Induction Lights? The newest (supposedly) technology in Induction Grow Lights

Pics of the Riant lighting 3500K 400w induction Grow light I bought direct from china 468$ grand total.
I love it.
But I should have saved 100$ and made my own reflector, instead of getting their cheepo adjust a wing.

Although My first ballast died on me after a week, but they honored their 5 yr warranty an the replacemant is kicking ass.





Purple Pink white light.





Pics of the cab, they are about 4-6 weeks old an got alot of training.




Lst on a Haze auto



Pic of my 89 Nl5/hzC x Banana Platinum kush 2 weeks flowering




Pic of Nevils NH21 x Mullimbimby Madness.
They were ran for S1 seeds an were to be hashed.
They just lagged really bad after being pollinated that hard.
Now the seeds are done an under the New Riant light they have started putting up alot of Flowers!
Like they reflowered?
Im going to let em go an see what they do ....




There were no new flowers a couple weeks ago.....



Spectral chart

I found stevey g's blog on accident. His yield is horrible. By the look of the buds and plants. It looks like he pulled an irish boy. Grow under hps then swap lamps for pics.

http://growwithinduction.com/?tag=induction-grow-lights


Scar got any natural light pics. looks good but thirsty.

Thanks for that link Hyroot.

Ok im a bit condused on his final yield. He goes on about 400w of a igrow verses a 1000w HPS....thats fine...but his photos show 3 x igrows over 3 plants....

Using the same formula as before, we will multiply our 3-plant yield of 346g by 2 in order to simulate the yield of 6 plants per light.

346g x2=692g

330.8g ÷400w= 1.73g per watt

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Ummmm no....he got 346g TOTAL for the 3 plants....So 346 ÷ 1200w = 0.29g per watt

THAT IS SHIT!

Maybe on my next grow i'll just add 2 pounds for the phantom plants that werent there....

Am i missing something here...????

hyroot said:

I found stevey g's blog on accident. His yield is horrible. By the look of the buds and plants. It looks like he pulled an irish boy. Grow under hps then swap lamps for pics.

http://growwithinduction.com/?tag=induction-grow-lights


Scar got any natural light pics. looks good but thirsty.

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sure is not impressive on stevey g nor were the look of the fixtures...look like shop lights for workbench with the dinky ass looking reflectors....they'll bellyup within the year

Thanks for the link Hyroot. Not much to crow about with those gardens. No wonder SteveyG took off to do his thing elsewhere. The plants are scrawny and he can't calculate dry weight/watt. Not too good when we're talking about patented USDA approved custom grow lamp. And this guy is now point man on an iGROW blog?

Kite/Chaz/Spliff/Scarhole do you guys or anyone else here have any side by side images where comparisons of igrow vs inda-gro products or any of the china direct products like the RIANT light, particularly when it comes to the induction lamps or the electronics that you could share? The way I see it even if you save a couple hundred bucks on the initial purchase, if the light itself sucks or it has problems in a year or two you're right back where you started needing to buy another light. Would be good to actually see any differences worth pointing out.

No comparison tests I know of.
I'm hoping to get an appoge quantum /par meter soon an compare my Riant to the YouTube par tests I've seen.

I just looked the parts (all look Chinese) And prices an I wanted Riant.
Riant does honnor the 5 yr warrenty when my first ballest died.

I'd love to see tests of a 400w 4500k induction light kit with vs a IndaGro 400
Or 2 Riant vs 1 indagrow since that's an equal dollar comparison.
Lol.

Mr tony Wu of Riant has asked me if their are anyways I could recommend to improve his grow bulb.
I told him what Chaz said "less 420nm more 660nm and a bit of uv"
I also believe if they electoplated mirror on half the bulb for reflection it would increase output.
Change to alumisilicate bulbs to allow for higher internal gas pressure in the bulbs (like t5?)
Adjust the far red emitted for better phytoCrome stimulation.
Look into a digital ballest design.
And get a better reflector or charge less for it

Anyone have any advice for improving current induction designs?

hyroot said:

I found stevey g's blog on accident. His yield is horrible. By the look of the buds and plants. It looks like he pulled an irish boy. Grow under hps then swap lamps for pics.

http://growwithinduction.com/?tag=induction-grow-lights


Scar got any natural light pics. looks good but thirsty.

