Inda-gro Induction...

PSUAGRO. said:

I keep flip flopping over these indagrow's and ^^^^you guys aint helping......ha

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I'm not trying to poo-poo the technology, I've just not seen unbiased reports on them. If they were cheaper, I'd probably give them a whirl myself because I want to have an alternative to MH/HPS. Right now, I'm using 4-55w PLL tubes for vegging and a PG180 LED for flowering. I am brand new to the growing scene but I've at least seen some good LED grows, veg to flower. I've also seen some good PLL results as well but I'm only using them for veg and they seem to be working out well now that I know more about them (you can burn young plants if too close). My veg box is 210w total for 19200 lumens and a CRI of 82. This setup, homemade fixture and all, initially cost me $120 and replacement bulbs will be $5-$7, but the rated life is 18k hours. So even if I had to replace them five times vs an induction bulb, that's still only $140 for bulbs. In theory I could swap out my 6500k bulbs and put in 2700 - 3000k and flower with the same set-up but I have separate spaces for my grow so I can run a revolving garden. So my veg lights have a 5 year cost that is roughly half of Inda-Grow's cheapest offering, and even much less than the 420.

I've used induction lighting before...bought three different types and a friend of mine imported them for me. GREAT for veg...and uhhh........great for veg! Did I mention that they're good for veg? Blooming SUCKED under these things...I thought it must be a spectrum thing, but induction lights are basically florescent lights on steroids. I used 2700k spectrum on one, mixed spectrum on another one, and 2200k on the third. 300w, 400w, 400w respectively. Super small buds and a small foot print. The foot print was fine for me, as I grow in a cabinet, but I was NOT cool with the bud size, nor the cost of the damn things. Even importing them myself they cost $400-500 each...I can't say for certain, but these guys are most likely importing them from china...they look almost identical to the ones I had.

hey all, i'm still here. i had a long day at the doc and running errands, hence i didn't get all the picture taking done that I wanted to, but the Inda's are still rockin, and the plants are _very_ happy. tomorrow requiers a run to southern oregon during the day, but I should have time for pics to be taken at some point.

@Jericho: I hear ya, as i was learning about EFDL lighting, i was stricken with the "it sounds too good to be true" worries as well. all i can say is that seeing is believing. aside from that, theres a lot that i feel tempted to reply to, buy alas i am too tired for all that right now. all i can suggest is that you use google to research elsewhere the differences between Photosynthetically Active Radiance, and the characteristics of light associated with Kelvin measurements. Kelvin light temps are reference for how colors will look in a certain color light, i used to do tech support for adobe photoshop, and i recall from there that kelvin is important for color matching. our eyes are what are used to see color, but notice that plants lack eyes, and that they also use light for something totally different than looking at stuff. also, our eyes are very sensitive to yellows and greens, but plants don't use green at all, and a very slight amount of yellow (pigment dependent) plants are very sensitive to portions of the red and blue/violet ranges that our eyes have a harder time with than yellow or green. you really can't trust your eyes alone when looking at a throw of light to know how a plant will like it. please refer to this pic for a visual comparison: a PAR lamp is putting its greatest output in spectral ranges that our eyes are not tuned to receive.

@cabinet: what brands of EFDL lights did you try? this thread is about Inda-Gro lamps, and it sounds like that isn't a brand you have experience with. i have a Purple Durban Poison thats in week 5 of bloom, her whole life has been under EFDL lights. and you did it, im going to get the cord thingie to get a pic of her off my phone and on here so you can see what *I* am dong with EFDL. maybe your growing techniques need work? also, please research why its a fools errand to use a kelvin rating to select a plant light.

pics taken a few hours ago:

These are all my one PDP, sitting under my Pro-420-PAR. week 5 of bloom.


wide shot of the portion of the tent under HPS. there's an Obama Kush, Pineapple Kush, and white fire under it. second pic here is a close up of one of the pineapple kush tops, with the PDP in the background. both plants are the same age, and on the same nutes. please tell me that it is not my eyes playing tricks on me, and that there really is a substantial (to put it lightly) difference in bud size there.

veg area in progress:

topside shots of the FSS 200w (the white one on the left) next to the Inda-Gro 200w (the brownish one on the right). last pic shows luminosity difference. also, if you look closely at the 2 bulbs, you can see several shape and size differences. they are clearly not the same thing in a different housing. both lamps had been on for an hour, and so were at full burn. limitations would be that of the camera on my phone.

lastly (for now), a pic of the manufacturing label on the 420. note it says Made in USA. so ya, please stop thinking that these are simply rebranded chinese tech and please stop importing said chinese crap.

