Gotham Hydro LED

Quitekeen

Quitekeen

Active Member
Hey RIU'ers,

Just a quick thread here to say that I ordered the blackstar 240 from Gotham Hydro on ebay. I have read on RIU some pretty up and down reviews of Gotham Hydro, regarding honesty, and customer service. I just want to say, for my part, that the customer service has been most importantly very swift (under 2 hours for an email response to shipping question), friendly and efficient.

I havent tried the product yet, but I would say based on my experience that Gotham is a decent company to go through, just research the product you are buying for yourself.

Well done to Gotham!

Cheers,
Keen
 
jtsmith1701

jtsmith1701

Member
I ordered via Amazon and received them in a timely manner. I've been happy with them so far. They were great in veg. Need to see how they handle flower.
 
karr

karr

Well-Known Member
I have seen a lot of grows with their lights and they seem to do quite well, it may be a light i look into for the future when power usage becomes more of a concern.

My big issue is their refrencing of the grow boys competation that their light won. Research the competation and the site itself and it's all a sham. It's a made up competation and a made up magazine (though it is made to be close to an actual magazine). I judt lose all respect for a company that does something like that. I understand it's hard to break into a market, but straight up lying to the public is enough to keep me away. It would have been much better, IMO, if they just got ahead on their good product and cheap prices. Sadly no
 
maps84

maps84

Well-Known Member
I ordered the 135W 3W model Ultra bloom or something like that. I have the plants ready in a closet, everything tuned. The light should arrive tomorrow and I'll start flowering right the way. I ordered from gotham, actually talked to him about the tracking # and he even remembered shipping my order and sent the info to my email. So yea, I didn't like the video thing either, it's just advertising as you said. I did like the costumer service and the videos I saw of the older model of this lights performing in real grows against penetrators. (not so far appart)
 
Quitekeen

Quitekeen

Active Member
karr said:
I have seen a lot of grows with their lights and they seem to do quite well, it may be a light i look into for the future when power usage becomes more of a concern.

My big issue is their refrencing of the grow boys competation that their light won. Research the competation and the site itself and it's all a sham. It's a made up competation and a made up magazine (though it is made to be close to an actual magazine). I judt lose all respect for a company that does something like that. I understand it's hard to break into a market, but straight up lying to the public is enough to keep me away. It would have been much better, IMO, if they just got ahead on their good product and cheap prices. Sadly no
Click to expand...
I have read about that on this site. I couldnt figure out if it was Gotham Hydro making the competition claim, or was it Lighthouse, the actual LED manufacturer?

But I am right there with you, trust is huge! Especially in this arena. I just decided to trust the journals I have read on RIU, so far RIU has steered me pretty well. I would have ordered the Solarflare, or the PG180 but I just couldnt rationalize spending that kind of cash on that many watts when its only my first grow. Plus I was forced to buy thru ebay because I was using the billmelater option.

I am planning on starting a new grow in a couple weeks and now that I have all the stuff I need I am going to journal the blackstar.

Thanks for the input!
 
maps84

maps84

Well-Known Member
I got a nice fact on Lighthouse products while doing my research. A lot of people are complaining about the real wattage draw of the Blackstar against equally rated products from other brands. They are all right, blackstar doesn't draw the advertised watts but way less than the competition, so people complain about having slight less yield. which'd be accurate but not frustrating as they didn't pay as much.
Nevertheless, I got this numbers from a guy trying really hard to bash Lighthouse hydro, so I'm happy he got the numbers right

He compared Blackstar 180W against Prosource 180W which cost 100 more bucks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-veb3N7TyY

Got the following readings:
PS Draws 178W and produce 920 lux at its peak
BS Draws 110W and prduce 660 lux at its peak

So ok, I got screwed or did I not?
If I happen to scale down the PS to be on par with the BS so they both draw 110W, I have (110W*920lux)/180W = 562 Lux/W. That's around 100 lux less than the blackstar running at the same wattage. Which means in the real world where tags don't matter Blackstar is 12% more efficient and 36% cheaper. Also Blackstar is compared to Penetrators and Apache tech, not PS. So their light blending is superior translating into better PAR.

