Choice between new lights

Hi all, newbie here.

I jumped the gun abit when i started and bought 2 x Viparspectra r300s for my 3x3x6 Tent and later found out that they are not the best longterm solution. Im willin to bite the bullet and fork out some upfront cost to get better yield and efficiency. I have been doing a bit of research myself and have come down to 2 Options.

HLG-260 XW from Growerslights

Growmau5 Vero29 SE-VI D Grow Kit from Cutter Electronics


They both end up being around $550-600 Aud Delivered if the delivery from Growerslights ends up being less than $50usd. Since they are around the same price, which one do you think is the better option considering i can pay $25 dollars to have the HLG260 XW preassembled and tested for $25usd where the Growmau5 setup would require me buy materials for a frame and put it together myself. (Not very confident in my diy skills)
On a side note, what is the main difference between the HLG260 vs the HLG300 and do you think its worth the extra $200 and what light spectrum would you reccomend for Both Vegging and Flowering.

Just wanna make sure i make the right choice as it quite an investment and would like to know RIU members opinions. Thank you all for your time and sorry if these kind of questions have already been asked.

Worth a peek...
Rapidled dot com.
Timber grow lights dot com

Cheers for the heads up, just had a look, the rapid led equivelents may be a little out of my price range but the 240 and 320 Qbs from timbergrowlights are another option especially cos they come preassembled. I just have to email/call them up to see how much they charge to deliver to Australia.

Just to throw it oit there, HLG 135 watt QB flowers 2.5x2.5. If you like it get the second to equal a 260. That way you can better light with 2 instead of 1. Its $209 built and shipped. I aam waiting on mine and believe ill be getting a second myself.

Also 3000k flowers and vegs very nice.

MATTYMATT726 said:

Just to throw it oit there, HLG 135 watt QB flowers 2.5x2.5. If you like it get the second to equal a 260. That way you can better light with 2 instead of 1. Its $209 built and shipped. I aam waiting on mine and believe ill be getting a second myself.

Also 3000k flowers and vegs very nice.

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Thanks for the advice , i think ill be going with the 3000ks. Just trying to figure out if i wanna get the HLGs or the Timbergowlights, could you further expand on why having 2 seperate panels instead of 1 with 2 panels will give better light? is it more of a future proof thing incase you get another tent? Also when they prebuild these qbs for you do they have the dimmer switches installed?

Because 2 separate panels you can split them evenly in the room whereas 2 panels on 1 heatsink sitars in the middle and the edges are receiving less light. If you space the 2 panels more towards the edge. There will be even light throughout the whole tent.

I just bought the 260 in a 2.5×4 tent and I love them. Like you I also bought a viparspectra(450w) and didnt research enough. The quantum boards are ridiculously bright. While wiring them I plugged em in to test it out and the damn things about blinded me. I am thinking of adding 2 citizen cobs to help out because there are areas in my tent that could use it. I have the 2 boards 1 heat sink. I may even cut the heatsink in half and split them up im debating on it.

Also it doesn't seam like there is a huge difference between the 2. Higher wattage and you will have more overall coverage area due to the placement of the boards. Maybe a different power supply.

Also if you get the DIY kit they are very easy to assemble. It took me all of 20 minutes. You just need to ha e some knowledge on how to wire. Comes with the screws and everything to clip the wires in already. Might save you a little money. But if you have the cash go for em assembled and tested.

Cheers for the reply Aolelon, quick question, what do you think about the quantum boards at timbergrowlights? they seem to have everything prebuilt but they havnt mounted the panels onto a framework, the 240 comes with 2 panels and the 320 comes with 3 panels. Would i be able to spread them out how i like them even tho they run off the 1 driver?

Yep with them being all on their own heatsink it would just be how you wired them together. As long as you had enough wire to reach you could hang them as you see fit. There are 2 ways to wire them. You can wire them in series or in parallel. I recommend researching it a bit. There is a great topic that I read that got me started and help me decide which to do. Even though it is for COB LED the principle is the same. I like that they have the driver already wired up for you. I had to wire my power cord to the driver and honestly that took the longest out of the whole building process just to make sure I didn't have it backwards (the writing on the driver in in Chinese lol)

I cant post links yet but I will give you an idea
ledgardener c o m /wiring-led-cobs/

char0x said:

Thanks for the advice , i think ill be going with the 3000ks. Just trying to figure out if i wanna get the HLGs or the Timbergowlights, could you further expand on why having 2 seperate panels instead of 1 with 2 panels will give better light? is it more of a future proof thing incase you get another tent? Also when they prebuild these qbs for you do they have the dimmer switches installed?

