kush groove
Active Member
Dude, I dont wanna make it seem like Im bashing you cause Im a nice guy, but after further review, you have officially wasted your cash. Rule Number one when ordering online.......check out the website and actually read it.....heres a quote from the 357 magnum websiteI am running a grow with two 357 Magnums. The link is in my sig. They aren't as cheap as Blackstar but they are way cheaper than Stealth. IMHO Stealth actually uses CREE leds and Blackstar doesn't. I know I'll probably start a fight saying that but I'm totally 100% behind the move to LED's but so tired of the B.S and knock-offs that give them a bad name. I have asked the question on numerous threads and no one has been able to answer......the new CREE XP-E series led's start at $3.43 a piece WHOLESALE if you but them in lots of 10,000. I used to work in commercial electronics manufacturing and checked out some prices myself to get some straight facts. If Blackstar is using 80 x 3W Cree led's then the cost alone would be over $270 not including the case, fans, power supplies or PROFIT. Also Cree doesn't make an LED in the far-red spectrum (660nm) which I think is important and Stealth Grow uses and they are the biggest and most reputable name in LED's. That is why I don't think they are using ALL CREE LED's. This is just a hunch but I suspect that at best they are putting in 3W CREE for their white lights (so probably a handful in their panel) and the rest are not. Either way I felt that there was enough doubt that I'd rather spend $700 and get what I want than $300 to get ripped-off.
As for ordering off the internet, that's how I got my 357's. The actually have a real shopping cart with a merchant account, not PayPal, so that didn't hurt their credibility with me
I bough the 357 because I wanted actual 3W leds not to be confused with 3Watt/3 chipsets which are just 3 1 watt diodes packed into a single housing.
To get penetration WHICH IS WHAT LED'S HAVE BEEN LACKING you need to get hi-power LED's. Just running more 1watt leds won't cut it. There are lots of 300W panels out there with 288 1W leds. If you want to grow minature plants or lettuce I'm sure they'll work fine
BTW there is a guy on here LedBudBuy who just grew with all 170W ISIS panels which has the same parent company as my 357's. They are under $400 so might be a good option if you are looking for a quality light in that price range. He pulled just over 27 oz off 24 short plants under 5x170W or 850W of ISIS panels. .9g per watt. Definately respectable off little plants in dirt.
Q I hear a lot about CREE LED’s being the best, why don’t you use them?
A CREE LED’s are the highest quality LED in the industry but their price tag is astronomical. We use Bridgelux, a long-standing and high-quality manufacturer. In numerous tests we found Bridelux LED’s to provide results only slightly below their CREE counterparts. This same panel manufactured with CREE led’s would produce about 8% more output and cost about FOUR times as much. Here at www.357MagLed.com we figure you’d be better off with two 357 Magnum LED Grow Lights (so about 85% more output) and a trip to the Amsterdam for what we would have to charge for a CREE panel.
Sorry I had to ruin your day .....do some resarch next time