IF you are new to LED and want help choosing what to buy, POST HERE!

Snores said:

Bysen reps gave me a price to ship a single unit, just messaged them on Alibaba. Found the X2 range a tad pricy compared to what I could get from Cidly.

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I am currently waiting on a reply from Bysen for a price on sample for the 140w X2 and the 140w UFO. Cidly gave me a quote of $191 and $241 for Apollo 4 and 6 respectively and that included the shipping, price per wat I though was much better then US.

For Cidly and Bysen I am also waiting on color ratio they recommend for flowering. I know Bysen use mainly Cree Led with some Epistar, while Cidly told me they only use Epistar. Either way both companys seem legit and decent customer service.

So thank you again FranJan for recommending as well as your other insightful posts on the LED forums!

Blue sea is great also.. I can ge you n contact with Wendy from there if you want.. Got 2 of the 1 40w UFO's delivered to me for under 500.. Bysen has the BEST products but I always believe you get what u pay for.. Cidly gave u a HIGH quote.. I got quoted for 419 for 3 o the Apollo 4's shipped to me and 545 for the Apollo 6's, was going to try them but no daisy chain and don't have enough light sockets and the 6ft power cord stinks but will give 9-10ft cord for no extra charge.. Bysen only likes to get paid by pay-pal and money orders.. Cidly is just money orders/bank transfers.. Blue-sea did mine on escrow so they don't even get PAID till I release there money by saying im happy with the product..

RB1956 said:

Blue sea is great also.. I can ge you n contact with Wendy from there if you want.. Got 2 of the 1 40w UFO's delivered to me for under 500.. Bysen has the BEST products but I always believe you get what u pay for.. Cidly gave u a HIGH quote.. I got quoted for 419 for 3 o the Apollo 4's shipped to me and 545 for the Apollo 6's, was going to try them but no daisy chain and don't have enough light sockets and the 6ft power cord stinks but will give 9-10ft cord for no extra charge.. Bysen only likes to get paid by pay-pal and money orders.. Cidly is just money orders/bank transfers.. Blue-sea did mine on escrow so they don't even get PAID till I release there money by saying im happy with the product..

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Bluesae is just a subsidiary company of Bysen selliing low quality looking-same-feature items....

I don't know. just know how they treate me was ok and I will have my lights in 6-7 days after placing my order.. Cant complain.. I do like bysen lights better I think I said that.. But bysen wont do deals thru escrow. And I don't have pay-pal anymore since they gave a person a free AMS#1 3.5= sold it for 2500 bucks and the person said they didn't receive it.. Liars.. So that's why I went with blue-sea.. But will prob go to bysen next time just with bank transfer.. I have only heard good things about them nothing bad..

Cool, thanks for the feedback! I was ready to pull the trigger on the bonsai hero panel about 30 minutes ago but now the vipar site is up and the panels they are shilling seem pretty decent with an attractive price point. Does anyone here have any first hand experience with them? I realize these are new models or whatever and the company seems legit but would i be better off with the bonsaihero panel? If i was to get the vipar i'd proably be looking at the B2X3, which would be about an extra $100 cdn i don't mind paying if it's worth it. For reference I'm working with a fairly small space (26*18*36). Thanks again!

VIPARs work though there are better. BHeros are a bit more efficient than VIPAR's that's for sure. For the price though they are excellent. I haven't seen a new one in action but good ole Alex is supposedly getting one so maybe check with him. I like how they give you a choice on the warranty. VIPAR has always been a pretty cool company in my book. And did anyone tell you BHero has some new panels coming out so you may want to wait a bit if you can ALAT. Good Luck.

A Lowly Abject Turd said:

Cool, thanks for the feedback! I was ready to pull the trigger on the bonsai hero panel about 30 minutes ago but now the vipar site is up and the panels they are shilling seem pretty decent with an attractive price point. Does anyone here have any first hand experience with them? I realize these are new models or whatever and the company seems legit but would i be better off with the bonsaihero panel? If i was to get the vipar i'd proably be looking at the B2X3, which would be about an extra $100 cdn i don't mind paying if it's worth it. For reference I'm working with a fairly small space (26*18*36). Thanks again!

