Did you buy real 1000W LED grow lights?

[Mars Hydro]

...again...agreed......and MH is very lucky to have Sara here as a rep!...for nearly 6 years, she has been nothing but great for the company...both in promotion and absorbing criticism...sometimes warranted...often not!...if I ever make it to China(prolly not the best idea right now...) I'll buy her a beer/saki......cheerz...h00k......

And I am lucky to been here,

 

[Mars Hydro]

Because the 5000k DB Bin cxb3590 is 210lm/w at decent drive levels. Still unbeatable in my book. I know the Samsung boards are all the he rage right now and they are indeed fantastic lights but they are just not there quite yet in my opinion. Very close but not yet. Luminous is a few steps back as far as I'm concerned. I have a few of the Luminous chips and after testing I put them to use on a few non related jobs. Dont get me wrong, the Luminous chips are good and will smoke blurple LEDs all day long. The Samsungs are even better. But it's still hard to beat 210lm/w that the Crees can do. I am slowly upping the blue in my spreads too. I'm seeing flowering is just as good but more efficient lights using less power. Still use 3000k and 3500k with them but not quite as much.

 

[dr.h00k]

I don't understand, do you have to pay for the exchange from USD to CAD ?

I'm in the EU and when I order from the US I have to pay 25% VAT, and it's definitely worth it with optoelectronics

...I'm referring to the currency exhange...for example, a HLG 260W QB V2 led kit is on sale for 330.00 US, which translates to 450.00 Cdn. plus international shipping(maybe 20/30 bucks?)...they say that that unit is capable of 5X5 veg and 2X4 flower...My head says...using the old 50 watts per sq. foot model l would still be a little under powered...I dunno, I'm still just trying to figger this out...given their are 2 great light guys in this thread, Id be glad to hear Your's or Fanleaf's thoughts on that...I have a 2X4 space beside my grow room that I play with autos and possibly some breeding in the near future, but if 2 of these or similar units would be a recommendation, then it gets pricey for lighting that small space...cheerz...h00k......

 

[fanleaf]

...I'm referring to the currency exhange...for example, a HLG 260W QB V2 led kit is on sale for 330.00 US, which translates to 450.00 Cdn. plus international shipping(maybe 20/30 bucks?)...they say that that unit is capable of 5X5 veg and 2X4 flower...My head says...using the old 50 watts per sq. foot model l would still be a little under powered...I dunno, I'm still just trying to figger this out...given their are 2 great light guys in this thread, Id be glad to hear Your's or Fanleaf's thoughts on that...I have a 2X4 space beside my grow room that I play with autos and possibly some breeding in the near future, but if 2 of these or similar units would be a recommendation, then it gets pricey for lighting that small space...cheerz...h00k......

I wouldn't use the 50w per square foot model for them. It's nice to have on hand but with my cobs it certainly gets 50w per square foot results that a purple lights get with much less. For cobs I would say 40-45 is PLENTY. Samsungs would be about the same I believe.

 

[Mars Hydro]

...I'm referring to the currency exhange...for example, a HLG 260W QB V2 led kit is on sale for 330.00 US, which translates to 450.00 Cdn. plus international shipping(maybe 20/30 bucks?)...they say that that unit is capable of 5X5 veg and 2X4 flower...My head says...using the old 50 watts per sq. foot model l would still be a little under powered...I dunno, I'm still just trying to figger this out...given their are 2 great light guys in this thread, Id be glad to hear Your's or Fanleaf's thoughts on that...I have a 2X4 space beside my grow room that I play with autos and possibly some breeding in the near future, but if 2 of these or similar units would be a recommendation, then it gets pricey for lighting that small space...cheerz...h00k......

That is around the same wattage as our SP-200, which is around 250w (growers vote to make it 250w), ours are long shape and our recommendation is growth for 2x4 (though we have grower use it for 4x4 area). three of them can do good in 4.5 x 4.5 space. (If we make it 200w, then three of them can do good in 4x4 area). As the light is 30% more efficient than the old blurple lights, it can use less watt/sft. So 35~38w/sft can do great in flowering.
Plus, you can get less than 1 USD for per wattage of our lights, haha!

 

[dr.h00k]

Ahhh...OK...food for thought......thank you both for the response's......cheerz...h00k......

 

[Mars Hydro]

Ahhh...OK...food for thought......thank you both for the response's......cheerz...h00k......

