4x4 light for $1,000

ddeck96 said:

the raging kush is led. And if I went HLG that’s 15” with res, 24”min hang height, and recommended 15” below top of tent. That Only leaves me with 26 inches of plant growth to work it. And I’d like to be able to grow them a little taller than that. (4 plants in a 4x4 btw)

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Get a dimmable led(most reputable lights come with it)
Those hanging height suggests are with lights @ max power 100%
You can drop dimmable lights as low as you want if you adjust power accordingly.


260W QB V2 Rspec LED Kit
2 of these will run you 698.00 before shipping
Imo you'd get better coverage with these 2 lights
32 watts per sq in a 4x4
You wouldn't have to worry about height restrictions
Looking at your post above, I understand putting them together may be an issue. I think that hanging any light could or would be harder than hooking a few wires together.
I was a little nervous setting up my first quantum board, no lie.
As soon as I opened it up, easypeze.
Tbh I think the hanging part would be more of an issue, especially if that certain light you get is somewhat heavy

Merkn4aSquirtn said:

Get a dimmable led(most reputable lights come with it)
Those hanging height suggests are with lights @ max power 100%
You can drop dimmable lights as low as you want if you adjust power accordingly.


260W QB V2 Rspec LED Kit
2 of these will run you 698.00 before shipping
Imo you'd get better coverage with these 2 lights
32 watts per sq in a 4x4
You wouldn't have to worry about height restrictions
Looking at your post above, I understand putting them together may be an issue. I think that hanging any light could or would be harder than hooking a few wires together.
I was a little nervous setting up my first quantum board, no lie.
As soon as I opened it up, easypeze.
Tbh I think the hanging part would be more of an issue, especially if that certain light you get is somewhat heavy

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yeah i was looking at the HLG 600/650 with dimmers, but if you dim it and lower the light then you sacrifice uniformity and watts/sq feet. Plus, I don’t have a par meter so if just be guessing pretty much.

ddeck96 said:

yeah i was looking at the HLG 600/650 with dimmers, but if you dim it and lower the light then you sacrifice uniformity and watts/sq feet.

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Sort of but not necessarily.
Thats why I suggested two boards instead of one.
You'd get better coverage using two.
I wouldn't think you'd have to ever worry about having to dim them besides maybe the first week while they're young.
Keep them the recommended distance starting out, probably dimmed 50% the first week. After that you can bring those badboys up and run them 100%
Without a par meter, you'd just have to base everything off of what the manufacturer says. In that case, I'd probably trust their rec hanging height over most other companies suggestions

Merkn4aSquirtn said:

Sort of but not necessarily.
Thats why I suggested two boards instead of one.
You'd get better coverage using two.
I wouldn't think you'd have to ever worry about having to dim them besides maybe the first week while they're young.
Keep them the recommended distance starting out, probably dimmed 50% the first week. After that you can bring those badboys up and run them 100%
Without a par meter, you'd just have to base everything off of what the manufacturer says. In that case, I'd probably trust their rec hanging height over most other companies suggestions

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Using two of those lights I’d still have to use the same hanging height if running at 100%. The 260 v2 rspec uses 2 qb288s so 4 total. The 600 also uses 4 qb228s. Yes, being able to space them further apart make a little difference in the hot spot/uniformity. But with the light overlap it would still have to be hung at around 24 inches. I’m really only looking for a light for mid/late veg and flower, so imo buying a 600watt/2x260watt lights just to dim them down and lower power for the whole cycle seems like it defeats the purpose of buying that light in the first place.

MrGoldenNugz said:

Thats quite a statement as I'd say 98% of LED's are made in China anyway. Your smart phone TV and everything else electronic you own was made in China. The places to avoid buying from are Amazon and ebay.
What do you grow with USA made candles? Because I can guarantee you're Ballast's, Bulb's and everything else was made in China

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The LEDs could be from South Korea too. Not everything's made in China. And my Samsung phone was made in Vietnam.

I just try to buy American when I can, and HLG is top quality. They get the best diodes of the batches. They also started this whole quantum board thing. Other people buy the leftover diodes and build copies of HLG's designs.

