Trying out induction

[captainmorgan]

This will be my second ever grow and I'm going to try induction lamps to see if I can improve my yield without using a lot more electricity.My first grow was soil T5 HO 432 watt scrog in a 2.5' deep x 4.5' wide cabinet. I found a great deal on some 120 watt round 5000k induction lamps so I got 3 of them. They are retrofits so it's just a lamp and ballast and I'll have to make some reflectors for them. The nice part of this will be that I'm going to mount the ballasts outside the cabinet so I can cut down on heat. I'm sure they will work well for veg on their own but might need some supplement for flower. I thought that adding 108 watts of T5 HO in flower should work well. I already have UVL Red Suns which are mostly 630 nm and UVL 660's which are mostly 660 nm. So adding one of each should do the job in flower. I'm vegging some mainlined clones right now and the lights will be here Thursday and I think they will be ready for flower next weekend. I'm looking for some input on these induction lights like penetration and lamp distance or anything else I should know.

http://www.lvd.cc/en/lvd/

 

[kBAKED]

Sounds interesting. I'd like to see how it goes. I am currently trying led's for the first time. check my sig.

 

[Splifferous]

This will be my second ever grow and I'm going to try induction lamps to see if I can improve my yield without using a lot more electricity.My first grow was soil T5 HO 432 watt scrog in a 2.5' deep x 4.5' wide cabinet. I found a great deal on some 120 watt round 5000k induction lamps so I got 3 of them. They are retrofits so it's just a lamp and ballast and I'll have to make some reflectors for them. The nice part of this will be that I'm going to mount the ballasts outside the cabinet so I can cut down on heat. I'm sure they will work well for veg on their own but might need some supplement for flower. I thought that adding 108 watts of T5 HO in flower should work well. I already have UVL Red Suns which are mostly 630 nm and UVL 660's which are mostly 660 nm. So adding one of each should do the job in flower. I'm vegging some mainlined clones right now and the lights will be here Thursday and I think they will be ready for flower next weekend. I'm looking for some input on these induction lights like penetration and lamp distance or anything else I should know.

http://www.lvd.cc/en/lvd/

sup cap'n! welcome to induction lighting! i use EFDL lamps from Inda-Gro for veg and bloom, and i swear by them (check my sig, or my YouTube channel with the same name i use here). i used EFDL lamps from Full Spectrum Solutions/iGrow prior to IG, and i can tell you one thing that was reinforced immediately upon firing a lamp up from each manufacturer with them sitting next to each other. not all lamps (of a given technology) are not created equally, and that holds very true when it comes to EFDL lamps. it's true that most are made in China, but be aware that China rarely satisfies customers on warranty issues with their products (speaking from experience).

it sounds like you were using a sunblaze 48 or similar, and when i had one of those i compared it's output to my IG Pro-200-PAR and the inducted fluro floored the output of the t5 fluro; being much brighter meant i could hang it higher and get a larger effective lightprint than the t5 fixture gave even tho the t5 was physically larger and ran at more than 2x the wattage. talk about seeing for yourself that looking at raw wattage doesn't tell anything about the light output to expect.

anywho... my question is were you planning on using the new EFDL lamps to supplement the t5? personally i dont think that would be worth the electric bill... having 3 EFDL sources in that relatively small space should kick ass. i can't speak for the lights from the company that you linked, but i have experimented with using EFDL only for bloom as well as supplementing that with a 600w HPS, and my experience thus far show negligible weight gains with the addition of HPS, that sometimes barely break even vs the extra wattage that the HPS took instead of me using a EFDL in that position instead. also, don't don't cut corners on your reflector design. if you look up the brands that i have mentioned that i have used, you will see their different approaches to reflector design, and it makes all the difference in how the light will work for the area.

i gotta get running for now, but i'll check back later.



Oh, by the way... Inda-Gro is made in San Diego, and offers a 10 year warranty. no i don't work for them, but i wish i did...

