Mars-Hydro LED Grow Light Discussion

[KingSativa]

I had about 10 LED burn out in the two MARS II 400 lights, and they quickly sent me replacement LED chips. It was super easy to replace, and I have no problem repairing the lights along the way. However, the new blue chips they sent are noticeably different. Also, the diode in the LED is smaller. Here is a picture comparing the new replacement LEDs next to some of the older chips that have a few thousand hours on them already.

EDIT - MH contacted me and confirmed that the new chips are different, but should have the same lumen output.

 

[Mars Hydro]

I consulted with colleague that you asked her to send you the parts,we usually will not questioned our clients when they said they can handle it by themselves.I'm sorry for that.Next time we will ask you if you need to send to our repair center first all of.
If you need,you still can send the light and parts to our repair center,but you still did not want to send them out.By this way,we do not know how to help you.

When the led diodes which doesn't mean the PCB board is damaged.Only when you send the light to our repair center,after our technician confirmed the PCB board is faulty,we will change a new one for you.We can not send you a PCB before our tech diagnose the light.
Some clients want to save time ,they required repair it at home,we will follow their order.Also we will send them video link to show our customer how to do it.

We are a big LED grow lighting manufacturer in China,we sell our lights to world wide,not only in one country.We sold out thousands of light every month,we control the defective rate under 3‰.we are keeping upgrade our tech.
We tried our best to help our clients,.we set up repair center in UK,Germany,USA,Australia,Canada,our international technician is professional at repairing light.Please do not worry.
If you need,you can send your light to our repair center.You need to pay the shipping charge to/from repair center. We are frank with our warranty policy with every client,and will follow it strictly.
led grow lights-Mars Hydro Premium Warranty

FRUs, like the fan and driver, are what are typically sent to customers for self service. Soldering new components onto a PCB is something I've never been asked to do in two and a half decades of IT and related tech support, dealing with thousands of different devices and hundreds of different companies.




Our debate centers around what constitutes a "part" that is field replaceable. Both the fan and the driver are composed of many separate parts yet are shipped as one part. I logically expected the panel to follow suit. Just like I wouldn't be asked to replace half the bearings in the fan, or melt a new blade on (for example purpose ONLY), I expected to have a part delivered that would be easy to replace, just like the fan and driver.




Yes, when we were talking about parts that are easily replaced in the field, like a fan (not parts of the fan) and a driver (not parts of the driver). This quote is taken out of context and is from before I tested the part of the panel with a different driver.

I can handle unscrewing this panel and shipping it back to you, rather than discarding the faulty parts as I am expecting you to want with the fan and driver. I personally can handle soldering dozens of tiny diodes onto a board, but I don't believe you can expect any significant portion of your customers to do so.




Now that it's failed twice in the first half of the warranty period and 25% of the components within the device have been replaced, by me, will my warranty still be honored for the remaining 6 months?




I don't feel I've disparaged Mars-Hydro, and I remain a customer, but the extra credit would have been earned by shipping me FRUs from a North American location, so that they would arrive within a week or two and they can be easily and quickly replaced on site. I have the majority of the components, but some of the LEDs were shipped from China and haven't arrived yet.

Thankfully we ordered a replacement 900 right away so that our grow isn't affected, expecting an elongated time to resolution on this light . The new one is the new model, with the improved components all around, and thank god has the mount points in the corners rather than the middle of the sides, so you can hang it from two points and it won't spin.




Exact same experience here, but a different perspective on the reasons why, namely that soldering is not part of a standard Field Replaceable Unit and the successful resolution of such would be nearly zero. That said, I'll admit that the design of LED lights and the dead simple PCB makes this one of very few exceptions.




I'd caution strongly about running a device with it's cooling system compromised in particular, but really with any portion of it a failed state, at least not without careful consideration and heavy monitoring. In this design, each driver and fan are cooling a portion of the panel, but not to the exclusion of the others. In my device's failure, another quadrant of the panel is partially lit, but doesn't have a working fan blowing across the heatsink above those running diodes.




They'll tell you a variation of "your cell phone is now the FRU", and increasingly they'd be right. Just a few years ago we could still crack open a blackberry and change out a screen fairly easily.

If I was an authorized and approved repair center, I could likely get the board sent to me, but soldering on memory chips onto a modern cell phone's PCB isn't realistic and wouldn't be done by anyone. It's far cheaper to replace it than attempt to repair it.




I'm suggesting the PCB as a whole is the logical FRU,with LEDs affixed by an approved if not certified technician who has tested it as fully operational, and that is the expectation of the vast majority of consumers.

Anyway, my expectations aside, I'll report back once we've received all the parts and have attempted the necessary repairs. In the meantime my Mars II 900s are growing me and my cohorts some fantastic Cannabis in my Mars tent.

