Leds

[C420grow]

Update with my plants, set up, and lights! Plants are about one week from flower and looking beautiful. Went with the Mars tws 2000 and it has had a wonderful footprint for what I needed right now. Using about a 4x4 space atm. My large plant (still undetermined what strain) is growing great and is loving the light. My smaller plant is growing well also. Thank everyone for their input and support.

[dilvish]

Did they give the UL certification file number? Saying it passed and actually being certified are not the same. If it went through certification then UL would give them a file number that can be cross referenced on the UL site https://iq2.ulprospector.com/session...or.com%2fen%2f

Additionally the UL certification provides "hologram" type decals for each unit to prove the certification is valid.

Otherwise they are like many manufacturers who "self test" using the CE certification which is commonly faked.

[Nute]

Just recieved this from mars support

I asked what type of testing and certification was done on their equipment

Answer

Quality Parts-Not Jelly Bulit,Safe to use!

Light's pass Strict quality standard. UL, CE, RoHS, SAA, PSE cetificate.Stronger hanging kits are available for easy installation. 100% Safe to use, zero risk!no worry of fire or security threat,long-life. Great warranty

Just sharing my experience and two cents 😊

wish I’d seen that one when I was setting up my tent.

[Farmall]

Consider the Cloudline T-6... the remote controller can be setup to minimally run the fan all the time and automatically speed up if temps or humidity rise. On low, mine will not blow out a match but it keeps air moving

[Nute]

Nute Is your fan completely off when not outside the temp/hum limits? I want my fan to have a low idle speed so the fan will always be on. The only ones I can find are commercial and $200-300. I looked at the inkbirds but can’t find one that does that.

I posting a pic of the two I use one is attached to heater and a exhaust fan I also have a six inch running all times adjustable speed. The humidity controller has humidifier and dehumidifier plugged in haven't needed the dehumidifier cause heat and the exhaust fan takes care of humidity

[dilvish]

This wasn't about Chinese companies versus American. It was about the fact that a great deal of Chinese manufacturers are known to bypass safety certification in order to sell their product around the world. I'm sure there are other countries that manufacture LED panels that are also not certified or even well built. My point was if a person is going out to buy a light panel for growing they should consider cost versus safety. Better to spend a little more knowing the manufacturer has taken the effort to have some or all of it's product properly safety tested considering the way the lights are used. These panels aren't a common thing. The sit in a small room (typically) running a minimum of 12 hours per day in a relatively hot and humid environment sometimes all year long. As I mentioned in an earlier response, Vipar Specra is the only Chinese manufacturer that i have seen so far that has some models that have had recognized government safety testing and certification. I did not comment on whether they were better or worse than any other manufacturer in terms of construction/durability. From what I have read and my own personal experience they have a decent product.

I don’t think Chinese lights and light manufactures should all be lumped together as substandard. I know that a lot of the Chinese lighting co specs and claims are inflated and I’m not cool with that but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily bad lights. Just because a light mfg has not chosen to pursue a certain certification does not mean that a light is unsafe. There are many, thousands of the viparspectras in use and if these things were burning people’s tents down I think we would have heard about it. Having been inside my Viparspectra everything looked well constructed if not heavy duty. I feel comfortable having it in my house with my family. I have exchanged probably 50 emails with VS and they almost always reply within a couple of hours 24/7. Communication has been decent and they haven’t given me any bad advice that I know of. They are bending over backwards to make me happy in a way that I’ve never experienced with any company before. My plants are thriving under this light so they’re doing something right. On the flip side, I took delivery of an American made light that was UL/ETL certified that I felt was so unsafe that I sent it back. I don’t think we should give American companies a pass when they’re making substandard products just because they’re US. That’s not what makes American companies competitive and efficient. I just think each light company should be judged on its own merits regardless of where they’re based.

[Rwise]

I will say the viperspectra looked to be built better, (I still dont like blurple, which was the deciding factor)
And a question, what is the deal with sulfur and LEDs? There is a warning on it that when using sulfur remove the light from the grow.

[Rwise]

This is why when I run a circuit, I run over size wire, if the job calls for 12 awg I use 10 awg.!

Nute Is your fan completely off when not outside the temp/hum limits? I want my fan to have a low idle speed so the fan will always be on. The only ones I can find are commercial and $200-300. I looked at the inkbirds but can’t find one that does that.

[Nute]

Very good examples I agree 100 % with what you said. Most growers don't even think of power consumption alloted per outlet
As you said 15 amp circuits but some or most are daisy chained within a room not knowing. The grower that is they start plugging stuff here there then add the tent all the lights and artifacts needing power. And before you know it your running 90% of that 15 amp circuit

[JDU]

Couldn't say it better Obi-Wan

[Obi-Wan]

Individual fixtures aren’t the primary cause of grow related fires. They are caused when the grower tries to draw too much current through old circuits, circuits that aren’t rated for the power they are trying to draw, or circuits that aren’t properly wired for the fixtures the grower is trying to use.

The average household circuit is rated for 15 amps and any good electrician will tell you not to exceed 75% of that rating. 3-600watt Viparspectra lights that are daisy chained together as you suggested to the OP will draw 6.51 amps by themselves. Add exhaust and circulation fans and the grow is pulling around 7-7.5 amps so we’re left with 3.25 amps of headroom for safe operation. Except we don’t know what else is tied into that circuit, that’s right the 4-100 watt halogen flood lights on a motion sensor for the back yard are also tied into that circuit so every time a bird flies by the current to circuit surges another 4 amps. What else is getting plugged in? Most rooms have 4 dual plug outlets and we’ve only used 1 because we plugged in a 20 amp rated power strip that has 10 outlets on it. We think because we bought a UL rated power strip from Home Depot that it’s going to be safe and it’ll trip before anything bad happens but the reality is that it’ll never trip because the circuit we plugged it into will never see the 20 amps required to trip it. Did I mention we had to cut off the ground prong on the power strip because the outlet only accepts 2 prong cords.

I obviously embellished with those examples but they happen all the time and they are more commonly the causes of grow room fires than whatever fixture happened to be plugged in.