 

[captainmorgan]

sup cap'n! welcome to induction lighting! i use EFDL lamps from Inda-Gro for veg and bloom, and i swear by them (check my sig, or my YouTube channel with the same name i use here). i used EFDL lamps from Full Spectrum Solutions/iGrow prior to IG, and i can tell you one thing that was reinforced immediately upon firing a lamp up from each manufacturer with them sitting next to each other. not all lamps (of a given technology) are not created equally, and that holds very true when it comes to EFDL lamps. it's true that most are made in China, but be aware that China rarely satisfies customers on warranty issues with their products (speaking from experience).

it sounds like you were using a sunblaze 48 or similar, and when i had one of those i compared it's output to my IG Pro-200-PAR and the inducted fluro floored the output of the t5 fluro; being much brighter meant i could hang it higher and get a larger effective lightprint than the t5 fixture gave even tho the t5 was physically larger and ran at more than 2x the wattage. talk about seeing for yourself that looking at raw wattage doesn't tell anything about the light output to expect.

anywho... my question is were you planning on using the new EFDL lamps to supplement the t5? personally i dont think that would be worth the electric bill... having 3 EFDL sources in that relatively small space should kick ass. i can't speak for the lights from the company that you linked, but i have experimented with using EFDL only for bloom as well as supplementing that with a 600w HPS, and my experience thus far show negligible weight gains with the addition of HPS, that sometimes barely break even vs the extra wattage that the HPS took instead of me using a EFDL in that position instead. also, don't don't cut corners on your reflector design. if you look up the brands that i have mentioned that i have used, you will see their different approaches to reflector design, and it makes all the difference in how the light will work for the area.

i gotta get running for now, but i'll check back later.



Oh, by the way... Inda-Gro is made in San Diego, and offers a 10 year warranty. no i don't work for them, but i wish i did...

Thanks for stopping in spliff,I was hoping you and some of the other induction guys would pass on some experience to a newb. I got these 3-120 watters from a USA distributor in a close out sale of this brand and they said they would cover the 5 year warranty,so if one dies just call them and they would send out a replacement in the new brand they're carrying. I also only paid $199 shipped for 360 watts,which is like $.56 a watt. They only had 5000k units so I wasn't sure how well they would work in flower,I'm trying to get a spectral graph from the maker I linked.I'm trying to replace the T5 with induction but wasn't sure 5000k would do it by itself. I saw the post about indagro trying a 660 nm supplement with their lights so I thought if needed I already have 630 nm and 660 nm T5's. I could replace the T5 reds with red LED's later if needed. If these lamps have enough red how do you think 360 watts of induction compares to 432 watts of T5?Any suggestions on reflectors? I have white aluminum that I can bend up, if only temporarily.Here's the model I got.

 

[Splifferous]

Thanks for stopping in spliff,I was hoping you and some of the other induction guys would pass on some experience to a newb. I got these 3-120 watters from a USA distributor in a close out sale of this brand and they said they would cover the 5 year warranty,so if one dies just call them and they would send out a replacement in the new brand they're carrying. I also only paid $199 shipped for 360 watts,which is like $.56 a watt. They only had 5000k units so I wasn't sure how well they would work in flower,I'm trying to get a spectral graph from the maker I linked.I'm trying to replace the T5 with induction but wasn't sure 5000k would do it by itself. I saw the post about indagro trying a 660 nm supplement with their lights so I thought if needed I already have 630 nm and 660 nm T5's. I could replace the T5 reds with red LED's later if needed. If these lamps have enough red how do you think 360 watts of induction compares to 432 watts of T5?Any suggestions on reflectors? I have white aluminum that I can bend up, if only temporarily.Here's the model I got.

well, in my experience, 200w of Inda-Gro EFDL beats 432W of SunBlaze t5, so if what you are getting is comparable to IG, then 360w of those should do great things. and $200 shipped for all 3 of them is a killer deal, provided they last a couple years or more.

as for the 660nm supplement, i have heard mention of it, but have been too busy recently to really investigate what's online about it. personally i have run my Pro-420-PARs with and without HPS supplementation, and i'm not sure i see a difference that merits keeping the HPS around in my garden. but thats me...

as for reflector design, DIYing a small round thing might be harder than if you would have gotten rectangular lamps, like the "Smart Dragon" that your linked company offers. i would think that not having the reflector too far from the tube would be a key detail to design around, as well as the use of a cone (perhaps slightly concave in profile) in the center of the lamp ring. or maybe hang them vertically without a reflector and just let the lumens hit plants directly, from all sides. the thing that you need to focus on is that you don't want the shape of the reflector to cause it to reflect the light it catches back towards the bulb, you need to get the "top" and "side" light from the bulb's discharge redirected downward, around the bulb, with the shortest path while trying for the most even distribution.