Click to expand...

lol
Im realy hard on my plants.

Pic of the lil auto haze in better light.


Pic of how the NH21xMMs looked last month before the induction light.



Pic of one of the clones now (in better light)

gordobo said:

Thanks for the link Hyroot. Not much to crow about with those gardens. No wonder SteveyG took off to do his thing elsewhere. The plants are scrawny and he can't calculate dry weight/watt. Not too good when we're talking about patented USDA approved custom grow lamp. And this guy is now point man on an iGROW blog?

Kite/Chaz/Spliff/Scarhole do you guys or anyone else here have any side by side images where comparisons of igrow vs inda-gro products or any of the china direct products like the RIANT light, particularly when it comes to the induction lamps or the electronics that you could share? The way I see it even if you save a couple hundred bucks on the initial purchase, if the light itself sucks or it has problems in a year or two you're right back where you started needing to buy another light. Would be good to actually see any differences worth pointing out.

Click to expand...

There are so many issues with Chinese driver failures and poor phosphor quality and suspensions I could literally take up a thread on just this topic. For those companies that ask for us to 'make suggestions' and do their work to design energy efficient, long life, high PPFD, stable spectrum, warrantied products I would respond why? You obviously don't give a shit. I can count on my left hand and give up three fingers the Chinese companies that will consistently work to a custom specification. They may get the first one or two orders right but it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, you'll get hit with the normal course of business bullshit that perpetuates their drive for low cost, low quality products.

Below is a side by sides of an unnamed 400 watt Chinese driver housing and an Inda-Gro 420 driver. Following that one picture will be lamp failures due to improper phosphor suspensions Hg oxidation, non-existent EMI or PCB protection, thermal conductivity failures due to factory installed plastic barriers between the mosfets and the inner driver housing wall, etc etc etc. BTW I told this 'manufacturer' 3 times where they were having problems and they swore they were fixed. This is the latest improved product images.



So it's not only the reflectors that suck (at least that part you can see) it's that they'll sell this junk as a 'less expensive equal' to the uninformed and what you end up with, is if you can even get through the grow, is less than stellar results which will, by the grower, be blamed on the induction technology while the Chinese point to the growers lack of skills and not take any responsibility whatsoever that their short cuts could possibly have anything to do with the gardens shortcomings. I won't help them with anything since they despise us and will push, as these images would indicate, whatever they feel we're gullible enough to buy.

Thanks Chaz. I was trying to see if anyone had looked under the hoods of these various companies and it's easy to see why one can cost more than the other. As they say, the devil is in the details. But as to ScarHoles point to try and make the Riant lamps better I guess my question would be better than what?

Cool to see those ballasts.
Mine isn't exactly like the top one , but isn't as pretty as the other
For instance mine has a bus fuse on the board from the AC power wires.
ill get a pic of it Up for y'all.

Ive been looking for replacement ballests incase mine dies after the warranty is gone.

I'd like to see how the fullham highhorse ballasts look inside
Another ballest that looks realy different I've seen is the Origional Icetron sylvania
http://www.lithonia.com/micro_webs/induction/icetron.pdf

Pics of my Riant 400 w ballast
This thing reaks of cosmoline, like a surplus AK47.



Pic of the case for scale

SCARHOLE said:

Cool to see those ballasts.
Mine isn't exactly like the top one , but isn't as pretty as the other
For instance mine has a bus fuse on the board from the AC power wires.
ill get a pic of it Up for y'all.

Ive been looking for replacement ballests incase mine dies after the warranty is gone.

I'd like to see how the fullham highhorse ballasts look inside
Another ballest that looks realy different I've seen is the Origional Icetron sylvania
http://www.lithonia.com/micro_webs/induction/icetron.pdf

Click to expand...

When dealing with EFDL (induction) I would not recommend swapping one manufacturers driver with another manufacturers lamp. To work properly they must be impedance matched. An induction lamp circuit behaves much like a transformer does in that a transformer has a primary with fewer coils to a secondary winding with more coils. The voltage is changed through an electromagnetic inductive field dependent on the precise number of windings in the primary:secondary coil windings.



