Led Users Unite!

[medicine21]

Well, you sure sound like you know what you're talking about. All I can give you is this quote from an email exchange I had with Mike from GLH, the maker of the Spectra light:

"My panels are custom made to my specifications and use Fail Safe Technology™ which allows all the led's to keep working if one goes out, theirs do not."

Don't ask me how it works, but you could ask him, if you like.

 

[budlover909]

Well, you sure sound like you know what you're talking about. All I can give you is this quote from an email exchange I had with Mike from GLH, the maker of the Spectra light:

"My panels are custom made to my specifications and use Fail Safe Technology™ which allows all the led's to keep working if one goes out, theirs do not."

Don't ask me how it works, but you could ask him, if you like.

dad says its called a bypass resistor what you do is you dont make your circuit trace straight you curve it attach the diode to the curved parts and put a resistor in the bottom of the bend make sure it resists more than the diode so current goes thru diode if it works and if diode fails current goes through resistor instead and keeps the other lights lit

 

[Hudsonvalley82]

Nice nugs! Cool to see how they get better with time...

MK BS 240 first cutting of some small nugs just some frosty Bud PORN Enjoy. I thought I would start harvesting a small amount weekly so I have some way to gage harvest times for this strain in the future. I already know about the punch this delivers after two tokes and I have tried 4 which I did not enjoy as it put me down for the count on a earlier test. These will go into cure for at least two months before they are distributed to some lucky ones. LOL

 

[Tecgrower]

This a massive read and a very interesting and informative one. It’s so nice to see there is so much passion in this group and I sense a real honesty and desire to help fellow growers. There is defiantly a lot of good info here and would be nice if people took the time to read the entire thing before asking question that were answered in previous posts and not make the thread any bigger then it needs to be.

I was looking for information on Kessil lights and that is what brought me to this thread and was having high hopes to reading lots of good things about them. For now I am going to go with 4 of the Blackstar 240w Veg lights and 6 of the 500w flower lights. If I see an improvement in the kessil quality I will be adding a few of those.
I would like to thank the people who took there time to post good data and pics.



66nm420

I really feel for you on the crap you have had to put up with. But I also hope they get there act together since I think they have the one of the biggest upsides. If they could hit the $100 per pop can price and had reliability I suspect we all would want to buy stock in them.


jdizzle22

I would like to know how much you’re getting per post. What ever it is your sure doing your job.

 

[Hudsonvalley82]

Wow that is going to be nuts man. Journal I hope?!?

This a massive read and a very interesting and informative one. It’s so nice to see there is so much passion in this group and I sense a real honesty and desire to help fellow growers. There is defiantly a lot of good info here and would be nice if people took the time to read the entire thing before asking question that were answered in previous posts and not make the thread any bigger then it needs to be.

I was looking for information on Kessil lights and that is what brought me to this thread and was having high hopes to reading lots of good things about them. For now I am going to go with 4 of the Blackstar 240w Veg lights and 6 of the 500w flower lights. If I see an improvement in the kessil quality I will be adding a few of those.
I would like to thank the people who took there time to post good data and pics.



66nm420

I really feel for you on the crap you have had to put up with. But I also hope they get there act together since I think they have the one of the biggest upsides. If they could hit the $100 per pop can price and had reliability I suspect we all would want to buy stock in them.


jdizzle22

I would like to know how much you’re getting per post. What ever it is your sure doing your job.

 

[jdizzle22]

This a massive read and a very interesting and informative one. It’s so nice to see there is so much passion in this group and I sense a real honesty and desire to help fellow growers. There is defiantly a lot of good info here and would be nice if people took the time to read the entire thing before asking question that were answered in previous posts and not make the thread any bigger then it needs to be.

I was looking for information on Kessil lights and that is what brought me to this thread and was having high hopes to reading lots of good things about them. For now I am going to go with 4 of the Blackstar 240w Veg lights and 6 of the 500w flower lights. If I see an improvement in the kessil quality I will be adding a few of those.
I would like to thank the people who took there time to post good data and pics.



66nm420

I really feel for you on the crap you have had to put up with. But I also hope they get there act together since I think they have the one of the biggest upsides. If they could hit the $100 per pop can price and had reliability I suspect we all would want to buy stock in them.


jdizzle22

I would like to know how much you’re getting per post. What ever it is your sure doing your job.

I'd do it if they paid me because it wouldn't be any differen't. The Spectra series have been used in most of the LED grows I've seen and they don't mislead about the wattage or capabilities of the lights. I don't think they're the best, I don't know who is. But Spectra is what I think is up in the best along with Blackstar, Isis, and Kessil. Blackstar can be cheaper than the others, isis has unique light footprint and high outputs, kessil is some possibly crazy LED tech.

 

[adamic]

After my research I bought Kessil because I felt the product was best engineered for the exact spectrums I wanted to cover. Now I've got 4 Kessils that have lost led lamps after less then 4 months and I'm not even using them I've switched back to hps.