So ok it should be advertised as one of the best Led grow light @ 110W because it is. Hope the guys at gotham realize this and use it in favor instead of being greedy bastards.
 
Quitekeen

Quitekeen

Active Member
masp84 said:
I got a nice fact on Lighthouse products while doing my research. A lot of people are complaining about the real wattage draw of the Blackstar against equally rated products from other brands. They are all right, blackstar doesn't draw the advertised watts but way less than the competition, so people complain about having slight less yield. which'd be accurate but not frustrating as they didn't pay as much.
Nevertheless, I got this numbers from a guy trying really hard to bash Lighthouse hydro, so I'm happy he got the numbers right

He compared Blackstar 180W against Prosource 180W which cost 100 more bucks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-veb3N7TyY

Got the following readings:
PS Draws 178W and produce 950 lux at its peak
BS Draws 110W and prduce 660 lux at its peak

So ok, I got screwed or did I not?
If I happen to scale down the PS to be on par with the BS so they both draw 110W, I have (110W*950lux)/180W = 580 Lux/W. That's 120 lux less than the blackstar running at the same wattage. Which means in the real world where tags don't matter Blackstar is 12% more efficient and 36% cheaper . I know I will yield less, but I did pay less for the product, as for the electricity.

So ok it should be advertised as one of the best Led grow light @ 110W because it is. Hope the guys at gotham realize this and use it in favor instead of being greedy bastards.
Click to expand...
Wow, that said more for me than all of the google searches and forum searching I have done (well over 15 hours worth).

THANK YOU! +rep for you good sir!
 
Quitekeen

Quitekeen

Active Member
Got my delivery today :-P Power cord didnt work:fire:. Customer service answered after 2 rings:-P. Asked if I have another cord of same spec :idea:. Which I took from my Allen Heath Mixer :shock:. And it worked:clap: Customer service stayed on line until problem was resolved and said a new cord would be shipped to me on Monday:-P.

So again, in spite of tehe misleading competition thing, Gotham Hydro have done right by me every step of the way. And after putting the led panel in, messing with my tent a bit i went downstairs to an oddly green living room. I guess i need sunglasses to work with my lights on from now ahead.
 
karr

karr

Well-Known Member
I wouldn't worry about the real wattage being lower either. When LEDs are run towards their peak capacity they lose efficiency and have diminished returns. Unddriven LEDs are generally closer to their target nm range and make more efficient use of wattage, not to mention its easier on components.
 
maps84

maps84

Well-Known Member
I wrote them yesterday, and got a pretty elaborated answer from 2 vic and Sean @ gotham. They gave mis this data:

The issue with what an LED light is rated at and the actual wattage it pulls has been a subject of numerous discussions on the forums, and the curent consensus is this: there is no single LED out there that actually pulls the rated (marked) wattage. This is the result of the use of stepdown trnasformers, the board and internal fans, plus the fact that manufacturers never drive their LEDs at 100%, in order to extend their longevity. It's standard and typical for the LED industry to market lights quoting the rated wattage. The actual draw is of course always lower. The 135w Blackstar will pull around 90-95w. This light was also tested with a LUX meter at a distance of 12 inches between the sensor and the light panel, and it came in at around 12000 LUX.

We do not rate the lights any different than the majority of companies in the Industry. In fact, all 3w chips pull less than 3w that is just the way it is. Most 3w chips actually pull 1.4w and ours about 1.6w. The reason is that the efficiency constantly gets higher. The 1w chips from 3 years ago used to pull 1w and now pull .62w thing is they are 18% brighter than they were back then and pull less wattage. Due to this, the advertised wattage has to stay the same. A 3w chip is a 3w chip... your light has 45 of them hence 135w light. As I said, this is fairly standard if it were not so, then people buying lights now would think they are getting weaker lights when in fact they are getting brighter lights. Wattage draw would be 45*1.6 ... PAR value on the 135 is about 290 at 20in last time it was tested
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The PAR rating is awesome according to Hortilux 400 watt metal halide lamp provides about 140 watts of PAR. A 400 watt HPS lamps has less PAR, typically 120 to 128 watts, but because the light is yellow it is rated at higher lumens (for the human eye).
 
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