woah completely forgot about this, but anyways after lookin through those sites why are some like Area51 so expensive, for lower actual wattage? Like they are near 250-450, whereas california for few hundred more is 800 watts? Like is build quality different?
So the 800W is actually a 500W ($3.60/W) and is built from low quality LEDs. That might as well go in the China pile (15-20% efficient). The A51 SGS-160 on the other hand is ~30% efficient offers about 130 actual watts so it is $4/W.It claims to get 800W because it is "160 X high quality 5W LEDs". But they admit that in bloom mode it consumes 620W, and 15-20% of that is driver losses and fan losses so it is really dissipating 500W meaning they are charging $3/W. They included warm white which is good but there are very few warm white leds that are reasonably efficient and of course there is no way they are offering the top bins since they don't even mention the manufacturer, so I am a skeptic
The consensus isn't based upon data or trials. It's based upon number of people who use/purchased/are fans of a particular company. This will skew towards the moderate priced units. Otherwise, Advanced LED with their 10W Crees and all would be far higher up on this list. They are excellent panels. We need some tests and some comparable units because it's all just majority rules at this point, and as far as I can tell... I haven't seen but one or two people on here who also ponied up the money for Advanced LED units in order to have an opinion on them one way or the other. What I have noted for months is the number of people who are arguing that a 500 buck A51 panel is somehow better than a 1grand unit from Advanced. What's happening, objectively, is exactly like the Ford vs Chevy vs Chrysler debate. Everyone is talking about the best light to get the basic job done (get you to and from work). Few are talking about the actual best light, the Ferraris and McClarens of the lighting world. Nor, for that matter, is much actual work gone into tracking the non-name brand lights that appear to be exactly the same as the name brand units at a much more affordable cost to the buyer.
Each LED is about 1.6W so it needs to be right on top of the canopy. For a total of 110W it might be good for a 1.5'X1.5'. because of this it seems like a bad idea to use a 90 degrees lens. The lens penalizes all the photons probably 15%. Since it covers such a small canopy better off to do away with the lenses and get it close.
Thanks for the heads up on this light. Lets see how it stacks up.
cost $525
power draw - 130W - actual dissipation ~110W
$4.77/W
4 XML
64 mystery LEDs with:11+ Wavelengths of Color Output: 760nm, 740nm, 720nm, 660nm, 630nm, 615nm-480nm, 460nm, 440nm, 415nm, 380nm
The 380, 720, 740 and 760nm do not contribute to photosynthesis. Photons are more important than fancy spectrum techniques (emerson effect etc). These watts should be put toward creating PAR photons 400-700nm. Worse, there are no efficient emitters in these wavelengths. There are no efficient emitters in the 480-615 or the 415nm range. As far as I am concerned ALL of these LEDs qualify as China junk. They are 15-20% efficient versus the 55% efficient top bins we could be using. Yes it is true that high Quality Cree LEDs are manufactured in China but these are not it.
There is no way this thing covers a 3X3 unless you like larf
The XMLs are not XML2 and there is no mention of the color temp or the bin. We have no idea how much blue the lamp emits. So overall I cannot even calculate the efficiency of the lamp, I estimate 15-20%. In my opinion this lamp goes right in the china junk pile with the california works. Amazing that they could charge $4.77/W
For the record I use China junk drivers in my builds all the time and I love them, but we can't cheap out on the emitters in a flowering lamp.
woah must have been a 3rd party site, i saw that for 1200$.
Where and when. The newer version just dropped/is dropping within days so it could have been a sale to clear some old inventory.