 

[PurpleGunRack]

Because the 5000k DB Bin cxb3590 is 210lm/w at decent drive levels. Still unbeatable in my book. I know the Samsung boards are all the he rage right now and they are indeed fantastic lights but they are just not there quite yet in my opinion. Very close but not yet. Luminous is a few steps back as far as I'm concerned. I have a few of the Luminous chips and after testing I put them to use on a few non related jobs. Dont get me wrong, the Luminous chips are good and will smoke blurple LEDs all day long. The Samsungs are even better. But it's still hard to beat 210lm/w that the Crees can do. I am slowly upping the blue in my spreads too. I'm seeing flowering is just as good but more efficient lights using less power. Still use 3000k and 3500k with them but not quite as much.

Sorry to be the buzzkill mate, but those efficacy levels are based on the calculated efficacy for 25° C junction temperature AKA not achieveable in practical application.

At 85° C the efficacy for the CXB3590 DB bin @1,4A (34V) is 165 lm/w, at 55° C the efficacy is a bit higher, but I seriously doubt you'll be able to get them down to 55° C @1,4A without active cooling.



Did you do some 3000K vs. 5000K comparison grows? I would be very interested in seeing some data from such grows



I think you should check out the H inFlux strips if you haven't already

H inFlux | SAMSUNG LED
https://www.digikey.com/products/en?FV=ffecf8a8

...I'm referring to the currency exhange...for example, a HLG 260W QB V2 led kit is on sale for 330.00 US, which translates to 450.00 Cdn. plus international shipping(maybe 20/30 bucks?)...they say that that unit is capable of 5X5 veg and 2X4 flower...My head says...using the old 50 watts per sq. foot model l would still be a little under powered...I dunno, I'm still just trying to figger this out...given their are 2 great light guys in this thread, Id be glad to hear Your's or Fanleaf's thoughts on that...I have a 2X4 space beside my grow room that I play with autos and possibly some breeding in the near future, but if 2 of these or similar units would be a recommendation, then it gets pricey for lighting that small space...cheerz...h00k......

Ahh OK so the price is the same, but the USD is high contra the CAD at the moment so you feel like you get less for your money?
I mean it would be a much higher Pesos number in Mexico but the price is the same, right? Am I missing some North American thing here?

A 260 might be able to veg 5x5, but not at all efficiently, the PPFD would be negative in the corners

The 260 is only like 60cm long, half the lenght of you tent, but if you get 2x 135 you can center each over a 2x2 area, 3x 135 would kill it in that area.

You can get a board + heatsink combo from Ateum Lighting for 75 USD, then you need a driver, some wire and a few connectors, should stay under 300 USD for two of those

 

[dr.h00k]

...thanks for the reply PGR!...thing is,I receive my pensions in Cdn. dollars, so I tend to think along those lines...I'm not poor, but decisions on discretionary purchases, should be weighed ...heart vs pocket book by acceptable results...I've always called myself a cheap SOB(missus h00k would prolly agree...), but I now prefer frugal!...I still have a whack of less than high end led's, that I will run to their eventual demise, but still want to entertain the idea of staying current in lighting technology...had I been in tune, I may have been able to skip the whole blurple stage of lighting......lolool...got a couple months before I fire up the 2019 grow, and will be processing info towards better lighting...cheerz...h00k......

 

[Bluenoser]

...I'm referring to the currency exhange...for example, a HLG 260W QB V2 led kit is on sale for 330.00 US, which translates to 450.00 Cdn. plus international shipping(maybe 20/30 bucks?)...they say that that unit is capable of 5X5 veg and 2X4 flower...My head says...using the old 50 watts per sq. foot model l would still be a little under powered...I dunno, I'm still just trying to figger this out...given their are 2 great light guys in this thread, Id be glad to hear Your's or Fanleaf's thoughts on that...I have a 2X4 space beside my grow room that I play with autos and possibly some breeding in the near future, but if 2 of these or similar units would be a recommendation, then it gets pricey for lighting that small space...cheerz...h00k......

Don't forget the GST and the nasty "brokerage fees" they charge upon delivery also.

What really gets me about these brokerage fees is that it is not based on anything particular, I once ordered 2 identical items from the same company worth $150.00 each, ( I forgot to order 2 of them and placed a second order later the same day) and they both arrived at the same time via UPS in separate boxes to my house here in Nova Scotia, and one item had a $18 brokerage fee while the exact same item that arrived at the same time had a $65.00 brokerage fee.

