The Chinese Quantum Board Knock Off Builds

Cptn

Cptn

Well-Known Member
Northwood said:
According to some, this should be the busiest thread on Riu due to all the problems and fires and failures the buyers of these cheap Chinese made knock offs must be having. Maybe they aren't as bad as what some think I guess. My 240W v4 Kingbrites are doing fine. Nothing to report. Time for quiet again. Lol
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I think it has more to do with a plateau in tech advancement and shortages of the top tier LEDs.
We'll probably be running this same basic tech for some time now.
Samsung LM301s with Cree or Osram supplemental spectrums are a highly efficient, quality combo.

My guess is that the next big innovations to come will be in user friendly spectrum control and blending.
https://scynceled.com/ already moving the ball that way.
Be nice to see something designed to enable something similar for Do It Yourselfers with a pile of drivers and the right boards/strips laying around.
 
N

Northwood

Well-Known Member
Cptn said:
I think it has more to do with a plateau in tech advancement and shortages of the top tier LEDs.
We'll probably be running this same basic tech for some time now.
Samsung LM301s with Cree or Osram supplemental spectrums are a highly efficient, quality combo.

My guess is that the next big innovations to come will be in user friendly spectrum control and blending.
https://scynceled.com/ already moving the ball that way.
Be nice to see something designed to enable something similar for Do It Yourselfers with a pile of drivers and the right boards/strips laying around.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure about that. Everyone is still bringing up threads mentioning the HLG 600 Rspec. There has been no new innovative game changing development in diode technology lately, so I donno why? /s
 
Smokey_Treats

Smokey_Treats

Member
Cptn said:
Dang Smokey :-)
Starting at the beginning of a 3 year old, 228 page thread and replying to a post on the first page . . . you are serious ;-)
All jokes aside, I'm impressed but you may want to skip forward a bit, or just not post to anything you read until 2020'ish . . .

Some great info and analysis in here about the gear available on alibaba.
Since 2018, strategies on using panels of Mid-power diodes (like HLG QBs) to grow canna have evolved quite a bit.

I have to admit, this thread has slowed down a LOT in here the last 4 months or so.
By the time you read this stuff, you'll feel very comfortable buying some kingbrite, meijiu, or a few other brands gear. Hopefully you'll understand which diodes cost more and why.
You should also have a good understanding of different driver types/brands and an idea of how many watts sq/ft you wanna run over your space.
Maybe you'll even look at some youtube videos by Dr. Bruce Bugbee?

All the best sir.
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Thank you for taking the time to re explain. I haven't been here long and obviously don't know how things work but I ll get there. Lol. Thanks again :peace:
 
Cptn

Cptn

Well-Known Member
Northwood said:
I'm not sure about that. Everyone is still bringing up threads mentioning the HLG 600 Rspec. There has been no new innovative game changing development in diode technology lately, so I donno why? /s
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I think the /s means sarcasm, but not sure what specifically you aren't sure about?
I think you were making fun of HLG, right? That's fine.

HLG has a dominant marketing advantage with home growers because of their introduction of the QB form factor, so your average home grower who is WAY behind on basic LED tech is gonna know them and look at HLG as the leading edge.
It's a high quality product for what it is, and HLG did a lot to move LED canna growing forward from the bad old days where snake oil diode pimps sold fixtures with power ratings that had nothing to do with the wattage of the driver, and the spectrum of their rainbow diodes were kept secret.
That doesn't mean HLG is the best right now, and their rate of innovation is behind some others.

The last improvement to diodes that HLG did was to start using 3535 die Samsung LH351H 660s instead of Cree or Osram 3030s. More output (per diode and per watt). Besides that, HLG improved distribution of light by spreading out the QBs to reduce hotspots. All good stuff of course, but they had to do that to compete with the more even light spread provided by strip setups in the typical 8 foot ceiling/tent application.
HLG doesn't have any advanced spectrum tuning capability right now. As a matter of fact, i don't think they even let you turn off the 660s on their units that have them. So yeah, they are behind.

There is still a lot of "flash" involved in chinese marketing of "disco boards" with "UV" 395, 430 royal blue, and "IR" 730 diodes in addition to the staple 660s, all integrated with the white LM301s and often not controllable discretely.
The specific spectrum of UV that should be used, and the benefit of using it is still being debated. Most research suggests the diodes on the "disco" boards are not the right spectrum (UV-B seems to be the choice of some of the better minds I've spoken to, not the 395 UV-A that most chinese boards lightly scatter on the PCB.)
UV-B LEDs are not available anywhere that I can find, so it makes sense that they would throw UV-A on there to satisfy buzzword driven buyers seeking the new-new.
 
Cptn

Cptn

Well-Known Member
Northwood said:
According to some, this should be the busiest thread on Riu due to all the problems and fires and failures the buyers of these cheap Chinese made knock offs must be having. Maybe they aren't as bad as what some think I guess. My 240W v4 Kingbrites are doing fine. Nothing to report. Time for quiet again. Lol
Click to expand...
Off the top of my head (going by memory), I think there are less than 5 reports of any kind of failure. I seem to remember a single dead diode or string of diodes.
Of those, I can't remember a single report here where the customer reported a problem and was unhappy with the response.
 
