astroastro
Active Member
Dunit- it's funny, we just get talking about odd 3 Watt marketing claims and then some guy gets on talking about a 12W diode. Ha! You can see where this is going.
So your pulling 180 out of the wall- a good driver with a PFC circuit will convert at maybe 85-90%, this gets you about 155W to play with, minus about 10 for the fans leaves you with 145W available to power the LED's. With 119 dies your running them at about 1.2W ea. This is reasonable, slightly over driven, but possible with a big chunk of aluminum and the fans. Much more power thru the dies and things get ugly. Believe me, power is cheap. The easiest thing in the world to do would be for your manufacturer to crank higher power densities thru the die and do the marketing speil with the higher Watt numbers- you just can't do it cause of the heat. This talk about this 3W die and that 3W die- well, not exactly in the real world. I think your guys did a reasonable job for you.So I guess the big question is who is actually using what LED's. I have seen panels advertising 3w LED's that can clearly be seen to have three emitters in each LED housing which I am assuming are 3w/3 chipsets. The panels I am running now have single emitters in all the red and blue LED's and 3w/3 for the white, UV, IR. These panels have a total of 119 LED's and draw 180 watts including 6 fans so that works out to about 1.4 watts per LED. I am under the impression that these are actual 3watt LED's. I am just drying my latest crop but looks like I am going to pull about 1.3 to 1.4 grams per watt which is about double what I used to pull with HID which further reinforces my belief that someone has put these panels together with the proper componentry but without ripping them apart and having an LED guru on hand I wouldn't know how to actually figure all that out.
Yeah it isn't exactly a fair comparison, at best the weaker panel is actually 120w with 1w diodes (most likely its 90-100 with fans) while the GLH is 180w -12 for fans into 3w LEDs at about 1.9-2w each. But you sure as shit will grow better with 180w of 3w diodes than 180w of 1w diodes! Have fun with that thing, its gonna rock!something i thought i would share.... I have been using a 120W(not sure of the draw, maybe around 70W) chinese made tri band panel that i bought from ebay about a year ago. I have been flowering with it along with eight 27W CFL's. it has worked okay for me... not huge yields but good enough for me. well today i just got a new sprectra 180 panel!!!!! i thought i would share the photo of the side by side.
I'm not looking to get ridiculed by this post... just want to share a photo to show 1W diodes and 3W diodes
Thanks for the vote of confidence dude!!! It was your posts that made me look at GLH... thanks for the push! I know there has been quite a bit of debate about penetration of light and lollipop plants properly to get 1W diodes to grow great. and yes, it's true if you properly train your plants 1W diodes grow them great. but with penetration of the GLH in these photos, who needs to train plants!! I am very impressed with the penetration!!Yeah it isn't exactly a fair comparison, at best the weaker panel is actually 120w with 1w diodes (most likely its 90-100 with fans) while the GLH is 180w -12 for fans into 3w LEDs at about 1.9-2w each. But you sure as shit will grow better with 180w of 3w diodes than 180w of 1w diodes! Have fun with that thing, its gonna rock!
But you just got your GLH right? Are those 1w LED plants? They look pretty impressive either way! here are some pics of my most impressive GLH/LED LST plant I have right now. To be fair though I used Mykos and Azos, but it still seems to be a superior veg light and flower lightThanks for the vote of confidence dude!!! It was your posts that made me look at GLH... thanks for the push! I know there has been quite a bit of debate about penetration of light and lollipop plants properly to get 1W diodes to grow great. and yes, it's true if you properly train your plants 1W diodes grow them great. but with penetration of the GLH in these photos, who needs to train plants!! I am very impressed with the penetration!!
