Return my 90w ufo?

Ok heres the deal I bought one of these 90w quad band ufo leds off eBay. They say how great the are and have 100% feedback where many others say how good their lights are. Well I had my seedlings under the ufo for several days after taking them out from my cfls and didnt see as much growth as I did with them only under 3 26watt daylight cfls. I was like wtf? So I added 4 26w daylight cfls to the ufo and growing started up again.

For as much as they hop these things up, Im not really happy with them.

Im considering sending this ufo back as it was $200 and I cant tell if its doing much.

Should I do an experiment and remove the ufo and leave the cfls and see what happens or just give up on the leds?
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Any posts made by me are purely fictional in nature and by no means is anything I say to be taken seriously. I do not grow or condone the growing of anything not legal. Any and all pictures I post are pictures widley available on the internet and any discussions I am involved in are purely hypothetical or are commentary in nature and should not constitute advice or be considered advice to assist in activities that are deemed illegal.

There's at least a dozen companies making these UFO things. I know some folks on this board have some that work surprisingly well for $200. Others are dogs. That's why I just build my own--I don't know which ones are which. :confused: But if you use top grade components and tune 'em in right, leds rock. :thumbsup: Ain't cheap, though. 3 bucks a watt for the top-end stuff: $2/W for the diodes and another $1 /W for the power supplies. But 125 watts of those will BURY a 250W HPS.

The quad-band thing could be marketing BS. The only 4 band that makes sense to me is royal blue / blue / red /deep red. Course that's just 2 fat bands, blue and red, IMO. Lotsa peeps wantin' white LEDs added these days. If they knew how a white led is made, they wouldn't....

Depending on the beam angle the lenses are providing, you might be hitting the seedlings with enough light to stop them in their tracks. Did you move the UFO up so you could fit the CFL's in, and then they started growing again? Some lights will actually put out too much light if you get them to close, because of the lensing.

Give us some more info and somebody will offer an opinion. There are definitely led growlights out there that suck. Others are just vastly overpriced. That's why you hear "LED's don't work!" so often. But there are really effective ones (T1 Smartlamp, Procyon 100) available, and some decent UFO's for $200.

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Originally Posted by DreadedHermie

There's at least a dozen companies making these UFO things. I know some folks on this board have some that work surprisingly well for $200. Others are dogs. That's why I just build my own--I don't know which ones are which. :confused: But if you use top grade components and tune 'em in right, leds rock. :thumbsup: Ain't cheap, though. 3 bucks a watt for the top-end stuff: $2/W for the diodes and another $1 /W for the power supplies. But 125 watts of those will BURY a 250W HPS.

The quad-band thing could be marketing BS. The only 4 band that makes sense to me is royal blue / blue / red /deep red. Course that's just 2 fat bands, blue and red, IMO. Lotsa peeps wantin' white LEDs added these days. If they knew how a white led is made, they wouldn't....

Depending on the beam angle the lenses are providing, you might be hitting the seedlings with enough light to stop them in their tracks. Did you move the UFO up so you could fit the CFL's in, and then they started growing again? Some lights will actually put out too much light if you get them to close, because of the lensing.

Give us some more info and somebody will offer an opinion. There are definitely led growlights out there that suck. Others are just vastly overpriced. That's why you hear "LED's don't work!" so often. But there are really effective ones (T1 Smartlamp, Procyon 100) available, and some decent UFO's for $200.

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Wow thanks for answering! Its like a ghost town on every board lately.

I actually added 4 26w cfls to the 90w ufo. Seem to be doing good now.

I have the ufo about 1.5 feet up now, you think thats good?

I contacted seller today and he said people love their leds and they have 6000 pos feedback, so maybe Im doing something wrong? He seemed like a cool guy and offered a refund even though I am out of their refund timing. He said Im the 1st to ever complain.

The bulbs are blue, dark blue, red and orange.

1.5 feet's prolly good. If you had it real close before that might have been the problem. Try this: turn off the other lights in the room and start out with the UFO on, and real close to the floor. Now slowly start raising it up and watch what happens to the light footprint. Does it stay pretty tight as you raise the light, like the beam of a spotlight? Or does the light spread all over quickly as you raise the light, with a softer pattern?

If the beam stays tight, they've prolly got those emitters lensed @ 60 degrees or less. Lights like that you treat more like a HID--you can (should) get further away to let the light spread out a bit. The beam stays tight and the light hits hard and gives better penetration. Procyons are like that. Get 'em too close and the plant just stands still.

If the light is evenly distributed and spreads all over the place as you raise it, you may have "lambertian" light distribution pattern, which simply is a 140 degree spread. 180 degrees is everywhichway except backwards, so that's as wide a beam as you're likely to encounter. Lights so equipped work best if you use 'em like flouro tubes-- gotta get as close as you can, but because the LED's are so cool running you can get real close. These lights give excellent coverage and are very even and very forgiving.

I like 'em, myself (well, up to 90 degrees or so) but if you get them too far away it doesn't seem like they've got any ooomph at all. If you try to run them from 18 inches away they scatter the light all over the place, and seem totally weak. 3-6" is more like it with hi-power diodes. You can get the low power ones almost touching, but that's a PIA.

Give it a try and let us know how the light spreads.

I couldn't find a quad-band seller on the Bay with that many feedbacksa, so I still don't know which model you've got. And no LED manufacturer that I know of makes anything called dark blue. Deep blue, maybe?

