Mars Hydro L.E.D.'s ????

mr sunshine

Well-Known Member
I guess people here really hate mars hydro lol. I have to say though my personal experience of 1 test flower run of 3x reflector series 144 was much better than my past 2 years trying to battle hps heat. Yeah the mars still make heat but it was nowhere near the 1k hps they replaced. They advertise it as 4x2 coverage but I would say its more like 3x1.5 MAYBE 3x2 (I used 3 over a 4x5 space).

I ran the same 9 strains I did under hps and had much better results with the led. Seemed alot more frosty. Much denser and 2 of my strains ended up with rock solid (nowhere near as dense under the hps). No exaggeration they were literally solid as a bud can be but gave me my first case of bud rot on a few tops :(. My biggest clean tops were a little over 6g dry which Im sure is small time to alot of people here but in my case a huge improvement over the hps

Long story short theres always gonna be someone who hates a brand and another who loves it. My experience with the mars lights was impressive enough for me to make a huge investment into building my own cree leds. If you can afford/understand/build the diy cree just do it and skip the premade lights. If you need something now and dont wanna wait or build your own then the mars could be worth the temporary investment. I only tried mars because it seemed like the best value and I was skeptical about leds and wanted to see first hand before investing in a full swap from hps
I can get my 1000 watt hps air cooled hood 7 inches away from the top of the canopy without burning them. How close can you get the leds without bleaching buds?
 

DocCox

Well-Known Member
@mr sunshine - about 3-4" on my 800W DIY Cree before the photons bleach the plants and they turn WHITE. At 3" there is enough heat to start to crispy/dry out the top leaf. I'm running at 5-6" in flower just to be safe. It puts out a lot more light than a 1k HPS overall - and puts it out evenly over the entire 4x4 canopy . I get quite a bit more space in my tent as well - the entire fixture is under 1.5" total height. The downside is it's incredibly high up front cost. I'm running at 56% eff - the guys running higher can get closer to their plants (probably touching) but that would double or triple upfront costs :(


My mars 1600 is JUNK. It was a complete waste of money. Knowing the facts, you have to intentionally want a horrible light for your money if you buy one. It's worse in every single measureable catagory vs a 600 or 800w HPS. They are complete bottom of the barrel trash. Watt for Watt they make more heat and less light and are far less reliable than HPS.they have absolutely zero positive attributes. If you don't know better - buy one - but your being educated so don't make that horrible mistake. They have to sponsor forums and advertise constantly, give away free lights, and post fake reviews and grow journals. The unit literally performs on par with T12 florescent lights - maybe a 3ft 4 bulb fixture? It is horrible. Anybody growing with it is doing WORSE than they would with a MH or HPS - but they spent so much money on it they have to convince themselves it's great and join big circle jerks and pretend to be friends with those dudes posing as female sales reps on other forums.

The MARS 2 1600- it had to hang about 12" above plants before it *cooked* them. It recirculates hot air from the top of the tent and blows it out the sides. At no height did it seem to have enough photons to bleach a plant. At 12" it provides a shitty footprint but so little light raising it made terribly wimpy stretched plants. But it was purple and bad for my eyes!
 
Plants were easily within 6in of the light at some points and I had 0 issues with bleaching or burning. Im not here to argue hps vs led or to promote mars hydro. Im just giving my opinion of the "REFLECTOR series 144" I paid 650 for 3x which seemed like a fairly decent price to cover my space compared to any other premade options. Not the mars II 400/700/1600 (those seemed like terrible coverage for the cost).

Last picture of the single bud with a hole through it was interesting to me. All of the smaller side buds were so dense they grew around the stem and touched on the other side to make that spiffy skewered look lol
 

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mr sunshine

Well-Known Member
@mr sunshine - about 3-4" on my 800W DIY Cree before the photons bleach the plants and they turn WHITE. At 3" there is enough heat to start to crispy/dry out the top leaf. I'm running at 5-6" in flower just to be safe. It puts out a lot more light than a 1k HPS overall - and puts it out evenly over the entire 4x4 canopy . I get quite a bit more space in my tent as well - the entire fixture is under 1.5" total height. The downside is it's incredibly high up front cost. I'm running at 56% eff - the guys running higher can get closer to their plants (probably touching) but that would double or triple upfront costs :(


My mars 1600 is JUNK. It was a complete waste of money. Knowing the facts, you have to intentionally want a horrible light for your money if you buy one. It's worse in every single measureable catagory vs a 600 or 800w HPS. They are complete bottom of the barrel trash. Watt for Watt they make more heat and less light and are far less reliable than HPS.they have absolutely zero positive attributes. If you don't know better - buy one - but your being educated so don't make that horrible mistake. They have to sponsor forums and advertise constantly, give away free lights, and post fake reviews and grow journals. The unit literally performs on par with T12 florescent lights - maybe a 3ft 4 bulb fixture? It is horrible. Anybody growing with it is doing WORSE than they would with a MH or HPS - but they spent so much money on it they have to convince themselves it's great and join big circle jerks and pretend to be friends with those dudes posing as female sales reps on other forums.

