Hi guys!!
In terms of grow light for a commercial scale, which do you think would best in terms of price and overall yield generally?
Id be looking forward to your suggestions 
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Lights built with Samsung LM301 diodes provide the best lighting per watt. If budget is not a concern, HLG produced lighting is the best option. Shoot for 40 to 50 watts per square foot of grow space. AC Infinity or Spider Farmer can also be good options, just be sure that you are getting LM301b, LM301h, or LM301 EVO diodes.
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Thanks 
And budget is a concern
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Shop wisely. We’ll be here to help you consider options.
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Check out Szhlux, I run their 620w in veg room and 840w in flower room. They use Samsung diodes. I tested the 840 and it put out 185000 lumes, 2700 ppfd at 12 inches.The 840 is 359.00 on Amazon. They are big though, the 840 is almost 4 ft square but flowers a 7x7 area. I posted the numbers if you search it on here.
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Make sure you have a good warranty that includes return shipping cost or that they will at least send you replacement parts if needed. If you have to send lights back shipping can cost 1/3 of the cost of the light. HLG stands behind there product. I’m sure others do as well just do your research. Good luck
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How large of commercial grow and what environmental controls are in place? Still a lot of commercial grows running de’s due to application. Leds will be more efficient but also going to require being closer to canopy. As big of led fan as i am i don’t see myself ducking under 5000 ft² of lights to access canopy.
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This statement seems self-contradictory. By definition, a more efficient light produces more PAR than a less efficient one for the same input power. Therefore, given lights with the same input power rating, it should be possible to hang LEDs at the same height as HPS or CMH and use less power to get the same PAR.
The application designs from something like a de gavita and the leading led fixtures is completely different. The PPE of each doesn’t really have anything to do with how each fixture is designed to be used. People have tried, but those lights aren’t as effective as running larger les and cooling surface area.
Do you mean commercial lights are “heavy duty” in some sense? What does that have to do with the lighting technology? LEDs are more robust and long-lasting than the alternatives.
I take it that “those lights” means “LED fixtures.” But the Gavita WEGA LED R90G5B5, for example, draws 600 W and outputs 2130 μmol/s. Their GAN Electronic 600 W, on the other hand, draws the same power but produces < 1200 μmol/s. Both models are listed in their Large-Scale Horticulture section, which I assume is meant for commercial growers.
No, I just haven’t seen a single grow facility actually keep lights like this. I’m sure there are a few out there as they have been trying to make 1 for 1 replacement for de lights for years, but they all seem to be easy come and easy go. Spectrum king is first I was aware of, they finally gave up and made bar style lights.
If I had $100K invested in lights, I’d be reluctant to junk them for a new technology. The labor alone would be a disincentive. I might replace individual units with LEDs when existing ones failed, but managing an ad hoc mix could be a headache, too.
The OP (and I realize this thread is 3 months old, so he’s presumably made his purchases already) was starting from scratch, though. I’d feel remiss to steer someone like that to outdated technology when units like the Gavita WEGA LED R90G5B5 are available.
They don’t need to be any closer to the canopy (no need to duck) than the alternatives and, as in a grow tent, can produce the same amount of light while using substantially less power. For commercial growers, I’d think electricity becomes a major expense, so a lighting technology that uses (1 - 2/3.2 =) 36% less should be a no-brainer for a new growing facility.
PS - How do we create links to products on Amazon or wherever that automatically include a small picture and capsule description? I see others doing that routinely but haven’t figured out how.
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Potentially, but I would never steer anyone to buy a gavita led fixture. So there may lie the difference in what you recommend vs what I recommend.
If you copy link from Amazon page and post it to your comment here the software should make it a onebox. I have seen a few scenarios where it didn’t and I’m not sure why, but usually as simple as copy/paste of url.
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I don’t know anything about Gravita lights – only that you mentioned them and, when I looked, I saw that they sell LED units for commercial growers that have the same advantages as the ones many people on the forum use.
Why wouldn’t you recommend their LED units?
Just tried it and it works as you say. I’ve been using the hyperlink function and wondering where the alternative function is!
Is there a way to create super- and sub-script? I’ve had need of that, too.
Thank you! 
Mainly because they spent the entire led revolution trash talking led lights and manufacturers. Then thet got purchased by the mothership and wouldn’t you know, they want to bd players in the led market.
I only access the forum in mobile and if i push and hold a number it will create superscript, like ft². But i haven’t figured out how to enter subscript. If you push/hold on letfers a selection menu will display but i don’t think its an option. If you figure it out please let me know.
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So you have a grudge? Or is there reason to believe their LED products are inferior?
I guess the mothership you mention is Phillips(?)