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Originally Posted by texashustle

Wow thanks for answering! Its like a ghost town on every board lately.

I actually added 4 26w cfls to the 90w ufo. Seem to be doing good now.

I have the ufo about 1.5 feet up now, you think thats good?

I contacted seller today and he said people love their leds and they have 6000 pos feedback, so maybe Im doing something wrong? He seemed like a cool guy and offered a refund even though I am out of their refund timing. He said Im the 1st to ever complain.

The bulbs are blue, dark blue, red and orange.

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the feedback could be a little confusing too. just because they ship it when they say they are gonna and it get's there okay doesn't mean that it's a quality product.

i'm no ebay expert though.


top notch info DH!

"you must spread some rep around before repping DH again....."


-shake

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Originally Posted by DreadedHermie

1.5 feet's prolly good. If you had it real close before that might have been the problem. Try this: turn off the other lights in the room and start out with the UFO on, and real close to the floor. Now slowly start raising it up and watch what happens to the light footprint. Does it stay pretty tight as you raise the light, like the beam of a spotlight? Or does the light spread all over quickly as you raise the light, with a softer pattern?

If the beam stays tight, they've prolly got those emitters lensed @ 60 degrees or less. Lights like that you treat more like a HID--you can (should) get further away to let the light spread out a bit. The beam stays tight and the light hits hard and gives better penetration. Procyons are like that. Get 'em too close and the plant just stands still.

If the light is evenly distributed and spreads all over the place as you raise it, you may have "lambertian" light distribution pattern, which simply is a 140 degree spread. 180 degrees is everywhichway except backwards, so that's as wide a beam as you're likely to encounter. Lights so equipped work best if you use 'em like flouro tubes-- gotta get as close as you can, but because the LED's are so cool running you can get real close. These lights give excellent coverage and are very even and very forgiving.

I like 'em, myself (well, up to 90 degrees or so) but if you get them too far away it doesn't seem like they've got any ooomph at all. If you try to run them from 18 inches away they scatter the light all over the place, and seem totally weak. 3-6" is more like it with hi-power diodes. You can get the low power ones almost touching, but that's a PIA.

Give it a try and let us know how the light spreads.

I couldn't find a quad-band seller on the Bay with that many feedbacksa, so I still don't know which model you've got. And no LED manufacturer that I know of makes anything called dark blue. Deep blue, maybe?

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Yeah deep blue is what he said. I'll take my light out tommorow and see what it does. He said hes out right now of them so all he has is other leds and some hps his name is sunlighthydro

Hey guys I'm a newb on this site...Just signed up today after reading your posts. I just got a 90 watt quad band ufo led grow light from a dude on ebay and since puting my plants under it they are starting to look really flimsy, and not really growing. This thing is bright as fuck, and it looks like it should do the trick...but just like the other dude who posted on here, every time I take the cfls away for a day the leaves start to look darker green and a little flimsy. The leds are 63red, 9blue, 9orange, and 9white. the sheet of paper I got with it says its got a 120* beam angle.

Any help would be great!:rastasmoke:

well i have never grown with led but as dreaded hermie just posted to or three post earlier scroll up. 120 deg would mean put that light real close like inches from top of canapy.
Just my obeservation but i think that to get any use out of these lights you would have to grow sog or scrog.



my juestion to dreaded hermie is that i know there are 4 wave lengths that plants use two blue like 460 and 4353 or somthing and two red like 630 and 660 or there abouts WHAT WAVE LENGTHS ARE BEST FOR FLOWERRING AND VEG. I MEAN I THINK THE CALL A PAIR PHOTHSOMTHING A AND B MAYBE IT CHLORAFORM A AND BE , ANYWAY PUFF PUFF IS A BETTER FOR VEG OR BE OR IS A COMBO FOR BOTH CYCLES LIKE 40 %A IN VEG AND 63%A IN FLOWWERING .....

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MAYBE IT CHLORAFORM A AND B

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Ahh, the sweet sting of chloroform.

That's why Hermie's eyes water after sex.

But, I'm not supposed to talk about that. Part of the plea deal... I'm sure everyone understands... :wtf:

Anyway, I like 660nm deep reds and 465nm blues for flower, about an 8:1 ratio. More blues inhibit stretch; more red stimulates late flowering with the strains I've worked with.

I use fluoros for veg, but somewhere around 2 reds to 1 blue would be in the ball park. (Procyons are 40:16, which is 2.5:1, disregarding the fact that the reds and blues are different type of emitters.)

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Any help would be great!

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abbazabba, if you fill out the form in my sig and start a separate thread people will try to figure out what you've got goin' on. Pics would help, and one of the spec sheet you got with your light might be interesting. But a meaningful answer begs more background info. Soil / hydro? Veg / flower? Etc.

Because the spec sheet says they're 120 deg doesn't make it so. Chinese LED specs are frequently unreliable.

I got one of those UFOs from that dude on ebay to try LED out. Has been working great for me. My first grow with it I used two 26w CFLs for light supplement based on someones advice. Worked great in veg and flower. I actually let the main cola get within 6" of it and it seemed to "burn" the leaves so I had to back it off a bit.
Second grow was hydro under it and vegged it for the most part with just the LED but some CFL light every now and then. On my third grow with it and was vegging a single plant fine at about 10-12" away.