I'm looking to buy a panel for the main vegetative and flowering phases. I've scoured GC and the Internet at large for reviews, comparisons, grows, specs, and videos, and the Pro Grow 400 (240 actual watts) looks like the sweet spot for my budget ($750 or under, with a strong preference for panels around $500) at $579 new, from the manufacturer. I'm just worried about two things. First, according to many posts, they refuse to provide specs. The grows and videos I've seen look good, but I'd still like hard numbers. And second, LED Grow Lights Review is conspicuously missing any mention of the PG400, or any HH product. The other ones I'm interested in are the California LightWorks SolarStorm 400W, because they have a feedback program which brings the price down to $599, but I haven't seen any grows with it yet. The 240W Blackstar is much cheaper than either, and I'm not really sure how to compare them, then there's also the 500W and 600W, but they use some 2W chips, and 3W is really the minimum I'm interested in. The light needs to cover a 3'x3' space, though I'd rather have too much light (and keep it higher) than too little and not be able to expand a little. Anyone have hard numbers on the PG400?
Check out my grow for the California Lightworks. I have the 800w Solarstorm but the 400w one is essentially the same minus two LED quadrants. I also have a grow going on with the 200w Solarflare. Both are in my grow. Look at my signature. Here is a excellent site on some reviews. On the right hand side there are links to reviews and down below interviews with the people who run the LED companies. The LED Grow Lights Review Cant speak for Pro Grow on refusing stuff but I do know that California Lightworks when you email them they respond back and usually its the owner of the company. Ive exchanged 10-12 emails back and forth. Hes honest and never has tried to sell me jack. Any question was answered.
Yeah, that's the site I linked to, but, they're missing info on the PG line, but seem to have so many other major manufacturers. I'm leaning toward the SolarStorm 400W, largely because of how open the company seems to be, but I'd like to get as much info as I can first on as many lights as possible. I'll definitely check out your grows, thanks for the links!
I'm an avid fan of Gotham hydroponics products as they have great customer service soo that's where I would go first. Also, their LEDs are cheaper in price and I'm kinda on a budget. I got a tent from them a while back and it's an amazing value for the price . From the info gathered from the site provided by rhapsodyrcks, they make a pretty decent LED. I've also looked up on YouTube and seen people having great results with Blackstar. Also Gotham has just posted information on their site about the New 2013 Blackstar Chrome series lights. Check them out as they look alot like The Penetrator X (terrible name for a growlight btw because it sounds like an 80s porn lol) This is just information I've gathered but unfortunately I do not have the cash for these yet so I cant give an honest review. I'm still using t5s but im on my first grow so I'm still learning and waiting until I make a final decision to go HPS or LED
Gotham Hydroponics for-sure! Blackstar 500W 3W LEDs multi spectrum, multi angled; check it out. http://ledgrowlightsreview.org/500w-lighthouse-hydro-blackstar-review/
If California Lightworks did not have there 400w Solarstorm half off for participing in the growers program I would say sure. 400w Solarstorm with built in T8 UVB. It uses 5 watt LED Diodes running at a little over 4 watts. Has a Grow and Bloom mode. All equals win. LED makers put lenses on there LEDs to make up for lack of wattage. It should not be looked at as a positive but a negative...they spin it differently though. You actually lose 10-15% of your output from simply putting a lens on it. Energy is lost through the transfer of a lens.
I do agree, that's a sexy deal. This, however, is not quite as it seems. I have something of a background in physics, including geometric optics. You are correct, there is a transmission loss. However, the transmission (refraction) loss for a good lens of only 1 (thin lens approximation) or 2 (where the light strikes, and where the light exits) interfaces (boundaries between different mediums, like air and glass) is very low. Much more light is lost due to being reflected around the room, if not immediately captured by the plant. The inverse square law applies here, stating that the energy received is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source. So, the further our photons travel, the less energy the source light will impart, and this drops off not only linearly, but exponentially, resulting in a great loss if the light is diffuse. Since the light produced by an LED radiates in all directions from a central point, the rays are not parallel to each other (uncollimated) unlike a laser (collimated), and divergent (headed away from each other). Reflectors and lenses are used to gather and collimate the light (make the rays parallel to each other, neither divergent nor convergent) and aim it at the plant, reducing the average distance a photon needs to travel to strike the plant. Not doing this incurs a loss because most photons will have to bounce off multiple other surfaces (incurring losses in transit through space, reflection and sub-surface reflection, possibly in refracting through other objects), far away, potentially being absorbed. The losses can be much greater than 15%. Most LEDs that we see come with some sort of lens to reduce the viewing angle to something useful. Phew.. sorry if I went a bit over the top on that. But reflectors and lenses are a good thing, especially when we need something besides a laser to be restricted to a smaller area. Is Gotham Hydro simply a reseller for BlackStar products? And what's the actual wattage on their 500W model? Another thing I'm looking for is UVB output. The extra T8 on the SolarStorm would let me put a UVB fluorescent in there, if it doesn't have any UVB diodes. Do the BlackStar products include UVB?
