chazbolin
Well-Known Member
Hiya PSU! Went to the SF show last weekend and got a chance to visit the Parlux booth. I listened to what they had to say and thoroughly checked out all their products HID and Induction lights. They don't make any attempt to claim Made in the USA and told me the lights come from Korea not China. Moving through Korea perhaps but it's got China made written all over it.
I asked the nice Parlux rep as to why would you desire to put three lamps in a single hood? Wouldn't you be better off buying two of the 400's for a few hundred $$$ more and separate them for multiple point sources? They told me that the multiple lamps in a single hood allowed them to increase area coverage and lumen output over the plants which increased flower size. I was told that the name Parlux which is trademarked, is by design a way of merging visual and plant standards by signifying that the lamps LUX output is designed for PAR wavelengths. I listened politely and left without offering any comments to anything I had heard.
I had hoped to see more induction companies at the show but it was only Inda-Gro and Parlux who had booths. IBeam had a booth last year but didn't have one this year. IGrow who had missed the MI show which is in their backyard, wasn't at the SF show either.
I visited the Parlux booth on Sunday which was the open to the public day. They didn't ask if I was a potential dealer with a retail hydro store but they gave me their 2013 products catalog anyway. I'll share these images here which show product specs as well as retail and dealer prices. My notes just pick on technical specs/claims that are missing the mark. What motivates me to do this is that I believe induction systems values can be easily misstated and if the end user get's less than stellar results the technology is tainted. In the case of Parlux they make most of their comparisons to HID which as you can see they also sell.
A 10% safety margin? Per the National Electrical Code they should be recommending a 30% safety margin. They're telling us we can run a 90% load on a branch circuit??? Two 800 watt lamps on a universal power supply are going to draw ~1700 watts which on a 120 volt circuit will in all likelihood draw the voltage down to a 110 volts with a continuous load (oh let's just hypothetically say 12 hour/day duty cycle) and actually exceed the 15 amps rating with a 16.5 amp draw. Not only do they not meet the 10% safety margin but they exceed the supply circuit capacities as shown in the first graphic.
The area of coverage on their 62# 1200 watt light is claimed to be 75 sq ft. With that reflector geometry? Utter nonsense.
Lamp:Housing/Reflector fit
First time I've seen a major induction mfg allow the two RF wires to run exposed on the outside of the driver housing. These wires carry 200-300 volts RMS peak to peak. This is not a UL approved installation and a search of the UL database does not show the part number or Parlux as a UL listed manufacturer of this model number.
Here you can see the AC driver supply wiring being routed into a terminal block of sorts. The ends of the terminal block are wide open.
The upper chart shows comparisons to HID and lists all lamps as PLM or Pupil Lumen/Watt. Pretty much everyone reading this knows Lumen's is for humans but there are some pretty substantial errors listed here even in these values. For example their Lumen Depreciation Rates show a 40% depreciation of a metal halide at 2000 hours and a 30% depreciation of an HPS @ 2000 hours. Then in the chart at the bottom of that page they show Usage Cost Comparisons and in that chart they list a lux comparison which is totally irrelevant to plant lighting but even so these values are grossly overstated. If nothing else they should have been stated in lumens since they don't give the circumstances for how these readings were taken as would be required of a density per meter squared lux reading.
On this page it becomes apparent they are just blindly parrotting a commercial lamp specification since no gardener would give a shit about Cold Ignition operational value @ -40 degree C. Even so when they give the same value in Farenheit they list it at -20 degrees F when it would actually be -40 degrees F. This just happens to be where the two values equal each other and they missed it.
So after they go to all the trouble of eviscerating HID the next page in the brochure shows all the HID lamps they'll sell you.
In addition to the induction lights these are some of the other products they sell which are listed in the brochure.
+++++++++++++++
Looking at this in it's totality I would have to say:
Many of their claims are overstated (grossly) or just wrong.
Their analysis of the branch circuit rating is wrong and just plain dangerous.
