The LED "Arms race".....
- Thread starter Chip Green
- Start date
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Piece at a time. Rome wasn't built in a day.So do you actually have a product to sell??
If so, where is your advertiser badge?
everest_dope
Active Member
Subbed... I love to see all of these LED argument threads. I feel like I am learning with a little bit of sass thrown in. 
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
So sit down and shut up- and while you're at it, turn off that damned blurple Disco light!Subbed... I love to see all of these LED argument threads. I feel like I am learning with a little bit of sass thrown in.
tstick
Well-Known Member
I used to be SO pissed off at "Jeff" from Area 51 lights...because he was such a big thing around here for a couple years-like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld....Him and his sycophants would gang up on new members who dared talk about their new light (that wasn't an Area 51 model) But, thankfully, when he saw that everyone was catching up to the niche market that he had been dominating, he blew town faster than....the speed of light! (sorry).
Poor Greengenes and Growmau5 and a bunch of those guys, too. They aren't bad guys, but they ALL started companies and now they seem to all be struggling just to keep up with ways to apply these new technologies to new lights. Seems almost like you can order a light and, by the time you get it, there is another "improved" version of the same light right on its tail! It's almost like the technology is already here, but it's being doled-out bits and pieces at a time.
That's what I've learned, anyway....It's better to pick a technology and then get used to using it rather than trying to buy every light that has a new flavor of diode added or one that is winning the current umol per joule "arms race". NO new technologies will improve shitty genetics, after all. It will just perpetuate them better! In other words, I'd rather concentrate on finding the best strains and growing them under the lights I've become accustomed to than expecting a new light to improve the yield of, say, mediocre genetics. But there are few people actually working on creating better genetic lines. There is still a lot of mindset reflecting perpetuating genetics that yield the most rather than those that taste the best.
Poor Greengenes and Growmau5 and a bunch of those guys, too. They aren't bad guys, but they ALL started companies and now they seem to all be struggling just to keep up with ways to apply these new technologies to new lights. Seems almost like you can order a light and, by the time you get it, there is another "improved" version of the same light right on its tail! It's almost like the technology is already here, but it's being doled-out bits and pieces at a time.
That's what I've learned, anyway....It's better to pick a technology and then get used to using it rather than trying to buy every light that has a new flavor of diode added or one that is winning the current umol per joule "arms race".
NO new technologies will improve shitty genetics, after all. It will just perpetuate them better! In other words, I'd rather concentrate on finding the best strains and growing them under the lights I've become accustomed to than expecting a new light to improve the yield of, say, mediocre genetics. But there are few people actually working on creating better genetic lines. There is still a lot of mindset reflecting perpetuating genetics that yield the most rather than those that taste the best.I used to be SO pissed off at "Jeff" from Area 51 lights...because he was such a big thing around here for a couple years-like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld....Him and his sycophants would gang up on new members who dared talk about their new light (that wasn't an Area 51 model) But, thankfully, when he saw that everyone was catching up to the niche market that he had been dominating, he blew town faster than....the speed of light! (sorry).
Poor Greengenes and Growmau5 and a bunch of those guys, too. They aren't bad guys, but they ALL started companies and now they seem to all be struggling just to keep up with ways to apply these new technologies to new lights. Seems almost like you can order a light and, by the time you get it, there is another "improved" version of the same light right on its tail! It's almost like the technology is already here, but it's being doled-out bits and pieces at a time.
That's what I've learned, anyway....It's better to pick a technology and then get used to using it rather than trying to buy every light that has a new flavor of diode added or one that is winning the current umol per joule "arms race".
What I have LOVED since LED became a viable grow option are the homers... In May they are telling you how "X" item is the greatest light to have ever been made and anyone not using said light are morons etc. Then June rolls around and the exact same homers are talking about this new light and anyone who is using "X" item are morons and idiots and that "X" item is a piece of junk ruining their crops....
tstick
Well-Known Member
Most of the grow light companies are only as up-to-date as the parts they use. If a chip manufacturer knows how to make a chip that can achieve 10 umols per joule, then he also knows how to make a chip that can make less than that....and that's exactly what he's going to do. All he has to do is to slightly increase the chip efficiency every few months and just sit back and watch the hoards of light builders order the slightly-improved chips to keep ahead of the game. Then, when the market becomes saturated with those, the chips will get even more efficient and the whole process will repeat again and again.
CannaBruh
Well-Known Member
someone has been paying attention to the Intel model
hillbill
Well-Known Member
I prefer to grow excellent genetics with the most efficient light source possible. Apache had white panels with discreet diodes and a51 kind of took that idea and they still do better than the blurples or hps. Some folks do get a bit obsessed with the newest new though. Lots of legitimate lights on the market with strips and Boards and COBs. Those cmh seem viable also!
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
This displays both paranoia about the motives of manufacturers and implies a conspiracy theory, along with a fundamental ignorance of what's actually happening in the industry.
Take chip manufacturing, for example; all makers of chips are constantly upgrading their chemical recipes, processes and ancillary components in the never ending quest to build ever more efficient chips for ever lower costs. This is EXPENSIVE and it's time consuming and has to be paid for. There's no not doing it or the competition eats your lunch in a hurry.
Therefore, the latest, best chips have to be expensive to recoup the cost of R&D, tooling, etc- otherwise Cree, Citizen and Samsung would be out of business.
The problem comes when there's another, slightly better chip, because in order to keep per chip costs down, they have to do huge production runs, far more than the market needs in the next few weeks or even months. So what to do with the inventory of stuff that isn't cutting edge? Same as is done with last year's sexy hot video card for your gaming rig; you discount it to move the metal.
