Hey Kola,
TL : DR - LEDS = Look out for MCOBs to hit the scene soon. Be damn careful you know who your supplier is, and who your OEM is. Commercial and LED = relighting with ROI as low as 255/mth at 50-60k investment, try passing that on anyone, recreational marijuana (WA/OR/CO) will see LED, Induction, and lec with new interest, you know soon.
That old argument exists for a reason. Eastablishment relies on a continued interaction with the customer. All the new tech provides the promise of less replacement and less continued maintenance, which is terrifying if the success of your business relies on people continually having to replace and fix their technology. This is the exact way Microsoft thinks about how to create an operating system and the same way your local bulb supplier operates. The store gets to sell you one hood, which is good till you break it, everything else they sell you is a guessing game of lifetime and warranty(ballasts, bulbs, nutes). Electronics fail and if you want to make money in them, you either sell tons of breakable replaceable shit, or a few really good items.
This should not be the same case with LEDs which offer longer lifespans and less finicky tech platforms than a filament, but choose your supplier carefully as many are simply third party distributors who know nothing about the tech or their product. Cidly.com (wholesaler, call for prices and availability) manufactures a number of the popular led enclosures out there, namely the apollo series which I have seen floating around discussions in several forums. Igrow (induction) for example is just rebranding another company's lights to some degree and has already been copied a half dozen ways in china. The company Igrow purchase's from sells 500w induction grow lights for half the cost($500 vs 1200) and does not waste half as much time with claims and psudo science. This is a common practice in business, DNA lighting does it with lots of folks tech.
Personal manufacturer experience: In the process of researching LED lighting, I contacted Supergrowled.com for a quote on lights for a 800 sq ft space back before Christmas. He asked for clear drawings of the space when he returned from the holidays(after new years); I provided them a few days later and another two weeks go by before Bob returned from another vacation to tell me he can get it done in a few days. Welp still no word, not encouraging, and I was looking to get a quote for 50 of the damn things. I have since developed a general tool for calculating light needs on my own. They also base all their claims from 2012, so you know update some crap and get back to us, by today's standards of shelf life that shit is ancient history. (I started by being excited about these guys, see my first post)
Manufacturer claims in the days of the internet: Chinese or Canadian you decide!
Here is the manufacturer of the spiders:
http://twilightgroup.manufacturer.globalsources.com/si/6008843450522/pdtl/LED-grow/1112491606/COB-LED-grow-light.htm
here is a retailer:
http://www.ledcanada.com/spider-4x-mcob-led-growlight.html
maybe they are not the same, though that spider design has me seeing double.
Shit this does not seem to have helped. welcome to my boat. LED is real and works(legit studies, real vegetable farms), commercial ops don't use them because switching is cost prohibitive 30k out the door for year one gavita de 1000w setup at 40 lights, vs 40-50k year one for equivalent LEDs. I am doing the research, these are rough numbers, but bulbs for Traditional lighting is only 5.7k a year at this scale. How as a business person do you justify replacing your entire system at 40-50k vs continuing to maintain at 5-15k a year with current tech, ROI for relighting being as little as 250/mth off the power bill. not to mention being over equipped with HVAC, etc. after relighting was complete.
The large commercial LED ops won't be here posting till folks like myself are out of the planning phase and deploying with the expansion of recreational weed in WA/OR/CO (you know cause I can talk about my job like a job). I also have to believe that a dealer with working lights will be blowing smoke up our asses long before a grower who is getting results on this scale will start shouting from the mountain tops that LED is the way to go. LED at scale on initial startup (year one figures) should help growers operating margins considerably. Which reminds me, I have calculations to do on power consumption.
I at least hope this all covered some gaps in education, researching this all is tedious as it is a new frontier.
~Thom
