Full Spectrum LED grow Lights

[SKAM CPT]

Yo Guys

has anyone ever bought LED grow lights from Ali Express or any of those fong kong places?

are they legit when it comes to true wattage and full spectrum? 

REALLY wanna move to LED"s

 

[Pat999]

Yo Guys
has anyone ever bought LED grow lights from Ali Express or any of those fong kong places?
are they legit when it comes to true wattage and full spectrum? 
REALLY wanna move to LED"s
 

Stay away from that. Get yourself a 400w HPS setup to start off

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[SKAM CPT]

@Pat999  i dont have the space to cool a HPS hence me wanting to go the LED route.

 

 

[Pat999]

[mention=1162]Pat999[/mention]  i dont have the space to cool a HPS hence me wanting to go the LED route.
 
 

Quantums Boards are a good alternative

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[greenkush]

1 hour ago, SKAM CPT said:

Yo Guys

has anyone ever bought LED grow lights from Ali Express or any of those fong kong places?

are they legit when it comes to true wattage and full spectrum? 

REALLY wanna move to LED"s

 

Go Alibaba route, either R2T or Meiju. Good quality quantum board clones, with legit diodes. I've been running my 4 of their 800 diode boards for close to a year with zero issues. Stay away from companies like NaLite and Ono. The lights look pretty, but the quality is garbage. I just replaced a popped power supply in mine this weekend. Thankfully I had a spare power unit so i have 10 backs ups, but i'll most likely be rebuilding this light and rip out their shit drivers and stick in two mean wells.

[CG420za]

Awe, I'm with Greenkush, I got my QB288v2 from Meiju. Couldn't be happier! And you won't find QB's here in SA for cheaper. Not unless they look really kak

[PsyCLown]

I'm personally running the R2T QB288 v2 boards from Alibaba, love them and would happily purchase them again.

 

There are a lot of over-rated LED lights out there, claiming that it is a 600W yet draws far less power from the wall. With the QB's you check the voltage and amps which are being sent to them and therefore you get an accurate and true watt value.

[Dr. Green]

I also suggest you look at growopz.com which is a local guy in cape town as well as atreumlighting.com I bought myself strips from Atreum and I'm very happy. 

 

Atreum has some boards available on amazon too. 

 

All these boards are made in the same place in China. 

[growopz]

Thanks @Dr. Green

Yeah if you don't mind a bit of risk, China has some great deals. 

I ordered one from Meijiu to test, because it did seem to be a better deal than my own lights :P

But the sales lady marked the wrong price, and customs stopped it, and charged me R4500 penalty, and it took 4 weeks to get it released, and now it will take 90 days until they reply to my appeal, (and customs has always rejected my appeals).  So there is risk. Customs is a bitch. 
It ended up costing a lot more than advertised, and two of my lights would have been much better deals, in this case. 

But if all goes smoothly, it'll take about 2 weeks, and you can save about R1500 over equivalent local lights by buying direct from China.    

My criticisms with the light, compared to my own lights, is the heatsink temperature, and the footprint hotspot.  After half an hour, my infrared thermometer measured the hottest at 58 degrees C, which is pretty toasty, and the PAR measurements have a big spike in the middle, and trail off quickly.  The datasheet shows that the 30 degree temperature difference reduces efficiency by about 4%, which is fairly substantial.   The longevity probably suffers a bit too, but LEDs are pretty hardy.  If anything, it's like they'll last 13 years instead of 14 years.

I'm not particularly interested in reselling Chinese lights, but I'll see what the local market does.  There's a couple of local competitors offering these 240W Chinese lights at R5999 (one on a stainless steel heatsink?! , and one has no information on theirs).  

Overall conclusion:  Not a bad option.  Bit risky.     

[CG420za]

Mine took 3 days from china to jozie, jozie to cpt 7 days. At the time i purchased your offering was priced at 8K, i paid R4500 for mine.

[greenkush]

Never had issues with Meiju, bought a few from them and arrived in about 4 days, longest was 6, marked lower value so customs was barely anything either. I know many others that have purchased and never had issues as well.