Which part is made in the USA? In their video they clearly state the bulb is made in China - 2:55 mark http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1a6jwVhUDI. Not that I'm arguing anything else. And great pics/bud! Props.

based on what Darryl has told me personally, they do source some parts from china. there are literally over 100 chinese manufacturers of this technology. they do have a chinese bulb company, but one that allows Inda-Gro to dictate the phosphor blend in the bulb. and since it is the phosphors that actually generate the light, that is the most important part of the lamp.

aside from that, it is common practice for "Made in USA" to indicate final assembly, regardless of country of origin of the parts being put together. my understanding is that Inda-Gro assembles their fixtures in san diego. additionally, Darryl has mentioned to me that they are looking into the feasibility of eliminating foreign sourcing of parts once they feel comfortable with the financial involvement of actually manufacturing their own bulbs from raw materials. as mentioned above, with 100 chinese companys already making these bulbs, it was the cost effective choice to find the one that lets the doping be dictated rather than opening a stateside factory to make them here. He wants that to change, tho. He wants very much to employ Americans throughout the manufacturing process of their lamps. at this point its a matter of knowing ones place in the market and accepting that the goal is still potentially some years away.

for me, it came down to the facts that i can't afford the electric bill associated with the amount of HID lighting that i would need for my situation, as well as the cooling, ventilation costs. i started looking at LEDs first as the alternative, but then found Inda-Gro. I had first hand experience helping a friend stay under t5 full cycle (his desire) and double yield with proper nutrition and pruning techniques, so i had very little remaining stigma about fluorescents in bloom. i guess i was blessed to have the 200 and 400 watt FSS lamps donated to me. i had zero entrance fee to play with EFDL and it blew me the eff away. as such, when the 400w FSS went tits up, and the mfgr wants to play games over servicing a 12 month old fixture that allegedly has a 10 year warranty... i got in touch with Darryl at Inda. thats to current, i fig... as you can see above, the Inda 200w just spanks the FSS, for what shows in a pic. hopefully FSS will come around (or catch bad press) so that i can properly compare that with the 420PAR.

regardless, im still pleased that i was able to replace the AC in the tent with a plain dehumidifier, and turned the exhaust fan to about half speed. day temp climbs to and then sits at 85 on the dot, night temp stays at 68, RH stays at 45%. and that entire tent in the pic, all the gear in it is running off ONE 120v outlet (using a power strip). tho veg is in a different room, its still on the same 20 amp circuit. elec bill is so cheap considering how much it would cost to recreate that same environment based on HPS lighting alone. and look up at those PDP pics... shes the one that has the lowest cost of production regardless of size (based on wattage), and shes the biggest, most mature one; that equals win.

o snap, it just now occurred to me that she's prolly faster than the others because she went from veg to bloom under EFDL, where the ones under HPS went to it when i switched 12/12. they suffered the usual shifting-into-bloom metabolic lag for a week and a half or so (complete with more than enough etoliation). the PDP didn't have either of those issues as the EFDL was giving a fuller (tri-phosphor blend) light that allowed her to shift spectral preference on her own time table. hence she never slowed down from her very fast veg growth rate. also, aside from the height of the forming colas on her, she literally hasnt grown vertically in the internodes since the 12/12 flip. well, maybe a very little bit, but refer to the _213806.jpg above (with the pineapple in the foreground and the PDP behind it). the pineapple was the shortest plant of the bunch when they went bloom. that is no longer the case.