Out of curiosity, I found and perused a website (Growitdepot.com) that sells Gavita lights. Aside from Mars Hydro, Black Dog, and HLC, I didn’t recognize the names of any other manufacturers. The top end seems to be Fohse – the site sells their 1500W A3i bar LED unit for $3150. Fohse also makes a controller for their lights that doesn’t do anything I can’t with my Vivosun E42A controller and costs $2600.
I’m baffled by the exorbitant prices of commercial gear and the prevalence of analog control devices. I expected to find sophisticated wifi controllers that communicate with software running on the user’s computer. It seems that innovations are more apt to be introduced in consumer-grade devices and then trickle up, which is backwards.
Your method for superscripting numbers doesn’t work on my iPhone. But I realized there’s a way to do super and sub using my Mac laptop, which I prefer to use anyway.
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We usually say you gey what you pay for with leds but mentioning black dog and foshe is probably the exception. I will admit that I quit following the price to performance ratio of everyone for a bit now. But those two make me want to vomit lol.
I’ll drop a link at the bottom of this post. Follow the link and then go see who pulls the strings for this company. You seem like smart guy so I’ll let you draw your own opinions.
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Interesting. It appears that Scotts MG bought a lighting company named Luxx and renamed it Gavita. They own General Hydroponics, too.
To be fair, the website I looked at sells the Photobio PAR meter, which goes for $157 on Amazon, for $240, so it may not be a good source for learning what commercially oriented grow products actually sell for. If I was outfitting a commercial facility, I’d expect a substantial discount because of the number of units I’d need. But maybe they sell a Fohse here and there at their listed prices to individuals who want bragging rights.
I’m still unclear about what distinguishes LED lights that are suitable for commercial growing from consumer lights that aren’t. The LEDs are the same, so the conversion efficiencies are, too, and they’re going to age at the same rates, so their efficiencies are going to degrade at the same rates.
Do you know what the differences are?
They actually aren’t. Samsung and cree for instance both use performance bins for their leds. The ever popular lm301b/h for instance is available in at least 3 voltage bins and I believe at least 6 flux bins. So in order to have the most efficient led you would need to have the highest flux bin with the lowest voltage bin. This would essentially give you the largest amount of light with the least amount of power consumed. And that’s only really a small portion of the story. Once you have led selected the amount of power run to each led can increase or decrease the efficiency. Take a 100 watt light using 100 leds for example. If you kept same 100 watt driver and used 200 of the same leds would provide you with roughly 10% increase in efficiency. If you went from 200 leds to 400 leds would provide another substantial increase. Then you have to account for led cooling as well. The lower tj/tc of the chips the more efficient they will be. So the cooling capabilities of the heatsink like size, surface quality, and finish all come into play. Literally all of this matters a bunch when it comes to overall system efficiency of led fixtures.
The difference between what constitutes a commercial fixture vs anything else depends on where you’re at and who you ask. In some places is nothing. Others will require UL listing and a certain level of tolerance to water, like ip68 vs ip67 rating. But this is usually left up to local code enforcement officials and Insurance company as to what they’ll accept vs what they won’t.
Yeah, Amazon is typically not the best place to shop for anything other than convenience. $50 bags of soil that can be bought locally for $20 
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The cost of solid-state parts increases exponentially as one moves to better bins because the number that qualify for the better bins decreases accordingly. Using only top-bin LEDs provides the potential to build lights that have the highest conversion efficiency available, but the PPF/$ curve peaks somewhere in the lower bins.
Before I paid 2X or more for a light that produces only 10% more PPF/W, I’d want to calculate how long it’ll take for the savings on my electric bill and added profit from larger yield (for a commercial grow) to equal the premium I paid for the light.
LED conversion efficiency increases with drive current, hits a peak, and rolls off at higher currents. So, a 100-W driver that supplies the optimum current for 100 LEDs can’t deliver the optimum current for 200 and the efficiency would be less.
Good heatsinks are a relatively inexpensive way to boost efficiency, but their design is understood pretty well so I doubt there are big differences across units on that score. Cooling fans and a housing to direct their airflow are used on some commercial units – don’t know how long it takes for them to pay for themselves.
Hmm. How about water-cooled LED lights? Many users are comfortable already with water pumps and tubing. I wonder if anyone on the forum’s tried it. I’d bet at least one manufacturer has experimented with it.
I paid $33 recently for 1.5 ft³ of FFOF on Amazon. There’s no store within 50 miles of me that carries any of their soils, so I’ve nothing to compare against. Several local gardening shops sell FF nutrients, but their prices are slightly higher than Amazon’s. Meijer supermarkets, on the other hand, sell the FF nutrients I use for roughly half the Amazon prices!
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