Cheap LED's?

kiwipaulie

kiwipaulie

Well-Known Member
ive tried cheep LED lights and they are a waste of time imo, just go with HID and be done with it, unless you want to spend big bucks on a decent LED and even then I wouldn't flower with one.
 
NorthernHize

NorthernHize

Well-Known Member
Building DIY led cob set ups is a godsend. I am not missing my light bills. Anyone literally can do it, I will help whoever I put 4 cree cxa3070's as pairs driven by meanwell lpc 60-1750's and some cheap 100w Chinese red led inside a 3 sq ft x 60" grow box, absolutely outperforms a 400hps. And I spent $250 building it. Can you get a good electronic ballast hood/ reflector and bulb for that? Hell no!
 
BAMS

BAMS

Well-Known Member
kiwipaulie said:
ive tried cheep LED lights and they are a waste of time imo, just go with HID and be done with it, unless you want to spend big bucks on a decent LED and even then I wouldn't flower with one.
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But what factor seperates the cheap LED from the "decent" LED? Pretty much all of them have their lights manufactured in China. There are a few like California Lightworks that build their own units and want to charge a crazy amount for their products. As I stated in a previous post, Blackdog 450 are exact same as the Mars II hydro 700w, just minus the fancy CNC cut out.
I understand your opinion on being a waste, as I don't see the significant money savings in LED. Yes there is a little savings, but if you go out and pay lets say 1000w Solis tek Matrix with globe and good reflector and spend around $450-550 to cover a 6x6 area, and you buy a California Lightworks SolarStorm 880 for $2099+shipping. Well you have paid 4x the amount of the HID and not really saving all that much on energy, plus I find that yield is about 10% less under LED than under HID of similar intensity. Yes your not going to get as hot with LED as you are with HID, but that's about to change with these high power COB LED lights floating around, and will need to start FAE as you would with HID for cooling reasons.
 
kiwipaulie

kiwipaulie

Well-Known Member
BAMS said:
But what factor seperates the cheap LED from the "decent" LED? Pretty much all of them have their lights manufactured in China. There are a few like California Lightworks that build their own units and want to charge a crazy amount for their products. As I stated in a previous post, Blackdog 450 are exact same as the Mars II hydro 700w, just minus the fancy CNC cut out.
I understand your opinion on being a waste, as I don't see the significant money savings in LED. Yes there is a little savings, but if you go out and pay lets say 1000w Solis tek Matrix with globe and good reflector and spend around $450-550 to cover a 6x6 area, and you buy a California Lightworks SolarStorm 880 for $2099+shipping. Well you have paid 4x the amount of the HID and not really saving all that much on energy, plus I find that yield is about 10% less under LED than under HID of similar intensity. Yes your not going to get as hot with LED as you are with HID, but that's about to change with these high power COB LED lights floating around, and will need to start FAE as you would with HID for cooling reasons.
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Personally I think its a good thing, in winter over here, an LED light is just not hot enough, so you end up having to put in a heater. Its so much easier to just run hid and get a good centrifugal fan to deal with the heat.
 
BAMS

BAMS

Well-Known Member
kiwipaulie said:
Personally I think its a good thing, in winter over here, an LED light is just not hot enough, so you end up having to put in a heater. Its so much easier to just run hid and get a good centrifugal fan to deal with the heat.
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I am in southern Victoria, Australia, and will agree with you 100%, even right now in summer time my mini weather station out in the shed is saying that the hottest at canopy level is 31-33 C, and that the minimum got to 13C the other night.....being summer time in my locations I wasn't expecting such radical temp change, we don't usually go threw that big of fluctuation at this time of year.
 
M

moonstar45

Well-Known Member
there are a lot of leds at aliexpress . com

a lot of the manufactures from the US generally outsources them from china. i purchased a 150w LED with reflectors (about 170$ before but cheaper now [znet 200w]) and its quite good upto now.

at the rate of led tech advancement, i don't think its wise to invest in something so expensive where there's a good probability that it'll lose price fast and a better one will come out soon.
 
Thorhax

Thorhax

Well-Known Member
Don't get cheap LEDs. I've tried 4 different types of cheap LEDs(1w-ers, 3w-ers, 5w-ers, COBs) and they all lie about how powerful there lights are plus EVERY SINGLE ONE broke within the first year. area 51 is good and rant much more expensive than crap LEDs, but DYI Vero builds are the way to go!
 
DutchHaze

DutchHaze

Well-Known Member
Ya I'd hate to see u buy a cheap led like I did and end up with what I got:
image.jpg
I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Complete waste of my time, I may just throw this plant out. Is my sarcasm coming through the way I want it to?
 

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caumop

caumop

Well-Known Member
First, go to youtube and search for growmau5. Watch the 7 part series on building your owm LED. He is using the Cree CXB3590 COB's. Great info there. Also go to the LED and other light section in the indoor grow on this forum. After you do that, you can go to Pacific Light Concepts, Northern Grow Lights, or Cutter Electronics to source parts. After that build your own grow light and take pride in growing your own herb with a fantastic light that you built yourself.

Good luck and smoke in peace.bongsmilie
 
D

Daza123

New Member
caumop said:
First, go to youtube and search for growmau5. Watch the 7 part series on building your owm LED. He is using the Cree CXB3590 COB's. Great info there. Also go to the LED and other light section in the indoor grow on this forum. After you do that, you can go to Pacific Light Concepts, Northern Grow Lights, or Cutter Electronics to source parts. After that build your own grow light and take pride in growing your own herb with a fantastic light that you built yourself.

Good luck and smoke in peace.bongsmilie
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Definitely keen on building my own grow lights

Thanks
 
caumop

caumop

Well-Known Member
Ya, it,s a great way to go. By building your own, you can customize it to your grow area with the number and kelvin of COB's you want. You can dial in the PPFD that you need.
 
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