This primary:secondary relationship also exists with the induction lamp circuit in that the coils that wrap around the lamp are the primary and the lamp itself is the secondary. To be properly matched as the secondary side of the circuit goes requires a number of elements be met. The lamp interior volume based on lamp length and diameter must be sized to match the driver output characteristics. The number of windings on the primary coils vary between manufacturers as do the operating frequencies. The internal gas mixture/pressure must be exact or premature failure from thermal runaway is a real possibility.

Ask any EFDL manufacturer if they recommend running their EFDL drivers on different manufacturers lamps. Not only will they tell you something like 'it's not advised', the driver won't be warrantied and in alot of cases they'll only sell you a lamp/driver combination for this reason. My point in telling you all this is just match the lamps and drivers as they were designed or you're going to experience a lot of headaches before you reach the same conclusions I just laid out for you.

Hey Scarhole! You're probably smelling the conformal coating that stinks if it's just been opened. That's normal though. There are some issues with this board design though that are likely to cause you problems down the road.

Checking out the pics on your driver housing and I can tell you one thing right off that RIANT isn't doing properly and may have created your first board failure. Look at how the MOSFETs are bolted down. They put them on painted surfaces which reduces thermal conductivity by 90%. The unpainted surfaces have to be smooth too. I've seen housings where the surface is potted and nonconductive the FETS always fail there. The other thing I've been seeing them do is rivet the FETs down. Not one of them is tight to the internal housing surface. Amazing to me that the majority of the Chinese manufacturers have poor QC/QA and these problems are ignored time and again. BTW about the second or third time you make a warranty claim and you keep telling them what they need to correct they start ignoring you because you're not there to buy more product you just want fixed what you already bought.

Here's an image of a 400 watt driver board that I had purchased and ran for about a year that was $100.00 cheaper than the inda-gro's and looked to be pretty well made. As you can see by the image the paint was masked off and the FETs sit nicely on the smooth driver housing. I never had a FET's failure after running two of these for about a year. Both had oscillator board failures 4 months apart that I could not fix myself since they were covered in conformal and were SMT boards. China agreed to warranty one (the exact same failure) and not the other since they 'determined' that the failure was due to an incoming line voltage issue. Of note you can see the rivets that were used instead of screws to secure the FETs to the housing. You could move the back bracket with a finger.

View attachment 2542878

I have a background in electronics and did try to help these guys improve their boards. I speak their technical language and this is one of the better boards I've seen from China. For them to tell ME that the problem was due to incoming supply voltage, I run a 1000 watt UPS which also utilizes an isolation transformer and surge suppression circuit so that was most definitely NOT the problem, tells me that they had written me off for future business and that was the end of it. Like I said I could have ran a thread on this topic.

thanks to scarhole and chaz for taking the time to post these images up. I've never seen the inside workings of these and it's pretty interesting even though I don't know exactly what it is I'm seeing. There are obvious differences though as to how these companies approach building the electronics.

From Tony Wu at Riant.

Thank you for your interest in our grow light.

The unit price is USD450.00 for 400W including fixture and freight.

Our grow light can cover voltage from 120V to 300V.

Currently the grow light we produce is 3500K, but we are doing experiment for updating to reach a better spectrum. If 3500K is not proper for your need, you can wait until we get the new spectrum.

We are looking for a proper device to meter the PAR value, will let you know when we get it.

We warrant for 3 years.

Let me know if anything you need.

Best Regards,

Tony

We are looking for a proper device to meter the PAR value, will let you know when we get it.

Click to expand...

I have an old PAR meter I'm not using if they want to borrow it.

The unit price is USD450.00 for 400W including fixture and freight.

Click to expand...

Found this on another forum but it got me to thinking; for those looking to save even a bit more why not have a look at these lamps and drivers @ only $160.00 with a claimed coverage of 6 meters (I'm guessing he means square meters) for only 150 watts. Check out the video @ .37 into the video you'll see that they advertise these as a 'mono wavelength plant grow lamp'. I'd like to see a mono wavelength grow lamp in action so if anyone is willing to take the plunge post up a thread so we can track the results.

Thanks for your interested in my Grow light lamp.
Yes, I guarranty the reliable effects and high efficient the grow lamp.
The light cover over dia 6m.
As you have seen the movie in Youtube, the owner of green house very
satisfied for my products. They said, some plants grow faster about
25% than normal condition.
It depend on the lighting time and natural conditon.
We developed the grow light lamp which is emit the red color monowave
length band.