Click to expand...

I bought a prebuilt kit from Growerslights and it DOES have a dimmer.

Aolelon said:

Because 2 separate panels you can split them evenly in the room whereas 2 panels on 1 heatsink sitars in the middle and the edges are receiving less light. If you space the 2 panels more towards the edge. There will be even light throughout the whole tent..

Click to expand...

I have a 260 watt kit (QB28 HLG from Growerslights and love it. I am in a 3x3 tent as well. As Aolelon suggested, 2 of the 135watt kitts would work great for a more even coverage of the area. I am waiting on another 260 kit ill be putting in (dimmed down of course) since ill be upgrading to a 4x4 or larger after this grow.

Here is a chart I found awhile back somewhere on this forum (i think) where a guy tested the 260watt kit from HLG in a 3x3 area with a PAR meter. The light intensity drops quite a bit towards the outer edges.

Yea im torn between getting another qb board or throwing in 4 cob 50w. I have a 2.5x4ft tent and I have the two qb in the middle. Currently its giving me a max of 26w/sqft and I wanna get it up to at least 35-40

Here is what I'd do in a 3x3
6x 1510-2221-ND (digikey part no for 2ft dbl row 3k) @ $162 total
1 x HLG-320H-C1050B @ $92 or LNE-48V320WDAA @ $94 (I have one of the LNE units)
This would run circles around a 400W bulb.

Strips would go in like |=| with the equal sign being four of the strips.

I am just

Keegan12L said:

I bought a prebuilt kit from Growerslights and it DOES have a dimmer.




I have a 260 watt kit (QB28 HLG from Growerslights and love it. I am in a 3x3 tent as well. As Aolelon suggested, 2 of the 135watt kitts would work great for a more even coverage of the area. I am waiting on another 260 kit ill be putting in (dimmed down of course) since ill be upgrading to a 4x4 or larger after this grow.

Here is a chart I found awhile back somewhere on this forum (i think) where a guy tested the 260watt kit from HLG in a 3x3 area with a PAR meter. The light intensity drops quite a bit towards the outer edges.

View attachment 4115448

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Yeh, I am pretty sold on the 260w panel from Growerslights or the 320 with 3 x 288qbs from Timbergrowlights. Just waiting for them to respond by email with shipping cost as its going to require international shipping. Hopefully, with a bit more knowledge down the track, I will be able to add some cobs to the corners especially if I decide to upgrade tent size one day. Thank you all for the info ill keep you updated on how go.

char0x said:

Cheers for the heads up, just had a look, the rapid led equivelents may be a little out of my price range but the 240 and 320 Qbs from timbergrowlights are another option especially cos they come preassembled. I just have to email/call them up to see how much they charge to deliver to Australia.

Click to expand...

You may be lucky from being in australia id look at cutter.au.com mark is on this forum as well if you need any help and to my knowledge hes in australia.. probably your best best for any LED light in your area Maybe 2-3 sol skins boards or other options too.. @welight

Viceman666 said:

You may be lucky from being in australia id look at cutter.au.com mark is on this forum as well if you need any help and to my knowledge hes in australia.. probably your best best for any LED light in your area Maybe 2-3 sol skins boards or other options too.. @welight

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Cheers Viceman. @char0x
we can certainly get you up and running with the new Solskin boards which are now in stock in either 1,2 or 3 channel versions, we also now have a 3 channel driver dimmer board to control each channel and they can master/slave across multiple boards
http://www.cutter.com.au/products.php?cat=Sol-Skin
give me a call today and we can discuss +61 3 9873 5088
Cheers
Mark

welight said:

Cheers Viceman. @char0x
we can certainly get you up and running with the new Solskin boards which are now in stock in either 1,2 or 3 channel versions, we also now have a 3 channel driver dimmer board to control each channel and they can master/slave across multiple boards
give me a call today and we can discuss +61 3 9873 5088
Cheers
Mark

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Did not realise you did boards aswell, i will def be giving you a call after work today.