Lighting LED BUYER WORKSHEET! LED HYPE ENDS HERE! Now EVERYONE can compare any LED fixture in 5 minutes flat!

[Black Sail]

Good morning AFN, I have a present for you:smoking:

The LED Buyer's Worksheet is a single-page, 5 question, fill-in-the-blank worksheet that gives you the power to make an informed decision when you buy an LED growlight.

No prior knowledge required! Even a first-day LED newcomer can use this powerful tool. The worksheet includes a brief breakdown, letting you know why each question is important and the range of answers you're looking for in a high-quality, reasonably-priced light. Happy growing!

DOWNLOAD A PRINTABLE VERSION FROM MY WEBSITE


Question 1. What is the wattage consumed at the wall at full power?

Answer 1. _____________W



Question 2. What is the cost in Dollars per Watt?

(Fixture Price divided by Answer 1)

Answer 2. _____________$/W



Question 3. What is the efficiency in micromoles per joule (umol/J) at full power?

Answer 3. _____________umol/J



Question 4. What is the operating temperature (Fahrenheit) of the heatsink at full power? (78F ambient room temperature)

Answer 4. _____________F

4B. ACTIVE-COOLED or PASSIVE-COOLED?



Question 5. What is the color temperature on the Kelvin Scale?

Answer 5. _____________K

 

[Black Sail]

LED BUYER'S WORKSHEET BREAKDOWN

Question 1. You need to be very specific about this. Wattage drawn at the wall at full power is what you want to know. It doesn't matter if the name says LED5000. If it draws 400 Watts at the wall then it's really an LED400.



Question 2. Divide the cost of the fixture by the wattage (Cost-of-Fixture/Wattage) and you get dollars per watt, $/W.

Using dollars per watt allows us to compare the price of every LED fixture, no matter what its size or wattage is.

For example, The Cannon is a 240W fixture, and with your 10% off coupon code the price is $315.

So $315/240W = $1.31 per watt for a single Cannon with the 10% off coupon code: ARRR! )

You can get a top of the line fixture with super-high efficiency and cool controls/features for $2-$2.25 per watt. You can DIY or get a Cannon for $1.25-$1.50 per watt.


Low End (DIY, The Cannon) = $1.25 to $1.50 per watt

High End (Top shelf board/strip fixtures) = $2-$2.25 per watt



Question 3. Be specific about the units here, you need the umol/J (pronounced micro-moles per jewel). The umol/J just means light per watt. It's a way to measure the efficiency.

You don't even need to know what it means, just know that if you're paying top-shelf prices ($2 per watt or more) you should be up around the top of the scale at 2.3-2.4. Anything below 1.7umol/J is a bad fixture, save the money and get a 1000W DE HPS.


Brand New Double Ended 1000 Watt HPS = 1.7umol/J

The Cannon = 2.0umol/J

High-End LED Pucks/Boards = 2.3-2.4umol/J



Question 4. The cooler the LED the more efficently it runs, so a cool heatsink is very important! A high-quality fixture should stay at or below 145F.

The Cannon = 120F passively

50 Watt CXB3590 on a 140mm pin heatsink = 95F passively

75 Watt Vero29 on a 140mm pin heatsink = 135F passively

Active cooling means you use fans, passive cooling means you don't. If you want to keep the noise down and save wattage, get a passively cooled fixture.



Question 5. This is a very basic rundown. For full spectrum LED's, the ideal range is from 3000K (on the red/flower end) to 5000K (on the blue/veg end). 3500K is great for full cycle growth. The Cannon comes in 3500K. Full credit to Growmau5 for showing us the way on this.

An LED will cost the same for the manufacturer no matter what color it is, so spectrum shouldn't have much effect on the price.

Plant responses to spectrum are very strain specific so there is no "magic spectrum". Mixing 3000K, 3500K, and 5000K will give you all the color and all the control you need.

Supplementing 730nm Far Red is the most notable exception here. The results justify the expense, I've done the experiments myself. You can supplement Far Red over a

4' x 4' area for about $50-$100.

 

[Mizzo81]

Nice write up.