Spliff when you switching bloom? i wanna see it already! i hope your judgements right man!

did already, on 3/19. and so that means, to be precise, that the girls started week 4 of bloom this past monday, and are technically at 4.5 weeks of bloom now.

the FSS EFDL lamps were the first lights i got for my grow, they were donated to me. all the plants in bloom now were started under those EFDL lamps and were only exposed to that light for the 4-5 weeks of veg. when i switched to bloom, i pulled the 200w FSS out of the tent and replaced it with a 600w HPS that was also donated, but that i was curious about comparing as much as i could against the 400w EFDL. at 3.5 weeks into bloom, the FSS 400w crapped out. it had been over the PDP and my grand daddy purp. i replaced it with the 200w, which due to being smaller, had to sit over the PDP alone, and the GDP got shuffled into the HPS area. i ordered the 2 Inda-Gro lamps on the 12th, the day after the failure of the FSS 400, and they got to me on the 17th. i pulled the 200w out and put the 420PAR in over the PDP, lifted it a bit, and moved the GDP back under it. i also moved the White Fire into the middle area, hoping that the fuller spectrum side light will help to stop some of that crazy etoliation. i figure that by the 24th, the differences will be apparent, and pictures will leave little doubt.

i also have some clones set up for a more precise test. i really don't like that i have 5 different strains that i am trying to gauge light differences off of, so i have a matched pair (literally identical size and node pattern, taken from matched tops) of WF clones and PDP clones set up in veg now (under the two 200w EFDLs). i will be doing them up in identical pots and soil all the way thru. straight Happy Frog soil, Ricks Monster Grow, Great White, Bio Canna full line + Rhizotonic, Hygrozyme, Canna Boost, Canna PK13/14, Tarantula, all in distilled water. their mommies went up to 16ml/gal on Bio Vega as well as Bio Flores, so i know what to expect in the next run. but also, the WF is the tallest one in the tent now, and the PDP is the shortest; i'll have the data to show how much the lights cause etoliation on a strain that seem to be prone to it and one that seems not to be. o, also... the plants under the HPS seem to be fond of the powdery mildew. i have been staying on top of it with Serenade, but in doing so i have noticed that to date, the PDP has not needed to be sprayed once. she has never shown a speck of PM. at first i thought that it was just her genetics being all bad ass and resistant to PM, but then i recalled that i never saw a trace of PM in veg, and the tent was running at 85F/70RH. only thing was that it was all EFDL light. now, it's only the ones under the HPS that have bits of PM showing. i re-treated them with Serenade and moved the GDP back out from under the HPS, and i'll keep an eye on her potentially picking up PM again under the 420PAR. at this point i'm beginning to suspect that it might be something more related to the light. if the GDP pulls PM again, i'll have to tend to think that the lack of PM on the PDP means that she really is just that bad ass, and i will have a hard time wanting to grow anything else from there on out.

also, please no powder mildew thread hijackers... i have a filter solution ready to employ, but i need to move the tent into a larger room first and want to just finish this crop. then i'll break down, clean and relocate with filtered air charging the tent. i figure that with the details that i'm noticing now, i might as well also allow me the time to split the hair a little. it would be really nice to know one way or another if these light spectrums have any impact on PM.

Spliff, I've browsed through at least 5 different grows with induction on different boards. The conclusion? Induction, like LED and then other fluorescents, is good if you have an issue with heat, but will still not compete with HID for performance. You are welcome to post real documented evidence to the contrary, but you'd be the first I've seen. Can you point me to a grow that is not by a biased source that shows that induction outperforms HID? Until then, I just don't see where they would be worth the high cost.

nope, i can't point you to one, as i haven't been able to loacte one either. that's why i'm doing my own. for me, cost was irrelevant off the bat as the first 2 EFDL lamps i got were given to me for free. then after getting a free 600w HPS, and getting a month to compare it to a 400w EFDL i saw obvious results that led me to spending my own money on the 2 Inda-Gro's. but then again, that choice was also tempered by the fact that it is not an option to have a 240 circuit run. so no HIDs for me - it's simply not an option for me at all.