 

[PSUAGRO.]

Just use an HID reflector at mount it too that........a bare reflector(without mogul base and wiring) costs very little at your local hydro shop

monster gardens rigged up a hid reflector to your bulb design http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1YO-uy-aqE kinda works

personally I would use a vertical reflector , will give you a better patter on a round induction bulb https://growershouse.com/45-vertical-reflector-and-housing-unit god l;uck

 

[captainmorgan]

well, in my experience, 200w of Inda-Gro EFDL beats 432W of SunBlaze t5, so if what you are getting is comparable to IG, then 360w of those should do great things. and $200 shipped for all 3 of them is a killer deal, provided they last a couple years or more.

as for the 660nm supplement, i have heard mention of it, but have been too busy recently to really investigate what's online about it. personally i have run my Pro-420-PARs with and without HPS supplementation, and i'm not sure i see a difference that merits keeping the HPS around in my garden. but thats me...

as for reflector design, DIYing a small round thing might be harder than if you would have gotten rectangular lamps, like the "Smart Dragon" that your linked company offers. i would think that not having the reflector too far from the tube would be a key detail to design around, as well as the use of a cone (perhaps slightly concave in profile) in the center of the lamp ring. or maybe hang them vertically without a reflector and just let the lumens hit plants directly, from all sides. the thing that you need to focus on is that you don't want the shape of the reflector to cause it to reflect the light it catches back towards the bulb, you need to get the "top" and "side" light from the bulb's discharge redirected downward, around the bulb, with the shortest path while trying for the most even distribution.

The prices for these varied a lot and I went for the lowest per watt unit. The 120 watt rectangle was almost $1 a watt vs $.56 a watt for the round. I'm probably going to make a cheap quick basic reflector to get them up and running for my clones that are almost ready for flower.Then I'll have time to buy or design something more efficient.

 

[chazbolin]

Hey Captain! Permission to come aboard?

The thing to remember about any lamp that has a tube geometry that relies on opposing glass tubes to coil around like CFL's or circular induction lamps is that a significant portion of the energy produced is emitted behind the glass and between the inside diameter of the circle as photons emit at each other and not towards the canopy. Circular induction lamps simply don’t cover as much area, or as evenly, as a rectangular lamps so you'll need more of them to get even coverage. With a rectangular lamp design not only do you cover a larger area but the ability to design a highly, >95% total reflectivity, reflector that reflects a higher percentage of light to the canopy with fewer bends or radius edges means higher radiant flux values when compared to circular or opposing coil geometries.

I don't know this brand but I can say that as a straight triphosphor 5000K blend goes you will definitely need some help in the 600-660 ranges to get any meaningful flower. As with any fluorescent lamp for gardening, the phosphor blend is everything. I go with the Inda-Gro's because they're made in the USA and if I ever have an issue IG takes care of it within a day or two. I also cover the fixture costs 1/2 way thru the first grow and I get consistent quality and yields thereafter so for me it works out well.

That being said welcome to the wonderful world of induction and post those babies up.

 

[captainmorgan]

Just use an HID reflector at mount it too that........a bare reflector(without mogul base and wiring) costs very little at your local hydro shop

monster gardens rigged up a hid reflector to your bulb design http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1YO-uy-aqE kinda works

personally I would use a vertical reflector , will give you a better patter on a round induction bulb https://growershouse.com/45-vertical-reflector-and-housing-unit god l;uck

Thanks psuagro but I'll have to do a cheap DIY reflector for now because money is really tight and I'll upgrade when I get a few extra bucks.

 

[captainmorgan]

Hey Captain! Permission to come aboard?

The thing to remember about any lamp that has a tube geometry that relies on opposing glass tubes to coil around like CFL's or circular induction lamps is that a significant portion of the energy produced is emitted behind the glass and between the inside diameter of the circle as photons emit at each other and not towards the canopy. Circular induction lamps simply don’t cover as much area, or as evenly, as a rectangular lamps so you'll need more of them to get even coverage. With a rectangular lamp design not only do you cover a larger area but the ability to design a highly, >95% total reflectivity, reflector that reflects a higher percentage of light to the canopy with fewer bends or radius edges means higher radiant flux values when compared to circular or opposing coil geometries.

