I need to purchase some lights for a flower room. What are the best leds these days? Please give some reasons, dont just say hlg!
I am currently running gavita1700e and luxx 645. I have it pretty much narrowed down to 6-Bar 680w Mammoth Lighting Mint White Series with Emerald Green + Red Terp Boost Spectrum or the Photobio mx2. I am having a hard time finding out a lot of information about either light. I am always open to suggestion. TIA.
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I don’t have an opinion myself, but I’ve heard many others talk about choosing the brand/type of diode is more important than the brand name of the light.
I’m also curious how the LED game is going to change now that Samsung is bowing out.
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LM301H Evo’s are the diodes that you want. I personally use Kingbrite since I can max out on the amount of panels.
1000W $700 shipped
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I personally went with a mammoth 8 bar 880w for my 5x5 as far as good options there’s
Mammoth 6 bar -700
Mammoth 8bar -850
Grandmaster led 800-1000
Cypress evo 8 1k
Hlg scorpion or the ultimate one(think it’s excessive and overpriced) 750-1500
Fohse pieces 900w -825
These would be my personal choices I think mammoth and grandmaster are leading in the American/ Canada market I’d stay way from Chinese brands (sf mars etc ) unless going alibaba cheep route
The ones with added green would be rhe cypress evo the mammoth and the ultima
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I’ve done a good bit of homework here. There are a few good options out there for sure. I ended up with these from HighGrove Lighting. I feel like they’re a little overkill for my 4x4s and would be better suited to a 5x5 but they are certainly doing the job well! Here’s a link:
On another hand, there are some awesome spectrum tuning options from California Lightworks. Then there are some great PAR maps from Grandmaster LED.
I am happy with my HighGrove purchase — they have a good warranty but the price tag to boot. That said, there are several good options out there. You can save some $ and still get good results with several choices.
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This year, I bought my first led. It’s a Mammoth 8 bar 880w mint white
emerald green series. Bright as F… is their slogan. They are very bright.
For the last 45 years I’ve used 1000w MH and HPS lamps in various fixtures. Some from the early 80’s had an umbrella style reflector and the lamps screwed in vertically. Then in the 90’s fixtures where the light hung horizontally and used a u shaped reflector on top. Then I graduated to fixtures that were covered with glass lenses with a through vent design. All were 1000w MH and HPS. Sylvania Hortilux lamps. Then led’s happened.
I resisted for quite a few years before breaking down and getting one.
I narrowed my choices to 3 brands. Gravita, HLG Scorpion Diablo, and Mammoth. Mammoth won because of the pricing. All were very pricey compared to the fixtures I had been using.
The Mammoths were so bright that it took me a few weeks to figure out I had the dimmer cranked too high at 90 percent in veg. That was too much. When I dialed it back to 30 to 40 percent, they did much better in veg. After cutting back the lights to 13’s, not 12’s, as was suggested by studies that Mammoth sited for flower, I turned up the dimmer to 80 to 90 percent. The plants are doing great. I’m saving $ on my electric bill and they have surpassed my expectations. The 880w 8 bar fixture just fits in my 4x4.
Pics
GMO - Trichs galore. Day 58
GMO - Cap Junky - Freakshow - Meat Breath - Pure Michigan
Day 64
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Just did this myself but shopped on the lower end 
Best par map and price was the Philson 640w bar light
As my first LED all I can say is I Am Happy and so are the girls !
Hawaiian Snow
Columbian Gold
Maui Wowie
Good luck with your purchase !
Cheers
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I myself use Mars Hydro lights for flower & am pleased with everything.
“Best” lights? --my opinion, I’d go with MIGRO. Couple of reasons: #1 he is very active in the community as a light compnay owner & provides LOTS of info and I support that. #2 MIGRO is kinda like the Progressive Insurance of light companies, they compare their equipment to many other manufacturers & most of the time their light isn’t even the top pick in the metrics, based on cost or overall efficiency/intensity etc. MIGRO lights will always rate very highly across the board, though. #3 it’s just a really nice looking product IMO 
LEDs are getting so affordable even compared to a couple years ago (my light, the Mars FCE 4800 was like $439 when it came out, I believe regular price is already under $400 and they always have tons of sales on top of that)
Pro-tip: Wait until major sales, 4/20 probably being the biggest, before you purchase if it’s something that can wait.