If you don't pay, it goes to a collection agency, and sometimes they only send you a bill for the brokerage fees weeks later and your wondering what the bill is even for.

If you buy locally in Canada your gonna pay more, way more, because someone has already absorbed those fees.

 

[Stunned]

If you buy locally in Canada your gonna pay more, way more, because someone has already absorbed those fees.

and I would have gladly purchased in Canada, had I been able to find someone to sell them to me.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Only place I could find them was in the States.
With Legallization here. I expect that to change, but I made my first Quantum light purchase a full year before legalization

 

[Bluenoser]

I hate to say it, but Amazon seems to be the best deal on alot of grow stuff, and usually free shipping, but I don't like to support the devil, literally, lol.

I bought LED light from there, but I can't mention the brand name, last time I did that on here I got my post deleted because they took it as promoting

 

[BTzGrow]

Excellent Read. I feel one of the most commonly misunderstood subjects in growing is lighting. I'm an LED grower and feel I have done really well with them. However I did a lot of research and learned a lot about PAR readings and Daily Light Intervals(DLI) to establish a baseline of what I really needed. Daily Light Interval is a completely different subject that is very misunderstood.

My grow areas are smaller. One of the major concerns with any grow environments and especially smaller ones is temperature and humidity control. Larger lights first don't fit in smaller grow areas and secondly they create way too much heat that must be managed. I have a filtered air intake and a blower to extract the heat outside the tents. Yes, even with LED's there is some extra heat especially in the summer times.

Most smaller growers take the information they get from their local hydro store, their buddies that have been growing and advertizing to make choices. The worst choice they make is basing their purchase on price. Over all many growers purchase lights based on misinformation and not enough knowledge of what the lights can achieve. I have seen many growers here who have purchased multiple lights and still are not happy. They're not understanding they didn't do their due diligence in learning about the subject. This might be where LED's have gotten a bad reputation in the past. Poor choices in equipment.

One of the first things after I bought my first single light was to purchase a PAR meter. I had evaluated manufactures and found at the time that very few provided PAR information. The manufacture that I purchased from provided that information in the form of a map that gave PAR reading at different heights and also distance from center for those heights.

As stated in this thread a PAR reading between 350-400 is important for the vegging cycle. For flower the light can be dropped and increase the PAR reading for flowering to around 800-900PAR. I use a single light at higher distance in my veg tent, and two lights closer to the plants in my flowering tent.

So far I have had excellent results with this process, but it includes monitoring my PAR reading. Another most important aspect of lighting is coverage. As the distance between the light and plant decreases the "cone of light" coverage decreases so that the sides of a smaller tent don't receive the light levels (PAR) they need. If you have plants closer to the edges/perimeter they will have drastically reduced PAR.

Some have brought in Light Movers to counter this issue. To me that means they haven't planned out the coverage area and are now spending more money to cure a problem they themselves created. Additionally light movers in a small tent are not an option.

I decided after consulting with the manufacture of my lights that if I had a second matching light that I hung side by side with some separation that I would give excellent light covers all the way out and around the perimeter of my tent. I can also tilt my lights so they point a bit more towards the center and increase the PAR reading with the overlapping coverage.

The lights I'm using draw 110watts each from the wall. They provide all of the PAR I need. PAR is not an equation of wattage but distance from plant. So purchasing super high wattage lights for me was going to be a waste of power. In the world of Engineering, heat translates into waste and inefficiency. None of us want to waste money. Improperly sized lights are a big waste of power.

I'm not exactly to my goal of one gram per watt, I'm close at around .8 grams per watt. But I feel I have my lights dialed in. Now I'm focusing on Nutrients and Environment.

I am convinced that the multiple light solution is best for me. If I had a bigger grow area, I would most likely stay with the size I'm using at this time and hang more lights to cover the entire grow area. For an example in a 4x4tent I would most likely start with 4 Mini's at 110 watts each and see what my total coverage maps out to be. That would have the total wattage consumption under 450watts and still provide all the light I need.

In closing I personally wouldn't purchase any light that didn't provide upfront information about PAR and area coverage in detail. Additionally, true from the wall wattage numbers are equally important. Thanks for sharing this thread. I feel it is a very important part of us becoming better growers.

 

[PurpleGunRack]

Excellent Read. I feel one of the most commonly misunderstood subjects in growing is lighting. I'm an LED grower and feel I have done really well with them. However I did a lot of research and learned a lot about PAR readings and Daily Light Intervals(DLI) to establish a baseline of what I really needed. Daily Light Interval is a completely different subject that is very misunderstood.

