Going mars hydro for summer, help welcome

CherryLola

Well-Known Member
Think this summer I’m gonna give in battling with temps on my 600w hps, been looking at all these new lights, my budget around 500£ uk, the spider farmers seem okay but for the price difference I think mars hydro wins it, not up for diy just want to plug in and go.
Any others anyone recommends?

the question is, for a 1.2m x 1x2m tent would you go for the ts3000 for £405
Or two x sp250’s for £472?

or spider farmer sf 4000 £499. Convince me lol
 

TreeFarmerCharlie

Well-Known Member
If price is a concern, and you have the ability, then build your own. I would suggest the DIY approach before giving any money to Mars Hydro. The only reason they are as popular as they are is because they send free lights to "influencers" to push their product. Meijiu and Kingbrite have been known for using the same tactic. It was becoming so obvious on some Reddit pages that mods were discussing whether they should just block Redditors who looked like shills for Mars, Meijiu, or Kingbrite. All 3 companies are also guilty of stealing designs and trademarks from HLG.
 

Jr5873

Well-Known Member
I went with a Spiderfarmer SF4000 after a couple runs with 2 Viparspectra 600s. Definitely happy with this unit. Samsung diodes , better than what Mars is using.
 

TreeFarmerCharlie

Well-Known Member
I went with a Spiderfarmer SF4000 after a couple runs with 2 Viparspectra 600s. Definitely happy with this unit. Samsung diodes , better than what Mars is using.
According to HLG, Spiderfarmer is Mars Hydro.

See below:
What most do not realize is Spider Farmer is Mars Hydro...... They send this stuff straight to a Amazon warehouse from China. They can sell this stuff super cheap because thier predatory government subsidizes them 20%. All while I pay taxes on my inventory every year let alone corporate tax and then my personal income tax. American companies cost of doing business is a lot higher than China. Then you wonder why you can't find a living wage job.......

Also there are millions of rejected LEDs sold on the Chinese black market every day. So saying it's the same thing isn't true.


We are innovating. The Rspec is about 1 year old. We have a DE replacement coming this month that is 2.8 umol/j+ and a rack light in 2-3 months that will crack 3.0 umol/j. No our rack light isn't a bar light either. Only hold up on rack light is drivers.

We could have kept building our boards in China like the very early days but instead we took the leap of faith, borrowed nearly a million dollars, bought the equipment to build it right here in the US and created good paying jobs. Before we did that we signed a multimillion dollar P.O. with a US manufacturer in Michigan not knowing if we would go bankrupt or what. We hadn't even sold 2k boards at that point. You wanna talk about risk. I poured every last dollar to my name into this company to the point I was behind on my house payment. So no I do not feel one bit guilty about throwing shade at some Chinese company that rips our product off, uses our product name to drum up business. Spider Farmer lies about thier efficiency, they lied and said ETL certified when it was not. They used quantum board over and over when we asked them nicely to stop several times. So yeah I don't care much for MARS HYDRO/SPIDER FARMER

We innovative they imitate. Sure we have to stop companies from using our trademark. Hell China was printing our name on boards and selling them. People would call for warranty service and it wasn't even our stuff. It hurts us if someone buys a "Quantum Board" and it has inferior LEDs on it or burns out early.

Not one single person here would feel any different if they came out with a product to only get copied by the Chinese.
 

Gond00s

Well-Known Member
ill take my hlg I feel like the thermals of the mars lights just aren't good at all they really need a fan blowing on them. what I would do is make a ceiling of diodes. what I mean qb132s for smalls but bigger rooms I would do either a strip or just do 2 fixtures with 3 boards on it what i would do.
 

TreeFarmerCharlie

Well-Known Member
Pretty sure Spiderfarmer is owned by Meizi, but who knows? I do know that Spiderfarmer uses Samsung leds and Mars does not.
I think they are all related. Think of it more like different product lines manufactured by the same corporation like how Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Chevy, and GMC were all GM.
 

CherryLola

Well-Known Member

2 of these be alright for a 4x4??

does anyone know if these lights come with extension to move driver out tent? Thanks
 

CherryLola

Well-Known Member

or this but feel the 2 lights is better for the price than 1 unit.
Anyone got any coupon codes for hlg?
 

TreeFarmerCharlie

Well-Known Member

or this but feel the 2 lights is better for the price than 1 unit.
Anyone got any coupon codes for hlg?
Both of those options are commonly used for 4x4 tents and both will work well from what I’ve seen and read.
 

StareCase

Well-Known Member
... does anyone know if these lights come with extension to move driver out tent? Thanks ...
I wired my HLG 320 unit with the driver outside of the tent as they come with 6' of solid core wiring (I believe it's either 16 or 18 gauge) that you use from the driver to the boards. I have my driver on top of the tent.
 

nmibud

Well-Known Member
You will get better support from a more local manufacturer.A warranty claim will actually be honored.
 

sarahJane211

Well-Known Member
HLG makes great lights, they have some plug and play.
Just had an HLG 240w + 2 Quantum V3 (Chinese clones) boards delivered, $159.
Nice and bright ....... I had to push the bare wires into 2 separate block connectors so I guess that makes it DIY.
Please excuse the state of the plant, it escaped my control and grew to 5ft in veg, I just installed the new light and tied all the branches down with plastic string and safety pins. Hopefully it'll be looking up in the next few days (Red Diesel, free seed from Grizzly seedbank).
IMG_20200412_173358.jpg
 
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