CREE releases new LED lineup.... Aims to be much more cost efficient...

Sounds great, I've been telling people about the silicon based chip that bridgelux is creating. It sounds like they are both gearing up for a big step in led tech.

Exciting stuff. Im going to get some free samples haha

Now its the wait game until a manufacturer puts some these bad boys in a panel....lol its still gonna cost mucho$$$$$$

I am not buying LEDs for about 6 months

Endur0xX said:

I am not buying LEDs for about 6 months

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Thats what i've been saying. Were on the cusp here for a big leap in LED (and other tech), so if you have em, rock it, otherwise stick with something cheap until we get more stabilization.


The main reason this will help with cost, from my understanding, is because the silicon chips are cheaper to make AND the higher power chips are EASIER to make, so the process and the materials should help to lower the cost in both ways. And once china starts ripping them off, all bets are off.

Beefbisquit said:

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The Cree XLamp® XT-E White LED delivers twice the lumens-per-dollar of other LEDs and features the highest performance and efficacy in the industry.


Apparently not? This should translate to similar performance for 1/2 price, or double performance for similar price?

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Neither one.

If we're talking about actual growlight panels (not just individual diodes), this would be true if (and only if) the cost of the panel was directly proportionate to the diode cost.

In that case, halving the cost of the diodes would halve production cost, and then presumably retail cost.

The problem is that this is nowhere near true. In building any commercial LED panel, there are still other fixed hardware, manufacturing, and distribution costs irrespective of the diode costs. The cost of the diodes themselves is significant, but ultimately it only represents a small fraction of the final retail price of a panel.

More relevant, grow panels aren't primarily using the bright white diodes in question anyway. Even the most advanced panels are still only using a few white diodes; most diodes used in grow panels are still specific red and blue spectrum diodes which are not directly improved by this particular advance.

Bottom line is, this particular advance will probably at *best* only knock a few dollars off the cost of current-generation growlight LED panels, and I think even there its still going to take a while before the new technology actually makes its way into panels available for retail sale.

If and when this same technology can be applied to more grow-specific diodes, then we'll see more significant improvements in cost and performance.

^ I would completely disagree. The first step in utilizing the silicon based chips is applying that technology to the greatest market demand, which is home and commercial lighting, which translates to the white leds. Once they apply this technology to the spectrum we use for growing, which they will/are already, it will be reflected significantly in our costs. True it will not be a direct 50% off, but the cases are still the same, the chips are about the same and are tooled to swap in with old tech, so manufacturing costs will be the same they are now because the machines that are producing the current panels are already tooled and running. The power sources most places use are less than the costs of the chips by a large margin and the cases are low cost once the equipment is paid for. The lower heat might mean a same panel wattage would use 1 or 2 less fans, theres cost saved as well.

I see the first batches to be a little lower priced while the retailers attempt to gouge the consumer on price, but once competition takes hold i would expect a nice price drop for a better product.

karr said:

The first step in utilizing the silicon based chips is applying that technology to the greatest market demand, which is home and commercial lighting, which translates to the white leds.

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Agree there. . .these will reduce costs of white LEDs, across the board.

Once they apply this technology to the spectrum we use for growing, which they will/are already, it will be reflected significantly in our costs.

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That's what I said: "If and when this same technology can be applied to more grow-specific diodes, then we'll see more significant improvements in cost and performance."

Yes, EVENTUALLY the same new technology should be applied to grow-frequency specific diodes, and I'm imagine it probably will be in the next 2 years. But I'm not holding my breath for better red and blue diodes to appear in commercially available grow panels in the near term. Grow-frequency specific diodes are such a niche market that improving those particular diodes have to be low-priority for any manufacturer. They'll improve when the manufacturers redesign manufacture of ALL their diodes. In the meantime, the new white LED diodes described above won't mean any meaningful difference in grow panel costs, because existing grow panel designs barely use any white LEDS at all.

Perhaps availability of cheaper and more power-efficient white LEDs might mean that grow panels makers will incorporate more white LEDs into their panels. There could be some benefits there, but at this point, those are purely speculative.

True it will not be a direct 50% off, but the cases are still the same, the chips are about the same and are tooled to swap in with old tech, so manufacturing costs will be the same they are now because the machines that are producing the current panels are already tooled and running.

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I agree, but additional tooling or manufacture costs aren't really at issue here.

Again, ultimately the cost of the actual diodes is still only a fraction of the final total retail costs. There are still significant costs for cases, heat sinks, power supplies, assembly, quality control, packaging, shipping, marketing, and retail markup (the latter potentially 100% over wholesale). Remember that grow panels are still a relatively "niche" item. There isn't anywhere near the economy of scale in terms of volume there to keep prices down compared to more conventional lighting applications, meaning that there may be a relatively indirect connection between the actual manufacturing cost of the panels and the final retail price (more on this below).

Specifically, on a panel that retails for $300, the actual diodes probably don't cost the manufacturer more than $100, and in fact, I'd be surprised if they even cost that much. . .I'd expect the true number to be south of $70, and maybe quite a bit less. Cut the overall diode cost in half, and you're still only shaving $50 cost from a $300 panel. Yes, that's a significant cost savings, but its not "night and day" different.

It also assumes that you CAN cut the overall diode cost in half. Again, that probably will happen eventually with specialized diodes, but because of lower demand and economy of scale, it may not happen quite so fast as with the white LEDs.

In practice, since grow-light panels are so specialized, and since there are relatively few manufacturers of high-quality units, cheaper diodes may not result in lower-priced panels at the retail level, at least not at first. The sellers will probably do what the TV, phone, and other tech manufacturers do with new tech. . .ask the SAME amount for the improved product. This isn't "price-gouging", its ordinary supply and demand pricing; the makers can, and will, charge what the market can bear.

Better panels for the same cost are still a "win" for the consumer, but it doesn't necessarily mean less money up front out of pocket. Again, its not until there is really high volume of these panels made that you get the kind of competition that really drives down prices. That probably won't happen until/unless we get large bright (white) LED panels designed for general use, as replacements for HID lighting. Once people can adapt commercial indoor/outdoor lighting panels for growing (as can be done now with CFL and HID lamps) then you're going to see truly attractive/competitive pricing for grow-specific units.

I am a Cree fans, beacuse Cree is always give us surprise.

can't wait to see these on the market

I took a quick look at their site and the XT-E appears to be available in Royal Blue... I sent an email to productsupport @ cree.com and asked them to make them available in red as well so that agricultural grow lights can take advantage of the new technology as well....