ebay lights any good?
- Thread starter Scroga
- Start date
thegoodweed
Active Member
hell no.. i know some folks that said those cheap ebay led's are out of spectrum, screwed their plants.... thay suck. if your gonna get leds, drop some serious cash for a high output,with spectrum in your range, and a warranty is all worth the investment.. cheechako is obviously right, everyone knows and you prob do too, you get what you pay for.. if its too good to be true, then it is lol..
Scroga
Well-Known Member
Yeah I know but I'm strapped for "serious" cash...i guess I should rephrase my question....are cheap ebay led globes better than cheap cfls? I'm currently vegging under cfls but I've started taking the babys outside because the cfls are slow and gutless...i can't afford to set up my other hps sooo...am trying to decide wether to get more..cfls or start cheap with the leds? Cheers guys..
Scroga
Well-Known Member
Haha they always sayin them sayers! Its all good, I'm down with diy.. Have to be! Lolz
cobra28widow
New Member
I would say CFLs... Im going to buy a few later today.. Still waiting for my 1000w hortilux in the mail and my girls need more light.. Just wondering how big is your veg area? and how big is your flowering area?
Chronikool
Well-Known Member
You can alwayz build up your arsenal of cheaper LED lights....i started with a small amount of household LED's and floodlights and got used to growing with them. A bit more mucking around and sort of a ghetto set up....but it worked. 
Its documented in my 1st signature...
Its documented in my 1st signature...
cheechako
Well-Known Member
I'm doing a CFL grow. So, yeah, I went the "cheap" route. But I knew that going into it. In the meantime, while I'm getting hands-on grow experience, I'm researching high-end LEDs and HIDs for a future grow. And, if I have a bunch of 26W CFLs left when I upgrade, I can use them around the house.
Those cheap lights use 1W LEDs which are probably not going to be any better with fall-off and penetration than CFL. The current peak of technology uses 5W LEDs, which give much better PAR and whatnot. And no, a 5W LED is not the same as 5 1W LEDs.
Scroga
Well-Known Member
I got 2 , 1mx1.2m high tents next too each other one veg one flower, runnin dwc multi site setup..The veg tent is ment to be for moms and clones/seedlings but shes shutdown at the moment...the moms are in flower, the clones died bar 1 ww and the babes are gettin sun during the day and 600 by night (flower tent) but the littles ones are about big nuff to go back in the veg tent so I gotta get this sorted...
thegoodweed
Active Member
lol have you heard of those large feliz type cfls?? in the 125-300w range? you can get one 125w cfl for about under 30$.. but yeah even if you have sucky lights or low lemens, if you add a bunch up and keep adding lights, your gonna have a good outcome because your getting more watts more lumens. cfls are better if you cant use hid lights..
Scroga
Well-Known Member
I'm pretty sure I saw 3w(per diode) bulbz on there? And they.can go.quite cheep through the whole auction/biding process..I read somewhere a long time.ago something about angle/spread/focus of the beam being a major factor in good leds.. I.e theres an optimal angle for the light emitted to get best coverage/penetration from the lense of the diode.... My large cfls cost me 30 bucks a pop, and ones blown after 3 months?...What are your thoughts on floodlights?Cheers mate
Bumping Spheda
Well-Known Member
LED flood lamps are perfect for maintaining mothers if you can swallow the cost. You can probably make your own LED spotlight for less if you're inclined to some DIY fun. Check eBay for "Mean Well LED driver Warm White" and check out the wattage you're interested in. You can buy passive CPU coolers (or active, if you're thinking 50W+) to plaster the LED chip to for pretty cheap. You should be able to make something close to the $1 per Watt threshold.
LED's are awesome for veg, even the cheap stuff.
LED's are awesome for veg, even the cheap stuff.
Chronikool
Well-Known Member
Oh sweet have you got some LED floodlights Bumping?
Bumping Spheda
Well-Known Member
Nope, not yet. Spreading the goods on what I've seen you and gastanker do, basically.
I do have a CPU cooler that's big enough for a 20-30W multichip, though. I'm waiting on email responses from a few suppliers concerning 30W Warm White LED's. I'm looking for a good price on stuff with 45mil chips. I plan to use that lamp in the veg/mother room (I'd like to root cuttings in the flower tent and go straight to 10/14 just about as soon as they take, 2 plants at a time tops). I've also got a CPU cooler big enough for 100W (it's active, unlike the 30W cooler) which I'm saving for a custom ratio LED that I'm planning to have built. It'll be 45% 440nm, 45% 460nm, 10% 660nm, "2395k" phosphor layer over everything. The CCT value is in parentheses because it was calculated using 100% 450nm dice. The actual CCT for my custom LED would obviously be very difficult to determine w/o having the thing built and measured. Basically just waiting on funds at this point for the bigg'un. The only light that I currently have on hand are some ragtag supplemental panels that I've made. ~30W each.
Bumping Spheda
Well-Known Member
Well, I haven't heard anyone report issues with the flood lights. We'll have to wait for Chronikool to get his take.
As for DIY, yes, I remember reading that gastanker wished he had bought larger passive heat sinks (which he later did). Imo, if I'm going to go 50-100W of LED I want a fan. That's just me. If you wanted to go passive for 100W+ I'd start looking on Alibaba for LED heat sink manufacturers (note, those will be mega expensive and shipping will be outrageous), or look at really long extruded Aluminum (read really heavy) heat sinks over at heatsinkusa.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/120W-Multichip-LED-Cooler-/271053717315?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f1c0f7f43
That's what I'd recommend, or at least something similar.
This one was voted one of the top performing CPU coolers of 2012 and is pretty cheap.
Also don't skimp on the LED driver. Gastanker had to replace ?3 of 8? drivers in a 5 month span. That's a lot worse than changing bulbs, imo...
As for DIY, yes, I remember reading that gastanker wished he had bought larger passive heat sinks (which he later did). Imo, if I'm going to go 50-100W of LED I want a fan. That's just me. If you wanted to go passive for 100W+ I'd start looking on Alibaba for LED heat sink manufacturers (note, those will be mega expensive and shipping will be outrageous), or look at really long extruded Aluminum (read really heavy) heat sinks over at heatsinkusa.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/120W-Multichip-LED-Cooler-/271053717315?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f1c0f7f43
That's what I'd recommend, or at least something similar.
This one was voted one of the top performing CPU coolers of 2012 and is pretty cheap.
Also don't skimp on the LED driver. Gastanker had to replace ?3 of 8? drivers in a 5 month span. That's a lot worse than changing bulbs, imo...
Chronikool
Well-Known Member
Oh you were meaning the SMD chips or floodlights?
No issues with heat. I run 6 x 120 pc fans in my veg/mother/clone enclosure, some pushing, some pulling air. None directly on the floodlights though.
I have also no troubles with the drivers. No I've run my 30w floodlight for 2 grows now...all good. And on this grow, i have been using them for about 2 months (18/6)
They are really easy to modify. Ask FranJan about that...he actually detaches the driver and keeps it away from the grow area i think.