Cheap LEDs on Amazon?

Recently caught up with a friend who was raving about some $100 300w Apollo LEDs he bought off Amazon and he was encouraging me to try them. He was telling me he put them in his flowering rooms along with HIDs and the plants were responding more to his cheap LEDs than the HIDs.

I was always under the impression that LEDs were inferior to HIDs but now I'm deeply interested in trying some.

I was thinking about switching out 3,000w of HPS lights for maybe 6 1,200w LED fixtures off Amazon and seeing what happens.

I see you can pick up 1,200w LED fixtures off Amazon for around $150 now.

This could be a god send if these are as good as he was telling me with the power savings and all the other positives.

What are your thoughts on all this?

Buy cheap lights you will get what you pay for.
Same for most anything where quality is important.

Are they worth it?
I can't say. Don't know ROI and how long it lasts. Or your situation.
Even the most expensive lights begin degrading the minute you start using them.

hmm, my thoughts.
I have a 600w hps on one side of my tent (1.4 x 1.4)
and 2 dormgrow bloom lights on the other side.
so there's a bit of a cross light thing happening.

hps side definitely bigger
led side "looks" more frosty

you would think the bit in the middle getting both lights would be bigger and frostier then the rest, but I don't see too much of a difference.

im a noob, so don't take my opinions as gold. I would be too worried to ditch 3k HID power for Led without a side project going on.

Maybe he has the placebo effect going on?
I know I thought the MH was the bomb when I was trying to justify the setup, after trying out Led and HPS in veg, I gave the mh bulb away

MH<Led (in veg)
Led<HPS Flower

I would stay away from the cheap leds but that is just my opinion.
Yes they are cheap but how long will they last before they burn out? What is the quality of the chips used? There are so many amazing lights out there with very nice spectral outputs. If you're looking to replace some HID with Led plan to use 600-700 watts (@ wall) of led for each 1k HID light.

-Funk

I was skeptical to about these cheap led at first, but i choose to go with the "king led" brand!

I don't know about flowering, but for veg they are just awesome.

GuerrillaRed said:

Recently caught up with a friend who was raving about some $100 300w Apollo LEDs he bought off Amazon and he was encouraging me to try them. He was telling me he put them in his flowering rooms along with HIDs and the plants were responding more to his cheap LEDs than the HIDs.

I was always under the impression that LEDs were inferior to HIDs but now I'm deeply interested in trying some.

I was thinking about switching out 3,000w of HPS lights for maybe 6 1,200w LED fixtures off Amazon and seeing what happens.

I see you can pick up 1,200w LED fixtures off Amazon for around $150 now.

This could be a god send if these are as good as he was telling me with the power savings and all the other positives.

What are your thoughts on all this?

Click to expand...

i was contemplating covering a ceiling with those 1200s as well, but for flowering

GuerrillaRed said:

Recently caught up with a friend who was raving about some $100 300w Apollo LEDs he bought off Amazon and he was encouraging me to try them. He was telling me he put them in his flowering rooms along with HIDs and the plants were responding more to his cheap LEDs than the HIDs.

I was always under the impression that LEDs were inferior to HIDs but now I'm deeply interested in trying some.

I was thinking about switching out 3,000w of HPS lights for maybe 6 1,200w LED fixtures off Amazon and seeing what happens.

I see you can pick up 1,200w LED fixtures off Amazon for around $150 now.

This could be a god send if these are as good as he was telling me with the power savings and all the other positives.

What are your thoughts on all this?

Click to expand...

They will not be 1,200W fixtures, the power quotes on Amazon and eBay for cheap Chinese LEDs are mostly BS. They generally run at either 1/2 or 1/3 of the power they are claiming. Check the fine print on power consumption.

I have bought many Chinese LEDs of different types to see what they are like. The cool whites are ok, the rest a junk, run really hot. Most of them are pushing to get 100 lm/Watt, worse than HPS. where something like a Cree CXB or Vero 29, or Citizen you can run at about 150 lm/Watt.

A friend of mine used a 500w growblu grow light and his room mate used two 200w mars/apollo lights in side by side tents with the same everything else. While its true the mars were only $400 and the growblu was $950, the amount of bud was more than double with the growblu. Both quantity and quality were better--denser buds and less larf, WAY less stretch.

Growblu was a generic resell brand (kind LED) that's now out of business. After 1 year it had 1 diode out of each module and I dont think the guy could keep up with the warranty claims on all the lights. He fixed the light right before he went out of business. I like the performance of the light but since it was burning out it I sold it to my friend.

Don't waste your money on cheap LED's. Get something that's modular so you can fix it when it breaks. most generic fixtures will just break over time until only a few if any diodes are still lit up.

They might work well to supplement HPS but don't have the power to flower alone without adding WAY too many fixtures for what its worth. The advertising and wattage and everything associated with their sales pitch is total bullshit. They also get the cheapest components they can find and not the higher power diodes with proper cooling or drivers.