danmac0710
Member
Hi there,
Just set up my grow-room and bought cheapo Chinese LED panels which were about 15-20% the price of expensive brand names like Kind or Advanced Platinum. I am not going to mention specific products here, because the prices vary a lot, but if you have shopped for LED grow-lights you will know what I mean by the price difference between no-name and branded. The reason I went with cheaper versions is because all the claims made about the VERY expensive lights being sold cannot be verified unless you actually buy them, test them (with an expensive PAR meter), grow with them etc. Apart from that you just have to trust what the manufacturers claim and why should we? The cheapo lights make exactly the same claims: balanced & complete PA spectrum with UV and IR; long-life of LEDs; low power consumption etc. They even give you graphs of PAR distribution / area for varying heights and these rival brand claims. Some people say that light intensity is the most important thing and you can buy 5 cheap lights for 1 branded one, so you can replace them many times if they do break.
So my question is, where can you find information comparing these radically differently priced lights? I don't want to hear from people who make money selling them, or have any kind of financial ties to the industry. Maybe nowhere? Maybe only people who have a vested interest put information online which means there is no reliable source of information at all. I have spent a LOT of time looking and found very few trials conducted by anyone who was not selling the products.
A LOT of money is being spent on lights, especially here in Canada where millions of people are about to start growing weed legally. People will always bullshit you to make money - we all know that, so my other question is: are the expensive lights really that much better so they justify the crazy price tags? If so, how did YOU test it? I am not interested in reading any more marketing information, I just want to see unbiased test results.
Thanks for reading another long (sorry) thread.
Just set up my grow-room and bought cheapo Chinese LED panels which were about 15-20% the price of expensive brand names like Kind or Advanced Platinum. I am not going to mention specific products here, because the prices vary a lot, but if you have shopped for LED grow-lights you will know what I mean by the price difference between no-name and branded. The reason I went with cheaper versions is because all the claims made about the VERY expensive lights being sold cannot be verified unless you actually buy them, test them (with an expensive PAR meter), grow with them etc. Apart from that you just have to trust what the manufacturers claim and why should we? The cheapo lights make exactly the same claims: balanced & complete PA spectrum with UV and IR; long-life of LEDs; low power consumption etc. They even give you graphs of PAR distribution / area for varying heights and these rival brand claims. Some people say that light intensity is the most important thing and you can buy 5 cheap lights for 1 branded one, so you can replace them many times if they do break.
So my question is, where can you find information comparing these radically differently priced lights? I don't want to hear from people who make money selling them, or have any kind of financial ties to the industry. Maybe nowhere? Maybe only people who have a vested interest put information online which means there is no reliable source of information at all. I have spent a LOT of time looking and found very few trials conducted by anyone who was not selling the products.
A LOT of money is being spent on lights, especially here in Canada where millions of people are about to start growing weed legally. People will always bullshit you to make money - we all know that, so my other question is: are the expensive lights really that much better so they justify the crazy price tags? If so, how did YOU test it? I am not interested in reading any more marketing information, I just want to see unbiased test results.
Thanks for reading another long (sorry) thread.
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