So those pics were grown with a 1w diode panel plus CFL, but in that picture is with only the 180w GLH is on?yea, my plants have been flowered with 1W diodes and CFL's. I have been using this for over a year now and have been perpetual for 7 months now. i get about 20-30 grams dry per plant. I hope to get 30-40 now.
but those photos are of the new GLH panel that i just got today. but before that, yes, I have been using my original Chinese model tri band 1W 120 diode panel. I will be using the old panel for my veg cabinet and drop all the CFL's. I will be saving about 300 Watts a day!!!! that $525.00 will pay itself off in 18 months!!!!
but look at that light penitration... soil and perlite isn't normally purple!!!
yep, 100% true. If ya get some time... check out my thread in my sig.... great pics on pages 1,2,4,12,20... and just about any Thursday night posts... except for tonight... I don't have one for tonight... next Thursday i have a wonder woman to harvest!!So those pics were grown with a 1w diode panel plus CFL, but in that picture is with only the 180w GLH is on?
something i thought i would share.... I have been using a 120W(not sure of the draw, maybe around 70W) chinese made tri band panel that i bought from ebay about a year ago. I have been flowering with it along with eight 27W CFL's. it has worked okay for me... not huge yields but good enough for me. well today i just got a new sprectra 180 panel!!!!! i thought i would share the photo of the side by side.
I'm not looking to get ridiculed by this post... just want to share a photo to show 1W diodes and 3W diodes
if 3w isn't true then why is OSRAM popping out almost a 5w single-chip diode
http://catalog.osram-os.com/catalogue/catalogue.do?favOid=000000030002a14801f30023&act=showBookmark
OSRAM being one of the top led manufacturers on the globe
dude all the pics on their site are way out of date, this is what they really look like (although some are smaller) they definitely don't look like 3 1w chips put together anymore. I can't take good pics but if you look up close its definitely NOT three 1w diodes in a dome claimed as 3w. The real 180w should have around 85 3w diodes, the first 180w of 2011 had a mix of 2w and 3w but a total of 100 (not sure what how many the new ones have since they moved to all 3w?). Didn't someone just post here they got a GLH 180w? They can tell us!stoney- thanks for the pic. This is either going to prove my point for the people who want to know the truth about 1W power dies, or simply reinforce the believers of the 3W myth, see below.
First off, let me say I think this GLH guy is probably the most honest of the LED sellers out there- well, anyway, I think he is trying hard. I am not here to shill for his product and will rag when necessary. So I think everybody can see the difference in relative light intensity between the two fixtures in the picture. I went on the GLH site and counted the # of emitters on the 180 product offering- by my count (stopping the product scroll on the 180 product he has on his site) I get a 12 x 15 array of emitters, 180pcs. The claimed Wattage is 180W. Do the math, last time I checked, 180/ 180 = 1. 1 Watt each. Not sure if the 180 claimed Watts is the AC input power or the DC power that actually feeds the LED dies- but this guy has been 'relatively' straight forward in his marketing so I will give him the benefit of the doubt here and assume that the 180 is the true DC power to the LED's.
This guy is using Epistar dies in his product- he has said as much in other forums (i.e. Setting Sun on 420). I am familiar with these dies- we have used gazillions of them in our products. These Epistar dies come in 40 and 45 mil^2 sizes, depending on which process die you are ordering. Yes, that's right, the approx. 1mm^2, 1W package that I have been referring to. And what power level is he apparently running them at? 1W (unless the picture/ LED arrangement on his web site is not correct for the new model). These are true, 1W power dies. But the GLH guy advertises he is using '3W' LED's. I feel sorry for the guy- you have to 'stretch' the truth to keep up with all the idiots on Ebay selling their so-called 3W and 5W et all, Chinese made/ engineered products. And the marketing and sales guys- not the engineers- have got the conversation totally focussed on this LED Watt thing that tells you NOTHING about the quality of light generated or the actual serviceable lifetime of the fixture.
