Greetings from South America!

Hello everyone!

I came upon this amazing forum thanks to @Growmau5 who inspired me to switch over from HPS to LED with his amazing tutorial videos (also if you are reading this, congrats on your new journey with the chilled guys, you deserve to live doing what you love!).

While I'm trying to get as much information as I can, I'm still on the verge of making my first buy, but I need a few tips.

I'm currently growing in a wooden 80cmx80cmx150cm (2.5'x2.5'.x5' in feet if i'm not mistaken) growbox with a 400w HPS light.
The issue I want to address is heat, I have a cooltube and a big ass fan, but summer over here is hell. And even though i'm still going through winter, I know SUMMER IS COMING.

My second issue is that I absolutely have to do the shipping through a courier (Fedex,UPS,etc) since I don't trust at all my local country mail.

I spoke with the people at Rapid Led and they advised me that for my tent size (between a 2x2 and a 3x3 but with only 5' tall) I will be just fine with the CREE CXB3590 Triple COB Kit running at 2.1mA.
This will give me about 226w with the LEDs running almost 76w.

I know this is not ideal, since it will be better to run lets say 6 cxb3590 at 1400mA, that will give me 50w a piece and about 300w (that I could dim if it is too much for my space)

Shipping to my country costs about half a kit for 1 ($150) and $250 for two of them so i'm kind of indecisive between going 1 kit at 2.1 or just go full metal and buy 2 of those kits.
Or perhaps going for 2 VERO29 Triple COB Array Kit and saving around $160.

I chose this site since it does mail to my country and also has well made (in my opinion) full kit that I only have to mount and use.

I'm open to new ideas or maybe you know of cheaper sites with kits like those.

Lastly, I'm sorry for the big ass post and I also apologize if I come way to frontal or if I have gramatical errors since english is not my first language.



Thanks in advance to everyone who decides to post!

In a five ft ht cobs use 9" easily 12" for a pot and you have 3"'-6" minus another 6" for light to plant distance and you have 36" max. Cobs at 200w is going to make at least 40% wattage as heat to be removed plus you will need a filter.
I would look at one 175w chilLED grow light engine and mount that to a heat sink inside a duct with exhaust and you would have cooler temps to grow in that 36" grow height.

You simply need 2 QB's in your tent. Ask them or someone to extend the cables on your driver so you can mount it outside of the tent. If you're dealing with heat and height limitations there is no better option than the QB's. @CobKits might have QB's for your tent although I don't know if he ships to SA.

Oh, and your English is better than half the guys on here who only speak English!

yes i ship to south africa/south america

Thank you both for giving me a hand with this!

So it looks like after reading a lot about COBs I have to start reading about QB hahahaha

I'll start to look for places where they sell QB AND ship to South America while I keep doing some research. It's a tricky one.

HLG and chilLED are both out of stock. I didn't pay too much attention to QB due to this out of stock thing and also because it looked like the LATEST HOT SHIT and usually, even though it may be worth it, perhaps I could do fine with going back a "generation" and use COBs instead.

I mean, it's not like I live in the fucking desert. Summer gets hot but I have AC and I could do a reverse grow (light period at night and dark period during the day) since I'm using a grow box. BUT again I'll have to do more research about QB since I didn't know for example that they where good with heat and height issues.

Again, thanks a lot guys and I'm still open for ideas!

My brain is in a bloodlust rage crusade for knowledge since I found out this LED shit existed!

@damiandas , not sure if you're in or near Chile, or if shipping would be easier from there at least.. but if so you could also check out heavengrowlights on instagram

also, cobkits has qbs in stock

First of all welcome!

The videos from growmau5 are very informative, however some things have moved on a bit and cxb3590 are a bit outdated now. They still work fine, but citizen, luminus and bridgelux all have cobs that are a bit more efficient and half the cost. Also qb's are pretty big now as well, and growmau5 has made a few vids about them as well lately. IMO they are perfect for your height restricted situation as the light is very diffuse and the plants can grow quite close to them. They are super easy to set up, you just screw them in to the heatsinks and connect them into the driver. No thermal paste is required. There are a series of 3 vids on youtube that show the setup, you should watch them.

Cobkits just mentioned today that he has them in stock so I would grab 2 of them right away if I were you. 2 of them running at about a hundred watts each is more than enough light for your situation, and they are dimmable for early stages of growth. Good luck!

lol, kinda funny seeing as its citizen I own

Thank you all for your input! I'm on page 150 of the "DIY with Quantum Boards" (and still going) and you are guys are all correct!!

It seems that QB is the way to go for me.

I have been exchanging emails with the guys over cobkits and they told me they use regular mail, I asked if they could send the boards and heatsinks through UPS/FEDEX/Whatevs but got no answer for the moment.

In the meantime, I'm in love with the "260w QB LED kit" at Horticulture Lighting Group

I sent them a couple of emails but I'm guessing they are with their hands full so I'm going to tag @robincnn and I hope I'm not being too annoying.

If you do read this, do you think this is a good kit according to my setup? I think it will be great and if by any chance I am a little on the down side regarding the light that my girls need for flowering, I can lower the boards a little and don't lose too much spread since I'm growing in a small box with reflective walls.

And second, but more important, I wanted to know if you do send this kits via FEDEX/UPS/yadayada to Buenos Aires,Argentina and if by any chance you know when you will have stock.

@damiandas
For International we use DHL . Sometimes USPS

260W kit will work well. Or wait 2 weeks for the new 260W kit based on slate 6 double.

WOW!! Thanks for the quick reply @robincnn !!

That double based kit looks good! That whole thing is a big heatsink and you are placing the driver in the middle so the heat on the leds will be lower? Yo can tell me if i'm speaking bonkers hahaha
Or you recomend that one since it has a better light distribution in a square tent?

Thank you so much for the 2 weeks heads up! You are the best!

I want to plan ahead so my work vacations match the arrival of the kit so I can have a nice extreme make over to my growbox and have fun. I assume its 2 week to be for sale and 2 more weeks to ship the thing and some more days for it to arrive.

Anyways, thank you one more time (third is the charm) and I'll keep reading about this amazing LED world that just opened for me.