I’ve been dabbling in grow lights for a few years now, starting with CFLs. My first LED light was a Mars Hydro 300W burple light. It made my greenhouse glow with an eerie glow that probably made my whole neighborhood think I was up to no good. Last year I got into HLG’s quantum boards, the build it yourself kind. This year, Mars Hydro’s new TS series of fanless LED boards was looking pretty attractive.
Cost-wise, I can build an 70W HLG board for around $53 ($35 for the QB120 board, $12 for a low-end power supply, $2 for board hanger, $4 for ratchet rope hangers, and assuming I have wire nuts and electrical tape on hand). Mars Hydro TS600 is $80 for 100 W. In terms of cost per watt, HLG comes out to 76 cents/watt where as Mars Hydro comes out to 80 cents/watt. Not a big difference!
So I picked up a TS600 and for first impressions, it seems pretty nice. It is lightweight, minimal assembly required, has a very nice sun-like color, seems to have a water-resistant coating over the LEDs, and has a lip to focus the light downward instead of just being a flat board. The driver is built in too. The HLG panels are quite nice too and are better suited for smaller plants where you want a light per plant (you can run 3 HLG panels for 210 W whereas the Mars Hydro you can only run 2 panels for 200 W). The power supplies I’ve been using with the HLGs do tend to die (I’ve replaced 2 out of 8 in the past year), so I’m hoping Mars Hydro is more reliable (my older burple light is still going strong). I have only just gotten the Mars Hydro light though, so haven’t done very much testing at all, but it’s looking promising.