What is Reddit's opinion of Hydrofarm LGBQM Quantum PAR Meter Micromol Sensor?

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The least expensive PAR meter is what I got. Here is the Amazon link for the Hydrofarm PAR Meter. It gives accurate readings, but it has a design flaw where some wires become lose too easily. If you read the reviews on Amazon, you can see my review where I show pictures of how to use hot glue to fix the design flaw. I have never had problems since adding the hot glue.

Back when I got that PAR meter, it was only $150. The price has increased since then, but it is still hundreds of dollars cheaper than the other brands. I am sure the other brands do not have the design flaw, but again, a little hot glue fixes it.

Avoid lux and lumens meters. They measure other wavelengths of light that are not photosynthetic. You should only buy a true PAR meter.

Nope, buy a PAR meter (@$125) off Amazon like i did.. worth it for the piece of mind of atleast having a decent idea

I bought/have this one : works just fine and i know what my PAR is (or atleast roughly!, better then not knowing)

Hydrofarm LGBQM Quantum PAR Meter Micromol Sensor https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0055F59LA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_jamXCbBA7ENVC

If you want a par meter to test your light with, and you should, there's a decent value one that's been tested against far more expensive models from Hydrofarm. Hydrofarm LGBQM Quantum PAR Meter Micromol Sensor https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0055F59LA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_c4vmCIOiRcROb

Do you have any specs or measurements for these LEDs? Links to the manufacturer?

It is an interesting project but many of these types of LEDs are not at all efficient and would not really be appropriate as a main light source for growing. For example, the red portion of a 12 volt LED would have three chips in series giving a voltage drop of about six volts meaning the other six volts is dropped across the resistor so half the power is wasted as heat with the resistor.

And I'm not aware of any particularity efficient 20 mA (60 mA total draw) LEDs and 20 mA LEDs are low power LEDs rather than medium or high power LEDs more suitable for growing.

The first thing you should be doing is giving some lighting output specs. I know you likely could not give PPF (total light output) or PPE (light output per amount of energy consumed in umol/joule) but you should at least get some PPFD numbers (light intensity under the light in umol/m2/sec) with an appropriate light meter so people understand what they are buying first.

Even a cheap $140 light quantum meter would work well enough (although as a seller you should be getting a Apogee sq-520 or something similar) and others need to see these sort of measurements so they can have realistic expectations about lights made with these sort of LEDs. A light like this is not going to be able to come close to competing with a light made with the Samsung lm561 found in quantum boards, for example. In fact, you should be using ultra high efficient Samsung LEDs and then make these sort of modules for likely triple the light output per watt.

edit- I just saw your video. You are still taking the wrong approach even as side lighting (I thought this was main lighting) since you are selling a product that is very likely not going to be able to perform even as well as cheap LED light strips watt for watt while using expensive Mean Well LED drivers. This does not make sense. So you have very high quality drivers but very low quality LEDs where if I had a choice I'd take exactly the opposite route (but I still would not use other than Mean Well IRL).

You would have a really good product of value to this community if you used good LEDs at a higher voltage. There is no lighting product on the market that is going after the space bucket niche and you can be the first if you used quality LEDs.

And I was wrong above- a well designed light with Samsung LEDs should give closer to four times the light output per watt since I was not fully accounting for resistor waste particularly with the red LEDs when doing a back of the envelope calculation.

To go a step better than a lux meter you can get a low cost quantum light meter for color LEDs.

https://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-LGBQM-Quantum-Micromol-Sensor/dp/B0055F59LA