I don't know this brand but I can say that as a straight triphosphor 5000K blend goes you will definitely need some help in the 600-660 ranges to get any meaningful flower. As with any fluorescent lamp for gardening, the phosphor blend is everything. I go with the Inda-Gro's because they're made in the USA and if I ever have an issue IG takes care of it within a day or two. I also cover the fixture costs 1/2 way thru the first grow and I get consistent quality and yields thereafter so for me it works out well.

That being said welcome to the wonderful world of induction and post those babies up.

Thanks for your input chaz,I was of the same opinion about adding some 600 range color but not sure how much. I've got 630 and 660 T5's and could do 360 watts induction with 54 watts 630 and 54 watts 660 or I can use 240 or 360 watts induction with 108 watts of 630 and 108 watts of 660. I called indagro and they told me their lamp was rated at 4850k so I'm hoping these 5000k are not too far off. I really want to buy indagro but can't afford it right now. I'm sure I could use these for just veg after I buy a indagro fixture later.Which do you think would be more reflective,white painted aluminum or galvanized sheet metal?

 

[SteveyG]

• Have to post this again, Chaz do you think that the community will not look at every forum your on or sudeo name and not see you are on every forum pumping inda gro come on already.
  
  Talk about paid faces, these guys are for sure working for inda-gro is it not obvious? This type of thread is exactly why i am going to start my own blog about growing with induction and the igrow induction that i purchased. if you guys did any research like i did you would know that igrow is actually working with full spectrum solutions, who by the way has a pretty good resume.
  
  im sending an email to roll it up, enough of this b.s. this is supposed to be a forum about growing and helping each other grow. Not about posting b.s. about a company you either work for or that you are a friend of. get real.
  
  Hopefully everyone reading this will clearly see through it, im not a genius but pretty easy to see that this is a campaign and not intended to help anyone.​
  
  
  
  

 

[captainmorgan]

• Have to post this again, Chaz do you think that the community will not look at every forum your on or sudeo name and not see you are on every forum pumping inda gro come on already.
  
  Talk about paid faces, these guys are for sure working for inda-gro is it not obvious? This type of thread is exactly why i am going to start my own blog about growing with induction and the igrow induction that i purchased. if you guys did any research like i did you would know that igrow is actually working with full spectrum solutions, who by the way has a pretty good resume.
  
  im sending an email to roll it up, enough of this b.s. this is supposed to be a forum about growing and helping each other grow. Not about posting b.s. about a company you either work for or that you are a friend of. get real.
  
  Hopefully everyone reading this will clearly see through it, im not a genius but pretty easy to see that this is a campaign and not intended to help anyone.​
  
  

This is my DIY induction thread and would appreciate it if you would troll somewhere else. I'm quite capable of doing my own research on the different companies. You also sound a little like a igrow shill.

 

[chazbolin]

Thanks for your input chaz,I was of the same opinion about adding some 600 range color but not sure how much. I've got 630 and 660 T5's and could do 360 watts induction with 54 watts 630 and 54 watts 660 or I can use 240 or 360 watts induction with 108 watts of 630 and 108 watts of 660. I called indagro and they told me their lamp was rated at 4850k so I'm hoping these 5000k are not too far off. I really want to buy indagro but can't afford it right now. I'm sure I could use these for just veg after I buy a indagro fixture later.Which do you think would be more reflective,white painted aluminum or galvanized sheet metal?

You're very welcome. I don't like the pebbled reflector material since it's designed to diffuse a single light source like an HID lamp and spread it over a wider area. This is not very efficient in terms of how much energy leaves the lamp but makes it to the canopy. Hence the HID wattages climb up to accommodate larger footprints. Much of the HID energy is above PAR and creates heat that you need to evacuate from the environment. So in terms of the best reflective material I don't like the white reflective material behind the lamp as the total reflectivity is usually in the 90% range. High reflectance(>95%), think mirror image, means energy that is absorbed by other types of reflective surfaces is moved towards the canopy.

As to reflector geometry design, if you were the plant and looking up at the light you would see the back of the bulb reflected in the reflective material. It's tough to do correctly but when done right (fewest bends) it means higher intensities at the canopy. When you can afford one get a quantum meter so you can read uMoles at the canopy. They run about 3 bills but it'll give you PAR values and not lumen or footcandles which are of course human vision values not plant. Take a look at the reflection you get in the 420 to get an idea what I'm talking about.

sudeo name

Hey Stevey! I believe you meant pseudo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-

Lord what hath become of our public school systems? I know; it's texting! Today we see a higher incidence of young folks, coming out of college with degrees, that can't string coherent sentences together, much less write in proper grammatical form. I blame texting for this. In what is now considered acceptable conversation, I couldn't believe I recently heard some students on a local college radio show repeatedly using the word axed for ask. Where will it end? Are we to completely abandon the Queens' English? Come on detective we're counting on you to lead us out of this morass.