Thanks for the article link. After reading it I picked up a lot of good information especially about mortality and kelvin rating for these lamps. But what sticks out the most is how 70% of the led lamps can be rejected at the factory. That is extrodinary. Are there that many problems in manufacturing these lamps that lead to such a high failure rate?

Is there any other brands of led you've used with better results? What are you growing with now?

FUCK this shit! Read para 3 of this article where as nice as they try and sugarcoat this technology the fact is that they acknowledge the shortcomings of series arrays where one bad LED lamp knocks out 5-10 lamps in that series and that's considered SUCCESSFUL!

In this article it is acknowledged by the LED industry that of all the LED lamps mfg at the factory only 30% are considered worthy to be sold since 70% made new at the factory fail to deliver to their own specifications BEFORE THEY LEAVE THE FACTORY. Most growers already know what happens to the 30% they do deem worthy of sale right? They are completely problem free.

http://ecmweb.com/lighting/led-basics-20101001/

For those of you 'old enough' can you remember the old XMAS tree string of lights that you had to go through every lamp to find the bad one and replace it to make the string come back on? That's the same problem with an LED power supply which will service 5-10 LED lamps and a single LED lamp burning out in that array will knock the other lamps out.

So when factoring a high power 3 watt LED lamp it takes 2 volts to power that lamp so if the power supply (Kessils) is rated @ 20 volts then it's likely that 5-10 lamps would be affected by a single LED failure.

It's bad enough we are now forced to choose between LED and CFL for our replacement lamps because of their greater energy efficiencies and our greener footprint for our planet since incandescent lamps will be illegal to sell in the USA as of 2014 but as growers this can cost a fortune in crop loss and lower yields while we wait for a mfg to make it right.

Yes I'm pissed off because I wasted time and money but I'll get over it. Thanks for letting me vent now where's my bong.

 

[660nm420]

thanks for the link to that article. After my research I bought Kessil because I felt the product was best engineered for the exact spectrums I wanted to cover. Now I've got 4 Kessils that have lost led lamps after less then 4 months and I'm not even using them I've switched back to hps.

After reading that article I picked up a lot of good information. Especially about mortality and kelvin rating for these lamps. But what sticks out the most is how 70% of the led lamps can be rejected at the factory. That is extrodinary. Are there that many problems in manufacturing these lamps that lead to such a high failure rate?

Is there any other brands of led you've used with better results?

Contact KEssil and let them know that you've had problems with their lights and demand replacements. Now that mine are in place they are working great. I hate the company now and would never buy more. I've bought other LED units since but I would demand new working lights. If not send them to me and I'll get some replacements. SAVE YOURSELF A HEADACHE NEVER BUY KESSIL'S DEFECTIVE CRAP!!

 

[adamic]

I opened one up to see if it was something that I could indentify as a power supply problem but there is an inherent problem in the design. It's pretty much exactly what Chaz goes into in his next post when he hits on 'cascading failures' which affect mortality no matter which way the manufacturer decided to wire the lamps to the power supplies.

I work in the medical equipment business and I do complete, partial and cascading failure analysis of ours and other manufacturers equipment. 30% pass through is a problem. The 70% rejection rate that this article which BTW is promoting HBLED as the next coming, is suffering from shall we say with no pun intended 'growing pains'. In the interest of getting brighter lights for vision they overdirve the led lamps to stay on the Haitz law curve which we also use in our software hardware and equipment 'next generation' promotions. The artice explains Haitz law.

Listen if led works for you great but I grow for my own use so I want complete reliabilty for my plants, will buy the best equipment with price not an issue and there is nothing that will get me back on an led lamp when they have these problems. Not even free replacements.

 

[660nm420]

KESSIL'S DEFECTIVE UNITS COULD POSE A FIRE HAZARD!! This is what I was told by the company as to why I shouldn't use the light while waiting for my replacement. This is really scary!!! If it's like my case where the lights cut to red after a few minutes, you might not know that you have these defective fire hazard units. If you don't realize it you could be in for a world of hurting! I feel for the poor smuck who doesn't realize he has a defective unit until he or she arrives home to find his local emergency services putting out a grow room fire. Isn't this one of the main reasons why I moved to LED?? Please pass this on and re-post on as many forums and relevant threads as possible so that fellow LED users don't experience this worst case scenario! What a nightmare that could be.

 

[adamic]

Kessil actually told you this? While they certainly have their problems I did not see any evidence of thermal runaway inside the unit that would lead to a fire. That's something I would have noticed and reacted to much differently. From all of the products out of China we see they tend to just quit working not start fires. If Kessil told you that then I want my money back.

 

[660nm420]

Kessil actually told you this? While they certainly have their problems I did not see any evidence of thermal runaway inside the unit that would lead to a fire. That's something I would have noticed and reacted to much differently. From all of the products out of China we see they tend to just quit working not start fires. If Kessil told you that then I want my money back.

