Jonesfamily7715
Well-Known Member
Imo they're all fake except hlg goin in with that attitude you'll never be disappointed, lol seriously though it's a real problem then phonies Poppin up everywhere
Did I receive a "fake" Samsung board? Do they always damage this easy
- Thread starter TurboTokes
- Start date
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
Also, what does this fakeness mean? A little less light per watt. This can usually be remedied by using more diodes (soft run diodes are more efficient , i usually try to run 2 china boards at half of the power of what HLG normally runs) or more wattage. There is no special magic in samsung which cannot be achieved by running another 10-15% more watts per area. Depending on the situation china or HLG may make more sense to a grower. If boards are so cheap that they can be thought of as a perishable: buy a few spares and just replace if one goes belly up rather than go thru international warranty. Since HLG boards are a bit more expensive in euro it can easily make more sense to buy double the amount of boards from china and just chuck em when they break.
But if i was in the US; US prices plus an easy actionable warranty: then HLG becomes more attractive.
Jonesfamily7715
Well-Known Member
Totally agree on this point but noone likes to be lied to, If it's advertised as smsung that is what we expect
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
Sure. What i was pointing out is how to make each situation work for you, and when one or the other variant will work better. In any case, samsung make so many different diodes from great to middling i dont really consider just the name a guarantee of quality.
And even if you get a top bin directly from the manufacturer: the bins are often wide AF: as much as +-10 % (usually +-7). So you could get a difference in output of 20% between 2 bonafide topbins. The amount of arguing people been thru here for much less...
Nichia seems a bit different in this; if you buy direct from them i think you can get top half or bottom half of the top bin. Theyre also supposed to actually beat the top sammies in real testing. @Prawn Connery and the GLA crowd went with them for their boards and they have access to to really good testing. But Nichia is Japanese and pricey.
compassionateExotic
Well-Known Member
What questions me on wanting the fakes right now is you can get hlg 600-700 refurbished with 1 year warranty included for 400-500 bucks np.
they Got 20-35% sales all the time , currently
Refurbished Lamps
HLG CERTIFIED REFURBISHED LAMPS LIMITED QUANTITIES AVAILABLE May have scratches/dents and may have been previously used.Refurbished/Scratch & Dent Lamps come with a 1 year warranty.Refurbished Lamps are tested and fully functional with HLG original components. Save up to 50% on select lamps...
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Refurbished HLG 650R
High Efficiency Commercial Indoor Horticulture LED grow light designed to replace a double-ended 1000watt HID with just 6100 Watts. 1700 PPF @ 2.8PPF/W. Full-spectrum. LED Module made by Samsung. Powered by Samsung LM301H LED and Deep Red LED 660nm
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Refurbished HLG 700 Rspec FR
High Efficiency Commercial Indoor Horticulture LED grow light designed to replace a double-ended 1000watt HID with just 630 Watts. 1585 PPF @ 2.5 PPF/W. Full Spectrum White and FAR-RED
horticulturelightinggroup.com
Refurbished HLG 750 Diablo
HLG 750R commercial lamps are designed for growers who want to maximize crop yields with a grow light that offers both high intensity and high efficiency. 2000 PPF output with photon efficacy of 2.88 µmol/J
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Fangthane
Well-Known Member
I bought mine in 2020, when the actual HLG 550 was somewhere like $825-ish if I remember correctly. Even if the price gap has narrowed a bit in the past few years, I'll still happily take a slight ding in performance for a substantial savings. I've had zero issues with my Kingbrite and just don't see any point for a casual gardener like myself to pay so much more for name recognition and a slight increase in component quality.
Prawn Connery
Well-Known Member
Actually, Nichia diodes are about on par with Samsung in terms of pricing (around 6-7 US cents each) for their best designs, but it really depends on the type of diode you buy off them. Their most efficient 3030s are all dual-die designs, but they also have single-die diodes which are cheaper (almost half the price).
I do wish Nichia made something similar to Samsung's EVO line with a 437nm pump instead of the 445-450nm pump Nichia makes, but you can just mix the diodes to get the coverage you want and 437nm is probably not the game-change everyone seems to think, as there are some drawbacks such as the increased cyan gap and very little red in the spectrum. But they are nice to mix with other diodes to broaden the blue spectrum.
