Best led grow light for a beginner
- Thread starter Fattieblunt1
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PSUAGRO.
Well-Known Member
bad choice, current cobs, boards ,top bin diodes, strips shit all over this........rebranded Chinese panel, with some crappy secondary lenses to get that high center par # . 420 mag is the epitome of led scamming imo, his (flower) coverage claims are total BS too obviously with those lenses
just tell them your father-in law works at bridgelux and wants to confirm the chips under a scope & threaten the BBB.... you will get your money back
again PLC, timber, chilled, HLG is what you want to buy for prebuilt......or DIY or stay with hps/cmh until you can afford a decent rig.
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
Good luck with only 210w of blurple for a 10sft. area...!
Do yourself a favor and take a top notch white LED brand as mentioned one post above. The plants shown in the video get their light from more than one unit with lots of sidelight from other lights.
Youtube is full of these BS claims, "you" have to separate the wheat from the chaff!
Do yourself a favor and take a top notch white LED brand as mentioned one post above. The plants shown in the video get their light from more than one unit with lots of sidelight from other lights.
Youtube is full of these BS claims, "you" have to separate the wheat from the chaff!
Old school stuff !!!! Quantum boards and COBS and strips will have another great year !!
Ever see a PAR map on entire 3x3 area with the perfect sun ? not too impressive !!!
Steveo h
Active Member
I consider myself also a noob. I've been growing indoors for three years with 5 successful grows.I started out small like allot of people and did whole lot of research. My first real light is a 300 watt galaxy hydro LED. 130.00 bucks.I love this light and still use it. But... I get the most out of it when only lighting one large plant or two smaller ones.
Kronickeeper
Well-Known Member
I would recommend HLG
Tastybudz024
Active Member
I have a 4x2x4 tent, I didnt have room for the 5 footer, but I did a lot of research and I went with a meizhi 600 and I love it, it has really good par compared to others with similar wattage. Its only 140$ as well, my uncle buys advanced leds which a comparable model wattage wise is like 370$, but they are made in the USA with a 5 year warranty, but here's a pic of my grow with a 600watt meizhi in a 4x2x4 tent. Since ya got 550 I'd get the advanced led, my buddy ordered the 370$ light and got the 700$ light by mistake, he contacted them immediately so they wouldn't charge hime for it or something and they said our bad u can keep it if ya want, he kept it and bought a bigger tent lmao
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AllThingsGreen
Member
So I have a 2x4x6 space that I bought some blurple leds for 2x 300w viparspectras. After doing more reading I’m thinking of upgrading to something better and I wanted to get some input. I want the best value overall. Not the cheapest or most expensive. Can anybody recommend a good high quality led set up for my space ?
Humple
Well-Known Member
Budget? And are you looking only for a plug-and-play unit, or is DIY on the table?
whytewidow
Well-Known Member
Either QBs or Samsung strips, or even bridgelux strips. All better than the Original posters light and way way better than the viperspectras. They grow herb. But waste alot of money in heat. Heat is wasted energy. Wasted energy means higher electric bill. With less yield. So it's kinda a no brainer.
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
For a 2x 4' area get a Quantumboardv2 260-kit with HLG-240H-48A or B from HorticultureLightingGroup but change the slate 2 heatsink against a slate 3 or two slate 1's to hung each board in the center of a 2x 2' area. You get better distribution and uniformity with 1' space between the boards.
You can also use 2 QB elite96's and an HLG-320H-54(A or B) to connect them boards in parallel if you want more light but I don't think its needed.
Two QBv2's will do a pretty good job and easily blow the vipars out of the water with only 260-285w at the wall. Maximum depends on the driver model, there is a bit of a variance. With A version its a bit more output but only dimmable down to 50%; B version has less output but is dimmable down to ~10%.
Whatever suits your needs, bro!
AllThingsGreen
Member
Thanks! Qb v2 is where my research was leading me but I just wanted to get some veteran input. I mean my research led me to viparspectra after all
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
Yo, man! I'm 30years in business so one could call me a veteran and believe me when I say, those Viparspectra are not even comparable with QBs. They are based on outdated low quality Epistar diodes; 35-40% efficiency in the best case. QBv2 diodes are top bin Samsung LM301b, which was the first LED in the world hitting 240lm/w at nom. current.
From the Vipars you get ~1,6-1,8μMol/j(W) with luck, from QBv2 its 2,5-2,6μMol/j each watt.
I'm no blurple hater at all but I hate lights that are equipped with bad diodes, lenses and reflectors to create a high center hotspot. Although this gives impressive center measurements but at the expense of coverage.
Basically it's just customer's fake..!
Do yourself a favor and stop reading their lies. They are not even close ...
AllThingsGreen
Member
Budget isn’t crazy high about ~$300. I’m not looking for full blown DIY where I’m putting in bulbs, but if I have to hook up a driver etc I’m more than capable. If I can find a PnP that met my needs and gave me good even coverage, I’d be ok with that.
AllThingsGreen
Member
Speaking of the dimmabe options at HLG. Will there ever be a case when I have to dim below 50% ? Could I grow from seed at that high of an output ? I agree with coverage and spacing the QBs out. According to HLG, one QB288v2 only provides coverage for a 2x2 area which is fine if I had 2
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
Yepp, you can grow from seed with 50% output; just hang the boards +24" above the seedlings(10-20.000lx is enough). Later you can reduce the distance to 12-18" and ramp the light up slowly. I've seen them boards just a few inches above the tops in the flowering stage which is possible when all other variables are set properly.
One important tipp!
With LED you want ambient temps of ~30°C/85°F and RH ~60-65% with lights on and especially the humidity is hard to keep in check the lower the distance is.(codeword: VPD)
Air tends to dry out fast with intensties of +800μMol/s. My exaust runs at min. settings and I still need to keep the lung room closed to maintain a proper VPD inside my cab.
I recommend to order a cheap 12-15$ lux meter(e3ay) with at least 100.000lx measuring range. You can easily convert the readings to μMol/s/m² by using a conversion factor. 55.000lux at canopy level from a 3000°k spectrum(Samsung LM561c from QBv1) is for example ~1000μMol/s/m² PPFD.(factor/divider: 69)
Its one of the most important tool a grower can have and its needed to adjust the hanging height of the fixture to get the most even coverage with as little distance as possible. Thats always the most efficient way for plant lighting as with less distance there is less wall and distance loss. I always look for a min. of 70%, better 80% uniformity across the canopy.
Btw,
a smartphone app can also be used to adjust the hanging height but its not calibrated so the numbers itself would be usless. For many smartphones such high readings are also outside of the measuring range. My brand new OP6T is limited to 32.576lx and my good old Galaxy S2 can read up to 70.000lx. So it depends on your phone..
AllThingsGreen
Member
Should I get 3k or 4K ? Also what type of safety glasses do you wear for the light ?
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Dark sunglasses! No special glasses needed, the same LEDs are used by the bazillions in commercial lighting.
I think most would say 3k for veg and flower.