D

Dave455

Well-Known Member
Cptn said:
I think the /s means sarcasm, but not sure what specifically you aren't sure about?
I think you were making fun of HLG, right? That's fine.

HLG has a dominant marketing advantage with home growers because of their introduction of the QB form factor, so your average home grower who is WAY behind on basic LED tech is gonna know them and look at HLG as the leading edge.
It's a high quality product for what it is, and HLG did a lot to move LED canna growing forward from the bad old days where snake oil diode pimps sold fixtures with power ratings that had nothing to do with the wattage of the driver, and the spectrum of their rainbow diodes were kept secret.
That doesn't mean HLG is the best right now, and their rate of innovation is behind some others.

The last improvement to diodes that HLG did was to start using 3535 die Samsung LH351H 660s instead of Cree or Osram 3030s. More output (per diode and per watt). Besides that, HLG improved distribution of light by spreading out the QBs to reduce hotspots. All good stuff of course, but they had to do that to compete with the more even light spread provided by strip setups in the typical 8 foot ceiling/tent application.
HLG doesn't have any advanced spectrum tuning capability right now. As a matter of fact, i don't think they even let you turn off the 660s on their units that have them. So yeah, they are behind.

There is still a lot of "flash" involved in chinese marketing of "disco boards" with "UV" 395, 430 royal blue, and "IR" 730 diodes in addition to the staple 660s, all integrated with the white LM301s and often not controllable discretely.
The specific spectrum of UV that should be used, and the benefit of using it is still being debated. Most research suggests the diodes on the "disco" boards are not the right spectrum (UV-B seems to be the choice of some of the better minds I've spoken to, not the 395 UV-A that most chinese boards lightly scatter on the PCB.)
UV-B LEDs are not available anywhere that I can find, so it makes sense that they would throw UV-A on there to satisfy buzzword driven buyers seeking the new-new.
Click to expand...
rapidled ?
 
N

Northwood

Well-Known Member
Cptn said:
I think the /s means sarcasm, but not sure what specifically you aren't sure about?
I think you were making fun of HLG, right? That's fine.

HLG has a dominant marketing advantage with home growers because of their introduction of the QB form factor, so your average home grower who is WAY behind on basic LED tech is gonna know them and look at HLG as the leading edge.
It's a high quality product for what it is, and HLG did a lot to move LED canna growing forward from the bad old days where snake oil diode pimps sold fixtures with power ratings that had nothing to do with the wattage of the driver, and the spectrum of their rainbow diodes were kept secret.
That doesn't mean HLG is the best right now, and their rate of innovation is behind some others.

The last improvement to diodes that HLG did was to start using 3535 die Samsung LH351H 660s instead of Cree or Osram 3030s. More output (per diode and per watt). Besides that, HLG improved distribution of light by spreading out the QBs to reduce hotspots. All good stuff of course, but they had to do that to compete with the more even light spread provided by strip setups in the typical 8 foot ceiling/tent application.
HLG doesn't have any advanced spectrum tuning capability right now. As a matter of fact, i don't think they even let you turn off the 660s on their units that have them. So yeah, they are behind.

There is still a lot of "flash" involved in chinese marketing of "disco boards" with "UV" 395, 430 royal blue, and "IR" 730 diodes in addition to the staple 660s, all integrated with the white LM301s and often not controllable discretely.
The specific spectrum of UV that should be used, and the benefit of using it is still being debated. Most research suggests the diodes on the "disco" boards are not the right spectrum (UV-B seems to be the choice of some of the better minds I've spoken to, not the 395 UV-A that most chinese boards lightly scatter on the PCB.)
UV-B LEDs are not available anywhere that I can find, so it makes sense that they would throw UV-A on there to satisfy buzzword driven buyers seeking the new-new.
Click to expand...
I'm confused. HLG doesn't make diodes (correct me if I'm wrong). They just spread them out on a big square printed circuit board. Smaller circular boards are found in regular light bulbs too literally from the first bulb produced. There is nothing wrong with HLG (despite the confusion of using the name HLG from Meanwell). I do think they're overpriced though, at least for those buying them here in Canada.

I was specifically talking about advances in diode technology. It seems the last major advance has been in marketing, with Samsung lately adding an "H" to half a dozen or so diodes it manufactured that have been adopted by the horticultural industry, perhaps to Samsung's surprise at the time. Then again, I used to grow with repurposed street lights. I bet they were surprised too. lol

The Samsung LM301B diode was introduced 4 years ago and not much has happened since as far as the market goes.
 
k0a

k0a

Active Member
Clicked through to that syncLED site... I haven't been visually accosted like that since the 90s! o_O
 
V256.420

V256.420

Well-Known Member
bk78 said:
$600 tops, but I personally wouldn’t run anything with boards now that I’ve ran strips.

I prefer non hot spots now in 2021 thank you
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I got 2 as a gift from a friend. She love me long time and was payback for lots of free buds over the last 10 years. Best gift I've had in 50 plus years. I really can't complain about it :eyesmoke:
 
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