Wattage : 150W 110v~ 230v
Color : Red color monowavelength.
Tube : Circle Tube type
Ballast : CB certified 150w
S/S lamp Shade
Delivery date : 10~ 25days (It takes 10 days only before you order it
till 22th , after the delivery days is 25days)

Unit price : US$160.00 / Ex-work in Korea.
It is except the delivery charge.

B. Regards
Andrew H. Lim
​

Click to expand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SsZjvlShXbs#!

Im with you gordo, chaz is spewing info like he is possessed by the light god lol. Do tell us more almighty one... That thread would not be a bad idea, hell I would vote for it to get stickied and its existence is theoretical lol. You obviously have a lot of knowledge to impart and if you are willing I would love to read a better explanation of the above. Maybe have kite as a guest speaker, seems to know a thing or two as well . And ya I will admit it this post is a little kiss-ass but only in the sense that I hope it flatters you enough chaz to start that thread. Not a lot of people with as much knowledge of induction ballasts, or not that I can find on here, and since I just made an investment it is time I learn more about the ballast since the bulb seems good to go for a decade without much decay in output

chazbolin said:

I have an old PAR meter I'm not using if they want to borrow it.



Found this on another forum but it got me to thinking; for those looking to save even a bit more why not have a look at these lamps and drivers @ only $160.00 with a claimed coverage of 6 meters (I'm guessing he means square meters) for only 150 watts. Check out the video @ .37 into the video you'll see that they advertise these as a 'mono wavelength plant grow lamp'. I'd like to see a mono wavelength grow lamp in action so if anyone is willing to take the plunge post up a thread so we can track the results.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SsZjvlShXbs#!

.

Click to expand...

They would probably be good for supplementing but not stand alone. Mono - single. ...... If the had 2 spikes would they be stereo grow lamps.... haha that would get a laugh in the studio.

Stereo track - 2 tracks left / right. Mono track - 1 track centered

Hey Chaz
Your definatly a lighting NINJA!!!!

Could you label the parts of the ballast for us.
I can't even find simple schematics for them anywhere?


Tony Wu asked about a better specta chart for designing his bulb.
Does anyone have a flouro spectra to recomend?
help?

Thanks for the compliments but I'm nothing special. To me, plant lighting is a critical aspect of the gardens success and with EFDL I saw early on that the fundamental benefits could be found in not only the terms of energy efficiencies, long life, low heat but it was the ability to play with phosphors and controls that got me interested into specifically what Inda-Gro was doing with EFDL. The reason I have the background that I do with a wide variety of EFDL ballast/lamp combinations is that I thought I could improve on what they were doing at Inda-Gro and by dealing direct with a small handful of what I considered to be the best Chinese manufacturers of these products I expected to be in a position that I could develop my very own line of lights. I spent about a year playing back and forth with them while still hanging on to my consulting business and using Inda-Gro in a variety of indoor and greenhouse gardens that I had specified induction. My customers didn't know zip about induction and it was up to me to specify the brand, size, layout, etc. They rely on my experience to keep them out of trouble and just get consistent returns.

So while I could list up the 9 different companies I dealt with I won't. I'm not hear to put down any company and push another. Even Inda-Gro. There are things I thought Inda-Gro could do better on the boards and told them so. The difference is Inda-Gro listened and the Chinese engineers were shall we say 'indifferent' to put it kindly. If you are determined to plumb these waters for yourself be advised that there will be frustrations and if you have to compare the China direct products with a standard you just may want to base your comparison on Inda-Gro.

I think the days of HID are numbered. IMO EFDL/LED will supplant these technologies as the 'go to' choice for indoor plant lighting systems. They just make so much more sense! What I'm seeing now is a big push by the Philips 1000watt dual ended HPS lamps to supplement plasma and in vertical gardens they couple these up with lumi-gro LED strips. Well I got news for you. What Inda-Gro showed me last week (yes I'm under an NDA) changes everything for vertical garden production. To me that represents a better return for the community in terms of product development support than anything I might be able to do for the Chinese other than possibly letting them borrow a PAR meter.