 

[Mars Hydro]

welcome back LEDCanuck2.your girls are lush.
Yeah,if you need higher power,you can lower the light and the coverage will be smaller.You can adjust it at anytime according to their react
Happy growing and keep us updated

Hey gang, it's been awhile......super busy and not much time for forums. I recently flipped to 12/12 on my 2nd round with Mars LED lights and thought I'd share a few pics. I added another MarsII 900 and Refector 48 to really try and max out may space, and I now have 3xMarsII 900's + 2 x Reflector 48s over 7' x 3' of SCROG for a healthy 65W/sqft

Got unlucky with a couple of weak runts this round, so ended up culling them and focussing on the 2 much more vigorous plants. One of them is a DNA Tangilope, the other is a DNA 24K Gold (AKA Kosher Tangie). They were vegged for roughly 12 weeks until they were thick-trunked/ridiculously branchy monsters. Only topped once, lots of super cropping and aggressive SCROG training. They have now been in flower for 11 days, and are just exploding with growth and bud development. Both plants are very dense/leafy, so I will be doing some selective defoliation this weekend to thin things out and allow for more light exposure to lower parts of the colas. I'm also experimenting with having the lights closer this round, going to have them at 12-13" from the tops as opposed to the 16" I went with last time......going for more intense light over a smaller footprint to compare results.

 

[Mars Hydro]

Firday arrived,let's celebrate by check out this nice pictures:
Kosher Kush under Reflector 144x5, best buds ever smoked

Mars Hydro Cup
Please do not forget to send us your nice shot

 

[Mars Hydro]

Hi TorturedSoul, we will try our best to help him.
Tt's Friday here,what's your plan for your weekend?

Hi, arteekay. It is unfortunate that you had failures in your LED panel. But your description of what you have encountered has added a little bit to my (limited) knowledge of what these things are made up of. Thank you for sharing. May you have many great harvests!

 

[Mars Hydro]

Hi KingSativa.Thanks for your help.
We upgraded the lens which can withstand higher temperature and changed to a better Phosphor for the chip.The lens degree as well as the lumen of the chips are not changed. Just looks like a little different. Please rest assured to use it.
We are keeping upgrade our tech
How is your plants? Hope they have a happy groing.you may share some pics of them with us next time

I had about 10 LED burn out in the two MARS II 400 lights, and they quickly sent me replacement LED chips. It was super easy to replace, and I have no problem repairing the lights along the way. However, the new blue chips they sent are noticeably different. Also, the diode in the LED is smaller. Here is a picture comparing the new replacement LEDs next to some of the older chips that have a few thousand hours on them already.

EDIT - MH contacted me and confirmed that the new chips are different, but should have the same lumen output.

 

[Mars Hydro]

GOOD news our new goods already arrived at our Canada warehouse
Mars II 1200 and Mars II 1600 can send to you guys soon
If anyone need to purchase,you can place order now

Good news,the new lights already arrive at the Canada port,if any grower need to purchase Mars II 1200 and Mars II1600 ,you can make pre order now

Reflector 96 and Mars II 400 will arrive Uk on 26th this month.

 

[Mars Hydro]

We need your genius ideas

Recommend your favorite delivery company
wish everyone a good day
Recently some Australia customer complained they received damaged light which caused by the careless deliver.We use AU post now,we may change it to another delivery company.You guys can introduce several delivery company to us,which you think they are more reliable and trustful with good service in Australia.Thanks in advance

 

[Jae416ixside]

we will love them,no matter what fragrance they smells like,haha

I guess you can say I like my girls big and stinky

 

[KingSativa]

Hi KingSativa.Thanks for your help.
We upgraded the lens which can withstand higher temperature and changed to a better Phosphor for the chip.The lens degree as well as the lumen of the chips are not changed. Just looks like a little different. Please rest assured to use it.
We are keeping upgrade our tech
How is your plants? Hope they have a happy groing.you may share some pics of them with us next time

Thank you for the information. I have no complaints about my lights actually, so I hope it doesn't sound that way. Lights burn out, and you replace them. I am just very happy the MH is willing to send out new LED's so that I can fix them. Most companies would not do this and would instead require that I spend a couple hours packaging and shipping the light to them then waiting a couple of weeks to get it back. I also do not understand why people are complaining about soldering an LED chip to the board??? To call this a PCB is a stretch. This is no motherboard, and you have miles of room around each LED to solder. I am definitely not an electrician, but it only took me about 30 minutes to take the two lights apart and replace the LED's. It was super easy and a lot of fun to work on the lights. This is a great hobby, and I don't understand the complaints about having to spend 30 minutes learning a new part of the hobby???

Anyways, lotsa love and the plant are loving the lights. Here are the 3 Aurora Indica after 1 week of 12/12 flowering.

 

[KingSativa]

Those are in 7 gallon fabric pots using my special KING super soil formula. Basically I got drunk and tossed a little of everything from the garage into some old soil I had, then put the plants in the soil and watered them. I am pretty sure I accidentally put all kinds of random fertilizers and amendments into the mix, and I know that I put too much worm castings because the soil is a bit thick. I really can't remember.