beyond that, how do you quantify performance? as i previously discussed, we can't rely on what our eyes see when comparing grow lamps. personally, i like the fuller spectrum for the rapid bloom onset - and that is something that i saw first hand in the first week or so of bloom on this grow. i also like, no scratch that i LOVE that i don't have to spend a cent on replacing bulbs for that thing for the next ten years. in that time, the 600w HPS that's next to it will cost me 4000 dollars in bulbs ($100 per bulb, replacing every 3 months - 4 new bulbs per year = 40 bulbs over a decade * granted no one will be using the same HPS for that long; Everyone will be using inducted fluorescents well before then!). i'm also working out the finer points of the proper distance to have it above the plants. at 4 inches from tops the 420PAR hasn't burned them, but i'm slowly pushing the other side of the envelope; to see how much lift i can get while not taking them away from near saturation level photosynthesis. more lift = more canopy lit up by it. Inda-Gro claims a 5foot x 5foot area of canopy can be lit by it, so that means that i can expect it to cover half of my tent as opposed to being focused over 2 plants in a roughly 2foot x 5foot area. the issues falls back to our eyes being unreliable instruments to measure what matters to the plants. a 600w HPS is the most efficient (lumen per watt) of the HIDs, and is only about 20% PAR; so only 20% of the total lumes would be PAR lumens that plants can work with. in contrast, the 420PAR is 95% PAR.

there's a little chart on the topic, posted on the Inda-Gro site (http://www.inda-gro.com/lighting-comparison.html#apparent_brightness_chart), i tried posting it here, but the forum formatting steps on it, and makes it unreadable.

well, anywho... i'm rather tired, and so i'll step aside in the convo for a bit. i love your avatar, BTW. i loved treeform back when i played WoW.

I recently spent a little over $300 for a PG180, which has spectrums for flowering and veg. I am using it for the former. I decided to buy it because I have both veg and flower areas in one walk-in closet and heat would be a factor. I could not get an induction light for that little, at least not one from Inda-Gro. Their cheapest is $480 for 100w! And who knows if it will do anything worthwhile in flower. So until prices come way down or actual performance impresses, I don't see this market going anywhere, sadly.

Hey guys. Here's my two cents:

I bit the bullet and bought 5 inda-gro PRO 420 PAR's and put them in my 9'x4' flower tent, replacing two 1000w HPS's. ($4000 worth... go big or go home... LOL). Also installed SCROG tables over the top of my plants, and under the Inda-Gro's. I run a DIY undercurrent recirculating DWC, eight 5-gallon buckets total, harvesting 4 buckets/plants a month historically, each under a 1000w HPS. I installed the five 420's on 3/28 and I have two Mendo Afgoo's and two Dr. Greenthumb Iranian G13's that have been enjoying the new induction lighting for about 3 weeks now. Nice cola's are beginning to develop, and the buds seem "harder" than usual at this stage of the game. In the other four buckets this week I just put four big pre-91 westcoast chemdawg's for 8-9 weeks of 12/12.

Why five 420's?
1. More light output for equal power (getting almost 4000w worth of HPS-light with Inda-Gro's vs. the 2000w of HPS for the same electrical consumption). I am hopeful that this will translate to increased yields. So far, I see some visual evidence that this can happen.
2. Better light distribution for my SCROG tables (they are 41" in length, and lay out horizontally). NICE FOR SCROG. Again, I am hopeful that this will translate to increased yields of high quality, dense, trichome encrusted buds.
3. Cooler temp's - Last summer was awful in my basement, and temps got to over 100F for a few months (heats shut me down, especially with those two 1000w HPS's). My tent's are waaaaaaaayyyyyy cooler now, and I have a high confidence that I can run in the summertime with more control over the temps.

My 12/12 tent looks pretty good right now. 5 big horizontal lights throwing light down like crazy over a broader lumination footprint, with nice colas popping up through a scrog table everywhere. And my tent is nice and cool. My chillers are no longer struggling to keep the water temps to under 70F. I currently have no air conditioners running. I am liking it... its passing my "gut feeling" test.