The MARS 2 1600- it had to hang about 12" above plants before it *cooked* them. It recirculates hot air from the top of the tent and blows it out the sides. At no height did it seem to have enough photons to bleach a plant. At 12" it provides a shitty footprint but so little light raising it made terribly wimpy stretched plants. But it was purple and bad for my eyes!
My buddy has a Mar's 1600 it's complete garbage. It came in a package deal with a 5x5 tent for 600 something bucks .the light is made for a 3x3 it bleached the tips of two plants right under the light. My buddy had to add a 400 HPS to the tent..His nuggs look like the dude's above me.. it just grows little buds at the tips..I told him to just use HPS but he already spent the money and he's in denial.
 

DocCox

Well-Known Member
Your talking about the
MARS REFLECTOR-144 ?
It lists 310-320 watts from the wall. Let's pretend your not exaggerating about the expected final weight (cause your total BS nonsense about the lights performance and value)
1/4 lb is 114 grams... For over 310 wall watts?
Your BRAGGING your GPW is .368 with your 'great light' (FWIW T5s, halogen, MH can easily double that. HPS can more than triple this. A real LED light DIY could feasibly do 4-5x+ this. .368 is a horrendous number! It's absolutely TERRIBLE)

Mars supporters can't even make sense when they try to lie and deceive. Numbers don't lie. He could have run a 600w HPS for years and have spent substantially less money total and had 3-4 times the yield easy... Don't buy a Mars light and never take advice from anybody that lies to promote or justify that steaming shit that is MARS

EDIT: I see you mentioned a 96x3 reflector. That's a 205Watt light not a 300... So which one is it? That would be a .57 GPW btw - horrible...
 
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PURPLEB3RRYKUSH

Well-Known Member
Your talking about the
MARS REFLECTOR-144 ?
It lists 310-320 watts from the wall. Let's pretend your not exaggerating about the expected final weight (cause your total BS nonsense about the lights performance and value)
1/4 lb is 114 grams... For over 310 wall watts?
Your BRAGGING your GPW is .368 with your 'great light' (FWIW T5s, halogen, MH can easily double that. HPS can more than triple this. A real LED light DIY could feasibly do 4-5x+ this. .368 is a horrendous number! It's absolutely TERRIBLE)

Mars supporters can't even make sense when they try to lie and deceive. Numbers don't lie. He could have run a 600w HPS for years and have spent substantially less money total and had 3-4 times the yield easy... Don't buy a Mars light and never take advice from anybody that lies to promote or justify that steaming shit that is MARS

EDIT: I see you mentioned a 96x3 reflector. That's a 205Watt light not a 300... So which one is it? That would be a .57 GPW btw - horrible...
178 watts at the wall and i can only grow my plant so big in 4 foot high closet and 2 feet wide
 

PURPLEB3RRYKUSH

Well-Known Member
Your talking about the
MARS REFLECTOR-144 ?
It lists 310-320 watts from the wall. Let's pretend your not exaggerating about the expected final weight (cause your total BS nonsense about the lights performance and value)
1/4 lb is 114 grams... For over 310 wall watts?
Your BRAGGING your GPW is .368 with your 'great light' (FWIW T5s, halogen, MH can easily double that. HPS can more than triple this. A real LED light DIY could feasibly do 4-5x+ this. .368 is a horrendous number! It's absolutely TERRIBLE)

Mars supporters can't even make sense when they try to lie and deceive. Numbers don't lie. He could have run a 600w HPS for years and have spent substantially less money total and had 3-4 times the yield easy... Don't buy a Mars light and never take advice from anybody that lies to promote or justify that steaming shit that is MARS

EDIT: I see you mentioned a 96x3 reflector. That's a 205Watt light not a 300... So which one is it? That would be a .57 GPW btw - horrible...
1\4 lb is 112 grams
I
 

dandyrandy

Well-Known Member
I have 4 Mars 300's and 1 200w blurple Chinese cob I would gladly donate. The center diodes on the 300's I have owned seem to fail. There is no heatsink in the middle. They will grow. You can build a cheap Vero 29 setup for $300. I run 8 in an area 40" x46". Easy 800 grams in soil.
 
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