The best thing about Nichia is that yes, they do split their flux bins into 4 tiers per bin, which means you can choose between the top or bottom half or even quarter flux for each individual bin. You do need to pay a premium for the top bins, but they are generally availble to us for two reasons: 1, we use diodes that are not in huge demand for other lighting indistries (especially 2700K in CRI90), and 2, we have a good relationship with the company.
The main issue with Samsung diodes is that EVERYONE says they have "top bins" when it is simply impossible for everyone to buy them. For every 1 million diodes Samsung makes, maybe 5% are top flux/low voltage, so they have to find buyers for the other 95% of diodes that are not. With so much competition for samsung diodes, someone has to miss out. Samsung have also been caught out in the past inflating their output figures, so again, just because it says something on paper doesn't mean that is what you are buying.
So take with a very large grain of salt any Chinese manufacturer who claims to have "top bin" Samsung LM301B, LM301H or Evos, because there simply are not enough to go around. I would trust only the established buyers that already have a good relationship with Sansung, such as HLG.
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
Re the EVO H: nobody seems to realize that the higher efficiency is in part due to less phosphor than an equivalent 450nm diode. The lower the blue the less visible to the human eye; less visible blue means you need less phosphor to get a certain cct balance. A 3000k evo h has a comparable amount of blue light (measured in radiant energy, not in blue light to the eyes) to sonewhere between 3500k and 4000k of standard diodes.
Top bin, in china light means at best top flux bin. To a grower it may not matter that much since you get the same output as a real low voltage/top flux bin, only your driver will run a little more power. But this would be the best of cases.
Still hope you get a solution to covering the dip in the spectrum around 420-430nm, i think this gap is likely as important as the cyan gap; peaks in chlorophyll absortion, transpiration actionspectrum, lots of stuff going on there. If you have nichias ear then i hope you can talk to them; samsung has so many different products, nichia only does leds afaik. Market share in leds should be more important to them than samsung as this all they do
Prawn Connery
Well-Known Member
Nichia has not taken horticulture very seriously. The best they have come up with is the Hortisolus range: https://led-ld.nichia.co.jp/en/product/lighting_hortisolis.html
It's not a bad all-in-one dioode, but the maximum efficiency is around 2.8 umol/j and that includes the far red component. In fact, the amount of far red in these diodes is the most interesting thing about them.
We can get much better efficiency simply by combining 5000K 3030 + 660nm 3535 and 730m 3535 diodes on the one board. probably cheaper, too.
Nichia has the potential to make a really nice horticultural LED using a 405nm pump (the most efficient of any LED manufacturer) that works really well with far-red phosphors, but they won't isten to us. I'kll have to look up the phosphor later, as Teknik and I have talked about it a fair bit but I can't remember it off the top of my head.
You are correct to point out that the shorter the blue nm wavelength, the less impact it has on CCT and indeed CRI.
sfw1960
Well-Known Member
Would you say it's a big of a stretch for chinese claims that they are Sammy diodes when in fact the die package is not even the same form factor? It seems if you looked at 25 random amz listings for the "cheap (cough) quality lights" everyone's looking for - there's no shortage of 2835 packages shown claiming to be Samsung 301x, and sure they make diodes in that FF but they are NOT 301's and if they say they're 561c I doubt they're actually Sammy even if there's better choices in that package size.
So many people only look at the price and cry because they're going to buy AT LEAST TWICE!
@Prawn Connery
What are your thoughts on mixing equal amounts of 5000 & 2700k strips?
I'm just thinking out loud and was tossing around just red supplements and thought maybe....
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
Im not sure what youre saying here but the 561C is a 5630 footprint, not 2835. Iirc they have quite good thermal handling, better thermal resistance than the 301bs.
For mixing 5000k and 2700k: you should really look into the bridgelux Vesta strips; they come with 2 channels, 5000k and 2700k both in 90 cri. Not very efficient but cheap, cheerful and versatile, especially if you want a light that does it all, seedling veg and flower. Search for vesta test here on the forum for more info, theyve been tested for ppf/w. You can either set them up with separate drivers, or you can set them up with one driver and switches so you can get one channel, other channel or both.
sfw1960
Well-Known Member
Right you are - it's 5630 oops, now corrected - IDK why I typed 2835 tho those are probably used for asian ”301 builds" that aren't...
Yes I looked at the BL goodies.
