I can't believe how many companies there are out there! Are these guys just importing the LEDs by the truck load, putting them together and reselling at 1000% markup? I went back and scratched all those big box companies i assumed were legit. i feel kind'a bad because i don't know for sure, but judging by the comments from different forums and other growers i decided to check out the following (looks like i need to add Apache and Area 51 to this list- emailing them now):
Heavenbright (waiting on a reply)
Platinum
Amaretech
Advanced
Optics
Transcend
Once I get replies from everyone, along with models of their products they recommend (tents- two 9x9s for flower and one 4x8 for veg) I want to print out specs for each light and compare them. If anyone has any data that will help me to save time please let me know I'd really appreciate it as i wanna do this within 2 weeks to build out in August.
One thing that I look for in a company is will they be around in 5 years.. it's hard to tell with a lot of these guys- who owns them, how dedicated they are, how they communicate, and you can only guess at how good/bad their financials are. Sometimes just looking at the websites it's hard to tell if they're trying to save money and passing those expenses down to their customers, or if they're struggling to get by. I mean c'mon a yahoo.com email address? NOT to sound superficial but that's not how I'd do business in a market so competitive. Optic seems to be a good product and prices are awesome. I was pretty impressed at a few of these guys getting back to me within one business day, but Optic replied that same day and followed up quick too. So what's left is to compare the details of all these lights, cross reference to find the best specs (hopefully they are accurate). Opinions from you all in the know is crucial to me, experiences etc. I know the amount being spent is a drop in the bucket but I wanna make the right choice, we're starting with only 250sq ft but if LED works I'm going to use the whole 2,000sq ft available to me as I scale up. Veg, flower, mothers, males, CBD only, breeding.. .long way to go but that's my dream, and doing it with LED would be awesome.