Here's the 288's being made here in the US.

PadawanWarrior said:

The LEDs could be from South Korea too. Not everything's made in China. And my Samsung phone was made in Vietnam.

I just try to buy American when I can, and HLG is top quality. They get the best diodes of the batches. They also started this whole quantum board thing. Other people buy the leftover diodes and build copies of HLG's designs.

Here's the 288's being made here in the US.

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Did you know "Binned Silicon" is only marginally better? It is a lottery whether lights, GPU's or CPU's. I've built some high end PC's and "Top Bin" was rarely better than the cheaper "lower bins". Might want to read some real board reviews in the PC world. Just another sales gimmick to increase price. This I do know.

I with USA and rep. But we still have a myth about boards in our midst.

My last custom build and a few years learning silicon.

Surprised nobody has recommended the timber redwood vs. Along with the forum discount, you would have hundreds left over for a really good charcoal filter, extraction fan or a bunch of beans

PadawanWarrior said:

The LEDs could be from South Korea too. Not everything's made in China. And my Samsung phone was made in Vietnam.

I just try to buy American when I can, and HLG is top quality. They get the best diodes of the batches. They also started this whole quantum board thing. Other people buy the leftover diodes and build copies of HLG's designs.

Here's the 288's being made here in the US.

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HLG didnt start that style of lighting, all they did was name them "quantum boards" and were a hit in the community because they offered cheaper DIY lights. Samsung made the diodes which is the innovation and starting making them in pcb boards similar to a T5 light form factor. Nextlight had a board style light with 561b chips on it out a good year+ before i ever saw HLG around here. The innovation was the diodes themselves, all HLG did was put them in a form factor good for growing plants and even that they copied from nextlight.

IMO hlg didnt innovate anything, they copied off others and improved it slightly and pretended they created it.

MICHI-CAN said:

Did you know "Binned Silicon" is only marginally better? It is a lottery whether lights, GPU's or CPU's. I've built some high end PC's and "Top Bin" was rarely better than the cheaper "lower bins". Might want to read some real board reviews in the PC world. Just another sales gimmick to increase price. This I do know.

I with USA and rep. But we still have a myth about boards in our midst. View attachment 4673339

My last custom build and a few years learning silicon.

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I've been building my own PC's for years, but I don't get why you'd add a bunch of neon lights to it. It makes me think of "Fast and Furious", lol.

PadawanWarrior said:

I've been building my own PC's for years, but I don't get why you'd add a bunch of neon lights to it. It makes me think of "Fast and Furious", lol.

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sadly most overclocking parts and waterblocks have rbg on it and you cant even find parts without it. My motherboard, ram and video card all have it on by default and i had to bios override to turn off the damn carnival lights. It takes a special kind of computer nerd to build a custom closed loop water cooler like that. Hundreds of dollars and countless hours later you can 0.02% more mhz out of that clock speed.

i think the HLG 96 elite v2 is almost a perfect light..3500k for both veg a flower.... very little footprint for outdoors or indoors. id put 3 on a 320 driver and build as many as u want. probable 2 of those sets in a 4x4. u can put two 96v2s on a 320 driver but ur looking at pushing 150+ watts out of each and u would need to active cool then probable. if u put 3 on a 320 driver ur pushing about 110w out of each and that is about the max before ud need to add anything to the fixture. theres a looooot of flexability there if ur just starting out... u can push 20w out of 1 light if ur cloning or something.. keep the power down and the btus from the light down... and u can spin all 6 up to 640 actually 650 cuz hlg run a little higher than they say. its very easy to wire id never wird anyhting in my life untill i built these things... You can add to the spectrum using these lights a lot easier i think cuz they have such a small footprint. i hang a t5 over the top and add whatever i want to add to the spectrum.. most leds are going to fall in the 400-700nm range... these 96v2s and more recent leds have far red but i think they are still missing some essential parts of the spectrum.. uvb.. maybe infared.. might want to add more blue spec.. whatever.. u can do that w these lights by just hanging a t5 above them... that will cost u about $500... then id spend the extra $500 on the appogee ppfd sensor that includes far red photons... dont buy a $1000 light and have a vague idea of what it and you are doing... get a $500 light a $500 sensor and know exactly what u are doing... id be like buying a 3k hydro setup but not ph meter or ec meter... somone with a 1k setup and those meters are going to beat u everytime..