It was put something like this, they wouldn't recommend continuing use of a defective lights. Without looking at the unit they cant say what risks it could pose. So no they didn't actually say the words fire hazard, but that's the only "risks" I could think of that a defective light would pose. I received 2 types of defects. The ones that start out fine and switch to all red and magentas that start solid red. Mine were that way out of the box. Yours malfunctioned later. Personally I feel that if they don't quality test for this sort of error how can they assure me that I can feel safe running their lights for 12-18 hours a day. I just haven't felt safe about their lights since other defects are possible. And yeah I want ALL of my money back from Kessil. Currently waiting until my new LED units arrive so that I don't leave my ladies in the dark while I fight that one.

 

[660nm420]

View attachment 1456188View attachment 1456187View attachment 1456186View attachment 1456185Some Black Star only Bud Porn heavy hitting and way heavy colas the last small one I tested weighed 14g dried and the twelve that I shared with simply asked is there more. I wonder wht the biggest ones will average?

Nice!! Cant wait to order my blackstar and see what it does compared to the other LEDs I have ( ISIS, Kessil, Hydrogrow penetrator, HSS)

 

[jdizzle22]

Nice!! Cant wait to order my blackstar and see what it does compared to the other LEDs I have ( ISIS, Kessil, Hydrogrow penetrator, HSS)

wow you've bought from a lot, did you plan on trying any Spectras?

 

[wtffuxor]

just started my first indoor grow with a 126w penetrator light from hydrogrowled check it out link is in my sig just started today and it will be pure led grow no cfl or anything

 

[budlover909]

wow all these kessils failing glad i bought from another company

 

[longranger]

I have a couple of magenta kessils that are performing well so far. Fingers crossed with all the reports of failures. Bummer. Thankfully the Kessils only cover a small part of my LED grow area so if one or more goes things can just be moved around.

 

[660nm420]

wow you've bought from a lot, did you plan on trying any Spectras?

I've been testing different units to see how they perform against each other. This is my second round of comparisons. I've been using HSS and the penetrator for some time with success. I have a perpetual harvest set up. I originally was looking to do an all KEssil test run from clone to flower but all my problems with defective units f@*cked that up. So now I'm looking to test just flower with 2 magenta kessils at $240-300 a piece against the ISIS-fx1 at $399. I'm testing what does better for $ spent rather than wattage. Once Blackstar is back in stock and at my door I will compare the $300 blackstar 240 with 1 purple kessil. I believe that's a fair test based on cost. After that I may pit the winner of my Kessil vs ISIS test against Spectra, or Spectra against blackstar. That's getting ahead of myself, but I did a tray full of clones the other day and have plenty of ladies in different veg stages to work with, so yeah a spectra test is on the horizon. Honesty looking at everything it wouldn't be until at least April or May. The kessil vs ISIS flower power test will begin in a week or 2 with 6 cotton candy kush raised from clone together. The blackstar vs kessil test will begin in closer to 6 weeks on some silver haze or pineapple chunk. Haven't decided yet. Do you work for Spectra?? If so get me a deal on a unit and I will test it against any of the units I've mentioned in the same price range.

 

[medicine21]

660nm420, sounds like a lot of interesting comparisons. You should start up some kind of LED Shootout Grow Journal! I'd be watching that like a hawk.

 

[660nm420]

I have a couple of magenta kessils that are performing well so far. Fingers crossed with all the reports of failures. Bummer. Thankfully the Kessils only cover a small part of my LED grow area so if one or more goes things can just be moved around.

Check it out!! Go to Kessil's glossy, glossy website. Go to the energy savings calculator and see how long Kessil says it will take to cover the cost of their units in energy savings. Their calculations are based on how many units you buy, your cost of kilowatt hours and savings in bulb replacements. They use this tool to calculate the length of time it would take to save the money in energy savings to justify the additional cost. For me it came out to 2+ years, and that's in Cali where we are at about $0.30-.40 a kilowatt hour. In other parts of the country where energy is half that cost it would be closer to 4 years. The main problem here is they only have a 1 year warranty. My problems and others on here have raised concerns since this warranty falls far short of the time it takes to recoup the cost. That's based on their calculations. To sum up my concerns, faulty malfunctioning defective units have been reported by 3 users on here. Each user has reported multiple defective units and for me I received them on multiple orders. They claim the cost is justified by the amount you would save in a number of years but only offer a 1 year warranty. I really hope mine and yours last well after the year warranty but sadly if they begin to crap out after 12 months you will NEVER see the energy savings that justify the cost of the unit, not to mention 35 watts for $250+, all I can do is ask myself wtf was I thinking. For the amount I paid on 5 Kessils, I could have bought (4) blackstars, or (3) ISIS, or (2) 357 magnums. Oh well. So now I'm motivated to clarify the misinformation about Kessil's "spectral revolution." They are not worth the $ since their "new tech" is proving to be prone to defects, and even though so many defects have been reported, they wont consider extending their warranty since and I am quoting David Lowlry of Kessil, "they are a much older company then other LED grow light companies" meaning Dicon fiberoptics. Waste your money if you want, but I WILL NEVER BUY KESSIL AGAIN!! But yes I agree, thankfully the Kessils are for a very small part of my grow area as well.