 

[db003]

just got done making a slide show video of my dark devil auto and monster mass auto grow that I just harvested 67 days from seed to harvest with mars II 700

[video=youtube;6gN-guB9RHI]

[/video]

 

[Mars Hydro]

ok,you like your girls big and stinky Your dream will come true very soon
Have a nice day

I guess you can say I like my girls big and stinky

 

[Mars Hydro]

It's my pleasure.
I know you didn't complaint about our light,i just need to ensure that all of our customer understand every changes we did for our light,so that they can be more confident to use it.And we will keep ungrade our tech for higher quality light.
Thanks for your understanding.
we usually will provide two options for our clients:
1 We send the replacements from our international warehouse,if customer requires repair the light by themselves.By this way can save a lot of times.
2 Customer can send the light to our international repair center under our warranty policy.(we have video link on youtube to show our customer how to change the parts.)
We will follow our customer's requirements.
Yeah,sometimes you can have a lot of fun to work on the lights,just like i will enjoy my time duiring cooking.
I'm glad to hear that your plants are loving the lightThey are in good figure,what's their name? May i know it? Please say "hi" to them for me. Happy growing

Thank you for the information. I have no complaints about my lights actually, so I hope it doesn't sound that way. Lights burn out, and you replace them. I am just very happy the MH is willing to send out new LED's so that I can fix them. Most companies would not do this and would instead require that I spend a couple hours packaging and shipping the light to them then waiting a couple of weeks to get it back. I also do not understand why people are complaining about soldering an LED chip to the board??? To call this a PCB is a stretch. This is no motherboard, and you have miles of room around each LED to solder. I am definitely not an electrician, but it only took me about 30 minutes to take the two lights apart and replace the LED's. It was super easy and a lot of fun to work on the lights. This is a great hobby, and I don't understand the complaints about having to spend 30 minutes learning a new part of the hobby???

Anyways, lotsa love and the plant are loving the lights. Here are the 3 Aurora Indica after 1 week of 12/12 flowering.

 

[Mars Hydro]

They look pretty good now,so i guess even you accidentally put all kinds of random fertilizers and amendments into the mix,it didn't damage anything,they react good to it.
They can handle it by themselves somehow.haha
So you do not need to worry about it too much,just do some adjustments according to their reacts.
Hope you and your girls have a nice weekend.

Those are in 7 gallon fabric pots using my special KING super soil formula. Basically I got drunk and tossed a little of everything from the garage into some old soil I had, then put the plants in the soil and watered them. I am pretty sure I accidentally put all kinds of random fertilizers and amendments into the mix, and I know that I put too much worm castings because the soil is a bit thick. I really can't remember.

 

[Mars Hydro]

Excellent!! db003.congratulations for your great harvest
Your video is awesome
Thanks for sharing with us

just got done making a slide show video of my dark devil auto and monster mass auto grow that I just harvested 67 days from seed to harvest with mars II 700

[video=youtube;6gN-guB9RHI]

[/video]

 

[Christine Green]

For you Sara,
My Mars Reflector 97, and my praying girls!

 

[Mars Hydro]

Thanks PinkyGreen
You know that i like your pics...you are good at editing...maybe you can take photo for me or i send you some of my pics,you can do the magic for me next time

For you Sara,
My Mars Reflector 97, and my praying girls!

 

[kroket]

Hy Sara, I'm looking for some advice on what lamp to buy.
I will be growing in a small cabinet; approximately 2 x 2 feet, 60 x 60 cm.
Unfortunately I can only afford one of these lamps:

- The Mars300 (60 x 5w, which is the real one, the 130 or 140 true watt?)
- The Reflector 48 (48 x 5w, 101 true watt)

However I can't figure out what mars hydro lamp is the better choice.
I will be using the lamp for both growth and flowering stage.

 

[Happy Jack]

Hy Sara, I'm looking for some advice on what lamp to buy.
I will be growing in a small cabinet; approximately 2 x 2 feet, 60 x 60 cm.
Unfortunately I can only afford one of these lamps:

- The Mars300 (60 x 5w, which is the real one, the 130 or 140 true watt?)
- The Reflector 48 (48 x 5w, 101 true watt)

However I can't figure out what mars hydro lamp is the better choice.
I will be using the lamp for both growth and flowering stage.

I'm not an expert--just an enthusiastic amateur --but experts generally recommend 40 to 50 true Watts/squarefoot for best results, which works out to 160 to 200W for your space. Based on that the Mars300, at 132 true Watts is the better choice and bang for the buck. If you could swing a little more money, the 214W Reflector96, with its switchable veg/bloom modes would be give you more light and control, but costs more money.

I love my Reflector lights. Hope this helps!