How will this product help you?
If you don't have a set of lights, I am sorry, but you will not be able to grow indoors! Lights are 100% needed.
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Why will you want this product?
Two issues people look at when buying lights, cost and heat while running. While the cost of these slightly higher upfront, they will cost you less while running them and produce little heat. They will last for years with their 50,000 hours.
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What will this product will bring to YOUR garden?
Depending what you grow, these will provide the optimal light for your garden. I grew mine with cannabis this round, I plan on adding a few different plants this next time. I am thinking mint and a few other herbs! While allowing you to pay little electricity for growth, these are worth the purchase!
Shipping- 0/10
I ordered this through Amazon. I had to contact them as the package said "delivered" when it was not at my door. They had to ship this again. However this time they just left it at my doorstep without knocking..... I paid $389.99. Who in the world leaves almost a $400 package at the door?!
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Discreetness- 8/10
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Discreetness was not an issue regarding the package, but where it was a great big box left at the door, it loses some points.
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Unboxing Initial Thought(s)- 10/10
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Well packaged, no scratches or damages. There was an information tri-fold instruction booklet. The packaging was flawless!
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Package Contents- 10/10
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Mars Hydro 144
Wire Hangers
Information booklet
Power cord
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Manufacturer/Sellers Product Information- 10/10
Amazon lacks a lot of details when looking at it, the seller was not Mars Hydro so it was slightly higher than purchasing through Mars Hydro or IGC.
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While viewing Mars Hydro's website, it is chalk full of information. I won't post it all here, but click here if you wish to view the information.
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I will list a few aspects that concern most:
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Power Draw : 110V:Growth:193.7W±5%|Bloom:298W±5%
Hanging Distance : Seedling stage: 20~28‘’ Veg Stage: 16~20‘’ Flowering Stage: 10~16‘’
Certificate : CE,RoHS,ETL
Lifespan : 50000 hours
Dimension : 28" x 10" x 2" (83 cm x 26 cm x 6 cm)
Work Temperature : -4°F ~105°F (-20°C ~ 40°C)
N.W/G.W : 6.68kg/8.03kg
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Ease of set up/use- 8/10
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Simple to set up. Attach the power cord and wire hangers. The one aspect I feel this product lacks is ratchet hangers. The wire hangers that are given with your product in my opinion are useless. If you don't need to adjust for growth they work fine, but very few plants don't grow.... invest in a set of ratchet hangers. You can thank me later.
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Term of use / Effectiveness - 7/10
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I have two of these currently set up in my tent. I would say these are effective, however the light penetration is not where it should be. I looked on their website and there is new technology available with their new series (SP). Here's a tip: Drop the extra money on a newer light. This will allow your light to "hopefully" penetrate more than these do! Although these did do well, with getting 15-16 ounces off my first grow (25 square feet) . I feel they are acceptable given the amount of electricity I used. I personally got 0.72g (Strain: Blue Hawaiian) per watt vs their 1.5g claim. They ran just under 50$ a month fo power, in this sense they were great. I followed the booklet (along with online information from GWE). I had no light burn or other factors kick in, so that was great! Overall for this section I would say they are good for beginning growers, however I will also state HPS/HID lights will do far better. If I were to have another I am sure my grow would have been that much better. I also feel these are better for vegetative growth over flowering.
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Cost / Quality- 8/10
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With lights you need to weigh out the pros and cons of each. The cost of LED's are rather high but long term they pay themselves off with power consumption and very little maintenance and little to no failures (ie: light bulbs) I will currently using them again and I plan on getting an HID/HPS for flower however. I feel this will work FAR better than these for flower.... but they do work!
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Test(s) - 9.5/10
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Two tests:
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1) Full cycle used for growing (Oct 18th 2018 to March 2nd 2019)
-I feel the 144 did well with vegetative. But lacked on flowering. (Definitely was not the 1.5g per watt they advertised, even giving extra time to veg.) *Strain dependant as well*
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2) I checked the wattage of draw. It does meet the +/- of 5% as advertised. One has slightly above, the other slightly below.
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Pro(s) / Con(s) - (Not Rated)
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Pro(s)- Cheap power usage and will pay itself off in time, great growth in veg! Lifespan should last you years.
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Con(s)- I feel it lacks in flower. I had great tip growth, however it greatly lacked in penetration, so I did not get as much yield as I would have with a better light, or a new series light (I am aware of strain playing a roll with yield).​
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Product Overview-
While my personal experience shows this light lacks mainly in really two aspects.
-Final Yield
-Light Penetration (I did defoliation and training)
I still feel this is a great light. Simply for the reason of wattage used to grow your plants. It will pay itself off over time vs an HID system where you will need to change your bulbs or ballasts over time. Hopefully I will test one of those next! I also feel if you use this in vegetative only, you will be sailing on costs!
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Final Rating- 7.83/10 (Via Amazon)
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If taken into consideration of shipping not being as bad as it was: 8.81/10
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You be the judge on what rating you want to use.
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