LED Buying Guide (a noob start)

hoss12781 said:

diode brand is pretty important as well. CREE, Epistar, Bridgelux, Xenlux are four of the major players. So is the strength to which each diode is driven. This in part determines the longevity of the diode and is nice to know when purchasing. For reference most major brands run their 3w chipsets to about 2.1w of actual output. One should also inspect viewing angles. Most reputable companies use a mix of 60 90 and 120 degree angles. Some more inexpensive models chose to only use one angle which can make for a shitty footprint and bad penetration.

Cree and bridgelux are more in a list in which I would add Osram Golden Dragon, Ledenjin and Leuxon Rebel..... they are more efficient than epistar and xenlux

Also in case anyone hasn't mentioned it yet a real led light will put out at least 130w of total output, anything else (I'm looking at you 14, and 50w ebay panels) should be considered side lighting at best.

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This is not always the case, Evo leds does a 50, 70 and 90 led light that is way gooood
This pic is evo90, 70w actual led draw.. using cree xp-e red 630's and cree xp-e white 10000k

i have two ufos they suck

New indoor grower here. I recently bought a 2x4 tent setup from Supercloset. It was pricey but I am committed to getting my first hydro grow right. I had an extensive conversation with the salesperson regarding which light to go with. I was leaning towards their $600 LED option which is the Procyon 100 mainly to save electricity. It supposedly will replace a 400w HPS and cover sufficiently for the 8 sq ft tent. Interestingly, the salesperson talked me out of it. He told me that he has all the bulbs at his fingertips but still uses HPS for his own full cycle growth (no MH for veg either). He said that the LED "should be fine" for growth but that he didn't recommend it for flowering. I will likely be adding a second tent to grow overlapping cycles and may then consider using the LED for the growth tent and keeping the HPS in the flower tent. If they do indeed save 70% electricity and grow well then I am interested. They claim the Procyon is award winning.

mambomonster said:

New indoor grower here. I recently bought a 2x4 tent setup from Supercloset. It was pricey but I am committed to getting my first hydro grow right. I had an extensive conversation with the salesperson regarding which light to go with. I was leaning towards their $600 LED option which is the Procyon 100 mainly to save electricity. It supposedly will replace a 400w HPS and cover sufficiently for the 8 sq ft tent. Interestingly, the salesperson talked me out of it. He told me that he has all the bulbs at his fingertips but still uses HPS for his own full cycle growth (no MH for veg either). He said that the LED "should be fine" for growth but that he didn't recommend it for flowering. I will likely be adding a second tent to grow overlapping cycles and may then considering using the LED for the growth tent and keeping the HPS in the flower tent. If they do indeed save 70% electricity and grow well then I am interested. They claim the Procyon is award winning.

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$600 for 125 watt draw seems a bit steep... that's only slightly less expensive than the 126x1 Penetrator Pro....

Haven't heard many reviews of the procyon lights, they use cree leds but not very many wavelengths. It looks like a new version is coming soon and they are looking for testers:

(taken from their website)
11/12/2011: We are in need of 50 people to test a new and improved Procyon 100w. Experience with the original Procyon 100 is a plus, but not necessary. You will receive a Prototype (BETA) product at a deeply discounted price in exchange for a follow-up grow report after 8-12 weeks of use. Please contact us for more details.

Someone here should try this out.

shizz said:

i have two ufos they suck

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Don't doubt you, all I ever used mine for were side lighting. You could easily flip them on ebay and get a 3w led panel the difference is amazing.

I hope the procyon beta they're talking about has more than two bands like the current model (just checked the site). That seems really outdated for late 2011 model grow lights.

It has been widely proven that you'll need at least 5 bands in a light probably than that to get max yield with leds.

^^ my thoughts exactly

lets take a look at the overpriced and ugly and attempt to explain exactly why these are out there giving this tech a bad name. These are everywhere on the internet, especially ebay ...

http://www.accesshydroponic.com/LED-Grow-Lights-c9.htm

None of these lights listed in the link above will work as advertised. Why? The individual wattage per diode is incredibly low. Take, for example the 13w 225 led panel. I'm assuming most people know this but feel it needs to be re-iterated for all to see now that we have our own led lighting forum. .057 watts per diode as opposed to most 3w panels which run at 2.1w per diode (step down transformers to preserve longevity).

Simple math tells us that the average 2.1 watt output on a 3w chipset led is roughly 36 times as powerful diode for diode compared to the crap listed on the link above. It only offers 2 bands and does not have a warranty. Anyone wanting to toss $40 bucks against the wall and get a real bad taste in your mouth when it comes to leds - have at it. They also sell some .5w per diode panels on this site and while those may give you some results they will still pale (literally) in comparison to a 3w or greater chipset.


Also guys if we're doing a buying guide here we should really stick to what to look for instead of brand names (I realize I am guilty of this myself). While the crap deserves to be outted, if we want to avoid bickering lets keep it to general specs talk instead of brands as talking up particular brands has proven to be a very sensitive subject, and most of us would like to see this turned into a sticky instead of a troll fest.

