what do you guys think of these two lights?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HydroMASTER-600W-LED-Grow-Light-Full-Spectrum-Flower-High-Power-Plant-Panel-Lamp-/181385508596?pt=US_Hydroponics&hash=item2a3b6b36f4

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HydroSTAR-600W-LED-Grow-Light-Hydro-Reflector-5W-Chips-Plant-Grow-Lamp-Panel-/310938443109?pt=US_Hydroponics&hash=item4865601d65

and ill add a 3rd

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VIPAR-600W-LED-Grow-Light-Hydroponic-5W-indoor-Plant-Panel-Flower-Full-Spectrum-/111329403349?pt=US_Hydroponics&hash=item19ebbfe1d5

??

They're good for target practice or to use as a door stop. No good for growing though

What kind of space are you growing in? Vertical height? Why are you considering LED?

8 foot ceilings, 4x4 space but not married to that size.. movable walls and separate flowering room plant gets moved into for night time

btw the seller has a few different models, basically the same, and the reviews are awesome so people are growing with them, no target practice or doorstop off label use there

if the argument is they're not AS GOOD as a $1500 light... stop right there, the price is <$200 so people have to have realistic comments on these lights for the price. I also have another light that i already have used and im perfectly pleased with the results of it, maybe you think differently of this one http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dimmable-300W-LED-Grow-Light-Full-Spectrum-Indoor-Hydro-Plant-Flower-Panel-Lamp-/191315098204?_trksid=p2054897.l4275
please, i seriously want input not snide remarks. if you think its good or bad please explain WHY because that's the type of input im seeking, anything else please post in another thread. thanks

az2000 said:

Why are you considering LED?

Click to expand...

tired of highass electric bill from ~660 watts of hid, plus ~ 200 watts of fans/filter and alot of a/c in the summertime. they just raised the price of electricity 39% this november so my bill went up considerably. i'll actually recoup the cost of the light on electric saved on light, less fans and a/c, and NOT HAVING TO REPLACE A BULB EVERY CYCLE. these things are the REAL cost of using hid lights, so the upfront costs of leds aren't putting me off. i'm a big picture type of person, and next year i'll upgrade and sell my old ones to a frien for a good friendly price. sorry for the long answer, but sometimes you gotta put it all out there or people will just ask questions or try to convert you to a light of THIER liking.

If energy efficiency is your motivation, I think you'll be disappointed with the lights you linked to. Those use inefficienty epi-whatever chips.

You should be looking at Area 51 RW-150, or DIY COB. More light for less energy. But, higher up-front cost. (Rapid/Onyx and ApacheTech are also common brands that use known LED chips.).

The common recommendation to anyone considering lights like you linked to, and who is concerned about upfront costs more than energy/heat costs is to use CMH instead (unless they're in a short space, then a Chinese import LED like those might make sense). More light for the energy and heat. If you're motivated by energy cost, those lights won't do it for you. If you run them at around 35w sq/ft you'll have airy buds. If you run them at over 50w sq/ft you might have decent results, but at nearly the wattage you're running for HID. By comparison, an A51 at 30-35w/sq ft works well. I think people run their DIY COBs at 30w/sq ft.

Area 51 is releasing a new model around April(?). It will use the latest Cree diodes for even greater efficiency. They'll be dimmable. Smaller fixtures that can be connected into a large fixture. Area 51 has a stated goal to provide upgrades at cost to owners of existing models. (An example of how you get what you pay for. The lights you linked to should be considered disposable in addition to being inefficient. You'd probably also have trouble making a warranty claim. Usually the way those work with Chinese imports is "send it back to China. Oh, you don't want to pay international shipping? How about we refund $30 and you keep the light?" There are some Chinese brands that handle this better. I've read TopLED/MarsHydro will mail you parts.

If you really wanted to go cheap and inneficient Chinese import, TopLED/MarsHydro and Vipar seem like the best of the worst.

Chinese lights aren't expensive. You can't be too disappointed if a $100-$200 light doesn't work out. You just have to keep in mind that you made that choice and not judge all LED by that experience.

EDIT: One thing to be extremely careful of is buying a rebranded Chinese light at extreme markup. Lush Lighting, Blackdog, GrowBlu, HydroGrowLED, Kind, Blackstar. These guys are short on facts (the chips they use, the spectrum/ratio they're selling) and big on hype. You have to ask, if they'll hype so much about their lights, why won't they hype the chips they use? Undoubtedly because they're not something to brag about. The difference between these and direct Chinese imports is that they cost 3-4x more. In the realm of predatory.

the vipar and hydrostar are one in the same
spec, case, wattage etc
most seem to be made on the same assembly line
i got that cheap 300 watt led, with uv and ir and the nugs are anything but airy. super frosted and swollen so all chinese leds are not junk. i went with top rated seller with excellent reviews so at least i looked around. from what i read all leds for the most part are made in china. even the "made in usa" ones are manufactured in china but assembled in usa. not all chinese lights or leds are junk because that would mean every light or led is junk since they're sourced from china

the area51 rw-150 is about 2x the price of the lights i listed. my price range is <$200 so anything above that isn't an option. i need something that can cover roughly 3x3' for less than $200 and would flower 6 plants to maturity. can anyone recommend anything besides a doorstop that would suffice? all joking aside, and please don't recommend anything but led's. thanks again

@az2000 thanks for the industry overview, I needed that!