I'll know a lot more in about 4 more weeks when I do my first chop on crops grown under the inda-gro 420's. I know that folks reading this forum tend to be data-driven, and like seeing a side-by-side evaluation. I made my decision and just implemented it, so I'm sorry that I don't have side-by-side data to share. So my input will be largely testimonial. But so far I am liking what I see, and I have no regrets.

Spliff: glad to see you're excited about your grow lights and I hope they work out, especially for the $ you spent. I'll see if I can find the info on the original lights I purchased...It's been about two years since I bought them, so I'll have to dig deep. There aren't hundreds of manufacturers in China for these things, there are a handful, and hundreds of brokers.

I can assure you that if "some of the parts" are made in China, it's not the hood...it's the bulb, ballast, etc.

cabinetgrown said:

I've used induction lighting before...bought three different types and a friend of mine imported them for me. GREAT for veg...and uhhh........great for veg! Did I mention that they're good for veg? Blooming SUCKED under these things...I thought it must be a spectrum thing, but induction lights are basically florescent lights on steroids. I used 2700k spectrum on one, mixed spectrum on another one, and 2200k on the third. 300w, 400w, 400w respectively. Super small buds and a small foot print. The foot print was fine for me, as I grow in a cabinet, but I was NOT cool with the bud size, nor the cost of the damn things. Even importing them myself they cost $400-500 each...I can't say for certain, but these guys are most likely importing them from china...they look almost identical to the ones I had.

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You don't mention the identical brand you bought direct from China but I'd be curious who the manufacturer was and if you continue to use any of the three lamps you purchased for just veg?

When I want to follow up on the Made in America claim I like to check and see if the products are UL rated. This will at least tell the buyer what country UL certification is based upon and represents another way for the customer to follow up factory direct if a manufacturers distributor/retailer isn't being helpful should it ever come to warranty related issues. With your lamps you know they came out of China but if you pop in the manufacturer it would be worth noting if they are listed and performed up to UL standards.

If you go to: http://database.ul.com/cgi-bin/XYV/template/LISEXT/1FRAME/index.html and do a search under the Chinese company name who made your lights you can see if they're listed. A name search for Inda-Gro in this same UL database and you'll see them listed out of San Diego CA with both US and Canadian UL certifications.

I had a 420 driver fail after only about 8 months of running it. I determined it was the driver and not the lamp because I checked it against a known working lamp first from my other room. I called and spoke with Darryl at Inda-Gro and after giving me an RMA number told me to send just the driver down for repair. The shipping back to Inda-Gro would have been on me but they would have shipped the repaired driver back on their dime. Shipping wasn't the problem it was the fact I was flowering in week 7. So instead I'm only a couple of hours away and I decided to just take a ride down there and see if they could swap it out with another ballast or fix it while I waited. They had no problem with that and I was out the door.

When I got there they put it on a scope and diagnosed a MOSFET failure on the board. They soldered a new MOSFET on and that did fix it. There was no charge and I was out of there in about 30 minutes. Normal warranty turnaround is same day plus whatever shipping time. While I was there I got to see for myself was how the lights are in fact being built in San Diego with individual component sourcing from all over the world, including the USA.

So while I left there having a better understanding of what goes into these lights and the technology for me what was most important is how they responded and got me through this Blue Dream Herojuana grow without any serious consequences. Weeks 1 -8 pics from clones to a 56 day harvest came in @ 466g dry.

Great post chaz, thanks for sharing that

I'm no growing pro but those plants look extremely small for 8 weeks...or am I missing something?

Thanks Puff. Its all about sharing.

BJ: This strain is a good reliable 60 day producer. You get a really nice body high, very relaxing without getting lazy stupid.

Very familiar with this strain and I'm getting the comparable yields under the 420 as I got under my HPS 1000 but the buds are stickier with the 420 and I don't use any AC just fresh air in and exhaust out. Summers coming though and I'll add in the AC for standby when those outside temperatures start creeping up. I keep them short by switching them at cutting and SOG them in the tray for denser buds. You may want to try this method as this harvest came in at 56 days which is also about a week early compared to my previous HPS grows.

