What LED to get with $300ish budget?
Mars Hydro
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For a 2'x4'x5' grow tent ,you can check our Mars Pro II Epistar160 Mars , Led grow light , Mars Hydro It's much better than the Mars II 400 or the Reflector144.
Cannabomb62
Well-Known Member
Or go with a 400 watt hps which would actually be better than any of those leds and a 400 watt hps does not affect you light bill like at all. A space heater will run youbelectrick bill up higher than a 400 watt hps
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EBnFLO
Well-Known Member
I think you should consider (2) Mars 600 instead of (3) Mars 300.
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Cannabomb62
Well-Known Member
Sorry your electric bill is what i ment
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Actually with those old style Mars Hydro lights you CAN absolutely go wrong. I have 3 of the old style 300s, two that I bought maybe a year ago and one that I bought a few months ago. The ones that are about a year, one has 11 burnt/burning diodes and the other 13. They are cheap, and you can send them back to get the diodes fixed, but in hindsight I would have rather bought a quality light that was a bit more dependable. Especially when you are looking at a single light for your grow, it needs to be rock solid because if that one light goes, you are stuck. With multiple lights you at least have another light to cover you until you can fix the situation.
I would completely rule out the old style Mars light and the Vipar. I have heard nothing but praise for the Platinum lights, so I don't think you could go wrong there, but I would want to add another before bloom.
I would completely rule out the old style Mars light and the Vipar. I have heard nothing but praise for the Platinum lights, so I don't think you could go wrong there, but I would want to add another before bloom.
- Thread starter
- #8
Do you have experience soldering on circuit boards? If you do it's not a big deal to fix the LEDs that will go out, shipping it back will get expensive quickly.
JimmyJames905
New Member
For $600 you could build a massive COB LED array. 4x the power of anything you could buy from China.
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JuanCarlos
Well-Known Member
It would be less than $300 for the two old style Mars lights he is talking about.
JimmyJames905
New Member
It's less than $200 for a 3 COB array from Bridgelux or Citizen including a dimmiable/Overvolt driver from Meanwell. This would output 30000 lumens without overdrive. How many lumens does the Mars put out? Just curious.
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Velk
Well-Known Member
I was gonna say go with Mars but your already going that way. I have x2 900 and x2 Mars 300s doesn't even scratch the electric bill
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JuanCarlos
Well-Known Member
I am on board with you JJ, if I were to do a light I would move towards the COBs, but OP may not be a DIY guy, seems to have his mind made up on the Mars Hydro units.
Velk
Well-Known Member
It costs more to run a plug in heater than my whole set up hehe
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JimmyJames905
New Member
I had a mars. Repaired it 3 times. Final repair cost me a new driver.
Then I sold it.
Nothing compares to COBs. At $29 bucks for 50w and 10000-14000 lumens it's a no brainer.
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Your 900 is the Mars II with the black case? What about the 300s? If either is a white case model, how long have you had them and how many burnt/burning diodes have you experienced?
Any LED is going to be efficient, going with a Mars Hydro unit because it's efficient isn't really a reason to buy MH lights, it's a reason to buy LED lights.
Jimmy, looks like they are saying that the Mars Hydro 600 is about 9,122 lumens. I have learned my lesson. I thought I was doing good going with a cheap light with a warranty. Now I am sitting on 24 burnt or burning diodes a year later. Will be moving to COBs or a Perfect Sun light as soon as possible.
I think the Perfect Sun 500 and the Perfect Sun Dwarf Star are also worth a look. Everyone who has a Perfect Sun light loves them and Neil grows some awesome plants and loves to help others, so I think his lights and customer service would be awesome. They are a little above your price point, but the Dwarf Star isn't much more.
JimmyJames905
New Member
That's because the mars 300 only uses 150-160w.
Check out what I build for $80 (almost complete)
It runs on 14 COB driven LED Phillips bulbs at 1120 lumens each. Total output is 15600 lumens. Consumes 168w
Bulbs are replaceable, only uses bulbs as you need them (step up system). Uses 5000k to 2700k LED bulbs at 100,60 or 40 w equivalent.
The bulbs
The LUX (per bulb)
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- Thread starter
- #19
MY first grow I made a 220w with 4-FT55W/2G11- at 19,200lumens. This time around I don't feel like building anything.
That's $80 all in with bulbs or just with fixtures? Do you have a completed unit you have used? That seems like a really cool DIY route and might just work for me in my veg tent so I could ditch the MH units.