Now you have a whole constellation of different chips with different characteristics and specifications, all priced at different levels- and every damned one of them is somewhere on the obsolescence curve, meaning they will be out of production sometime in the foreseeable future. It's a straight up nightmare for a light maker who wants a consistent pipeline of parts for a production run of lights that needs to be of a fairly large size to gain economies of scale- otherwise they're going out of business too.
What's an LED light maker to do with that mess? Some (Mars) buy cheap chips, drive them hard and go after the low cost end of the market, where customers who aren't savvy respond to a sexy price, in the process giving up longevity and efficiency. Others (HLG) spend more on chips, use more of them to drive them softer and thereby get better efficiency and greater life. Knowledgeable customers buy these lights because they know they're getting a better unit, one that will save them money in running costs and early replacement.
It isn't a matter of doling out minor improvements to string customers along, it's fierce competition with a constant stream of incremental improvements forcing everyone to work, and spend, to keep up.
Who benefits? Everyone! The race to build better chips means greater energy savings and therefore lower costs in the long run for everything that uses those lights, even the weed grown with them.
The thing for y'all to concentrate on isn't necessarily who's got the latest killer spec sheet, it's what light gives the needed combination of price, performance and quality that serves your needs. I have a slew of lights that are several years old, still doing what they did when they were new. They won't need replacing for a good long time. When I'm ready to buy lights again, I'll expect the price/performance envelope to be a little bigger than it was last time, but that doesn't mean the old stuff should meet the crusher. After all, it's working fine and happily returning the investment made in them- and will continue to do so for as long as you keep using it.
Just thought I'd clear up a few misconceptions about the market for lighting before they get out of hand.
Hope you liked this chat, and happy growing!
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
It's a cost vs performance calculation. If your energy cost is stupid cheap, then CMH will likely be fine for the next few years. If you're paying over 30 cents/kWh, then you absolutely need to get the very most efficient LED light on the market because the savings will literally pay you back every hour you run it. In extreme cases, people can pay for their light with the savings accrued in just one run.
So do the math. It will help make the decision a lot easier.
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hillbill
Well-Known Member
One of the better posts to appear here on RIU as of late! Thanks!
tstick
Well-Known Member
I'm speaking of the designers and electronics experts who already know they can design an extremely energy-efficient light source (whatever it may be -chip, laser beam, etc.). I believe the technology is already known. It's certainly known in the auto manufacturing industry, in regards to efficient engine design. They won't build the engines they could build. I'm not sure lighting-component design experts are any different.
I used to criticize Apache Tech for not changing their design and yet maintaining the ultra high price. But, upon reflection, if I was an Apache Tech owner, then I'd be relieved that the lights were remaining to be the consistent product they have been for years and that the company was staying in business with that kind of consistency rather than chasing the after the newest thing all the time -which seems illusive....just coming from the mind of an ignorant, paranoid customer/dummy.
I used to criticize Apache Tech for not changing their design and yet maintaining the ultra high price. But, upon reflection, if I was an Apache Tech owner, then I'd be relieved that the lights were remaining to be the consistent product they have been for years and that the company was staying in business with that kind of consistency rather than chasing the after the newest thing all the time -which seems illusive....just coming from the mind of an ignorant, paranoid customer/dummy.
TEKNIK
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately price is the issue, it is not difficult to achieve higher performance and quality, price is always the issue. If your price gets too high then it out weighs the return on investment. People don't want to spend and that is clear by how many people are buying copy products from China, why would you develop the best lighting system ever if noone is willing to purchase it because of the price it costs to produce it. 3.2m/joule is the highest performance I can achieve right now using the current technology with a broad well performing and balanced spectrum, it is expensive to do that. There are other tricks out there that can be used to increase efficiency but the issue is they are too easy to copy and China will copy everything they can so why show them how to make better products? A designer needs to get paid for innovation and that's really difficult to do now days because of China copying everything they can. I have heaps of designs that I will not release because I can not get them to the market fast enough to make a profit before they are copied. The only solution to this is to not manufacture truly innovative products at all. It costs too much money to innovate only to be copied too fast to make it worth while. Society is to blame for the lack of innovation as society likes to buy cheap and they have no respect for true innovation.
Stephenj37826
Well-Known Member
Yep.....All while demanding a living wage ...... Then go buy straight from China where people earn less than $10 a day....... Sometimes I wonder if people ever sit back and think much. A service economy with a huge trade deficit will not last forever...... Just my .02 lol.
Chip Green
Well-Known Member
If I was not capable of the DIY aspects of this underground LED realm, there's realistically little chance I would be growing with LED at all.
That for me, is what is really satisfying.
Being truly capable, of designing, and assembling, a fixture to meet the needs of really ANY shape and sized area.
With fixtures that really do get it done.
This forum absolutely saved me from potentially wasting a lot of money.
Growing up around hobby electronics, with the Old man a HAM radio technician, DIY was a no brainier for us.
I would have a hard time investing the type of quid it would require,to match my current output( pun intended) with "commercial" LED. Like the stuff you'd need for a legal, registered commercial garden....
That for me, is what is really satisfying.
Being truly capable, of designing, and assembling, a fixture to meet the needs of really ANY shape and sized area.
With fixtures that really do get it done.
This forum absolutely saved me from potentially wasting a lot of money.
Growing up around hobby electronics, with the Old man a HAM radio technician, DIY was a no brainier for us.
I would have a hard time investing the type of quid it would require,to match my current output( pun intended) with "commercial" LED. Like the stuff you'd need for a legal, registered commercial garden....
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
I don't think there are any chip makers in the United States.