lookin to buy a led for under 200..
- Thread starter matt4200
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projectppp
Member
Im testing right now a 90w led ufo for 125€ from ebay which is allegedly not from china. Looks good yet but im only at 3rd week of vegi
PetFlora
Well-Known Member
Most of the chinese leds are inferior in every way. So for a few dollars more you can get significantly better quality
Check out www.rapidled.com for solderless kits or ledgrow.eu Several guys on RIU are getting terrific results with it. Neutral White leds are finally being acknowledged as great- so far some are in veg stages (goolge rives and you might find his thread). The thread title is something like Volksled for the masses.
He is not yet into flower, but very excited by how well the plants are responding to th NWs, and great coverage too
Check out www.rapidled.com for solderless kits or ledgrow.eu Several guys on RIU are getting terrific results with it. Neutral White leds are finally being acknowledged as great- so far some are in veg stages (goolge rives and you might find his thread). The thread title is something like Volksled for the masses.
He is not yet into flower, but very excited by how well the plants are responding to th NWs, and great coverage too
Chronikool
Well-Known Member
If you want to do a progression of lights, consider what i've done. (sig) but i also understand most people cant be bothered with the 'jungle of lights'.... 
If you can put a few more dollars together, you can get a well engineered and thought out product. I'd recommend taking a look at a Kessil H350 magenta. After taking a class from Cree WRT LED lighting, I'm more impressed with the H350. Temp management is expensive and difficult and many companies just don't do it properly at all. Kessil is a corp with real money backing it - real engineers and plant biologists too - as it is a subsidiary of Dicon. The liquid/vapor state change cooling (and thermal mounting pad and cooling fan too!) is great - not cheap but effective. Hot LEDs are off spectrum and will die quickly too. Anyway, growers house has them for an excellent price - the only real complaint about Kessil that I've heard so far has been the price but at $269! After getting one and seeing it in action, I bought another one.
PetFlora
Well-Known Member
jcmjrt: I disagree that Kessil's problem is price; it's coverage for price, and a missing essential spectral range that most commercial fixtures are intentionally devoid of.
Slowly, we are learning that the 460-590 are important to highest quality, meaning RB alone never was the answer 100%. The majority of led manufactures focused on R/B, any other spectrums were hard to come by and very expensive, up until ~ 2 years ago.
LED tech is a lot like computer chip tech- storage=white diode tech is doubling ~ 9 months, BUT, we don't see it commercially for several years, not so with DIY.
If you think of the sun in electrical terms it's Analog, whereas indoor lighting is like Digital. Sony introduced the SACD music format~ 10 years ago. It is the closest medium to this day to matching analog, but Sony priced its' use beyond main stream mfgs, let alone DIYers. The existing commercial digital formats will never reproduce analog 100%. For most people that missing ~ 10% doesn't matter, but in mmj? MMJ requires roughly 10-20% of 460-590nms, which act as a catalyst to the others.
Today, companies like CREE have introduced Neutral Whites which provides ALL the spectrums indoor gardens need in a single bulb in ample quantities.
A DIY led thread on another site: a guy uses a Kessil 350 but has built parallel runs of CREE NWs (~20w). These and just about anything you want is available as DIY solderless kits! On that site another has a DIY who started a grow where he mixed R + NW. He decided to remove all but 4 Rs (I forget which nm, but probably 660s) and is blown away by the vegging performance. My idea is R (660) should be on a separate circuit/on off switch to be used from flower- harvest.
Rapidled has solderless kits using 5w CREES (nms buyer choice!), outputs range 60-120 watts. The 4.5 X 23 @ ~150w is $250, including tapped/drilled heat sink. They are made with better quality parts, use no fans (noise) with the BEST leds currently available
Slowly, we are learning that the 460-590 are important to highest quality, meaning RB alone never was the answer 100%. The majority of led manufactures focused on R/B, any other spectrums were hard to come by and very expensive, up until ~ 2 years ago.
LED tech is a lot like computer chip tech- storage=white diode tech is doubling ~ 9 months, BUT, we don't see it commercially for several years, not so with DIY.
If you think of the sun in electrical terms it's Analog, whereas indoor lighting is like Digital. Sony introduced the SACD music format~ 10 years ago. It is the closest medium to this day to matching analog, but Sony priced its' use beyond main stream mfgs, let alone DIYers. The existing commercial digital formats will never reproduce analog 100%. For most people that missing ~ 10% doesn't matter, but in mmj? MMJ requires roughly 10-20% of 460-590nms, which act as a catalyst to the others.
Today, companies like CREE have introduced Neutral Whites which provides ALL the spectrums indoor gardens need in a single bulb in ample quantities.
A DIY led thread on another site: a guy uses a Kessil 350 but has built parallel runs of CREE NWs (~20w). These and just about anything you want is available as DIY solderless kits! On that site another has a DIY who started a grow where he mixed R + NW. He decided to remove all but 4 Rs (I forget which nm, but probably 660s) and is blown away by the vegging performance. My idea is R (660) should be on a separate circuit/on off switch to be used from flower- harvest.
Rapidled has solderless kits using 5w CREES (nms buyer choice!), outputs range 60-120 watts. The 4.5 X 23 @ ~150w is $250, including tapped/drilled heat sink. They are made with better quality parts, use no fans (noise) with the BEST leds currently available
projectppp
Member
like i said, im testing it, no need to flame
a link/pic please
its from a german store, right now in 3rd week of flowering the plant looks ok
projectppp
Member
hehe i guess you are right.. ill see what happens, right now it seems to work fine
I've looked at rapidled.com and considered it but things like providing adhesive or grease instead of thermal mounting pads gives me some pause. Eventually the adhesive or grease will flow away from the led and become ineffective....OK, maybe not so eventually. Thermal mounting pads are far superior but they are expensive and rapidled decided to control price instead of maximize efficiency/longevity. Now you could get the kit and buy thermal mounting pads separately - which I've considered and who knows someday may try - but the Kessil H350 is a well made product with excellent engineering and plant biologists behind it. Kessil maintains MANY grow tents at their facility. Anyway, I decided to spend my money on Kessil when I found the right price and then after I got one and liked it so much (it really does penetrate the canopy), purchased another. I'm growing plants instead of putting together a kit and hoping that everything is right. Eventually, I'll bet that I get a kit and try some experiment with spectrums but for now I'm glad that my plants are so happily growing - lots of vigorous green growth and close internodal spacing.
So far I've got one deep magenta and another magenta on the way to me. If I get another one, I might add the deep purple for even more amazing veg. That spinner does look pretty handy and I'll probably be tempted at some point. One could easily hang 4 350s and a couple of 150s (like adding an actinic or a 660nm depending).
I don't know where it is made. Maybe someone else does. My understanding is that 3 UCB geeks - including a physicist who was a DiCon fan - formed Kessil about three or so years ago. At least part of the company is in Richmond, CA which is just north of Berkeley...with cheaper real estate 
. I just checked on my girls again and they are loving the H350 - deep green healthy looking leaves with a small internodal difference. The second Kessil has been shipped.
. I just checked on my girls again and they are loving the H350 - deep green healthy looking leaves with a small internodal difference. The second Kessil has been shipped.