I've been real happy with my spiderfarmer sf 4000.

It only cost me 600

MICHI-CAN said:

Did you know "Binned Silicon" is only marginally better? It is a lottery whether lights, GPU's or CPU's. I've built some high end PC's and "Top Bin" was rarely better than the cheaper "lower bins". Might want to read some real board reviews in the PC world. Just another sales gimmick to increase price. This I do know.

I with USA and rep. But we still have a myth about boards in our midst. View attachment 4673339

My last custom build and a few years learning silicon.

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Nice I got the same gpu in my build

Couple of years ago I built this one

PadawanWarrior said:

I've been building my own PC's for years, but I don't get why you'd add a bunch of neon lights to it. It makes me think of "Fast and Furious", lol.

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Lol. The customer's call. And it is the rage in the gaming world. And it is fast and furious. 4.8-4.9 Ghz.

But the pc crowd has put binned silicon out of consideration as a feature to have. Growers need to learn the facts. Quit feeding the greed and rewarding liars. Just trying keep it real. Nothing personal. My 15 year old kid laughs at binned board claims. And he knows more about it than us.

MrGoldenNugz said:

Nice I got the same gpu in my build

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The cheap Amp blows a binned Amp extreme away by almost a Gig and 9% better efficiency. $100 cheaper. Tell me it's it's not a scam. Like HDTV antennas. People really are suckers. But those GPU's are sweet.

haze010 said:

sadly most overclocking parts and waterblocks have rbg on it and you cant even find parts without it. My motherboard, ram and video card all have it on by default and i had to bios override to turn off the damn carnival lights. It takes a special kind of computer nerd to build a custom closed loop water cooler like that. Hundreds of dollars and countless hours later you can 0.02% more mhz out of that clock speed.

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(3) 360 mm double thick raidaitors, 14 fans and the most efficient hardware you can get. It is almost 1 G faster overall than commercial 8700K custom with same price points. And can sustain it under load for hours before throttling. A little more to it than a vanity thing.

MICHI-CAN said:

(3) 360 mm double thick raidaitors, 14 fans and the most efficient hardware you can get. It is almost 1 G faster overall than commercial 8700K custom with same price points. And can sustain it under load for hours before throttling. A little more to it than a vanity thing.

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Didn't mean to imply it was purely a vanity thing to overclocking, the RGB is the vanity.
The overclocking crowd reminds me so much of car enthusiasts and their horsepower quest. If you can run any game you actually play with fps pinned to the 144hz of my monitor without overclocking what's the point? If you're a professional video Editor or running it as a cad workstation then ok, but otherwise why bother.
It's like the guy with an 800 horsepower car that only drives it on the street and not the track. Nowadays overclocking seems pointless, all that extra MHz does nothing for my actual experience.

UpstateRecGrower said:

600 watt HPS doesn't give much light in a 4x4

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6oo watts would be more than enough for a 4x4 grow especially if the right hood was used. Hell I had pretty good luck with less watts in a 4x4 using a 315 and a couple of CM led boards.

haze010 said:

Didn't mean to imply it was purely a vanity thing to overclocking, the RGB is the vanity.
The overclocking crowd reminds me so much of car enthusiasts and their horsepower quest. If you can run any game you actually play with fps pinned to the 144hz of my monitor without overclocking what's the point? If you're a professional video Editor or running it as a cad workstation then ok, but otherwise why bother.
It's like the guy with an 800 horsepower car that only drives it on the street and not the track. Nowadays overclocking seems pointless, all that extra MHz does nothing for my actual experience.

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My kid was the customer. LOL. Hard core gamer. Yet his passion is 3D rendering and programming. Was needed. Melted his first 3 customs under load. Just one of 17 I built for him or his friends.