I keep hearing that COB, or chip on board LEDs, are the way to go if rolling one's own. My question is whether these new designs come with lenses, and if they're capable of being run relatively close to the canopy, eighteen inches or less from buds?

well i bought the 600 watt hydrostar led light that uses 5w chips for$170 shipped
specs are:
● 650~660nm,
● 620~630nm,
● 460~470nm,
● 440~450nm,
● White 3000K + 7500K
uses 312w +/- 3%
will tell if light was worth $ and maybe show some pics if anyone asks me to do so

nonamedman420 said:

well i bought the 600 watt hydrostar led light that uses 5w chips for$170 shipped

Click to expand...

Actual power consumption will be around 320w. So, that's good for about a 2x3 space at 50w/sq ft. (Not a firm figure. You could try 40w/sq ft. But, to be equivalent to HID you'll need 50-60.).

Hope you update this thread with how it works for you.

cool, just message me in the future and i'll reply

nonamedman420 said:

the area51 rw-150 is about 2x the price of the lights i listed. my price range is <$200 so anything above that isn't an option. i need something that can cover roughly 3x3' for less than $200 and would flower 6 plants to maturity. can anyone recommend anything besides a doorstop that would suffice? all joking aside, and please don't recommend anything but led's. thanks again

Click to expand...

For this price, you won't be able to do it with quality LEDs. You can buy some of the cheaper panels off of ebay, but you'd be better off with a different form of light, unless you like the novelty.

nonamedman420 said:

the area51 rw-150 is about 2x the price of the lights i listed. my price range is <$200 so anything above that isn't an option. i need something that can cover roughly 3x3' for less than $200 and would flower 6 plants to maturity. can anyone recommend anything besides a doorstop that would suffice? all joking aside, and please don't recommend anything but led's. thanks again

Click to expand...

And the A51 will last at least twice as long....stick with HPS because you will be disappointed going to those lights. I would read some the DIY build forums and see if you can hack it.....

If you put lego's together back in the day, you can build a light. $200 would get you started real nice like....

nonamedman420 said:

even the "made in usa" ones are manufactured in china but assembled in usa. not all chinese lights or leds are junk because that would mean every light or led is junk since they're sourced from china

Click to expand...

That's a non sequitur. Epi-whatever chips made in Taiwan may be decent, but you don't know what you're getting from China. They're licensed to factories on the mainland. Fixture builders may buy LED dies and encapsulate them on site. Cree chips are made in China but under oversight of the US business, to its standards and QA.

Using your logic, you would buy $10 shoes at Walmart because the $100 name-brand shoes are made in China too. It's all about design, oversight of the supply chain, etc.

This may change. Recent news says China will require higher standards of LED manufacturers in 2015 due to the bad reputation they've acquired. If things were as equal as you say, that wouldn't be news.

As far as the cost of A51. You're going to pay one way or another. You said electricity cost was your motivation to move to LED. But, you went inneficient. So, the $250(?) you saved you'll pay for through higher electric bills.

That light uses 320w but a lot of that is turned into heat = NON Efficient. A good cree or vero unit can make the same amount of light but use less power say roughly 250w. If you were looking saving money on electric bill you went with the wrong choice.
everybody has to learn one way or another

I did a similiar thing as well, rushed out to buy cheap ass LED to replace my HPS and was disappointed. Who knows, you might be fortunate and it works reasonably well to grow, but it will never work as well as industry leaders.

I wasted a few hundred dollars BEFORE I heeded to the sage advice here, then I verified it by following people who were generous enough to share their grows here with pictures, videos, and posts. So after hearing the "facts", I verified to the best of my ability, then ended up purchasing two quality lights.

As far as I'm concerned you are growing dank so you are a bad ass mo fo to begin with, and you want quality you can smoke, so why waste your time on inferior product.

wow lotta hate guys, got my light, love it, will post if someone wants knowledge on it. i know ratios of the different wavelengths. i definitely don't understand everyone's logic of trying to assume the worst with everything, or tell me about walmart shoes. really? u spend your $1500 on your light, ill spend 170 on mine, and if your product weighs 8 times as much as mine, or 8x as potent then ill admit you're right. but you got a better chance of winning powerball than beating me 8x over so have a good night