NewGrower2011
Well-Known Member
Finally pulled the trigger on a pair of the 65's in 4k. These are for my mothers and clones and is replacing a CLW Veg 275 as I was looking for mores coverage/spread at a lower height with less wattage. These are not active moms but just keeping for genetics so slow & healthy growth is what is desired. I'm small time hobbyist so I often have one or two moms and a couple clones sitting on the ready but don't want them exploding so I needed to tone things down a bit.
My single biggest disappointment was that the driver isn't dimmable. At low wattage sure most people don't need this but I'd rather have more of them at lower height driven softer. If the ordering system had presented an 'option' or 'upgrade' to chose this it would have been a no-brainer for me.
I know most everything can be bought independently and a DIY job done, but I was after convenience and getting something in a short time so that's why the Amazon order made sense for me.
While not necessary for these, I do wish there had been some simple 'option' on my order (Amazon) to include a heat sink. My only reason being that if they are best ran as cool as possible I'd have readily thrown a few more dollars to 'upgrade' in this case. I had also considered if I didn't want to use the existing exhaust system (4") to somehow provide a mounting enclosure to extract heat and odor/humidity control along with providing additional cooling since I was running something anyhow.
I considered the mount-it-yourself options I've seen for QB's such as a the baking pans & the likes but in this version (v2) the driver mounting is by velco not screws/nuts. So I found this a bit of a negative; I'm not sure what the quality of the provided velco is actually but my initial thinking was if vertically mounted how would the adhesive hold up to the high heat levels. Maybe it's okay, maybe it's not... But with nuts/bolts there'd have been no thought to it. Long live the nuts & bolts! Now another down-side is that there's no holes for the mounting so if I did chose to go DIY for a heat sink I can't get that additional mount point to ensure good heat transfer.
The barrel connectors were another draw for me here; Sure I would have preferred something more water-proof and disconnection resistant (retainer/screw-on/etc) but these are convenient. I did a little research about what others have done for remote mounting with these and found an acceptance extension core to make my setup use remote mounted drivers.
BTW: I ordered 18awg extension (I believe this exceeded both voltage and amperage; no issues so far) from Amazon (Hanvex HDCX6T) but again if the ordering experience had presented an option that would have been a no-brainer and an up-sell for the seller. The cable physically is far larger than the driver output and I could've sworn I verified both voltage and amperage before ordering and even trying to hook it up (not totally ignorant of the basics).
So in short, killer product; Will likely order another for the cloner but may look for smaller/more specific tuned. But I believe in cloner a little red spike helps with rooting if I'm not mistaken so the 65 but toned down/raised high may be perfect here again. The cloner use also leads to another small bit of feedback about another up-sell opportunity - if I wanted to run 2 boards on 1 driver it would be nice to be able to add another board + the male-to-male cable to the kit so I could get more coverage with half the wattage. I know all things are available to DIY but again the ordering/convenience makes it no-brainers to get all things in a 1 stop shop if only presented the options...
My single biggest disappointment was that the driver isn't dimmable. At low wattage sure most people don't need this but I'd rather have more of them at lower height driven softer. If the ordering system had presented an 'option' or 'upgrade' to chose this it would have been a no-brainer for me.
I know most everything can be bought independently and a DIY job done, but I was after convenience and getting something in a short time so that's why the Amazon order made sense for me.
While not necessary for these, I do wish there had been some simple 'option' on my order (Amazon) to include a heat sink. My only reason being that if they are best ran as cool as possible I'd have readily thrown a few more dollars to 'upgrade' in this case. I had also considered if I didn't want to use the existing exhaust system (4") to somehow provide a mounting enclosure to extract heat and odor/humidity control along with providing additional cooling since I was running something anyhow.
I considered the mount-it-yourself options I've seen for QB's such as a the baking pans & the likes but in this version (v2) the driver mounting is by velco not screws/nuts. So I found this a bit of a negative; I'm not sure what the quality of the provided velco is actually but my initial thinking was if vertically mounted how would the adhesive hold up to the high heat levels. Maybe it's okay, maybe it's not... But with nuts/bolts there'd have been no thought to it. Long live the nuts & bolts! Now another down-side is that there's no holes for the mounting so if I did chose to go DIY for a heat sink I can't get that additional mount point to ensure good heat transfer.
The barrel connectors were another draw for me here; Sure I would have preferred something more water-proof and disconnection resistant (retainer/screw-on/etc) but these are convenient. I did a little research about what others have done for remote mounting with these and found an acceptance extension core to make my setup use remote mounted drivers.
BTW: I ordered 18awg extension (I believe this exceeded both voltage and amperage; no issues so far) from Amazon (Hanvex HDCX6T) but again if the ordering experience had presented an option that would have been a no-brainer and an up-sell for the seller. The cable physically is far larger than the driver output and I could've sworn I verified both voltage and amperage before ordering and even trying to hook it up (not totally ignorant of the basics).
So in short, killer product; Will likely order another for the cloner but may look for smaller/more specific tuned. But I believe in cloner a little red spike helps with rooting if I'm not mistaken so the 65 but toned down/raised high may be perfect here again. The cloner use also leads to another small bit of feedback about another up-sell opportunity - if I wanted to run 2 boards on 1 driver it would be nice to be able to add another board + the male-to-male cable to the kit so I could get more coverage with half the wattage. I know all things are available to DIY but again the ordering/convenience makes it no-brainers to get all things in a 1 stop shop if only presented the options...