Many of their specifications are parroted from commercial/industrial specs which have no relevance to plant lighting applications at all.
They know not of what they speak.
I asked the nice Parlux rep as to why would you desire to put three lamps in a single hood? Wouldn't you be better off buying two of the 400's for a few hundred $$$ more and separate them for multiple point sources? They told me that the multiple lamps in a single hood allowed them to increase area coverage and lumen output over the plants which increased flower size. I was told that the name Parlux which is trademarked, is by design a way of merging visual and plant standards by signifying that the lamps LUX output is designed for PAR wavelengths. I listened politely and left without offering any comments to anything I had heard.
I had hoped to see more induction companies at the show but it was only Inda-Gro and Parlux who had booths. IBeam had a booth last year but didn't have one this year. IGrow who had missed the MI show which is in their backyard, wasn't at the SF show either.
I visited the Parlux booth on Sunday which was the open to the public day. They didn't ask if I was a potential dealer with a retail hydro store but they gave me their 2013 products catalog anyway. I'll share these images here which show product specs as well as retail and dealer prices. My notes just pick on technical specs/claims that are missing the mark. What motivates me to do this is that I believe induction systems values can be easily misstated and if the end user get's less than stellar results the technology is tainted. In the case of Parlux they make most of their comparisons to HID which as you can see they also sell.
A 10% safety margin? Per the National Electrical Code they should be recommending a 30% safety margin. They're telling us we can run a 90% load on a branch circuit??? Two 800 watt lamps on a universal power supply are going to draw ~1700 watts which on a 120 volt circuit will in all likelihood draw the voltage down to a 110 volts with a continuous load (oh let's just hypothetically say 12 hour/day duty cycle) and actually exceed the 15 amps rating with a 16.5 amp draw. Not only do they not meet the 10% safety margin but they exceed the supply circuit capacities as shown in the first graphic.
The area of coverage on their 62# 1200 watt light is claimed to be 75 sq ft. With that reflector geometry? Utter nonsense.
Lamp:Housing/Reflector fit
First time I've seen a major induction mfg allow the two RF wires to run exposed on the outside of the driver housing. These wires carry 200-300 volts RMS peak to peak. This is not a UL approved installation and a search of the UL database does not show the part number or Parlux as a UL listed manufacturer of this model number.
Here you can see the AC driver supply wiring being routed into a terminal block of sorts. The ends of the terminal block are wide open.
The upper chart shows comparisons to HID and lists all lamps as PLM or Pupil Lumen/Watt. Pretty much everyone reading this knows Lumen's is for humans but there are some pretty substantial errors listed here even in these values. For example their Lumen Depreciation Rates show a 40% depreciation of a metal halide at 2000 hours and a 30% depreciation of an HPS @ 2000 hours. Then in the chart at the bottom of that page they show Usage Cost Comparisons and in that chart they list a lux comparison which is totally irrelevant to plant lighting but even so these values are grossly overstated. If nothing else they should have been stated in lumens since they don't give the circumstances for how these readings were taken as would be required of a density per meter squared lux reading.
On this page it becomes apparent they are just blindly parrotting a commercial lamp specification since no gardener would give a shit about Cold Ignition operational value @ -40 degree C. Even so when they give the same value in Farenheit they list it at -20 degrees F when it would actually be -40 degrees F. This just happens to be where the two values equal each other and they missed it.
So after they go to all the trouble of eviscerating HID the next page in the brochure shows all the HID lamps they'll sell you.
In addition to the induction lights these are some of the other products they sell which are listed in the brochure.
+++++++++++++++
Looking at this in it's totality I would have to say:
Many of their claims are overstated (grossly) or just wrong.
Their analysis of the branch circuit rating is wrong and just plain dangerous.
Many of their specifications are parroted from commercial/industrial specs which have no relevance to plant lighting applications at all.
They know not of what they speak.
I wonder if those bulbs run on hps or mh
