Best budget LED? So many to choose from!

MrCowbell

New Member
I'm looking for an LED light in the 500 watt range and was wondering if anyone could recommend something. I see the prices range from $50 to $1000! I'm looking for something low cost to compliment my Mars Hydro 600 for a 4x4 grow room.. Thanks..
 
I'm looking for an LED light in the 500 watt range and was wondering if anyone could recommend something. I see the prices range from $50 to $1000! I'm looking for something low cost to compliment my Mars Hydro 600 for a 4x4 grow room.. Thanks..
I've also used galaxyhydro leds. They seem to have worked quite well. My babies vegged like crazy
 
Watt just measures how much power goes in, not what comes out! ;)
Most LED lamps draw less power than what they are called ie. your Mars600 doesn't draw 600 watt but 340ish watt.

The best cheap LED choice is not to choose LED and go with HID it's cheap and it works.


What exactly is your budget?
 
Be careful with cheap LED's. I purchased several 800 watt LED's on Amazon for $259 that I'm happy with (not going to mention names since it's a no no on this site). For shitsandgiggles I recently purchased 2 "1000" watt LED's there for $99 each. The deal of the century right....instead of $3 a watt the "1000" are only 99cents....not true the output is super crappy and not providing plants with enough light is well a shitty way to produce herb and have healthy plants.

On a side note, I left a honest one star review and the company offered all of my money back and I could keep the lights if I changed my review. I sort of knew this would be the outcome before buying the lights, still pondering if selling my integrity is worth $200 of shitty lights.
 
I currently use a mars hydro reflector 144 model led light. I have a 2x4x6 tent and this light is rated for this tent HOWEVER I have found that the light is a bit on the weak side. I am getting buds and all but they could use more light. I plan on getting two mars 300 and making a frame that all three lights go into to optimaize my lighting. Adding those two lights would put me at about 260 more watts of lighting added to my 300 for the reflector 144 should give me a lot better results.
 
Yeah my mars says 350 watts so that's about right. I have a 1000W HPS light on my 4 plants right now but its too hot and expensive to operate. Plus the bulbs don't last and they want $60 a piece for them! Not worth it to keep running it. Do you think another LED like the one I have would be enough for the four plants..
 
The Mars600 is 10" x 17". Your space is 48" x 48".

If you got a second Mars600 and hung them 2" apart in the center, that's a 700w 22" x 17" light. 700w is probably enough, but the 22" x 17" is still too centered to cover the 4x4 evenly. You could spread them apart 8" to light the 48" width evenly, but the 17" panel length is not going to be good for the 48" footprint. Most LED's use 120 degrees lenses for the LED's but their actual spread is effectively 90 degrees. If your 17" light is hung in the center of a 48" tent, that's 15.5" on each side of the light that are not directly covered. For the 90 degrees light to stretch 15.5" wide, it also needs to be 15.5" above the 48" footprint.

Why is that a big deal? The Inverse square law; which says as you double a light's distance, its intensity drops 4x. For that reason, any grow light is going to be more efficient the closer you hang it. If you have to hang your light 16" high just to spread 48" wide, that's 16" of wasted energy. That 16" closest to the panel is worth as much photosynthetic energy as the following 5 feet of height (math not exact).

Not only that, by the time the photons from your panel stretch 16" wide, those sides are going to be getting a fraction of the light that the center is getting. Mars Hydro didn't even make their graph 4' wide cause the numbers would be so low:
61yvj5j7pzL_SL1500_.jpg


Another Mars600 would definitely be an improvement, but still severely lacking. It's extremely important to cover the target footprint evenly. Any light that has to stretch more than 6" wide to illuminate your plants is going to do so inefficiently.
 
Yeah my mars says 350 watts so that's about right. I have a 1000W HPS light on my 4 plants right now but its too hot and expensive to operate. Plus the bulbs don't last and they want $60 a piece for them! Not worth it to keep running it. Do you think another LED like the one I have would be enough for the four plants..

No, but 3 is decent, but then you run ~1000w anyway. Is your HPS aircooled?

The thing about cheap LED is that you need about the same wattage as HID and sometimes they don't last for long and you have to buy a new light.

If you want to have an effective lighting system for a reasonable price, you have to go DIY. The price is higher than cheap blurples but you get a better light system that will last for a long time.
16-25 of the newer generation COB's spread out evenly and running at 25w-50w each is the best performance and price wise you can get at the moment ;)
It takes a little reading and watching some videos, but it's pretty straightforward to do the DIY.
 