If I see much better results with the FR boards I just picked up it probably would be good to add more on the fringes of older QBs that don't have any.
I've got decent coverage for most of the tents but I could use a little more flower power in the 32"*32" to have a little more flexibility. It's always something!
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grotbags
Well-Known Member
like rocket says the only benefit of mixing different kelvin strips is if you are going to run the 2700k and 5000k on different channels. but to do this properly you have to oversize your light a bit, hypothetically if we wanted to build a 2 channel light for a 4 x 4 tent that gave us 1000 ppfd across the canopy at 600w (2 x 300w drivers) using an equal mixture of 2700k and 5000k strips. say it takes 10 x 2700k and 10 x 5000k to get 1000 ppfd, in veg you could just run the 5000k and you would get 500ppfd which would be ok, but then for flower you would only have 500ppfd of 2700k - not enough. you could run both channels for flower and get the 1000ppfd but you would now have a spectrum around 3850k.
if you wanted 1000ppfd of only 2700k for flower and still the ability to have 500 ppfd of 5000k for veg you would need to use 20 x 2700k on its own 600w driver and 10 x 5000k on its own 300w driver.
mixing different kelvin strips from the same manufacturer and diodes series and running them all from one driver just gives you the average of the kelvins ie- 10 x 5000k strips + 10 3000k strips = 50000k + 30000k = 80000k/20 strips = 4000k, you have gained nothing by mixing the strips the spectrum you end up with is the same as if you just used all 4000k from the start.
the only time mixing different kelvin diodes on the same channel makes sense is if you are using diodes with different pumps and phosphors.
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
The 5k + 3k thing on same channel you so much now: i think its because they want to be able to do various different spectrums but then gets sold as being something special, extra full spectrum, but thats just a marketing gimmick. If you have all 4k diodes you cant vary your base white spectrum.
sfw1960
Well-Known Member
I'm really thinking about the 2700 k because I have plenty of straight 3000 and earlier they could use a little internode stretch, I routinely see pictures of people saying "help" poking holes in the roof and I'm like wow, 20" tall and 35” wide... such a problem to have.
Probably just reds would be good but having the 5000k for balance once I don't want elongation.
Probably just reds would be good but having the 5000k for balance once I don't want elongation.
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
I built a vesta strip light for that exact dimensions 32x32" or 0.8x0.8m, for auto grows. Its my favorite light i ever built:Right you are - it's 5630 oops, now corrected - IDK why I typed 2835 tho those are probably used for asian ”301 builds" that aren't...
Yes I looked at the BL goodies.
If I see much better results with the FR boards I just picked up it probably would be good to add more on the fringes of older QBs that don't have any.
I've got decent coverage for most of the tents but I could use a little more flower power in the 32"*32" to have a little more flexibility. It's always something!
- 2 circuits: one for the centre strips and one for perifery, each on their own driver. This way you dial in intensity at the sides and centre separately.
- spectrum control by switches on both circuits: i added switches on the dc sode so i can send the current thru 2700/5000 or both at half intensity for a fullcycle spectrum, with a little extra efficiency.
- red sup on centre circuit; about 25% of centre wattage, 12.5 of total. Mix of 660 and 630.
-on 2x xlg150-m drivers to match voltage perfectly.
Its a bit too much wattage for autos on full, almost enough for a m2 of 12/12 flower. Yielded very nicely even on low, 100w total.
Jonesfamily7715
Well-Known Member
Have yall done any testing swith those cree jb2835 g class 3.13 ppf and 1.5w max are attractive #s wish I had access to some of that testing equipment. Nichia is awesome they're responsible for major advancements in the past, led wouldn't be what it is today without them.
sfw1960
Well-Known Member
That's a great setup and sort of like what I had in mind.
The edges and corners are always a weak area - there's 9 sunboard 96 strips with an Inventronics 150w driver pulling around 137 at the LEDs in that one, but the center is lacking a strip or three. I moved a pineapple express auto under it that decided it wanted to exceed 35" from the soil - but watching it's sister fattening up under QB's I tossed it between a couple photos but it's getting ready for the chainsaw shortly.
I can use aluminum tubing for the reds and I'm not sure if I should rework the strips or add something else, did I mention it's always something? lol
The determining factor is being able to utilize the aluminum free scraps I have because being cheap is part of the final equation!