I hope you guys don't mind "I just copied the last post from my journal to share my thoughts on the FERO and Blackstar, so there:

I got the FERO yesterday, so the current lights in the dresser are the Blackstar 240 and the FERO.

Quick review of the FERO VS the blackstar:

First of all, The FERO seems very well built, similar to the advanced diamond in that regard. For small lights, I prefer to have a square as suppose to a long skinny rectangle like the Diamond, so it also has convenient size. When they built the frame for the light, they were planning on using the 2 buttons (each buttons controlling half the diodes) they decided to go a safer route, so it's full on, or off, there is no VEG mode or FLOWER mode like the 2 buttons on it would suggest. I was never planning on using the light half strength so I don't care Everything looks solid, I am very happy with it. Now let see if it delivers!!

Now the Blackstar, I may have said this earlier on this thread but since I am giving a short review of each light, let's recap. At first glance, the Blackstar looks really good, but looking inside I can see big mess of glue, and it looks like it was built very quickly. But the worst is everytime I slightly hit the power cord near the light, the light goes off like the connector is so fukin sensitive ... I hope it stays on when I get the fans going in the dresser... Otherwise it looks like it's giving off enough light for the plants.

Now in the pictures, one of them you can see I have a side by side blackstar Fero, it doesnt say much, just to show the difference when the FERO is ON or OFF with the Blackstar ON on each picture,.

View attachment 1890496View attachment 1890497View attachment 1890498View attachment 1890499View attachment 1890500View attachment 1890501

I ll keep you posted on how that goes, so far it looks like the flowers between each light cannot make up their mind on which direction to go!! hehe

Nice comparision shots man. That fero looks super close to the canopy, are you noticing any bleaching or light burn?

I'm a fan of switchable spectrum mode on leds (to run 1/2 the diodes, flower only, veg only, or all at full illumination). I use this all the time for the first couple weeks of veg, the last couple weeks of flower and if I'm going to be away on business and cannot attend to my garden on the daily I'll just turn on the flower spectrum so my plants can still get light and won't need to be watererd as frequently. It's a cool feature imo and one that has been picked up by several retailers over the last couple years. I think we'll start seeing more of this in the coming years as opposed to models tuned specific for veg or flower. It's come in handy for me and offers the ability to save a bit more electricty if you so desire.

If your blackstar is shorting out I'd call Victor or Sean asap and ask them to make it right. That shouldn't be happening so soon and probably is a harbinger for things to come in the future. You only have 12 months then its all on you.

Which 4g fero model is that? sounds like a good light that should perform well. Looks very similar to the new penetrators in design.

Its the 4G 180 puffenuff

and Hoss I agree that it can be a nice feature, but half of my LEDs are the same way and I would run them full speed regardless. As for the bleaching, it's been ON for 5 hours yesterday and 3 today so far! I hope it will be ok!!! my blackstar is 6 inches away as well. There isnt much room in this dresser I was hoping I could keep the light above the plants but if I have bleachy problem I have enough room to put the light sideways in the left hand side ....

fair enough man, just friendly advice - keep an eyeball on them. I've noticed the bleaching, at least when its happened to me occurs after the damange is already done to the plants so by the time you go to move the lights away because you see the first signs of burn/bleach you've already done a decent amount of damange. It's usually nothing that can't be corrected if you catch it early but still a pain in the ass.

I think fero customizes them, thus the price comparison likely isnt accurate, unless you configured a panel in an identical manner to fero's and got a quote. It's also important to consider the location of where youre buying from as overseas purchases often come with heavy import tariffs, and to get the warranty service you have to deal with intl. shipping, etc.

So yes, you probably can buy direct from the assembly company, but are you getting the exact same configs and are the savings really as much as they appear considering you're not dealing with a company located in your same country?

Just a few more things to consider about buying direct from a place like cidly.com or eshinesystems.

I was contacting E.shine systems quite a bit with questions etc, and they asked me to do a grow journal. In return, on a $400 light they offered me a $30 refund once the grow journal was done. lol

I had to laugh... $30.... big spenders!

Why would I drop $400 on a light I have no idea about, when I can just get another Blackstar... lol

If that's the case, HTG is selling Cidly stuff too: http://www.ebay.com/itm/2012-LED-GROW-LIGHT-5-BAND-280w-3-watt-AGROMAX-PRO-lamp-280-hydroponic-500-w-3w-/120812604674?_trksid=p5197.m7&_trkparms=algo=LVI&itu=UCI&otn=5&po=LVI&ps=63&clkid=4246501458720648848#ht_6718wt_1396

I've ordered from Cidly before, and they do charge a shit-ton for shipping, and they do charge extra for things such as 380nm, 410nm and 730nm, then depending which name brand diodes you use that'll add to the price too. My light was only $145, but with shipping and the extra charges for some diodes it was $275 by the time I got it. It was practically the same as the Blackstar 240. 80x3w, black case.

As for the Fero LED, all that is, is the same case as you'll see on many new LEDs this year and next year. Fero's is not even from Cidly, it is a different Chinese manufacturer. The case is probably made at the same place, or bought from a place that rips off whoever actually designed it...