My grow areas are smaller. One of the major concerns with any grow environments and especially smaller ones is temperature and humidity control. Larger lights first don't fit in smaller grow areas and secondly they create way too much heat that must be managed. I have a filtered air intake and a blower to extract the heat outside the tents. Yes, even with LED's there is some extra heat especially in the summer times.

Most smaller growers take the information they get from their local hydro store, their buddies that have been growing and advertizing to make choices. The worst choice they make is basing their purchase on price. Over all many growers purchase lights based on misinformation and not enough knowledge of what the lights can achieve. I have seen many growers here who have purchased multiple lights and still are not happy. They're not understanding they didn't do their due diligence in learning about the subject. This might be where LED's have gotten a bad reputation in the past. Poor choices in equipment.

One of the first things after I bought my first single light was to purchase a PAR meter. I had evaluated manufactures and found at the time that very few provided PAR information. The manufacture that I purchased from provided that information in the form of a map that gave PAR reading at different heights and also distance from center for those heights.

As stated in this thread a PAR reading between 350-400 is important for the vegging cycle. For flower the light can be dropped and increase the PAR reading for flowering to around 800-900PAR. I use a single light at higher distance in my veg tent, and two lights closer to the plants in my flowering tent.

So far I have had excellent results with this process, but it includes monitoring my PAR reading. Another most important aspect of lighting is coverage. As the distance between the light and plant decreases the "cone of light" coverage decreases so that the sides of a smaller tent don't receive the light levels (PAR) they need. If you have plants closer to the edges/perimeter they will have drastically reduced PAR.

Some have brought in Light Movers to counter this issue. To me that means they haven't planned out the coverage area and are now spending more money to cure a problem they themselves created. Additionally light movers in a small tent are not an option.

I decided after consulting with the manufacture of my lights that if I had a second matching light that I hung side by side with some separation that I would give excellent light covers all the way out and around the perimeter of my tent. I can also tilt my lights so they point a bit more towards the center and increase the PAR reading with the overlapping coverage.

The lights I'm using draw 110watts each from the wall. They provide all of the PAR I need. PAR is not an equation of wattage but distance from plant. So purchasing super high wattage lights for me was going to be a waste of power. In the world of Engineering, heat translates into waste and inefficiency. None of us want to waste money. Improperly sized lights are a big waste of power.

I'm not exactly to my goal of one gram per watt, I'm close at around .8 grams per watt. But I feel I have my lights dialed in. Now I'm focusing on Nutrients and Environment.

I am convinced that the multiple light solution is best for me. If I had a bigger grow area, I would most likely stay with the size I'm using at this time and hang more lights to cover the entire grow area. For an example in a 4x4tent I would most likely start with 4 Mini's at 110 watts each and see what my total coverage maps out to be. That would have the total wattage consumption under 450watts and still provide all the light I need.

In closing I personally wouldn't purchase any light that didn't provide upfront information about PAR and area coverage in detail. Additionally, true from the wall wattage numbers are equally important. Thanks for sharing this thread. I feel it is a very important part of us becoming better growers.

I agree with most of what you say and you have some good points, but you've got some terms/units mixed up a bit

Firstly it's Daily Light Integral, not interval.

Secondly, it's important to understand that PAR is not a unit it's simply the range of lightwaves between 400nm and 700nm.
What we measure is PPFD (Photosynthetical Photon Flux Density) which is the number photons, within the PAR range, that hit a surface area every second.
The unit we use is micromoles per second - µmol/s - sometimes (mistakenly) called umoles, not u, micro

 

[fanleaf]

Sorry to be the buzzkill mate, but those efficacy levels are based on the calculated efficacy for 25° C junction temperature AKA not achieveable in practical application.

At 85° C the efficacy for the CXB3590 DB bin @1,4A (34V) is 165 lm/w, at 55° C the efficacy is a bit higher, but I seriously doubt you'll be able to get them down to 55° C @1,4A without active cooling.



Did you do some 3000K vs. 5000K comparison grows? I would be very interested in seeing some data from such grows



I think you should check out the H inFlux strips if you haven't already

H inFlux | SAMSUNG LED
https://www.digikey.com/products/en?FV=ffecf8a8








Ahh OK so the price is the same, but the USD is high contra the CAD at the moment so you feel like you get less for your money?
I mean it would be a much higher Pesos number in Mexico but the price is the same, right? Am I missing some North American thing here?

