Are your expensive LED lights holding up long term ??

q3corn · Oct 4, 2020

ElGato said:
So, on LED fixtures do the Diodes fade over time? what is the part that would usually go bad on an LED fixture? the Diodes? or the Driver? ...Both?

They both can go bad, but your diodes will drop in quality before the drivers will. But we're talking years. As others in this thread have noted, they're using the same lights 4+ years on. I've never made it more than 3 years with a light, and at the end of those years they still worked good enough to sell them to someone else who's been able to produce some really nice flower.

How bad is replacing a light every 4 years, anyway? Wouldn't you be replacing your hps bulbs 8 times over by then?

Dion · Oct 4, 2020

radioman said:
I don't trust cheap electronics from China. I thought about buying a LED light this past summer for a plant that I didn't put out with the others. I just couldn't after seeing that all the LED's that I looked into were made in China. No I would rather stick to my Made in America Hydrofarm Metal Halide & HPS lights - Yes I know that they are "Old Technology" - but I'm old- I'm probably the oldest grower here. They have worked for Me for years - Why should I switch? I just scored a new Hydrofarm Agrosun Gold 400 watt MH bulb that the local Agriculutral store never sold & I have a 4 month old Sonagrow Red 430 watt HPS bulb in my Hydrofarm HPS unit. I suppose if these lights ever failed Me that I would look into buying more lights. I actually like the heat because I use them in a cool room in the winter. No cheap made Chinese light for Me - I made a mistake & bought a Chinese electrical part for my car & it didn't last. I'm afraid if I bought a Chinese made light it would burn the house down when I wasn't there. This is just my opinion & I don't wish to cause any confrontation...

ElGato said:
So, on LED fixtures do the Diodes fade over time? what is the part that would usually go bad on an LED fixture? the Diodes? or the Driver? ...Both?

I am considering building a new Cabinet outfitted with LED lighting so this is of serious concern to me, I don't want to spend $300 + on a light just to have to replace it 3 years down the road ...especially since I already have a couple spare 400w hps fixtures.

You shouldn't switch to led
There is a whole environmental learning curve

In your shoes I would consider switching to led for your veg only

The cheaper it is the hotter it runs
When it runs hot diodes are less efficient, they die, drivers too

Switcher56 · Oct 5, 2020

stewart169 said:
I flat out refuse to willingly and knowingly buy ANYTHING made in china simply because they inflicted this virus on the world.

ROTFL

bs0 · Oct 10, 2020

Being xenophobic ain't gonna help you much in the long run. China makes everything.

There are plenty great products made in China. When it comes to LED it's literally the only place to choose from.

radioman said:
I don't trust cheap electronics from China. I thought about buying a LED light this past summer for a plant that I didn't put out with the others. I just couldn't after seeing that all the LED's that I looked into were made in China. No I would rather stick to my Made in America Hydrofarm Metal Halide & HPS lights - Yes I know that they are "Old Technology" - but I'm old- I'm probably the oldest grower here. They have worked for Me for years - Why should I switch? I just scored a new Hydrofarm Agrosun Gold 400 watt MH bulb that the local Agriculutral store never sold & I have a 4 month old Sonagrow Red 430 watt HPS bulb in my Hydrofarm HPS unit. I suppose if these lights ever failed Me that I would look into buying more lights. I actually like the heat because I use them in a cool room in the winter. No cheap made Chinese light for Me - I made a mistake & bought a Chinese electrical part for my car & it didn't last. I'm afraid if I bought a Chinese made light it would burn the house down when I wasn't there. This is just my opinion & I don't wish to cause any confrontation...

Mars Hydro Led · Oct 10, 2020

bs0 said:
Being xenophobic ain't gonna help you much in the long run. China makes everything.

There are plenty great products made in China. When it comes to LED it's literally the only place to choose from.

There are many individual workshops that have less capability to produce high quality lights.

chilliwilli · Oct 10, 2020

stewart169 said:
I flat out refuse to willingly and knowingly buy ANYTHING made in china simply because they inflicted this virus on the world.

