a little late to the game, but here's my .02
I've been running chinese LED's for about 2 years now and they do work nicely in small spaces on small plants.
I've run them on autos and photos with short veg cycles and harvested some very kind stuff.
Super frosty and tasty.
However, I've yet to achieve hard, dense buds. Which is okay if you're growing for yourself, but if I were doing it commercially I'd loose my ass because a dry oz dry takes up two jars LOL.
My current crop is stretching to the ceiling and loaded with buds under 2x800 blurple lights and I'm just not getting penetration. I added some UVB lights from the reptile aisle at the pet shop which is helping with trich production.
This harvest will be super potent, but very light. Just reaching into the SCROG to train, trim, or adjust and my arm feels like it's been hit with hairspray
Looking to try some better lights or possibly try an HPS to see what kind of difference I could get.
It's such a confusing market and everyone's very opinionated one way or the other. Which is THE light? Kind? Spectrum King? Black Dog? etc.
What if I spend $$$ on a fancy LED and end up with the same results as I did with two of my $120 ones off amazon?
Also, Still super nervous about HPS because of the heat, looking into cool tubes, etc.