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BF
BF
8 years ago

“Currently unavailable”
Something tells me the seller has had a recent, unprecedented spike in demand….

Loco
Loco
8 years ago

They are sold out. Any other suggestions?

Scott
8 years ago

Jack you are wrong you do have that much clout.

John Wheeler
8 years ago

Thanks for recommending this. If there is such a high demand for them among your listeners, maybe the company would be interested in joining the MSB?

My main interest is not for starting seeds nor growing indoors year-round, but for getting tender plants through the winter. This has been a perennial challenge for me in western Pennsylvania, and as best I can tell lack of good light does seem to be the main issue when I bring them inside.

Scott
Scott
8 years ago

I think you need to advise everyone that when using lights such as these, they need to think about their eyes. Plants love UV and IR; humans eyes do not. Don’t go cheap on protecting your eyes, they are worth too much, get a solid quality set of safety glasses. I would even go as far as to tell people to pay attention to the nanometer range they say they cover. You would be amazed at just how narrow a range certain glasses cover, and don’t actually cover the full UV or IR area.

Make sure they are a wrap around model to avoid stray exposure. They make different types for color correcting your vision based on the light source (LED, Metal Halide, etc.). Make sure you have to right glasses for the right source. It is one thing to get solar light (your silly if you don’t use sunglasses, but that is just my opinion), it is completely different to have a UV-IR source right near your face.

What makes these light dangerous to people is the fact that they don’t have any green in them. Yours eyes are most sensitive to green, it falls off pretty rapidly as you head to blue and red. So you can sit there and stare at these lights for a long time, that is bad when the main point of these lights is to pump UV and IR into plants. If they had some green, it would probably be so intense that you would not even be able to look at it but for a second or two.

EricM
EricM
8 years ago
Reply to  Scott

http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/sixth/bsl.gif

Sorry, I had to post that…

I snagged two of these the last time they were posted, and they are pretty great! They are shockingly thin, and do not put out almost any heat. I was pretty surprised that even four T8 bulbs get hot enough to thermally burn tiny plant starts. I will definitely use some tin foil to make a reflector for this though to put more light back on the plants.

Jerry Ward
Jerry Ward
8 years ago

Just in case you were wondering

Question I Asked
I just got one and 4 of the led’s do not light up and two more are very dim. this isn’t normal is it?

Answer:
Dear JM,
Thanks for your question, the ratio have 4pcs IR and 2pcs UV they are very dim but they are very important for the plants growing, it is normal.
Any question please let us know.
Thanks and best regards,

Jerry Ward
Jerry Ward
8 years ago

Yeah it should not be looked at. I was looking at it on edge and could clearly see the difference. They are in a pattern so it is either intentional (which it is) or it could be a fault in the way it is wired (which it isn’t).

tin omen
tin omen
8 years ago

The last three of my seven finally came yesterday: All came through intact, all light right up.

Now I’ve got to nail down the mechanics of stringing them up in my shelf unit. And: Has anyone figured out the ‘fan/ducting’ equation for the grow tents? I take it, airflow is frequently necessary, just not sure if it’s as ‘essential’ when sprouting seeds over the course of 60days or so. But I could see where hitting them with a steady breeze would produce stronger stems.

There’s a lot of options out there, but opinoins vary. Seems there’s a fair amount of (sic) ‘roll-yer-own’ to some of these processes. 😛

KM_HH6
KM_HH6
8 years ago
Reply to  tin omen

I find that having a fan or air movement for at least some of the day helps keep down gnats, fungus and damping off issues. I don’t know that you need to have a constant breeze. I just open up my grow tent for a few hours and have the ceiling fan in that room run, and that seems to help significantly.

tin omen
tin omen
8 years ago
Reply to  KM_HH6

Thanks for the info.

Since posting the above, I went with the Vivosun 48″x24″x60″ grow tent (reportedly a bit heavier built on the zippers – a fail point I gather), and added the lowest CFM 4″ duct fan I could find (TerraBloom Inline Fan 100 CFM, 4 Inch). I’ve got the fan suspended from the bsmt ceiling in a flexduct coming out of one of the vertical ‘chimney’ holes of the tent.

I’ve got a 36x14x54″ 3-shelf wire unit inside, and plan to have three shelves of seed-trays going under the six lights. Upper pair of lights are swagged from the tent cross-braces, and only the bottom two shelves are in. Looks workable for now.

Unfortunatey my basement runs fairly cool (58-60, MN winter), and even with six of the Kingbo’s fired up in the tent, I haven’t been able to get the temp up into the low-80s target I’d like for seed sprouting.

I tried cutting down the inlet in the 4″ flex duct I’ve got drawing ambient air in (down to ~2″x2″), but the 100CFM fan still moves too much cold air in. Temps pretty much peak out around 69.

