So I just made the jump to LED. I am a little nervous to say the least. I decided that if I was going to go for it that there would be a few things I wanted to consider. The biggest one for me was a brick and mortar place that I could go to for questions. I did not want to spend that kind of money and have to deal with on-line crap back and forth. Second, I wanted a warranty on the lights. After a silly amount of research on the subject I decided togo with 2 LushLighting Dominators. The reason I switched was the ridiculous cost of HID lights. The heat generated and the electric bill were getting out of hand. I live in AZ so it is difficult to keep the temp even anyhow. The biggest challenge to starting this is the sheer lack of information on lights. Everything I found seemed to be sanctioned by whatever company made the lights. Well I dont work for Lush, never heard of them before I chose them and could care less if the company succeeds or fails. I am going to post one picture a week during my flowering and we can all judge this thing together.

A few notes. I have a 6 x 6 area. I am using 2 of these dominators and I am using a portable AC unit. I am no longer in need of venting lights so I am now just venting the AC. I have never used Co2 either. If you have any questions please let me know.

So this is the first Day.

Welcome to the forums!

I'm not sure how to approach this one; normally I would research a new light that I haven't heard of before and give my opinion on what I find but this one is so bad, with so many red flags, I'm not sure that you want to hear it. For your sake, I hope the light is better than the website. I certainly wouldn't pay 1000.00 each on one of those so I hope you got a better deal at your hydro shop too.


SME

Day1 Flowering

SisterMaryElephant wrote:Welcome to the forums!

I'm not sure how to approach this one; normally I would research a new light that I haven't heard of before and give my opinion on what I find but this one is so bad, with so many red flags, I'm not sure that you want to hear it. For your sake, I hope the light is better than the website. I certainly wouldn't pay 1000.00 each on one of those so I hope you got a better deal at your hydro shop too.


SME

Like I said, I did a vast amount of research on all LED lights available on the market. Being a guy who has been doing this for 20 years I do not go into things blindly, nor do I spend $2000 on a whim. Research on the internet turns up next to nothing on these lights (like many other brands) but when you look at the actual specs this one came out on top. Plus there is a 90 day warranty and I know the man that runs the shop I bought them from so if, after 12 weeks I am not happy I can always return them and go back to my HID lighting. Currently, the results are phenomenal though.

Day 7

Day 14.

Sorry, I am learning the posting system.... As you can see, so far the plant have filled out very very well in 14 days. I am amazed so far at how much easier it is to take care of them. Less water, less heat, less nutrients, less hassle. Please keep in mind that I am doing this simply because of how little information there is on a full grow cycle with a LE setup. I hope that this helps some people out there if they are trying to decide if they want to take the leap or not. In about 9 more weeks we should know how these turn out.

baguak wrote:

SisterMaryElephant wrote:I'm not sure how to approach this one; normally I would research a new light that I haven't heard of before and give my opinion on what I find but this one is so bad, with so many red flags, I'm not sure that you want to hear it. For your sake, I hope the light is better than the website. I certainly wouldn't pay 1000.00 each on one of those so I hope you got a better deal at your hydro shop too.

Like I said, I did a vast amount of research on all LED lights available on the market. Being a guy who has been doing this for 20 years I do not go into things blindly, nor do I spend $2000 on a whim. Research on the internet turns up next to nothing on these lights (like many other brands) but when you look at the actual specs this one came out on top. Plus there is a 90 day warranty and I know the man that runs the shop I bought them from so if, after 12 weeks I am not happy I can always return them and go back to my HID lighting. Currently, the results are phenomenal though.

I just saw way too many red flags and outright lies (I don't use that word lightly or often here either) to trust them myself. If they'll honor the return policy then you have nothing to lose. How much HID were you using before?

baguak wrote:I am amazed so far at how much easier it is to take care of them. Less water, less heat, less nutrients, less hassle. Please keep in mind that I am doing this simply because of how little information there is on a full grow cycle with a LE setup. I hope that this helps some people out there if they are trying to decide if they want to take the leap or not. In about 9 more weeks we should know how these turn out.

Their website says you'll need more water and but most LED growers report that they need less, like you do. That was one of the red flags. One tip: take some pictures in normal lighting so people can see the correct colors and judge how healthy the plants are. The LED overload is hard on the eyes sometimes. We have some complete grow journals using LED here but it's always nice to have more and with other lights. Helping people get good grows is one of the main reasons that I'm here...

Yeah, less heat = less evaporation = less water. It is difficult to get used to. If you stay on the same water cycle as the HID lights you will get root rot I imagine. As for the lights before, I ran 2, 1000W HPS units. This is a lot for such a small room and it was very hard to keep the temp regulated but it also produced well with that much light. I will take a picture tonight a few minutes before the lights come on to show the health of the plants.

The only other lights I considered were the Solerstorm lights but when I contacted them it took 2 days to get back to me. They were at a show or something which is fine but when you want me to spend a couple grand on lights, answer your phone. Also, if there is an issue with the lights I can not afford to go down for a week while I wait for a replacement, something a brick and mortar place offers is instant replacement. I also did not like the way the lights had the 55s in them, it looked like more of a gimmick (not saying it is) but the Dominator had the full LED spectrum built in. Another difference is that the controller board for the Dominator was warranted for 5 years vs 1 year with the Solerstorm. With LED lighting, this is going to be your problem and the ability to obtain and change the board will be priceless down the road.

Less light too. Their claim that the 440w light will replace a 1000w HPS is BS, imho, but you'll find out soon enough since you used to run 1000w HID lights. What kind of yield (g/w) were you getting with your 2kw HPS setup?

I don't know what's going on with them, they used to have such a good cust support reputation even one of our new members said he got good support so maybe it was the trade show that they went to but I don't work there so I can't say.

What are "55s?"

I thought the CLW lights had 3 year warranties?

CLW lights are sold in retail hydro stores too but maybe not the one close to you. *shrug* The lush lights appear to be chinese made but serviced here so YMMV.

I'll take the 5w diodes over weaker 3w diodes any day...