I just can’t help but to say WOW on the 30mm SMD chip.
Keep smiling
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The sooner we can get the site bill covered the quicker we can stop looking at this trash huh? 
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Thank you, @Zoey
Following up on your comments.
For the first item, many of us understand the blue/red rationale. Thanks for the description, it is helpful to those who might be wondering why blue/red. FWIW, I was describing your previous generation of fixtures that produced what is termed, “blurple”. The pure blue/red combo. We also understand that there are certain benefits to having a more balanced spectra overall. It is why the newer broad spectrum fixtures are particularly interesting to me, at least, and probably to others too.
For the second item: Yes, the fixture was received very quickly on the East Coast of the US from the NJ warehouse as described and as noted in the OP. You’ve done well building a distribution network as far as I can tell.
For the third item:
I was wondering about the specific Epistar part numbers being utilized and I do understand that Mars is utilizing the newer SMD parts.
For instance, from the original die photos (under color palette in the OP):
As an example, what would the Epistar part number be for the UV LED? And the other colors. This informs us of the power, thermal, and life expectancy of the Epistar OEM parts by being able to refer to their datasheets. The die diagram for the ES-EAUVF45H, for instance, doesn’t seem to match the photo and, as such, we can’t really tell easily (which doesn’t mean anything other than we can’t tell).
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@Northern_Loki have you had a chance to get plants growing under this light yet ?
Any more info into you evaluation as of yet? Great report so far thanks for your time put into this .
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Well, I’m not planning on a grow log dedicated for this fixture anytime in the near future as I’m busy on other efforts. In the long run, I’ll provide any additional impressions though I may be using this unit as a supplemental source.
I do believe that there may be some other folk on OG that are considering a side-by-side run.
My technical evaluation is pretty much complete pending any updates, information, or other comments from the manufacturer. There is some missing verification and stuff. I will post any new info here as it becomes available.
I did receive a response from Mars recently regarding the Epistar part numbers and they have stated that the information on spectrum and parts numbers are considered company proprietary. So be it. Unfortunately, as a result, I’m unable to independently verify the OEM pedigree of the LEDs at this time. I’ll see if I can make some additional inquiries to validate the manufacturer info.
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Your opinion on this light from a growers perspective is it worth the money? I know there is more expensive and higher quality lights on the market for professional growers ,
With such a detailed report you’ve provided
@Zoey should hook you up with there top of the line light at there expense ,
Also if you have no use of growing with it once you’ve completed your testing it could be raffled off and proceeds could be used for the web site expenses / server fund !
(Sell 5/10 dollar tickets ) would raise some cash and get it into a growers garden making it a triple win for mars,overgrow and a lucky winner .
I personally would like to see the evaluation of there high end light if it will stand up in a commercial environment .
Thanks again for your time that it took to post this informative report .
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I’m something of a drunken sailor when it comes to these things so I tend to be careful to avoid making comparisons to other folks impressions on the worth of their money. Doing so would just open me up to be blamed for an individual bad experience or the occasional over-inflated expectations. I will say this fixture is well-built and appears to be competitively priced relative to the output power (as a non-DIY fixture) and have made such comments in the OP.
So, there is a bunch of test data provided. This is useful for making comparisons against other vendors along with determining if the fixture meets the OEM specs. I’ve also made some comments in there on my impressions along with areas that could use additional clarity.
Individuals should read over the OP to determine if the form factor, the DLI, along with the test data/comments will make such a unit suitable for their needs. Reliability data is not known at this time.
This unit will not compete with the individual DLI capabilities of a commercial or higher-end OEM fixtures but having high DLI from a single fixture should not always be the goal. Hence, spreading the light across units is sometimes the better approach. The room configuration will also have an impact.
If there are more specific questions on the measurement stuff, I (or others) will do my best to help.
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The following data files are raw data as captured for the Mars SP-250. Data Files for reference:
Calibration_Data_SW1.pdf (76.8 KB)
Mars_SP250_Full_Spectrum.pdf (95.9 KB)
Dark_Spectrum.pdf (98.9 KB)
These can be utilized with the following C++ source for generation of the lighting metrics (saving/copying the data as a csv):
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