So today I just got one of the cheesey/shortlived fan-speed reducers (Active Air ACSC Duct Fan Speed Adjuster). From the reviews, and the obvious identical nature across brands, it’s clear it’s cheap chinese crap. But I want to see how attenuating the fan can get the temp better balanced. I’m currently letting things warm up with the fan turned down a tad, to see where the temp settles out. If it works, but wears out in a few months, I’ll look at upgrading to a better speed mgmt solution.

On the ‘wiggling the stems’ front: Once I’ve got the temp balanced, I’ve got an 8″ Holmes Lil’ Blizzard Oscillating fan I plan to get into play.

I’ve got to get things squared up, as I want to get my broc & lettuce seeds started in there this week (9wks pre last frost ; zone 4b). Probably sow a few early tomatoes as well. 😀

KM_HH6
KM_HH6
8 years ago

Prior to this post, I had bought 4 cheap ones on sale for $15 each at Amazon… in less than one month, they are all starting to fail. Just bought one of these. Hoping it will go the distance. I did a side by side test last year (I have one LED light that I paid like $60 for two years ago that is still going strong – big, heavy thing with a glass cover & a fan) and the plants under the LED were significantly sturdier.

Patrick Roehrman
8 years ago

Getting ready to drop $500 on electric fence and charger. 😉

Jesse
Jesse
8 years ago

Bought 2, what is the coverage for starting seeds? How high up should they be placed? Thanks!

Leslie Applegate
Leslie Applegate
8 years ago

Just bought one for my seed starts. It will be interesting to compare with the older style setup I have.

EricM
EricM
7 years ago

What are you fencing Patrick Roehrman?  I have a 20 mile pulsing charger and four strands of electric for my chicken coop with a second charger on the shelf as a backup and that whole setup was less than $200.

 

I have a timer turn the fence on at sundown and off at about 9:00 AM, but I have little kids that might still find a way to touch the fence, so I said if I’m going to use an electric fence I’d need to see what it feels like to touch it.  Is it like diving into a bath of lava or getting your hand smacked.  I’ll say it’s very painful, like getting smacked with a flexible metal ruler.  I haven’t been able to get myself to touch it again, but it’s not going to cause any damage to the kids.  I also have two cameras recording the fence, and when coyotes and raccoons touch it, they run for the hills.  So it’s a fantastically valuable tool.  It doesn’t kill them, but it definitely encourages them to never go there again.

Michael B
Michael B
7 years ago

If I’m looking to do an indoor aquaponics system with a 100 gallon stock tank and some of the concrete mixing tray ebb and flow beds…what would you recommend for lights?  is one of these 45 W’s enough for each bed, maybe with a grow tent?  If not, looks like for the price of two of these, I could get a

KINGBO 300W LED Grow Light Full Spectrum Dual Optical Lens-Series for Marijuana Indoor Plants Veg and Bloom?12-Bands 5W?
I’m wondering if that would be sufficient, but it does look kind of small in terms of footprint.   Also, to protect my eyes and increase efficiency, I’m looking around for a good reflector/grow tent but can’t seem to find a style that would fit easily around this style ebb/flow bed.  anyone have thoughts?
thanks!

doug
7 years ago

Just an update I haven’t seen anyone else post… The old link above worked today, they were in stock at $28.99. I ordered two, and they’re being delivered same day! Crazy. Thanks for the research and recommendation, Jack.

JimW
JimW
7 years ago

My unheated greenhouse in zone 7b Oregon had spinach and lettuce turning yellow during the short days of winter.  She who must be obeyed put two of these in there and the green came right back, its supplemental light there not sole light for us.

I’m glad also that they were recommended.

AARON WILKINSON
AARON WILKINSON
6 years ago

I ordered 2 of these lights in December, they both showed up missing parts. One was missing the bracket on the light the other was missing the clip that goes to that bracket. I fixed both with some bailing wire, but I was still aggravated by the the fact that I bought 2 new lights that showed up missing parts.

I contacted the seller and after a couple of email exchanges they shipped me another light that had been returned to amazon. Kingbo didn’t know what was wrong with the returned light but said I could use the hardware off of that light to make my other 2 lights right. The light showed up and it was a different style of light and the hardware didn’t match up.

When I plugged it in it worked fine, the  only problem was it was missing a clip that went to the bracket on the light. Well out came the bailing wire again and now I have 3 lights for my seed starting rack.  Am I totally happy? No, but having bought several low end and high end lights for my planted fish tanks I know what to expect at this price point.

If I had spent a hundred bucks for this light I would have returned it and given it a bad review on amazon. But I’m actually happy the way it worked out. The entry level price for led lights has come way down over the years, in a couple more years these things will be top quality at a great price.

Aaron
MSB Member
Glendale, Az
Booyah Farm

aaron
aaron
6 years ago

These are great lights. I use 2 of them in my seed starting efforts and cloning.