... what would you buy, and why? Lets say this is a closet grow space, 3' x 4' x' 8'.

simple enough.

I'd buy standard Hps with it and put the money in other stuff

not helpful. I have an HPS already. Thanks for playing.

IF YOU WERE GOING TO BUY AN LED LIGHT, and had $1k +/- $200, what would you buy that is CURRENTLY available. Stay on topic or piss off.

[RugerBaby]

I would buy a hps..

Just bustin' balls - no offense. Seriously, what would you buy? HGL? EVO? Lumigrow?

Lets leave DIY off the table.

Peace!

[rives]

First choice would be (2) of the Lumigrow ES-165s if you could get either Lumigrow direct or Greners to drop their price a little bit for purchasing multiple units. Second choice would be (2) of the Solar Flare "Full Cycle", with a number of caveats. I haven't seen one in the flesh, but they look like a very robust design and may utilize the Osram Golden Dragon Plus leds. They sure look like them, but I haven't seen anything stating that those are what they use.

Both units are 165 watts, and the led circuit boards look reasonably similar in size. As far as I'm concerned, the Lumigrow has a serious edge for two reasons - 1) I've used it's big brother extensively, and am still impressed with it a couple of years later, and 2) the spectrum power output is adjustable. For me, this is a huge issue.

I think that both units are going to struggle with the 3' dimension, but again, the ES-165 should have a slight edge in that it's LED circuit board is 6" x 9", whereas the Solar Flare appears to be more square. The ES-165 could be oriented with the long dimension running the same way as the 3' measurement, and the short dimension would be only have 2' to cover with the other unit beside it.

You will be better off with two lower wattage units than one larger one, particularly with a rectangular grow area. Hope this helps.

*edit* You added the +/- figure while I was typing. Greners has the ES-165 for $623 right now, and I bet they would come down a bit more for a pair of them. You can't do a good job on DIY (mainly because of the enclosure) for the cost of these things.

Thank you Rives for the rational reply. (WTF is in you avatar? It creeps me out and I don't know why... LOL)

@hup234 That HGL 336 looks awesome but I can't believe their mark-up on wht must be a $300 fixture, wholesale. Yikes. Thanks for the input, really.

[rives]

That's my boxer pretending to be a great white shark in the attack mode!

When EVO gets their power distribution issues worked out, that will be a very tempting unit. Passive cooling would be a huge improvement. Something to keep in mind with these fixtures is that the closet you are using had better not be in your bedroom, because they make a lot of fan noise.

Two Lumigrow 165s would def be a good choice from what I've seen. I do respect your opinions as a very experienced electro-wizard. I'm looking hard at their bar design, tho...

Another knock on the Lumigrow is fan noise, but I have no experience to relate. Also, they haven't upgraded emitters since introduced, and there are "better" components available now. Still, they are a solid value IMO.

Rives, do you think the Lumigrow could be made quieter (fan noise) by upgrading the fans? Assuming the modder had skillz (I do).

[rives]

I just upgraded the fans in my 330. They have apparently changed the design since I purchased it, and it was mentioned when I was talking to them about the Lumibar. I swapped the fans, and discovered that the bulk of the noise was actually coming from the fan in the power supply (sealed unit) and not the cooling fans. The power supply fan could probably be changed too, but it is from a separate manufacturer, the fan is thermostatically controlled, and trying to find one that would meet the design spec's and be quieter might be a trick. I was surprised to find that the cooling fans were 24vdc.

It might be worth talking to Lumigrow about the noise from the 165 - it obviously uses a different power supply, and is a newer model, so they may have addressed the problem.

You're cheating. The Lumibar is out of that price range! That is an intriguing light. However, I think that it uses the same LEDs that the other units do.