I am about to purchase some new lights and think I have come up with a simple way to think about how to decide on which lights are best for you. My conclusions support Nebula Haze's recommendations but this may be helpful for some of you. I realize we must all work within our budgets but sometimes investing a little more in our equipment will pay great dividends. For me the decision was whether to continue with the Electric Sky 300's or move to something else. Here is my reasoning.
First of all make sure your lights are certified by a non-manufacturer authority like UL, ETL, CSA, CE for electrical safety and RoHS for hazardous substances.
Secondly, look at how well the manufacturer takes care of its' customers.
Thirdly, look into the quality of the light diodes and driver. The two leading drivers are Meanwell and OSRAM. The right genuine Samsung diodes are considered top of the line. Cheaper diodes and lower quality drivers mean that your lights will not last as long meaning you will end up paying more when you have to replace your lights in 3 years while your buddy with the better lights gets 8 years of use before his or her lights fail. Also various lights fail to produce as much light over time. The lights I chose will replace my diodes if I have more than 90% dimming during the first 5 years. Lights have various ratings for their life. The lights I plan to purchase are rated: 50,000+ Hours [11.4 yrs flower / 7.6 yrs veg].
Thirdly make sure the light spectrum produced is appropriate for your grow. Those of us who have been around awhile remember MH for veg and HPS for flower. Now the trend with LED's seems to be full spectrum.
Finally check on the lights output. All else being equal higher PAR values mean higher harvest weights. See the following charts. The first is for the lights I had invented to purchase and the second chart is for the light I plan to purchase, the Electric Sky 300 v3. I calculated that the light cost 27% more but will the PAR values are 30% higher. One way to look at this is that in 3⅓ grows the more expensive lights will have paid for themselves assuming that harvest weight increases at the same percentage of the higher PAR values. Another way to look a this is if the cost of an ounce of cannabis were $300 an ounce where you live and if the lights increased your harvest from 3 ounces to 3.3 ounces you could recover the cost in one grow from just 4 plants with 20% extra yield as a nice bonus. Where I live we are allowed 6 plants in veg and 6 in flower. So in this scenario I would recover the cost in 1 grow.
I hope that this helps some of you with your LED light purchase decision making.
First of all make sure your lights are certified by a non-manufacturer authority like UL, ETL, CSA, CE for electrical safety and RoHS for hazardous substances.
Secondly, look at how well the manufacturer takes care of its' customers.
Thirdly, look into the quality of the light diodes and driver. The two leading drivers are Meanwell and OSRAM. The right genuine Samsung diodes are considered top of the line. Cheaper diodes and lower quality drivers mean that your lights will not last as long meaning you will end up paying more when you have to replace your lights in 3 years while your buddy with the better lights gets 8 years of use before his or her lights fail. Also various lights fail to produce as much light over time. The lights I chose will replace my diodes if I have more than 90% dimming during the first 5 years. Lights have various ratings for their life. The lights I plan to purchase are rated: 50,000+ Hours [11.4 yrs flower / 7.6 yrs veg].
Thirdly make sure the light spectrum produced is appropriate for your grow. Those of us who have been around awhile remember MH for veg and HPS for flower. Now the trend with LED's seems to be full spectrum.
Finally check on the lights output. All else being equal higher PAR values mean higher harvest weights. See the following charts. The first is for the lights I had invented to purchase and the second chart is for the light I plan to purchase, the Electric Sky 300 v3. I calculated that the light cost 27% more but will the PAR values are 30% higher. One way to look at this is that in 3⅓ grows the more expensive lights will have paid for themselves assuming that harvest weight increases at the same percentage of the higher PAR values. Another way to look a this is if the cost of an ounce of cannabis were $300 an ounce where you live and if the lights increased your harvest from 3 ounces to 3.3 ounces you could recover the cost in one grow from just 4 plants with 20% extra yield as a nice bonus. Where I live we are allowed 6 plants in veg and 6 in flower. So in this scenario I would recover the cost in 1 grow.
I hope that this helps some of you with your LED light purchase decision making.
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