Hello everyone! I have recently been doing some research online and through much searching and reading I have found alibaba, where they have what looks like the same quantum board kits as HLG, but at about half price or better.
I was wondering if anyone has any input on these? Search “folux” on alibaba and you’ll see what I mean. I have found threads on other sites claiming that these work real well, and I am thinking about putting in an order for several of them but I wondered if @dbrn32 or @Aolelon, or maybe anyone else had heard anything good or bad about these kits.
If the other threads I have read hold true, it would appear as though Shenzhen Meijhi may be the actual supplier of kits for HLG itself. Imagine cutting out the middle man and saving some serious dough.
Some have a lot better reputation than others, unfortunately I have not kept up with which companies are best. Hlg’s boards were originally made by one of them, now i believe most they are either made by Samsung or in house.
I’m not sure how deep in the process you are, but it takes a pretty substantial order to get cut out the middle man pricing. To get a box from there to here isn’t cheap, then there’s usually some transaction fees as well. But with big enough order there’s some savings. I would just heavily vet the vendor you plan using and the product you’ll be getting. Also find out about warranty period and more importantly warranty claim process. Hlg may soak you a little more, but they’ve also been good as gold in those departments. Especially on big order, pretty good chance a poor job of packing and a board or two will be damaged making the trip.
All things considered I think you can do alright if you do your homework. There are a few in use here that seem to be doing pretty good.
If this helps I bought from GeekLight.
I asked if they could build the 320 watt board with 301h and Cree 660s and use extended switches for the uv and ir so i didn’t have to monkey with little switches on board. Then I asked if they could use WiFi / Bluetooth controllers on them so I could dim and turn each off separately. They said they were working on a app to do just that. This was in October.
It took 2 weeks to build and shipped in 5 days.
They let me know how things were going the whole way thro. Light turned out awesome. Came assembled with ip68 connectors instead of wago. Ip68 from the heat sink out. I didn’t think that far. So I think there striving to get there name out there. Light has been running for a month now and it’s hot!
IMHO you get what you pay for, I went with HLG from Max Bloom here in Australia, I know it will be quality and backed up with a warranty that is easy to use.
I ordered two of them few days ago, I also had mars hydro and spider farmer both 1000w - returned after month to amazon ( nothing really special in that price ) and maxisun 1500w also from amazon and I have to say the are much better than ( better build and stronger lights, more led, same price ) mars or spiders.
anyway…I really want to put my hands on that chinees QB before I decided to buy total of 6. its really not easy choice.
Just buy 1 and see for yourself. Or buy a few since single shipping is high and sell on eBay like a couple people are if you don’t like them. I agree If you buy Hlg your supporting your country if in USA and more well known. I personally like my China light and it’s not cheaply built by no means. Good QC! Most of all my plants are growing like crazy. I’m on limited income or I would had bought hlg. Just my 2 cents.