 

[Splifferous]

Hey Stevey! I believe you meant pseudo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-

or maybe he meant this?
[video=youtube;r0qBaBb1Y-U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0qBaBb1Y-U[/video]

 

[chazbolin]

Hey Captain!

I was chatting up IG today and asked them if they had any information to share that might be useful on the circular shaped EFDL lamps you bought for reflectors. Darryl told me that the one thing to be careful of when you're building a reflector around these lamps is that the glass has a mercury amalgam tip or spur that comes out of the glass and will often times have a second spur that houses which is referred to as a 'gitter'. The gitter will have a tiny piece of indium in it that is used to help vaporize the mercury and attracts any carbon that might be in the glass from when it was sealed closed.

The biggest issue with inexpensive glass lamps from China can be illustrated in these photo's he sent me where an 'alibaba' 400 watt lamp was brought into their office for what the customer had hoped could be repaired. Of course there is no way to repair what happened to the glass. In this case it was just a very slight bump of the alibaba gitter spur that caused the lamp to lose vacuum and was rendered useless. The pictures below show the glass tube with the magnetic coils having been removed.


In this picture you can see in the upper ring where the phosphor is missing. This is where the gitter had snapped off.



What they found in this case was that the glass wall thickness from this manufacturer varied wildly from thick wall of .062" or 1.57mm to a thin wall of .026" or 0.66mm and at the gitter they measured only .034 or 0.87. Inda-Gro has a uniform wall thickness of 1.5mm. Since the gitter sticks out of the lamp this makes for a easily breakable appendage if you're not careful.

The following pictures show the tube variations and why you should be extra careful when constructing a reflector around these glass spurs. In the picture on the far left you can see with the naked eye how much of a difference there is in the wall thickness. Not only is it expensive when these get broken you do not want to get mercury on your plants or ever come in contact with it.



On occasion you can actually get what you pay for. Quality glass and phosphors may run a bit more but in the end it's one less thing to worry about. Unless you really know the brand assume those babies can break without much effort. Hope that helps.

 

[captainmorgan]

Hey Captain!

I was chatting up IG today and asked them if they had any information to share that might be useful on the circular shaped EFDL lamps you bought for reflectors. Darryl told me that the one thing to be careful of when you're building a reflector around these lamps is that the glass has a mercury amalgam tip or spur that comes out of the glass and will often times have a second spur that houses which is referred to as a 'gitter'. The gitter will have a tiny piece of indium in it that is used to help vaporize the mercury and attracts any carbon that might be in the glass from when it was sealed closed.

The biggest issue with inexpensive glass lamps from China can be illustrated in these photo's he sent me where an 'alibaba' 400 watt lamp was brought into their office for what the customer had hoped could be repaired. Of course there is no way to repair what happened to the glass. In this case it was just a very slight bump of the alibaba gitter spur that caused the lamp to lose vacuum and was rendered useless. The pictures below show the glass tube with the magnetic coils having been removed.

View attachment 2430969
In this picture you can see in the upper ring where the phosphor is missing. This is where the gitter had snapped off.

View attachment 2430974

What they found in this case was that the glass wall thickness from this manufacturer varied wildly from thick wall of .062" or 1.57mm to a thin wall of .026" or 0.66mm and at the gitter they measured only .034 or 0.87. Inda-Gro has a uniform wall thickness of 1.5mm. Since the gitter sticks out of the lamp this makes for a easily breakable appendage if you're not careful.

The following pictures show the tube variations and why you should be extra careful when constructing a reflector around these glass spurs. In the picture on the far left you can see with the naked eye how much of a difference there is in the wall thickness. Not only is it expensive when these get broken you do not want to get mercury on your plants or ever come in contact with it.