That is why I was pleased to see Solarstorm has no optics to narrow the beam. There CEO in a interview said that at 5 watts and 120 degree LED they found the necessity of adding a focusing lens overkill and unnecessary. For Blackstar 500...its about 300. I had a Blackstar 240 and its power draw was 135w. The Solarstorms T8 comes with UVB bulbs installed...thats the whole point of them being there not for lighting as T8 lighting would not be necessary. They put that in because a a true UVB LED costs a fortune as it has limited applications. T8's are dirt cheap replacements for them are like 15 bucks a bulb. Heres a pic
What George Mekhtarian was talking about in his interview was "secondary optics (i.e. external lenses)". That would make the total go from 1 to 2 interfaces (for a thin lens approximation) or 2 to 4 interfaces for a "thick" (normal) lens. That 10-15% loss he's talking about usually occurs at an interface, though photons can travel partly into a material and back out (subsurface reflection, what makes skin look like it does). If there's an air gap, add another 1-2. They still use a primary lens--120 degrees in their case, and glass, instead of gel and acrylic lenses (much better light transmission). But nonetheless, an LED requires a lens (and reflector, often just the packaging it's on) to be useful (at least for producing a light that doesn't go 360 degrees in every direction, mostly away from your plant). Your losses from the longer trip taken by an undirected set of photons will be far greater, in general, than the loss from the use of 1 relatively thin lens. That's a really nice setup there, and I'm pretty much sold on the SolarStorm. I can use these two T-8s to supplement my existing ones. I was originally going to go with the Pro-Grow, but there's just a huge lack of information and Mekhtarian is really up front about the build. Under UV light alone, do yours look light bluish?
I do not use the UVB cept for flowering which is why its there and yes thats why its blueish like any other UVB bulb. Done several grows on it and jury is still out imo on if the UVBs work but hey there there so I use them. Theres a giant lack of information because 75% of these Grow LEDs are scams. Anyone here ever wonder how some stupid Hydro store seems to sell these things? They have elaborate websites but its all spin and what they got from a supplier of these things that are simply branded for there store. The idea of a hydro store in the back room having some elaborate LED facility is horseshit but people fall for them all the time. Whats funny some are even spinning it cant remember the name but its a big one "Made in China but throughly tested in the US". If people only realized that store owners simply contact the makers tell them what they want and the slave labor camp in China pumps them out they would never buy them but they do. Why I was sold on Cali Light Works.
Quick question Rhaspodyrks: I have the SS400W. Wondering at what point do you turn on the UVBs? At the start of flowering, or some time later? Thanks.
I run a hydro store in my town and we have had almost every LED worth using come through my shop. We currently have a SolarStorm 800 w/ UV boost and my plants thrive under it at about 48". We also have the Blackstar 720w Chrome Series by Lighthouse Hydro. (My personal favorite) Huge diffrence in price when compared to the SolarStorm but in my opinion after several harvest with both fixtures I can say that Lighouse Hydro makes an awesome light that out performed the SolarStorm. (My opinion) The SolarStorm is a good fixture with a huge price tag. The UV boost and Veg and Bloom switch are some what gimickie and there to give the fixure a little bit of flash. In the end I would check out Lighthouse Hydro's LED's. They have a good price, they are a quality product and they will work as advertised! Be careful not to fall into an overseas made by the lowest bidder LED trap. There are a lot of them out there! I know what works for me and I came to that conclusion from trial and error so base what you get off of other growers and experience rather than basing it on the price tag.
California lightworks intsructions read that you are to use the UV boost at the start of your bloom phase.