Good morning OG. I have been provided a tent and light from Mars Hydro and have decided to do a little test of the gear prior to my grow. What we will be looking at is the Mars 4X4 tent and FC 6500 Bar light. This is a 650 Watt 8 bar light using Samsung 301B and Osram diodes. I will set the tent up, set up the light, test for light leaks, and take some par readings with my quantum par meter. So let’s get started. This is what we have to work with.
Now the items were packed well. I am a bit confused by the info on the light. When looking at the Mars site it says it draws 680w yet when you look at Amazon or in the manual it says 650w. 650w is in line with the 6500 name it was given.
Mars site. “【High-Quality Efficient LEDs Chips】2688Pcs Best-Selling Samsung LM301B and Osram 660nm LEDs chips, consuming 680w power, High Efficiency Up to 2.8 µmol/J.”
Amazon site. " * MAXIMIZE YIELDS & CROP QUALITY: FC6500 LED growing light with 2688pcs Samsung LM301B & Osram 660nm Diodes, boast the market-leading efficiency 2.8 µmol/J, Max 2.5g yield per wattage with 30% higher Average PPFD,achieve 50% higher yield & quality compared with the old lights! Only consumes 650w,recommend 5x5ft for personal grow, perfect light for 4x4ft flowering."
Defiantly something odd there. Will hook the light up to a Killawatt to see what the actual draw is and report later.
The light came in 2 pieces, the main light and the driver. It took just under 45 min for me to unbox and set up both the tent and light. This was longer than it should have been but I had to hang the light twice. Here is what it looked like with the tent up and using the provided hangers.
Now as you can see they provided 2 hangers, one for each end. They connect to the 2 corners and than to a ratchet cord. I did not like this setup at all. It is a bit unstable and the extra length from the v cables that attach to the light leave the light hanging way to low for me. It basically cuts off 1/3 of the tent. I took the light down and changed to 4 ratchet straps, 1 for each corner, allowing for a much better installation.
As you can see from the pic the 4 ratchet straps raise the light much higher but still leave decent clearance so light is not too close to top of tent. To me this is a much better setup than the one provided.
So far the tent zippers glide well and the tent itself seems like good quality. It was also easy to set up. Tonight I will power up the light, test the power draw, check for light leaks, get some Par readings and report back. One thing to note is the light takes up the whole 4x4. A 5x5 might be a better size for this light but it defiantly does fit in a 4x4 so that is what I will be using. Stay tuned and I will post the results of the tests tonight.
The hydro shop said “no problem”