 

[KonopCh]

I made my DIY strips with 1.1 €/W with all stuff what I need (wires, connectors, even iron soldering in that price).
2.7 umol/s.

 

[Burn victim]

^^^ this guy should start his own company, rather then post “look what I can do “ on a vendors thread! Stay classy lol. No one was talking about strip lights, those fixtures would cost a shit load to ship for someone who didn’t want to diy.

 

[Black Sail]

Nice write up.

Thanks man! I hope it helps out, a lot of the LED newcomers I talk to feel overwhelmed

 

[Black Sail]

^^^ this guy should start his own company, rather then post “look what I can do “ on a vendors thread! Stay classy lol. No one was talking about strip lights, those fixtures would cost a shit load to ship for someone who didn’t want to diy.

Lol I get a lot of those, "guess what, I can do way better". If he can back it up with proof then I'll definitely give him props, those are some great numbers! I'm getting ready to ask him a few follow up questions, we'll see if he's legit:smoking:

 

[Black Sail]

I made my DIY strips with 1.1 €/W with all stuff what I need (wires, connectors, even iron soldering in that price).
2.7 umol/s.

Awesome work man! Thanks for chiming in, I always appreciate the feedback. Your grow looks great brotha.

I'm very familiar with the cost & efficiency of Samsung LM301B strips. I'm also very familiar with the time & effort it takes to build a DIY kit, and the cost of shipping parts from China to the U.S.... These were all factors I considered when I designed my light and started my company.

I think the vast majority of growers want a light they can just hang up and plug in. That's why my light comes assembled. The Cannon isn't for DIY builders, its purpose is to put the power and savings of DIY into the hands of everyone who doesn't have the time or inclination to get into building their own lights.

2.7umol/J is higher than any fixture I'm aware of, how did you arrive at those numbers? By my calculations 184 lumens per watt translates to about 2.5umol/J, not 2.7umol/J... By that math the Cannon (~150 lumens per watt) would be getting 2.2umol/J, did you raise your numbers because your strips are 3000K?

Even though it's inaccurate to do a dollar to dollar comparison between a DIY build and an assembled fixture, I don't think I come out too badly in the comparison:
1.1 Euros per watt = 1.25 dollars per watt, which is about how much you'll pay for a Cannon (depending on the options you select and the coupon codes you use). My goal has always been to match DIY prices in a completed fixture, so it looks like I'm still on point in that regard.

The trade off is that you get 2.0umol/J instead of 2.4-2.5. My experience as the customer service/ tech support rep. at Rapid LED taught me that most people don't care if they have 550W vs 600W covering their 4'x4' tent. If I'm reading your posts correctly it looks like you're using 650 Watts of your strips over a ~4'x~4' (120cm x 120cm) tent, why the extra wattage? Most people are doing 550W of samsung strips per 4'x4', are you supplementing CO2?

It's a long way from a DIY kit to a commercially available fixture. When you did your cost estimate did you factor in how much your time is worth and how long you spent on the build? Or on the amount of time and effort you spent acquiring the skill to do a DIY build, or figuring out which parts to buy and from where? If you were going to start a business selling these lights, what would the cost in dollars per watt be for your customers? Unless you're planning on doing all that work for free, it would be a lot more than $1.25 per watt.

At that point you're looking at selling a high-efficiency mid-power strip fixture for $2 per watt or more. I could absolutely build a light like that but there's several of them already on the market that I respect and consider to be a good deal. The Cannon is just a lot cheaper, easier to use, and I'm convinced that you get better results and better canopy penetration from a more powerful, single-point light source. It's also a lot easier to build, which is how I'm able to offer DIY prices in an assembled fixture.

Again, thanks for your input. I'm a DIY LED fanatic at heart and I love a good tech-talk battle:smoking: It looks like you really know what you're doing so hopefully we can keep it civil and learn from each other! Hopefully everyone who reads this can learn from our conversation too. I've had a few guys freak out and start calling me names when I ask them simple questions, which sucks because the forum and everbody on it loses out.

Happy growing brotha!

 

[Mizzo81]

Perfectly put

 

[Burn victim]

Learning from each other is what it’s all about, but I bet he don’t post that shit on a cobshop thread to share the knowledge! Lol.