A 260 might be able to veg 5x5, but not at all efficiently, the PPFD would be negative in the corners

The 260 is only like 60cm long, half the lenght of you tent, but if you get 2x 135 you can center each over a 2x2 area, 3x 135 would kill it in that area.

You can get a board + heatsink combo from Ateum Lighting for 75 USD, then you need a driver, some wire and a few connectors, should stay under 300 USD for two of those

Who runs them at 85c and 1.4amp? It depends on what your goal is . If you want to build it for all out efficiency then you run more than 1 chip per square foot 0.700 amps is plenty and temps are very low and efficiency is very high. The problem is for most people they don't pack more than one chip per square foot so you can run them that low. In my grams per watt test grow I ran all 25 chips at a grand total of 510 Watts from the wall. That's only 20 watts per chip. I was able to achieve 1.5 grams per watt with a crop that wasn't well taken care of because my wife died during the grow. For 1.5gpw without much effort I would put them against anything for real world efficiency. I know I could have gotten 1.75gpw or better if I was in the right state of mind to take care of the crop.

 

[BTzGrow]

I agree with most of what you say and you have some good points, but you've got some terms/units mixed up a bit

Firstly it's Daily Light Integral, not interval.

Secondly, it's important to understand that PAR is not a unit it's simply the range of lightwaves between 400nm and 700nm.
What we measure is PPFD (Photosynthetical Photon Flux Density) which is the number photons, within the PAR range, that hit a surface area every second.
The unit we use is micromoles per second - µmol/s - sometimes (mistakenly) called umoles, not u, micro

Thanks PGR, I understand and I think my fault was sitting down and typing out something before having a cup of coffee and digging around and through my previous research. I took some short cuts. Thanks for the information correction. I understand the importance for people to get the proper vocabulary and information.

So just to confirm, we want to use a PPFD value of 350-400 for Vegging and 800-900 typically for Flowering. Of course that is somewhat dependent on the length of time we actually have the lights on. My understanding is we are shooting for about 25-28 DLI for Veg and 32-35 DLI for Flowering with Cannabis. Those numbers being approximate and not a hard a fast rule as each grower has their preference.

I typically push 350PPFD for 24hrs each day during Veg, and 1000PPFD for 12hrs during Flower. Those numbers work for me.

 

[fanleaf]

Sorry to be the buzzkill mate, but those efficacy levels are based on the calculated efficacy for 25° C junction temperature AKA not achieveable in practical application.

At 85° C the efficacy for the CXB3590 DB bin @1,4A (34V) is 165 lm/w, at 55° C the efficacy is a bit higher, but I seriously doubt you'll be able to get them down to 55° C @1,4A without active cooling.



Did you do some 3000K vs. 5000K comparison grows? I would be very interested in seeing some data from such grows



I think you should check out the H inFlux strips if you haven't already

H inFlux | SAMSUNG LED
https://www.digikey.com/products/en?FV=ffecf8a8








Ahh OK so the price is the same, but the USD is high contra the CAD at the moment so you feel like you get less for your money?
I mean it would be a much higher Pesos number in Mexico but the price is the same, right? Am I missing some North American thing here?

A 260 might be able to veg 5x5, but not at all efficiently, the PPFD would be negative in the corners

The 260 is only like 60cm long, half the lenght of you tent, but if you get 2x 135 you can center each over a 2x2 area, 3x 135 would kill it in that area.

You can get a board + heatsink combo from Ateum Lighting for 75 USD, then you need a driver, some wire and a few connectors, should stay under 300 USD for two of those

 

[dr.h00k]

...condolences on the loss of your wife Fan...I can't even imagine what that would do to me......cheerz...h00k......

 

[fanleaf]

...condolences on the loss of your wife Fan...I can't even imagine what that would do to me......cheerz...h00k......

Thanks man. It's been about 2 years now so it's easier to talk about. She was 42, my kids were home with her alone and found her. They were 11 and 16 at the time. It was a very rough time. Still is. It's just time has made things a bit better. Anyways yeah, that kinda let the last 2 weeks of the grow fall apart.
Thanks though hook.

 

[The nutty bud]

I move the two clones out of a 200w t5.
Clone on the left was put under 600watt hps 16 hours on 8 hours off.
Clones on the right was put under 385 watt Draw led 3 chip 150 light 10 watt per light for a comparable 1500 watt light frequency spectrum.
It's clear that the plant on the right is fuller.
The plant on the left is longer but not as full.