Lol so no electronics for u anymoren no tv no mobile no pc,... Thats an naive statement.
The last decades it was ok to produce most if not all electronics in china(asia) because it made the profits so nice bigger. But now u refuse to buy it i doubt that lol

Guest · Oct 10, 2020

chilliwilli said:
Lol so no electronics for u anymoren no tv no mobile no pc,... Thats an naive statement.
The last decades it was ok to produce most if not all electronics in china(asia) because it made the profits so nice bigger. But now u refuse to buy it i doubt that lol

Whatever. You are obtuse and Im not trashing anything and in the future I will do my BEST to not buy anything made in china. I will NOT buy from china when I can find a product of comparable features. Sometimes you cant get around it and I hope down the road manufacturing shifts back to the US or North America. It may take years to see a big change but I hope more and more companies move their production out of china. When I was younger I heard many people complain about outsourcing of products and really didnt think much about it. As I get older and see the bigger picture now I get how important it is to keep the US North American manufacturing capacity going. If nothing else to keep china from becoming the sole source of a product.Rare Earth magnets are an example. The US just put a bunch of tarrifs on aluminum that china was selling to a couple of countries for pennies on the dollar to resell in the US and elsewhere as a sham like they came from Germany, Bahrain and Oman. But buy what you want from whomever. Someday it may be your line of work thats outsourced.

Switcher56 · Oct 10, 2020

We created the monster and now we want to put the genie back in the bottle??? Not going to happen. Don't get me wrong. I support your POV. Short strokes... the world economy simply can't support "made at home".

Anyone remember the show "Made in Maine" in the '80s? That was a great model which promoted reasonable profit over GREED. The community, looked after itself and each other. Now we would rather shoot each other. That didn't happen by accident!

indagroove · Oct 10, 2020

stewart169 said:
Whatever. You are obtuse and Im not trashing anything and in the future I will do my BEST to not buy anything made in china. I will NOT buy from china when I can find a product of comparable features. Sometimes you cant get around it and I hope down the road manufacturing shifts back to the US or North America. It may take years to see a big change but I hope more and more companies move their production out of china. When I was younger I heard many people complain about outsourcing of products and really didnt think much about it. As I get older and see the bigger picture now I get how important it is to keep the US North American manufacturing capacity going. If nothing else to keep china from becoming the sole source of a product.Rare Earth magnets are an example. The US just put a bunch of tarrifs on aluminum that china was selling to a couple of countries for pennies on the dollar to resell in the US and elsewhere as a sham like they came from Germany, Bahrain and Oman. But buy what you want from whomever. Someday it may be your line of work thats outsourced.

Switcher56 said:
We created the monster and now we want to put the genie back in the bottle??? Not going to happen. Don't get me wrong. I support your POV. Short strokes... the world economy simply can't support "made at home".

Anyone remember the show "Made in Maine" in the '80s? That was a great model which promoted reasonable profit over GREED. The community, looked after itself and each other. Now we would rather shoot each other. That didn't happen by accident!

There is a middle ground. You can buy boards from US based companies who used diodes made by Samsung overseas. Samsung produces in South Korea, China, and Taiwan. HLG is a good example of a company that you can feel good about supporting in terms of US labor, as they assemble many of their own boards, using top bin Samsung diodes.

zachrockbadenof · Oct 11, 2020

i hope in the future there is a day, when we can tell the chinese to FUK-OFF... and tell em go back into their caves....

bleepboop · Oct 11, 2020

I had meiju folux qb288 from the lm561c era with some intermittent/failed strings which was not particularly pleasant to be around. This could have been damage from sugary/mildly acidic knf foliars as the protection on the diodes certainly improved in later generations and I didn't experience the same any failures with the hinflux l09 legit Samsung 301b strips.

It was also receiving some bleed through current on the 240h-48b meanwell driver during lights out.

Things like UV supplements from epileds where the protective domes for the diodes were made from low quality silicone and broke down quite quickly from heat/UV damage.

All anecdotal but useful learning experiences on my part. Also spurred on my DIY efforts which were fun/fulfilling and recycled bits and bobs from other fields of electronics nicely.

I think you've certainly got to be pragmatic in your choices but the market is getting more refined every year. The initial success of HLG was certainly in no small part due to build quality and customer service.

indagroove · Oct 11, 2020

bleepboop said:
It was also receiving some bleed through current on the 240h-48b meanwell driver during lights out.

That sounds like an issue with your timer and/or AC wiring. Did you get it resolved?

bleepboop · Oct 11, 2020

I've found sometimes it's simply the quality of led driver/amount of current it needs to power up.

