers or the iPhone is crap, yeah? Also made in China.

If you want to spend 3 times as much, be my guest, but you're just wasting your $.
 
F

flat9

Member
Also PetFlora, the CholorBA2 is akin to the HGL Sol-9 as far as I can tell (tough with a different lens/reflector design), but it's far more pricey, and also has fewer watts. The deal from BSLED is really the SP series, which can be had for about 1 USD per watt, less shipping, which will cost another 100 on top if you go air shipping.
 
3dDream

3dDream

Matter that Appreciates Matter
Veteran
flat9 - I don't trust chinese manufactures claims, hell, they can't even get the wattage right. Also cree isn't outsourcing, they are an american company with a factory in china(google and you will find they had quality issues in china). That is different than a chinese factory making tin boxes with leds that are 2 years behind the USA. The chinese only copy what is old, they don't make new things. Your example of apple is still an american company making a product in china, not the same as a Chinese led maker in china. It is cheaper to make your own and the parts will be binned by their qualities. Where can I find the specs of Chinese bins? you can't.

most chinese lights = 2 year old tech made to be as cheap as possible by companies that are given free land and subsides by their government

Yeah, how can I compete with that price?
 
Last edited:
F

flat9

Member
BSLED supplies HGL. Is now HGL crap because it's from China? Again, is Apple crap? You can believe whatever you want to, but all you're conveying is your own ignorance.

Now if you don't want to pay a lower price due to labor concerns, that's a fair point. But just saying it's crap because it's Chinese ... well, is crap. Again, counterexample: Apple.
 
rives

rives

Inveterate Tinkerer
Mentor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Apple is not a good example of the average, or even better-than-average, Chinese gear. There are companies that have made Chinese manufacturing work, but they have made a huge commitment to creating their own culture there - per your example, look at what Apple has done. I worked for a company that built a factory in China, and it was a nightmare for people coming from a western manufacturing background. Where one of our facilities here would typically have one QC person for about every 40 manufacturing people, the facility there was staffed with a 1:3 ratio. Even at that, once we got the first shipload of product to the states, a re-manufacturing facility had to be built on the docks because the product was so far off-spec that it was unsalable.
 
F

flat9

Member
Anecdotes are not indicative of anything. I don't doubt there exists crappy products in China, just as there exists crappy products in the US. But the notion that it's crap because it is Chinese is frankly racist and ignorant.

Furthermore, there seems to be a problem with logic here. People seem to be saying, "if Chinese, then crap." All I have to do is provide one counterexample to disprove this, and I did (well two actually -- BSLED aka HGL and Apple).
 
PetFlora

PetFlora

Well-known member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
<b>I contacted Bysen as their product page did not show price

Good news

Buy > 2 and get free shipping lol

Bad news $1500!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's their response:

Nice day,

It's so wise for you to choose Bysen,as you know,we're the top one&first one in led grow light.

ChloroBA C2 is the most hi-tech type all over the world now,it spent 20 of our engineers 4 years time to design out,par value 3860umol,2-3 times than common types,wavelength 380-850nm,quite similar to sunshine but better than sunshine.

The unit price is USD1500 but of course will have a better price for our retailer,shipping charge to America is USD105.67,free shipping if more than 2pcs.

Our end users are quite crazy with this type now because it can reduce at least 20% of the growth time and almost double the yield,especially perfect for medical plants.

I think it will have a good market there in America,by what's the most popular type for you now Rob?

and mine...

Thank you for the reply

If your new light was say a Ferrari (provide actual visceral thrills) I could understand being so far removed price-wise from say buying a base model Hyundai, but it’s for growing plants

The horticulture market is much smarter than you give us credit for

COB chips like you are using are available @ ~ $50-100, depending on wattage

The basic style/design you use has been in place for ~ one year, and exists at 1/5th the price: I can assure you, it provides ~ 90% of the ability

Even if your company reduced the price by half, it till would not represent good value compared to similar product offerings

RobH​
</b>
 
N

newtothiscoco

hey man there is allot if bad bad led out there on the marked that is why i did not go with the led for my set up, but i like the fact that this is the new dope thing's on the marked for growing.

if i ever would buy a led set up finish, i would go with Black Dog Led, only because i know they are legit and do not lie about there product's like many other company's do.
and they have ben around for many years now :)
but its high prices and its high quality. like allot of other company's
ppl need to chose wisely when they buy led' light's

peace-
 
F

flat9

Member
PetFlora said:
<b>I contacted Bysen as their product page did not show price

Good news

Buy > 2 and get free shipping lol

Bad news $1500!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's their response:

Nice day,

It's so wise for you to choose Bysen,as you know,we're the top one&first one in led grow light.

ChloroBA C2 is the most hi-tech type all over the world now,it spent 20 of our engineers 4 years time to design out,par value 3860umol,2-3 times than common types,wavelength 380-850nm,quite similar to sunshine but better than sunshine.

The unit price is USD1500 but of course will have a better price for our retailer,shipping charge to America is USD105.67,free shipping if more than 2pcs.

Our end users are quite crazy with this type now because it can reduce at least 20% of the growth time and almost double the yield,especially perfect for medical plants.

I think it will have a good market there in America,by what's the most popular type for you now Rob?

and mine...

Thank you for the reply

If your new light was say a Ferrari (provide actual visceral thrills) I could understand being so far removed price-wise from say buying a base model Hyundai, but it’s for growing plants

The horticulture market is much smarter than you give us credit for

COB chips like you are using are available @ ~ $50-100, depending on wattage

The basic style/design you use has been in place for ~ one year, and exists at 1/5th the price: I can assure you, it provides ~ 90% of the ability

Even if your company reduced the price by half, it till would not represent good value compared to similar product offerings

RobH​
</b>
Click to expand...

Yep they're not discounting that model at all. The Sol 9 is a better value
 
rives

rives

Inveterate Tinkerer
Mentor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
flat9 said:
Anecdotes are not indicative of anything. I don't doubt there exists crappy products in China, just as there exists crappy products in the US. But the notion that it's crap because it is Chinese is frankly racist and ignorant.

Furthermore, there seems to be a problem with logic here. People seem to be saying, "if Chinese, then crap." All I have to do is provide one counterexample to disprove this, and I did (well two actually -- BSLED aka HGL and Apple).
Click to expand...

It has nothing to do with either racism or ignorance - at least in my case, it comes from long experience with a corporate purchasing department trying desperately to make themselves look good by buying the most inexpensive products available with no concern for the quality of the product. A huge number of Chinese companies are willing to, among other things, falsify specifications to make the sale - I could give you hundreds of examples, but I'm sure that they would be dismissed as anecdotal.

Your examples are of no value because they aren't indicative of the norm - Apple could go into any country in the world and make quality products because of the lengths that they have gone to in order to insure that level of quality. If you think that you are going to find that quality with random picks from Alibaba, you are deceiving yourself. China will eventually raise their overall standard, as Japan did, but the time when the quality of their average product is on a par with other manufacturing centers is a long way off.
 
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