first time grower here trying to do it right the first time. 4x4 tent setup with total of 4 plants. Almsot bought philzon lights from amazon but glad I did my research!! I am about to pull the trigger on alibaba HLG 480 w , 4x 288pc v2 board with HLG 480h c2800ab with dimmer. Is this enough light? Should I order the parts separate with a stronger driver so I can add later? I’ll never have more then 4 plants. Thanks in advance!!
This is the link to the light Source Meijiu QB288 480W quantum boards led grow lights use Samsung lm301b with IR 660nm leds on m.alibaba.com
i hate that website . its full of scammers . i could not even open your link. what is your spending limit on lights ?
If you go LED you need very bright multispectrum white with red for flowering. I got to say, after pricing them out, I went back to cheap HID. Pot loves HPS lights. No way around it. I am running 600w HID with 300 true w of supplemental LED in a 4x4 and loving it right now. Unless you are dropping thousands on lights, HID is still better. Fancy LED can compete but its going to cost you. Even then I would take HID + cooling over LED. Basically if it doesn't show up on a cheap lux meter (which reads only white light) it wont grow well in my opinion. I want my lux meter reading over 60,000 at the corners of the tent with warm light spectrum and temperature under 80 F. How you get there doesn't really matter.
do not buy on that website. there is no discount for you or guarantee on anything . go to ebay buy a know light for the same price . you can buy a quantom board for the same price and those obsolete led your looking at. qb boards are the best problem is you will need to spend even more you need to veg with a different color then flower different spectrum. why not get a hps and mh combo ? it will be much less and worVIVOSUN 400w 600w 1000w Watt Grow Light Kit HPS MH Air Cooled Hood Set for Plant | eBayk better then those garbage led just buy a fan for 25 bucks your all set timer included . you get 2 bulbs 1 for veg 1 for flower. this is not the best brand in the market but who cares ? it will grow your plants perfectly fine
Got to say, one more vote for Vivosun HID here. Got to say, really do like their HID lights, fans and tents. Cheap but well made.
Go here and order, you got your stuff in 5 or 6 days at half price. Order from Mindy. I have made 3 orders and love the lights. Here is my journal to prove the lights work. Fully documented. 480 watt Quantum Boards, Barney Farms LSD clones, vs HPS Best Seller Shenzhen Led Grow Lights With Quantum Led Board 288 Samsung Lm301b Sk Top Bin - Buy Led Grow Lights,Samsung Led Board,288 Quantum Product on Alibaba.com Mandy's email. s18@mei9led.com
Thanks so much, I have actually been emailing Mandy and that is the light I was looking at!! Just deciding what driver as she said it’s available with both HLG 480H - 48AB and HLG 480H C2800ab. Also I just wanted to make sure this will be enough light long term, I would like a driver I can add to in future but not sure if I can with either of these?
Run your grow, I think you'll find having fancy equipment is only about 10% of the equation and unless you are trying to run commercial cycles on your equipment it will become obsolete long before it wears out no matter how fancy it is now.
I hear you and know your probably right but hate buying things twice, and with an engineering background love getting the optimal setup even if it will be obsolete soon. I’ll admit little to no background in this so appreciate all the reply’s!
Understood and I appreciate the sentiment but as one number cruncher to another, let me propose an alternative analysis. LED's fall into the same category as hydroponics for me. They increase yields per/production cost and maintain the same quality as soil grown cannabis, if managed perfectly. However, they also add variables that the grower must manage which creates additional opportunity for failure. In the end the only real advantage of LED is they produce more lumes and less heat per watt. The benefit of LED is they can produce more grams per watt of electricity. Butt lets think for a minute; how much electricity are you actually using? A 1000w light running 12/12 for 30 days comes out to 360 KWh of power a month. The national average for electricity is 0.104 per KWh so that is a total of $39 a month in power. Now LED will reduce your electricity bill but not by more than $40 a month. For arguments sake lets say you save all you power bill, $40. In exchange for that $40 a month you add variables to you grow: First, as it seems you understand you need to purchase LED with the proper spectrum. If you buy perfect LED you will be able to satisfy the plant's light requirements. In this aspect if you purchase purchase perfect LED they will match HID lights in lumen per lumen plant efficiency. However, if your light spectrum (which does vary from strain to strain) is off you will suddenly lose the effectiveness a large portion of your lumens because LED produce a very specific wavelength of light. In terms of color HID is like a shot gun, it hits the plants with a range, LED is like a sniper, it produces tons of light but can miss optimal photosynthesis easily. Now the next major advantage of LED is they produce less heat. However, I find I am running AC in my grow room anyway. The reason being my plants like 72 deg and instead of A/C the full house down to 72, I end up adding a portable AC to the grow room or opening a window in the winter. With LED you will run your A/C less, but again this nothing more than a minor power bill savings. I find the heat from my HID lamps helps evaporate water run off, which keeps mold down, and forces me to run a vent fan which creates much needed air exchange in a 4x4 tent. In the end, what you want is good pot and lots of it. If you use LED and perfect hydro setup you might save $40-$50 a month in power and get about 25% better yield than you would have growing the same seeds in soil with HID. However, you will need to manage you lights and nutes perfectly. If you want tons of good pot for personal use (say 1 p every harvest) just throw a 1000W HID in there, put the seeds in soil and sit back and let them grow. If you want to save on power or get say 1.25 p every yield go LED and hydro etc. But know this, it is a lot easier to mess up a LED and hydro set ups and end up with tons of work and lots of bills to produce only 5-6 ozs. Hydro, LED and other fancy stuff can be better but it is a lot easier to mess up. Personally my time is valuable and 4 plants is a ton for me so I am willing to spend money on power to keep it simple. Good luck man!
I disagree you can run veg-flower with 3k just fine. Won’t get a huge difference in in stretch because of the intensity. I’ve got 4k for veg and 3k for Flower I’ve ran alternating the two spectrums and I’ve ran a couple grows under 3k only from veg to flower using the clones from the plants i flowered with the alternating spectrums and didn’t notice any major differences. Or you could just get (4) hlg 96elites and call it a day..... veg-bloom no issues.
It is... idk what he’s talking about. I mean I do but it’s been done by multiple growers with no problems I’ve done both ways and didn’t notice much of a difference not enough to justify buying both spectrums.
People need to remember the difference between cool and warm bulbs from back before the energy star system and mass electrical efficiency and kelvin spectrum on the bulb box was a lot bigger. Cool HID lights were closer to 7K. We were using street light bulbs in those days. Anything in the 2k to 5k range is going to produce something you can live with. That being said plants prefer and range of light from 2K to 6K and probably even more.