I'm considering this quantum type. You can use it to evenly cover a 4.5' by 4.5' in flower. Suppose to be the most efficient. And it will dim down for my 3' by 3' area in the summer.
Or maybe a Spectrum King 400 plus with a dimmer. It will easily do a 4' by 4'.
 
I'm considering this quantum type. You can use it to evenly cover a 4.5' by 4.5' in flower. Suppose to be the most efficient. And it will dim down for my 3' by 3' area in the summer.

Or maybe a Spectrum King 400 plus with a dimmer. It will easily do a 4' by 4'.

Have you done any research into those claims? The link for the quantum light includes a PPFD graph that shows how uneven their distribution is in a 4x4'. One thing it'll be most efficient at is draining you of $1000. I bet Purplegunrack could link you to those components for half the price if you build it yourself. All that manufacturer did was screw the four quantum boards to a heatsink and connect the driver.

The Spectrum King 400+ is even worse. They don't include a PPFD graph but you can figure by the tiny 13" diameter that it's not going to spread 4 feet wide evenly. It's going to create a spotlight. The spotlight will illuminate 4 feet wide if you hang it high enough, but it still won't be even.

Most LED manufacturers are total liars and will stretch all of their advertised statistics to fool the customer into making a purchase. It's a more deceitful industry than the media.
 
That HLG Light looks like it has some of the best coverage for the wattage. And it will dim down to as low as 250 watts. Perfect for my 3' by 3'. Nothing else comes close. Plus it's normal warm white light (not blurpal) that won't signal every cop or nosy neighbors.
 
That HLG light is over $1000 so I wouldn't really call it budget. You could build it yourself for a lot less or buy something even more expensive if you want perfection. That HLG will be good in a 3x3, if you're not running CO2. The center 2x2', having 30% more PAR will grow at least 10% faster than the outer ring of the 3x3'. 2x2 is 4 sq. ft. of canopy, and the outer ring of a 3x3 adds 5 sq. ft. of canopy. More than half of your harvest will be 10% slower, less heavy, less frosty, less dense, less appealing, less valuable, etc.

There might not be a perfect light for a 3x3, probably because none of the manufacturers design properly to actually light a footprint larger than 2x2 evenly. You have to DIY or buy multiple smaller lights to achieve the perfect spread. Either would be a better financial choice than that HLG.
 
Well I think this one just might be the best one of all. Very efficient and you can adjust it to whatever you want. 4 separate COB lights. No fans.

MIGRO 400

The MIGRO 400 is the perfect 600W HPS replacement. Including 4 grow lights, 2 drivers and a 760mm diameter hanging frame.

Flowering coverage: up to 120cm x 120cm (4ft x 4ft)
Power consumed: 381watts
Total PPF: 862 µmols/sec
Efficiency PPF/Watt: 2.2 µmols/watt
Spectrum: Full Spectrum (veg to flower)
Lifetime: 50,000 hours (8.5 years @ 16hour/day)
Warranty: 3 years

$849.00
 
That one is probably the best you've linked yet. Would be great in a 3x3. I like how adjustable it looks.
If you look at their graph though, it's a similar problem. Instead of being a center 2x2 spotlight, it's split into four 1x1 spotlights. Their design helps, but as they show it's still not completely even.

The only light that I've seen with perfectly even distribution is the SpydrX Plus, but it's very expensive. You could DIY mimic their design though. It's pretty simple and straightforward - evenly spread LED's across the entire footprint gets you the perfectly even coverage - it's literally 44" wide.
 
I'm considering this quantum type. You can use it to evenly cover a 4.5' by 4.5' in flower. Suppose to be the most efficient. And it will dim down for my 3' by 3' area in the summer. HLG 550 LED Horticulture Grow Light - Horticulture Lighting Group.

Or maybe a Spectrum King 400 plus with a dimmer. It will easily do a 4' by 4'.

HLG is decent company and their lamp designs are not at all secret and easy to copy, they sell almost all the components you need and also have kits with everything you need.
Look at the pictures and components they have and you'll know what to get ;)

You can DIY copy the HLG 550 for around $600, and use single heatsinks for each QB if you want.
If you want to cover more than 4x4 you should get more boards, ie 6 or 8 on 2 drivers.