View attachment 2430979View attachment 2430980View attachment 2430981

On occasion you can actually get what you pay for. Quality glass and phosphors may run a bit more but in the end it's one less thing to worry about. Unless you really know the brand assume those babies can break without much effort. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the heads up,I knew about the gitter from the indagro site. I'll be sure to be careful with them,I remember science class in school and the warnings about mercury. That Darryl seems like quite a guy,he spent close to a hour with me on the phone a while back answering my questions about induction and other lighting. He even told me when I was ready to order a light to just call him and he would ship it for free.LVD is the brand I ordered and they claim to be the worlds largest maker of induction lights. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing as far as quality.The list price of these 120 watt units was $278 each if that means anything.

http://www.lvd.cc/en/lvd/lampsource.html

 

[chazbolin]

All these companies will tell you their the biggest or best but in terms of sales volume I'm told, by Darryl, that YML is the largest producer of induction lamps in the world and they've been around, like LVD, since 1989 first as a ballast manufacturer now as an induction lamp manufacturer. Both YML and LVD are located in Shanghai, China.

With more than 20 years development,YML becomes one of the largest manufacture in China which can provide 13-500W induction lamp and relevant lighting fixture and appliance.

http://www.yml.cc/en/about.html

There are now quite a few Chinese companies that have 'tailored' their induction lights to indoor gardening in an attempt to increase sales. YML has done this too. You can see their 'plant grow lighting' link @ http://www.yml.cc/en/Plant-Grow-Lighting.html to get an idea of how much of an effort has been expended on R&D development of their grow light line. The YML 400 watt lamp and driver would run around $400.00 by the time you got in the US. Build a high quality housing and reflector and you drop another couple of hundred in materials. Through in your labor, running around, dealing with China, etc., you add another $200.00 and you're at $800.00 for a triphosphor 'grow light' ( let's not forget the added cost of T5/LED lamps to pickup spectrums that you're planning on adding as supplement) that if it should fail you're pretty much screwed when it comes to any kind of (timely) warranty support.

The lamp in the pictures was manufactured by YML. When the pictures were shown to YML they would not send a replacement lamp without charge. They claimed the wall thickness was within their tolerances. YML wanted another $180.00 + air freight of $110.00 for a total charge of $290.00 with no guarantee that the new lamp would not suffer the same fate. That customer bought an Inda-Gro after that experience.

 

[captainmorgan]

Got the lights one day early.I like that the gitter is on the inside,a little more protected there.

 

[PetFlora]

Hey Capt

I have found the UVL 660 (1/8 + 1/8 Coral Wave to compliment) can be too much 660. One of my 3 plants under it, (all different strains) developed leaf curl/claw. New growth after taking it our have returned to normal.

Compare ~ 3" below the top with the top 3"

 

[chazbolin]

I'm not really a NWO kinda guy but the benefit of having over a 1/2 decade behind me gives me some historical perspective to tap into.

On November 20th 2012 a world economic summit was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Titled the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership this summit developed strategies and agreements as to exactly how future world trade is going to be conducted between member nations.

With all the force, arm twisting and personal charisma that our president could muster, during meetings and speeches, President Obama agenda was to influence the exclusion of China from this members nations agreement. Not only was our president ultimately rebuked in that effort, it was the USA that was excluded from that agreement. It was determined amongst the Trans-Pacific member nations in attendance that, among other things which the US is falling short on ie innovation, exports, etc., the US dollar lacks the stability (gold went from $300/oz to $1,700/oz in 10 years) and foundational value to allow it to remain as the worlds reserve currency for international trade. It was agreed that the new standard reserve currency will be the Chinese Yuan Renminbi or CYR and not the US dollar.

President Barack Obama attended the summit to sell a US-based Trans-Pacific Partnership excluding China. He didn't. The American led-partnership became a party to which no-one came.

The dollar's value in the Asian market will continue to fall as it's relevance to these member countries is less dependent on their exports to the US and the strength of our currency falls. Prices for Chinese manufactured goods will rise and quality will fall as our dollar means less and less to these countries economic success. The very countries in which we export our jobs and voraciously import their products.

In these volatile economic times the support of US manufacturers and those that supply them I would put at the top of our responsibilities as citizens. I will do everything within my limited universe to not support Chinese imports but with the Federal Reserve working overtime to print more paper (Quantitative Easing) can anyone really blame the member Asian nations to look for alternatives? What a fucking mess.

This is one sobering read that you won't likely catch from our media. Get through it and you'll see what I mean. From the 11-27-12 Asian Times: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NK27Dj02.html