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The thing about the hans panels (bonsaihero) is that they are super efficient . using only 56 watts per panel. So they aren't the most powerful thing out there, but they are amazing for the energy output. Im going to be harvesting a plant grown with a hans panel today or tomorrow. The hans panel was introduced at day 20 flowering. A HPS was used before then.. so i'm not sure how heavily that impacts everything. Ill report back with the weight.. after drying.

So basically, i really like the hans panels.. they aren't the best, most powerful unit out there.. and if you are looking for that then don't get one. Its just the right type of light for me, low heat, low energy.. covers a decent area.. grows some pretty nice herb.

best of luck

edit: i talked to hans like a week ago to ask when the upgrades would be ready on the panels, and its going to be about 4 months..

just finished my grow. got 3/4p from 300w

multipass said:

its going to be about 4 months..

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Well then that's not exactly soon. My bad.

Amazing! The superior efficiency of the hans panel is really just too ideal to pass up especially considering my stealth cabinet grow. Four months is too long to wait so i just ordered one. Will definitely fill out the edges with some CFLS and see how that goes. I'm about a week or two away from a harvest so hopefully my next grow will be LED grown from seed to harvest. Would love to know how your harvest goes multipass.

Can't thank you enough for all the info, will definitely pass it forward. You guys are great.

FranJan said:

Beware the mark of Zener! (Click Me)

In the long run you will regret buying those. I know it's the internet but trust me on that one.

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So they will last me a couple of grows? Also the rate of growth was so fast I had to give extra Iron because the new growth would turn yellow!

BroJohnson said:

So they will last me a couple of grows? Also the rate of growth was so fast I had to give extra Iron because the new growth would turn yellow!

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Oh so you got them already. If you got them you'll know they're good enough when they pay for themselves, right? And if you're vegging you should get good growth with tight nodes from any good panel, flowering is the part that shows what a panel can do IMO. Your electrical bill is gonna tell you how well they work too, so I hope they're somewhat efficient and you'll see some savings on the e-bill. And I always give an Iron treatment to my plants during the first two weeks they're in my flowering tent, then some CalMag during the next few weeks, but I foliar feed as long as I can so I've never seen severe yellowing in veg. So best of luck and if they work out in flowering, please grace us with some pix. Happy Growing BroJ!

FranJan said:

Oh so you got them already. If you got them you'll know they're good enough when they pay for themselves, right? And if you're vegging you should get good growth with tight nodes from any good panel, flowering is the part that shows what a panel can do IMO. Your electrical bill is gonna tell you how well they work too, so I hope they're somewhat efficient and you'll see some savings on the e-bill. And I always give an Iron treatment to my plants during the first two weeks they're in my flowering tent, then some CalMag during the next few weeks, but I foliar feed as long as I can so I've never seen severe yellowing in veg. So best of luck and if they work out in flowering, please grace us with some pix. Happy Growing BroJ!

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Appreciate it. Wish I would have known to add extra Iron to my plants before going from T5s to 4 600w LEDs for veg.
I have 22 plants under 4 600w LEDs they are all in 2 gallon and looking to find the sex here within the next month.
They are about 25 days from seed:

- 5 Jillybean
- 5 SpaceDawg
- 5 Apollo 13
- 3 Pandoras Box
- 1 Ripped Bubba
- 1 Third Dimension
- 1 Vortex
- 1 Timewreck

Anyways its a sealed 8 x 12 room with Co2.
But now I have turned off the LEDs and put a 600w MH light in there so I can give the plants some time to recover from the 3 days of being under
the LEDs.

Ive got some yellow fading but nothing HUGE, so Im expecting maybe a 1-2 week recovery. I foliar fed them some Iron today and will continue to do so every week I guess. Once the plants have vegged for 8 wks, they go into a room with 3 x 1k HPS lights. They will all be run in supersoil with 7 gallon pots.

Thanks for the help.
Should be interesting how things go from here on out, Im just glad I caught the problem before it got worse. Will update with some pictures tomorrow night.

i was interested in Cronikoolszes grow with the floodlights. Keen to do away with the HPS this summer I thought I might as well not fuck around. Went for two of the big arsed 100 watters. We'll see.. they certainly sound like a hefty unit dimensions and weight wize. probably heat wize but maybe i'll move the drivers etc, couldn't get them much cheaper than our local ebay (lots of the better Ali deals are US only) anyhow.. these: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330892140299&var=540157200819

What color (Kelvin temp) did you purchase? Are you going to be using them from start to finish?