HLG 550 is basically the light I have in my 4x4 tent, in the form of 4x 135 kits, this way I have better coverage and can hang them at different heights. And if I have to use stealth cabinets in the future these babies fit right in ;)
I would like 2 more and run 6 QB's @ ~100w each for total coverage and light saturation, and add some IR and far red too :)

All new tech is with passive cooling and no fans :)

DSC0205411.JPG




Well I think this one just might be the best one of all. Very efficient and you can adjust it to whatever you want. 4 separate COB lights. No fans.

MIGRO 400

The MIGRO 400 is the perfect 600W HPS replacement. Including 4 grow lights, 2 drivers and a 760mm diameter hanging frame.

Flowering coverage: up to 120cm x 120cm (4ft x 4ft)
Power consumed: 381watts
Total PPF: 862 µmols/sec
Efficiency PPF/Watt: 2.2 µmols/watt
Spectrum: Full Spectrum (veg to flower)
Lifetime: 50,000 hours (8.5 years @ 16hour/day)
Warranty: 3 years

$849.00

MIGRO 400 - Full spectrum grow light - High efficiency 2.0mol/Watt


4 COB's with lenses and heatsinks, 2 drivers and some framing for $850, no freaking way...
A high quality COB costs lesss than $30, lenses are maybe $10 each, heatsinks $10 each, a driver is usually $60 - $100, aluminium framing is a dime a dozen in hardware stores.
Edit -> I saw they use Luminus COB's, the latest gen of these are $22 a piece, they don't write what Kelvin they are though, we kinda wanna know ;)


Here's some basic DIY rules of thumb:

Look at Kingbrite's alibaba site, they have components and kits :)

Soft vs. Hard; Using many COB's at lower power is better than running a few at high power.
The COB performs better (light to heat ratio) the more points of light gives a better coverage, less heat means longer life of each COB.

ALWAYS GET PREDRILLED HEATSINKS! ;)

Use meanwell drivers!

Dimming will result in lower driver efficiency, check out the datasheet on your driver to see how it affects your design.

:Namaste:
 
4 COB's with lenses and heatsinks, 2 drivers and some framing for $850, no freaking way...
A high quality COB costs lesss than $30, lenses are maybe $10 each, heatsinks $10 each, a driver is usually $60 - $100, aluminium framing is a dime a dozen in hardware stores.
Edit -> I saw they use Luminus COB's, the latest gen of these are $22 a piece, they don't write what Kelvin they are though, we kinda wanna know ;)


Here's some basic DIY rules of thumb:

Look at Kingbrite's alibaba site, they have components and kits :)

Soft vs. Hard; Using many COB's at lower power is better than running a few at high power.
The COB performs better (light to heat ratio) the more points of light gives a better coverage, less heat means longer life of each COB.

ALWAYS GET PREDRILLED HEATSINKS! ;)

Use meanwell drivers!

Dimming will result in lower driver efficiency, check out the datasheet on your driver to see how it affects your design.

:Namaste:
Your Light system looks great! Those things fit right up at the top of the tent. Probably could grow some taller plants. :goodjob:

But you talked me into it. I bought the Migro 400. I'm a technician for a living. The last thing I want to do is reinvent the wheel to save just $400 and end up with a rickety prototype.

This guy has his turned down to 75 percent power in his 3' by 3'. If I want I can upgrade to a larger 4' by 4' and still have a high enough PAR.

[video=youtube;EUmdNeqA7Jk]
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Your Light system looks great! Those things fit right up at the top of the tent. Probably could grow some taller plants. :goodjob:

But you talked me into it. I bought the Migro 400. I'm a technician for a living. The last thing I want to do is reinvent the wheel to save just $400 and end up with a rickety prototype.

This guy has his turned down to 75 percent power in his 3' by 3'. If I want I can upgrade to a larger 4' by 4' and still have a high enough PAR.

I'm trying to talk you out of buying it :laughtwo:

For that kinda money you can build a lamp with 20 of those COB's and get way better coverage and higher PPFD/W.

It's not like reinventing the wheel at all, more like fitting the whell to your car yourself in stead of paying someone to do it, except in LED cases the ''labour'' is at least 1/3 of the price and you also pay a lot for the design and company name.
Check out some of the builds people here are making/using ;)

Most lights grow nice plants, but it's just not a usable scientic scale that some grower likes a lamp.
Measuring the PPFD at different heights in an open area and a reflective tent gives the best conclusion on a light's performance.
It's all about combining high chip effeciency, high driver effeciency and even coverage.
Spectrum has a say as well, but output beats spectrum.
When you build your own lamp you decide the CCT (Kelvin) and CRI of each COB, and are able to tailor it to your needs :)
 
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