New Mars II 1600 Advantage

I bet they're going to do great for you. A problem with building a commercial product like the marsII series light is once you settle on a design and get it approved you can't upgrade it. Even these people that have their good opinions on mars are basing it on lights that are that old or even older. The mars II diodes are like 4 years old now. The efficiency of output of what is on the market for them to build a fixture with compared to 4 years ago isn't even close. It's doubled if you want to count what's available at the highest end of the market.

I'm sure the new diodes they're using stomp the crap out of their older lights and the older lights weren't half bad.

HLG has the cheapest price/performance products in led grow lights right now. If the boards weren't sold out right now I could show you how to build a 300 watt fixture that uses the same diodes as nextlight with a meanwell driver and no fans for less then $200. They sell 4 packs of their qb132 boards on amazon in 3k for $133. They're 75 watts each max power. I veg with 4 qb120's in a 4x4. It cost me about $55 each fixture to build them.

 

If you look around in my qb120 thread right next to yours in indoor growing you'll find all the info you need.

 

TBone talked me in to getting the HLG 260watt in 3000K. Best decision I’ve made in a long time. Great light.


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My last three harvests out of a 4x4 have all been over a pound. Last one was a single plant so I didn't take full advantage of the space. It was still 20oz's in 16 sq.ft. Before that was 23oz's and 32oz's.

You should have no problem matching your yield I think. The bud density and quality is better with LED grown bud IMO. HPS just impacts surface leaf temps too much they tend to grow loose airy buds by comparison. The plant loosens up to combat the high temp stress.

I've had some plants that were unbelievable in the density area since converting to HLG leds. The buds were like rocks. One 3/4 full jar I had weight up to 54 grams. Normally they're closer to 30-35. That's actually how I was able to get 2 pounds was the incredible density. The crop itself didn't look that impressive but once I started trimming and weighing it up it really started stacking up.

Another thing I notice with leds is just more nice dense mid sized tops. I don't seem to have some of the super large arm size single colas I see on some HPS grows but what I do have is lots and lots of good mid sized buds. I think it's a symptom of leds not being as focused with more points of light they grow a more even crop instead of the extreme central hot spot you get with a single point of light HPS setup.

 

You should get them to put out a ppfd chart. They did for the cob. It was very impressive. That little cob light they sell has the ppfd chart of a 400 watt hps.

 

Nice numbers. Very even coverage. Only bummer in my book is burple.

 

Agree very even spread...seems mars are stepping up their game... i wonder why they dont make a white light fixture using samsung diodes
I know it says at the top that it covers 4.5x4.5, but that par chart only has readings for a 3x3???

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When they were taking opinions on their cob light in the lighting section I tried to talk them into the samsung diodes. I wanted them to put out a cob light that had a mix of cree 3590's like they used in their cob and the sumsung leds around them instead of the reds and blues they used.

They could have also went to larger fixtures based on that. If they included cheap far red initiator leds in the fixture they would sell. People don't like building lights. It doesn't matter how easy putting together fixtures with the qb120 or qb132 boards are I get a lot of people who just want to click the order button.

 

Where do you get 3x3? At the top of the par chart it says 4.5x4.5. They did the par chart for the mars cob in a 5x5. I was like WTF? You know your numbers would be higher if you put it in a tent that was the size of the light footprint instead of a 5x5? They were impressive in a 5x5 anyway.

 

hey OP....u r going to love that light. Wishing you peace and happy grows

 

If it has a grow/bloom setting what they do is they shut down close to half of the leds to swing the spectrum way over to blue for veg. This helps prevent stretch. It can be light on power sometimes. You probably want to switch to having both the veg and bloom switches on when you're in late veg. That way you're getting the full power output.

I bought some platinum leds and I was planning on vegging with a p450 and blooming with a p900. When I started vegging with just the p450 on veg mode only it was very underwelming. I figured out that yes it is a 255 watt led light but if you turn it to veg mode it's 137 watts. Not enough to fill a 4x4 for veg for sure. After that I ran it with both veg and bloom switches on and it vegged much better. No duh I guess, twice the power.

There's no specs for the veg power level on your spec sheet. They have those numbers for their other fixtures so I would assume they will show up some time.

The best part about switching to led is the heat savings. The first person I ever saw growing with led was a friend of mine who's not the best grower. He was doing terrible with a 1000 watt hps and then he got a mars 900. He started growing much healthier bud and it upped his harvest a little. The real reason it did is because he could never get the temps good in his room with the 1000 watter. The mars light actually kept the space cool enough for the plants. If you struggle with temps it could really increase the look and amount of your end product. There's quite a few HPS growers in hot areas that struggle.