1000w gavita alternative for veg

Tn29

Active Member
Hello everyone


I think I have finally decided to give led a try because of the heat and hydro benefits. I thought to make a post to see if anyone could help me choose some.

Please excuse any ignorance, im still fairly new to the game.

To start off id like to try them in my veg room. Its about 12x10 and super high ceilings. Roughly 12 feet. Right now im running 4 x 1000w de gavitas in the room all hooked up to a gavita el1.

Obviously if i had loads of money id grab the gaviti leds but those are way too pricey. Im looking for the best bang for the buck hopefully under 800cad each.

If anyone has any experience with good leds that are comparable to the gavitas, would love to hear.

Also side question. Does anyone know if i can hook ip other lights to the gavita master controller.
 

Renfro

Well-Known Member
If you are looking for a deal you can get one of the chinese clone lights off amazon/alibaba. some of those are getting great results but of course you may have quality issues with those and have to get another as a spare eliminating the savings.

I would really stick with the more expensive options like the Gavita or HLG 650r. Maybe replace a couple lights this round and the other two later.
 

denavici

Active Member
I have been using the Morsen 3000+ M Series for a little over a year with great results.


When I first ordered they did not have the white led option available, so right now I have 4 of the blue/red and 4 white.
They both have given me some amazing grows.

I have seen some people complain about Morsen's return policy or burned out diodes too early yet I haven't experienced that at all with the 3000+

I have ordered a few of their really small combination led lights for cloning, and my drip veg system and have lost more then a few diodes on those small boards.

I haven't had any experience with the Gavita or HLG 650r, but I have no need to upgrade now.
I do like having the multiple rectangular lights compared to one big led setup like the Gavita and HLG just it is nice to be able to change the different heights of the lights according to the plants directly below, instead of just setting it to the appropriate height for the tallest plant.

Also I like the idea of having more lights dividing up my room to try to increase the amount of angles the light has to get to as much of the plant as possible.

Here are two pictures of my first grow after getting the lights, and I had a hell of a time controlling my temperature, humidity, and light pollution since I was just using a 4'X8' scaffolding and wrapping it with plastic at night.

I am currently in the process of setting them up in my new built grow rooms, so I don't have any pictures of growth underneath them in a very controlled environment, but I only expect my results to keep improving.
 

Attachments

F80M4

Well-Known Member
I used 6 gavita clones from amazon. I will never use a clone again. I'm thinking about getting 4 CMH lights. The one that looks most appealing to me right now are the dimlux ones but I'm not sure if anyone used them yet
 

F80M4

Well-Known Member
Smart move. Some folk give me a hard time for wanting to stick with brand names but I believe in the old saying "You get what you pay for"
Any experience with dimlux? I've been fascinated by the design for some reason lol
 

Renfro

Well-Known Member
Not related to dimlux but I did have terrible experiences with the early first several generations of nanolux DE HPS lights. The ballasts had a very high failure rate. I hear they fixed that, but I phased them out. (More below)

I also bought some of Nanolux 1kW DE CMH setups and they had a batch of lamps that didn't last more than 3 or 4 months and the light output dropped off hard during the first few months, they told me the batch of lamps I had was bad and they exchanged the lamps but I didn't run the new lamps more than a few months because I changed those fixtures out for LED fixtures I built.

All in all those two experiences lead me to believe they have some issues in the QC department. It's a major headache for commercial growers to deal with a high failure rate. When you have more ballasts to fail and changing lamps/overhead ballasts, mid crop is a major hassle. I was lucky I had those ballasts installed with a cord to the reflector instead of the way they were built with the ballast on the reflector. I can't get up there easily mid crop to change a bulb let alone a heavy ballast. Of course thats just my situation but I can't see any grower having fun times with overhead ballasts that have a high failure rate lol. I had nanolux ballasts that were replacements under warranty and they would be failing. It was a major hassle and I started phasing them out instead of doing warranty replacements, switching them out to Phantom Commercial DE ballasts or Sun System DE Ballasts but keeping the nanolux reflector and the cord to ballast so I can mount the ballasts where I can get at them if I have to replace it mid run.

The one thing nanolux did do is build a good reflector piece, it's solid kit with nice ceramic lamp holders, but they do like to overcharge for the replacement reflectors. You can plug it to a ballast extension and run from the ballast to your reflector with ease even though it was designed to plug right on to the side of the ballast. You can actually tell the early generation from the later generation ballast design (reflector part remained constant) because of the different clips/screws to hold the ballast. One was a nice pair of locking clips (early ver) and the other was just screws (later ver).

But anyways, for DE 1000's, I have found that the Phantom Commercial DE ballasts and the sun System DE Ballasts have been very reliable for me and for others I have turned on to them.
 

F80M4

Well-Known Member
Not related to dimlux but I did have terrible experiences with the early first several generations of nanolux DE HPS lights. The ballasts had a very high failure rate. I hear they fixed that, but I phased them out. (More below)

I also bought some of Nanolux 1kW DE CMH setups and they had a batch of lamps that didn't last more than 3 or 4 months and the light output dropped off hard during the first few months, they told me the batch of lamps I had was bad and they exchanged the lamps but I didn't run the new lamps more than a few months because I changed those fixtures out for LED fixtures I built.

All in all those two experiences lead me to believe they have some issues in the QC department. It's a major headache for commercial growers to deal with a high failure rate. When you have more ballasts to fail and changing lamps/overhead ballasts, mid crop is a major hassle. I was lucky I had those ballasts installed with a cord to the reflector instead of the way they were built with the ballast on the reflector. I can't get up there easily mid crop to change a bulb let alone a heavy ballast. Of course thats just my situation but I can't see any grower having fun times with overhead ballasts that have a high failure rate lol. I had nanolux ballasts that were replacements under warranty and they would be failing. It was a major hassle and I started phasing them out instead of doing warranty replacements, switching them out to Phantom Commercial DE ballasts or Sun System DE Ballasts but keeping the nanolux reflector and the cord to ballast so I can mount the ballasts where I can get at them if I have to replace it mid run.

The one thing nanolux did do is build a good reflector piece, it's solid kit with nice ceramic lamp holders, but they do like to overcharge for the replacement reflectors. You can plug it to a ballast extension and run from the ballast to your reflector with ease even though it was designed to plug right on to the side of the ballast. You can actually tell the early generation from the later generation ballast design (reflector part remained constant) because of the different clips/screws to hold the ballast. One was a nice pair of locking clips (early ver) and the other was just screws (later ver).

But anyways, for DE 1000's, I have found that the Phantom Commercial DE ballasts and the sun System DE Ballasts have been very reliable for me and for others I have turned on to them.
Thank you for the detailed reply! Very much appreciated
 
Top