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Ive been running a Mammoth LED for 6 or 7 years now, and its fantastic. Its the only LED Ive come across that consistently hits the same yields as HPS
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Of the LED’s I’ve tried I like my PhotonTek x600w pro’s the best. Their x1000w pro was too much for my space (they recommend co2 supplementation). But the x600w is perfect. I’m matching or surpassing my yields from my old 1000w single ended HPS lights. I also don’t seem to deal with as many issues with light stress and/or deficiencies (compared to some other LEDs I’ve tried) under the photontek’s.
I like that they come with a 5 year warranty, and that each light bar is individually replaceable and removable.
They’ve had some wicked good sales on the x600w pro recently too. I’ve seen it as cheap as +/- $650.
I paid $900 when I bought them.
My only minor pet peeve with them is that they only come with a 0/25/50/75/100 dimmer and they don’t sell a cheap 0-100% dimmer for their lights + use a 3 prong plug in so the aftermarket ones aren’t plug&play. They sell a lighting coltroller but it’s like $300. F that. lol
I’ve been thinking of possibly trying mammoth next. We’ll see though. I really do like the PhotonTek’s. I just wish I could get a 0-100 dimmer for it. I looked into making my own but couldn’t find the 3 prong m12 connectors photontek uses.
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Did you guys hear SAMSUNG is getting out of the LED market as early as next year?? 
. Look it up. Swear. I think it’s crazy. TVs and everything by like 2030 but the LEDs we use, they’re stopping early or late 2025
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BUGGER!!! Thats bad news, I just checked it out and apparently their profit margin isnt fat enough anymore.
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I have california lightworks solar sytem with the controller and its really nice, can automate the entire grow
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Fluence has good lights and this price is very good.
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Massive buds you got there, really nice stuff.
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Whatever you pick try to stay away from all the cheaps chinese shit. Every led light is only as good as its ballast… even Meanwell ballasts have a good warranty on them, despite them having a production run of garbage drivers about 5 years ago…
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Here’s how to choose the best light, which one LOOKS the coolest? I run a Kind 420 because it LOOKS cool. Yeah, it’s a great light, too, but it’s also sexy as heck.
Buy any LED over $300 bucks, from any major brand, and you’ll be fine. Ignore the “it’s Chinese” arguments, they’re ALL Chinese.
At a certain price point, it’s ALL subjective. All are controllable, just about all are dimmable, all have great spectrums, and running an HLG vs Kind vs Photon vs fill in the blank, won’t make a hairs difference in your grow space. That’s just fact. It’s like asking, who makes the best $1000 guitar? They all do the same thing, but sound is subjective to the listener.
Just sayin’. The “what’s the best grow light” discussion has been dead for about 5 years now. Prior to that, there were a lot of differences. No longer. It’s just playing around the edges of your grow. Buy any good one, and you’ll be fine. Grow Light Depot is an excellent source, pick one. As long as it looks cool!
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Agree with @Dieseldog381 fully on this
LED Grow lights are kinda like cars. … “Best” is subjective on many levels and you don’t have to spend a ton of money anymore to get solid performance
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With all that said, just match your light to your grow space, if you have a 4x4 tent you need a light that will flower strongly in a 4x4 and corrispondingly veg a 5x5 space. If it will veg in a 4x4 it will only flower in a 3x3 space.
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What Jango said.
Just plug in your space, then look for the coolest looking light shape and size for your space. 
. I bought the Kind 420 because it fits a 2 x 4 space perfectly. 400 watts is overkill for that space, but I’ve always liked a lot of horsepower, lol. HPS did that to me.
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