120w LED lights - how can I gauge the quality?

hehe, thanks for the info. So I went with this beauty, courtesy off the tip from newworldicon:

http://www.hydroponicshut.com/pro-grow-180-watt-led-grow-light.html

Including super priority international shipping to the UK it came in at £220, which is pretty sweet considering it can switch between veg and flowering colour arrangement.

Loving this forum already. Cheers, guys!

TheInsider said:

hehe, thanks for the info. So I went with this beauty, courtesy off the tip from newworldicon:

http://www.hydroponicshut.com/pro-grow-180-watt-led-grow-light.html

Including super priority international shipping to the UK it came in at £220, which is pretty sweet considering it can switch between veg and flowering colour arrangement.

Loving this forum already. Cheers, guys!

Click to expand...

Hey nice one mate, you need to post some pics of it when it comes, a grow journal would be great too!! Feel free to rep for that.

newworldicon said:

Hey nice one mate, you need to post some pics of it when it comes, a grow journal would be great too!! Feel free to rep for that.

Click to expand...

Just fitted it today. It's flowering time now, but not sure if I want to set the mode to just reds, or reds with white/UV/bit of blue etc. The latter would be in addition to the former. A blend is still best for flowering, above just red, isn't it?

http://www.hydroponicshut.com/pro-gr...row-light.html

Was just looking on their website and found it interesting that they only list the white LED's as CREE. I would think that if the reds and blues were CREE also they would make a point of pushing that. Also notice that the lens angle is 90 degrees. That panel is roughly 1' by 1' so with that lens angle at 12" below the light the coverage is 3' by 3', at 18" below the light coverage is 4' by 4', at 24" 5' by 5'.

The point is that your coverage area spreads out rapidly and thus diminishes your lumens per sq ft. If you're trying to get some decent penetration you need to keep that panel low and keep the plants short. Not trying to pick a fight or criticise your panel but these are important things to note. Does look like it has all 3W LED's which is nice as a lot of manufacturers claim to use high power led sets but that only represents a few of the actual number of LED's in the panel. Another strategy to increase penetration would be to use reflective as close to the outside of the plants to direct the light spread back to target.

I'm currently vegging using a panel I grabbed off a website and now the hunt is on to find a panel for flowering thats in the 300-400W range with 3W LED's and somewhere around 7+ spectrum with white and UV included and 60 degree lens angle. I used to run a 3 stage HID grow with 400MH for veg, 600HPS for 1st month of flower and 1000HPS for second month of flower to represent the increased need for light of the plants as they matured. Set up costs more but power consumption is way more efficient. It's nice to come down every month too

Gonna try to get a journal started later today.

You can check my sig for my journal