Nice post and pics chaz..........and I don't know what people expect out of a 60 day turnaround.....looks good to me

@chaz: thanks for sharing your experience and pics! i'd love to get to see a close up f the bud formation and trich density, if that's a possibility.

it's also great to hear how another was treated by Darryl. When i first starrted talking with him, around January of this year, i was a little reserved in regards to really talking about what i was thinking about growing with his lights. so then one day he sends me via email a link to this youtube vid [video=youtube;ROjGed0W2ew]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROjGed0W2ew[/video] of him at a medical grow in cali. up to that point i had only seen vids of Darryl at various shops showing off his lamps over peppers, lettuce and the like. seeing his obvious position on cannabis cultivation i decided to open up with him in our dialog. since then he has been an amazing resource and a very friendly contact. since then i have also seen the follow up to the above vid where the patient upgraded to the 420PAR, as well as the vid of Darryl at the Cannabis Cup with his lamp. i love a company that makes a stand like that with their product, and seeing that he is putting his name and face to it like that, his company and image on the line, in a time when it still comes to the fact that its not federally legal. the apparent activist in him only helps to further endear him and his company to me, well beyond hod much i love their products for the amazing results and low power consumption.

Splifferous said:

@chaz: thanks for sharing your experience and pics! i'd love to get to see a close up f the bud formation and trich density, if that's a possibility.

it's also great to hear how another was treated by Darryl. When i first starrted talking with him, around January of this year, i was a little reserved in regards to really talking about what i was thinking about growing with his lights. so then one day he sends me via email a link to this youtube vid [video=youtube;ROjGed0W2ew]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROjGed0W2ew[/video] of him at a medical grow in cali. up to that point i had only seen vids of Darryl at various shops showing off his lamps over peppers, lettuce and the like. seeing his obvious position on cannabis cultivation i decided to open up with him in our dialog. since then he has been an amazing resource and a very friendly contact. since then i have also seen the follow up to the above vid where the patient upgraded to the 420PAR, as well as the vid of Darryl at the Cannabis Cup with his lamp. i love a company that makes a stand like that with their product, and seeing that he is putting his name and face to it like that, his company and image on the line, in a time when it still comes to the fact that its not federally legal. the apparent activist in him only helps to further endear him and his company to me, well beyond hod much i love their products for the amazing results and low power consumption.

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I went to the High Times Cannabis Cup here in LA a few months ago and that was my first chance to meet Darryl and some of the other Inda-Gro guys. That was one incredible party. Being able to walk around freely and hit on a smorgasbord of vaporizers, bongs, spliff, hot chicks and the music was non stop made it memorable. But I digress. These guys really know their shit and do actually care about the patient. And that goes to them sharing proven success methods that they've come across by customers who give them feed back when using their lights. He doesn't strike me as an activist but he does get right into middle of the political dialogue when he does radio shows with Ed Rosenthal, Paul Stanford, Casper Leitch and guys like that. It's definitely not all about the lighting. It's more about taking control of what you put in your body and the political landscape that affects everyones freedom and liberty to choose. It was well worth chatting this group up because I found they have a shared passion for what I believe an informed electorate must not take for granted or those freedoms will be forever lost.

I did have a kind of Hunter Thompsonesque type experience while there I'd like to share. Obviously I was pretty medicated at the time and I thought I was seeing shit at first but as I was just standing around the Inda-Gro booth checking out the variety of people who were all crammed around asking questions about their lights, learning about EFDL and the Tesla contribution I happened to notice that the LED guys in the booth across from Inda-Gro were using really healthy looking tall grass plastic panels under their lights whereas the Inda-Gro had some live MMJ babies spread around. WTF was that all about I had to ask? It turns out that on the previous day the LED guys saw all the traffic the Inda-Gro booth was getting and thought that by adding the fake lawn grass it would help to convince people to considering buying their panels for like $1,200 each or some shit because they perform so well on artificial turf. Trust me if you're ever growing artificial turf you're going to have to look these guys up.