For instance I got a custom 10x3w epileds supplement strip and noticed it was doing that with the supplied no name 30w driver recently (after maybe 14 months use). 3 other meanwell HLG drivers on the same circuit I use for flowering times and not a problem there or with the single tiny osram block running 4x epiled far reds that's way way older.

I'm quite competent with problem solving power issues in other walks of life. I can't recall how it went with the Meiji folux boards or if they were on a different timer back then. Seems likely it was the same one that i'd used since the gavita days though.

It's possible with strings shorting that the forward voltage went very lower than 48v which made things easier.

It could have been issues with grounding further down the line from my distro. I know at one point my neutral feed was in a crappy state.

I am still using the same meanwell driver from the folux on some wideband phospher converted red 5050 strips without issue.

bleepboop · Oct 11, 2020

One last point being that I'm sure it's more likely with tiny class 2 shielded led drivers as they have no other avenue to dissipate excess energy, no matter how small the residual current is that's feeding them. It ain't no chonky torroidal transformer in that ballast that's for sure.

indagroove · Oct 12, 2020

bleepboop said:
I've found sometimes it's simply the quality of led driver/amount of current it needs to power up.

For instance I got a custom 10x3w epileds supplement strip and noticed it was doing that with the supplied no name 30w driver recently (after maybe 14 months use). 3 other meanwell HLG drivers on the same circuit I use for flowering times and not a problem there or with the single tiny osram block running 4x epiled far reds that's way way older.

I'm quite competent with problem solving power issues in other walks of life. I can't recall how it went with the Meiji folux boards or if they were on a different timer back then. Seems likely it was the same one that i'd used since the gavita days though.

It's possible with strings shorting that the forward voltage went very lower than 48v which made things easier.

It could have been issues with grounding further down the line from my distro. I know at one point my neutral feed was in a crappy state.

I am still using the same meanwell driver from the folux on some wideband phospher converted red 5050 strips without issue.

You might want to check the wiring of your outlet with one of these, just to make sure your hot and neutral aren't accidentally reversed: https://www.grainger.com/product/60JD05

Dion · Oct 12, 2020

zachrockbadenof said:
i hope in the future there is a day, when we can tell the chinese to FUK-OFF... and tell em go back into their caves....

It's always funny when new cultures try and be racist to old cultures like this

Actually brother they were eating off plates where as the Europeans (assumably where your ancestors came from) were scraping food up off tables with bread and eating with Thier hands.

Not to mention they were firing canons and colonizating the whole world in vastly seperior ships before it became popular with the Vikings

Do U think that America invented pizza and hamburgers too?

Yeah, back to Thier caves lol

bs0 · Oct 12, 2020

zachrockbadenof said:
i hope in the future there is a day, when we can tell the chinese to FUK-OFF... and tell em go back into their caves....

We got mods here? The blatant racism and xenophobia here goes counter to everything I'd expect from a 420 friendly website.

Guest · Oct 12, 2020

bs0 said:
We got mods here? The blatant racism and xenophobia here goes counter to everything I'd expect from a 420 friendly website.

Pleeeze. Dab your tears and blow your nose.

q3corn · Oct 12, 2020

Who knew a question about LED lifespan would bring in racists... JFC you people don't stop

mcattak · Oct 13, 2020

stewart169 said:
Whatever. You are obtuse and Im not trashing anything and in the future I will do my BEST to not buy anything made in china. I will NOT buy from china when I can find a product of comparable features. Sometimes you cant get around it and I hope down the road manufacturing shifts back to the US or North America. It may take years to see a big change but I hope more and more companies move their production out of china. When I was younger I heard many people complain about outsourcing of products and really didnt think much about it. As I get older and see the bigger picture now I get how important it is to keep the US North American manufacturing capacity going. If nothing else to keep china from becoming the sole source of a product.Rare Earth magnets are an example. The US just put a bunch of tarrifs on aluminum that china was selling to a couple of countries for pennies on the dollar to resell in the US and elsewhere as a sham like they came from Germany, Bahrain and Oman. But buy what you want from whomever. Someday it may be your line of work thats outsourced.

Guess you will have to stop shopping at walmart

Are your expensive LED lights holding up long term ??

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