Taz be aware that if they're made with cheap parts they will run hot. And I mean hot hot hot. So you're probably gonna have to move those drivers, which looks doable. Get the right gauge wire if you do.

Iv'e got my hps (600) in 6 1/2x 3 1/2 ft x (6' high). Was thinking that 6 of these would fill the space nicely if they work out (or maybe 4 with some smaller supplement spectrum) so i'll just give them a go on one end for starters. I can mount a fan directed straight at them. I don't grow inside over summer so heat isn't so much a problem but yeah sounds like they might need remote drivers eh. That's no problem, I have a brick wall at one end, I could bolt a metal shelf there. Just now I have a fan above a radiator at that end to keep the temps up. I like your 'driver farm' idea .. I'll keep heavy gauge wire in mind. In the end I figured to move on from hps any smaller floodlights (ie 50w) would be pretty much 2 rows side by side and Lots of wiring joins.

I saw a pic of the inside of one of these drivers somewhere, they do look pretty crap.

djwimbo I went for warm white 2800-3200k. I haven't tried scrog but like the idea of short veg/scrog grows iv'e seen but yeah i'm learning and re-learning a lot here so any advice welcome. I'm a bit hesitant about pics and journals but really appreciate those who go to the trouble to post on here. Realise that my last HPS grows were more luck than anything.

Hi guys.


Anyone care to point in the direction of a decent current LED unit in the UK?

Ive seen quite a few but seems there is not a definitive unit, which is unerstandable due to the LED market moving quite quickly.
Also the amount totally useless units i recognise are out there and do not cover any light range useful to growing plants.


If i had 2 budgets which are the top 3 in each price range and why? any reasoning behind using certain unit?

I guess a unit which covers both light ranges (Blue/Red) at alternate stages would be nice but i doubt a unit would be inside the price brackets im thinking of spending.


I seen a unit (Hans ?? ) which had light control over the Blue/Red but i think them units will be to expensive.

I noticed on this thread about Vipar units and seems they have one at the 149 and 199 price. Are these units worth the money?



If i had a budget of £100 - £200 and a different budget of £200 - £300 (if i decide to spend that little extra) which would units should i be looking at comparing?

Cheers for any pointers guys.

Tazbud said:

djwimbo I went for warm white 2800-3200k. I haven't tried scrog but like the idea of short veg/scrog grows iv'e seen but yeah i'm learning and re-learning a lot here so any advice welcome. I'm a bit hesitant about pics and journals but really appreciate those who go to the trouble to post on here. Realise that my last HPS grows were more luck than anything.

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Warm White is ideal for flowering, to get a good healthy veg cycle a different or supplemental lighting would help a lot.

I'm all for scrog, fim/top, mainline, LST, and supercropping. Whatever you gotta do to fill your space, run with it. If you've had any success before, then you at least have the patience to learn. This is just the next step, keep pushing forward.
Not all scrog grows are short veg, I've seen people veg for 8 weeks, and have impressive results. 1 plant + 8 weeks veg + 9 weeks flower = >9z on 400W

I understand the hesitation of posting pics or a journal. If I wasn't in a medical state I wouldn't be posting pics or posting as often as I do. There's a lot to read, and always things to learn. I don't know how you're veggin plants now, but maybe look into the household style LED bulbs. Then you can keep it LED start to finish. 2-3x LED household bulbs will veg a plant well enough, then put it under the new LED lights.

Yeah, that is fairly impressive, my first HPS run was 14 oz then somehow I managed 10oz same strain when I put a bit more effort in (lol). Hps covers a very narrow spectrum and does fine. It will be a bit of an experiment, other plans for the whites if they not happy with them ; ) iv'e got the two 100watt multi-spectrum LED chinese panels which are mostly reds (and enough blue) to start the veg but did find these (30w spots built to spec): http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Garden-Supply-30W-Blue-554nm-Red-660nm-Hydroponic-Plant-Flood-LED-Grow-Lights/889114075.html The guy sounds pretty keen to customize them it seems.. 'Most grow lights are... totally wrong and will Kill Your Plants' haha
Also these 16watts, 'epistar' LED with a thermal overload reset: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Greenhouse-Fast-Grow-Led-Floodlight-Over-Heat-Protection-/270840428310?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f0f58f716 he sells the chips (drivers, etc) in his store..