You gonna believe your own eyes? Which one is better- the Ebay unit with the so-called 1W dies, or the GLH unit with the true 1W power dies? This is the difference between, again, what me and Dunit and sierrajames have been talking about all along- die efficiency. The marketing and sales people have stuck everybody with a virtually useless metric by which to judge a grow light with so you will buy it over the Internet- 3W this and 5W that- BS. LED Watt ratings at this level is for the consumption of the ignorant- but it is working, because that's all people want to talk about. If you really wanna know why LED's have been trashed in the forums it is because they are using junk LED dies in many of the products- under powered from an emitted radiation standpoint and not well matching the wavelength emissions to the photosynthetic needs of the plant. I would take a fixture employing true, high quality 1W power dies any day over any of the so-called 3W whatevers they got out there- there is a huge difference.
Now for the rag time, to make sure everyone knows I shill for no one-
Epistar dies are mid-range quality dies, but they are good quality dies. After running and testing millions of them, I can tell you they do not, overall in large qty's test population, perform as well as an equivalent lateral (or planar) die like a Bridgelux for example, but they are cheaper. And no, they are not even close to a solid vertically structured die like Cree (amongst others), particularly in thermal performance. But they are A LOT cheaper than Cree, and they are all over China, so they are easy to get. Additionally, Epistar does not make dies which would cover the entire spectral bandwidth required for photosynthesis, so what they are using to fill in the gaps, I do not know.
And yes, you can over-drive these Epistar dies (more current, or more Watts, or however you want to describe this) beyond 1W, to the degree which the fixture cooling system will allow vs. what you consider the acceptable service lifetime of the fixture to be- but again, this becomes very tricky- it comes at the expense of LED lifetime and reliability. If you don't care about the life of the light source, then go ahead, burn 'em up, crank those Watts. Your injection efficiency will drop precipitously and the lifetime will be short- but hey, you sold the thing over the Internet, so who cares- this seems to be the attitude of some of these sellers out there.
stoney- again, thanks for the comparison shot. I can tell you, honestly, I think you got a much better product with GLH which uses true 1W power dies vs. the 1W whatevers you got on Ebay. Let us know how it goes for you. I hope this product performs for you, good luck.
Dude we need you to count the number of LEDs on your new 180w GLH, I'm guessing its going to be 80-86?yep, 100% true. If ya get some time... check out my thread in my sig.... great pics on pages 1,2,4,12,20... and just about any Thursday night posts... except for tonight... I don't have one for tonight... next Thursday i have a wonder woman to harvest!!
Great Product line. GLH FTW!!Hey guys just thought id stop by and let you know whats up with my LED panels to clear up any confusion. I know the website needs to be updated and I do have a new website under construction its just taking forever. Anyway here you guys go.
This information is for the new 2011 Spectra LED models:
· [FONT="]True 45mL 3watt LED chips EPI-Star (unlike competitors that claim use 3w chips but actually use 1watt chips).[/FONT]
· [FONT="]True Spectrum with true 12 wavelengths. Many companies advertize they use a number of colors they actually dont. The wavelengths of these panels are 22% blue, 3% white, and 75% red spectrum[/FONT]
· [FONT="]Each LED uses a 90 degree lens that provides an optimum combination of core coverage, spectrum saturation, cross banding, and penetration of up to 36 inches.[/FONT]
· [FONT="]Fail Safe Technology, a Spectra LED grow lights exclusive, allows for easy replacement of failed LEDs. This prevents loosing full rows of lights when one LED fails. [/FONT]
· [FONT="]Detachable power cord[/FONT]
· [FONT="]Wide Voltage Technology - allows anyone of my led panels to work with any plug around the world and voltage from 60v to 280v.
[/FONT]Spectra LED 100w / 60 led's, True draw around 106w
Spectra LED 180w / 100 led's, True draw around 185w
Spectra LED 290w / 160 led's, True draw around 301w
Spectra LED 500w / 252 led's True draw around 508w
Also wanted to add if theirs any improvements you guys think I can make in regards to my company and Spectra LED please e-mail me and let me know, Customer Satisfaction is #1 priority! If you guys have any more questions please feel free to e-mail me at Sales@growLEDhydro.com
Thanks for the support!