Led Panel: Is it ok?

so now... im on CFL and basically i cant find anything good locally. so this is a hard one... its either buy shit or take another gamble with importing. :/

and dudes. i can feel the heat. you all need to chill. where is the love?

@NinjaMaster what country are you In and what is your budget and area you want to grow in?

Im in South Africa
Budget is around $200
2 x 1.5 foot area (2 plants)

@welight , do you ship to south africa? @CobKits ? @RainDan ?

what about just ordering bridgelux eb strips or samsung h series strips and drivers straight from digi-key or arrow? do they ship to sa?

KingBrite on Alibaba will deliver to sa. So you could build a cob fixture. Your only covering a small space.
You could also get a 90w quantum board kit from horticultural lighting group. That might sound low wattage but they say it covers a 2x1.5 ft in flower and they are amazing boards. If they deliver your way, which they should then you wont have much hassle. That $164 US but will cost you a bit for delivery. Worth paying for though. Both options will really grow nice buds unlike cheap blurple lights.

https://horticulturelightinggroup.com/products/90w-board-kit
You would have to ask when they will be back in stock. But some things are worth waiting for.

ok thanks for that link. I have no idea about what makes that a good LED kit.
it is within my budget and ive asked them to email me when its in stock.
Could i ask - is it difficult to assemble? I mean serious that thing comes in pieces haha

NinjaMaster said:

ok thanks for that link. I have no idea about what makes that a good LED kit.
it is within my budget and ive asked them to email me when its in stock.
Could i ask - is it difficult to assemble? I mean serious that thing comes in pieces haha

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Efficiency and a good spectrum make a good LED light.
Yeah they are really easy to assemble. Its a 5 minute job. A Philips screwdriver and some wire trimmers and that it. I have 2 of the 260w kits in half my 8x4 flower tent and 660w of Cobs in the other half. Both grow really well but I'm thinking about switching the Cob side to more quantum boards because the buds are slightly more impressive. The Cobs are damn impressive as it is!

NinjaMaster said:

I bought that vipar 300w but the shipping was a mess up and it ended up going back and they refunded me!
Wasted 2 weeks. so now im trying to buy something where i live.
its for 2 plants. so the area is 2 x 1.5 foot roughly.

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Just order a set of these for $50:
http://www.ebay.com/itm//222366303179

Mount them to aluminum channel like this:

http://imgur.com/WGOgydn

Perfect light for a space that size.

This is what those TCI look like mounted and on the dimmest setting

iHearAll said:

This is what those TCL look like mounted and on the dimmest setting
View attachment 3993871

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wait so those tcl drivers are dimmable??

ganjamystic said:

wait so those tcl drivers are dimmable??

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yea they have two switches on the given driver whose combination of on/off makes for 4 different current drive options. not sure if its a two bit binary coder controlling a digital potentiomete or if it is two switches with two resistors in some order or another

ganjamystic said:

@welight , do you ship to south africa? @CobKits ? @RainDan ?

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Yes we certainly do
Cheers
Mark

ganjamystic said:

@welight , do you ship to south africa? @CobKits ? @RainDan ?

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i ship to south africa
~$32 for chips and small parts
$70-120 if you have heatsinks and drivers in there

Ok guys thanks for all the advice here.
So if im right - looking at the chinese prebuilt lights they use Epistar mostly and the efficiency is shit?
Which means the leds put out more heat than light?
and it looks like these cheap leds put out 20% light and 80% heat? is this correct?
20% light... ? It would be stupid to buy that.

nfhiggs said:

Just order a set of these for $50:
http://www.ebay.com/itm//222366303179

Mount them to aluminum channel like this:

http://imgur.com/WGOgydn

Perfect light for a space that size.

Click to expand...

I'm really tempted to get some of these and add them to my grow. I'd seen them before, but I'm not 100% clued up on LED and didn't want to get ripped off.. thought they were too good to be true.
So you'd recommend these, I mean for the price they're decent yeah?

theyre not great, not awful

not sure if that lpw rating includes driver losses. if the driver is 85-90% its possible it could be in the 130 lm/W range which you can get for $0.30/watt by ripping off the reflectors from a 14W A19 bulb from home depot

$2/watt is on the high side of cost for a setup like that imo

if you spend $2/watt on cobs or quantum boards youd be 180 lm/W at system level (system level including driver losses)

if you spend $1/watt on cobs and drivers youd be in the 150-160 lm/W range including driver losses

NinjaMaster said:

Ok guys thanks for all the advice here.
So if im right - looking at the chinese prebuilt lights they use Epistar mostly and the efficiency is shit?
Which means the leds put out more heat than light?
and it looks like these cheap leds put out 20% light and 80% heat? is this correct?
20% light... ? It would be stupid to buy that.

Click to expand...

Hi, I purchased a Meizhi 600w model recently. Basically just another Chinese led, and while it seems to be doing great can't complain (only early into veg), I think it will definitely lack come flower time. From what I've read recently it just won't cut it.

So basically I'd listen to the guys here recommending quantum boards or cob kits, I'll be going down that road myself once I get finances sorted.