Are Chinese LEDs ANY different than American?

[chriswf]

Doing tons of reading. But the only difference that I'm finding here between Chinese and American LEDs is the shipping time (of course, lol).

Is there any actual QUALITY difference between the two?
Like, might the Chinese ones suck at growing algae?

RapidLED has some sweet solderless LEDs:
http://www.rapidled.com/solderless-philips-rebel-es-660nm-deep-red-led/
I don't know what their wattage is.

I know how to solder, so it's not a huge problem.

There's also these Chinese 1W ones that are 10 for 15$.
Not bad on pricing... http://www.ebay.com/itm/180711673998?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

My other question is... Does the power supply effect the wattage of the LEDs?
Can the same power supply be used for 3Ws as 1Ws?

[kotlec]

You need to know brand and bin for LED to decide how good (bad) they are. Noname usually are worse. Cree LEDs are on top of most. But there are other good brands as well like philips rebel in your link.

Also I believe rapidled dont sell rubbish leds.

Myself using some Chinese leds with success though.

[SantaMonica]

I tried the cheapest 3w Ebay ones, and they were apparently rejects of what I use now; they only had half the heat, and even then you could see them changing light output even on a constant current driver.

[Ace25]

Night and day difference between China LEDs and Cree/Philips/OSRAM. The name brands beat them in efficiency and quality by a huge margin. You can easily get 2x the light output from a quality LED than you can with a China LED all while using less power AND you are much more likely to see 10 years out of quality LEDs where as with China you will be lucky to get 2 years.

In some cases the same power supply can be used, but most constant current power supplies have a minimum and maximum amount of current they can give, so you have to match the amount of LEDs to the driver. Example: Normal Meanwell drivers are usually 8-14 3w LEDs per driver, if you use 1w you would have to make sure you are not pushing too much current, so on a Meanwell dimmable driver you would have to turn the Potentiometer down on the driver down to 350mA vs the 1000mA it comes set as default or else wire the LEDs in parallel to cut the current to each string. 1 string of 8-14 LEDs will get the full 1000mA, if you put 2 strings of 8-14 and wire them in parallel that means each string now only gets 500mA, 3 strings will get 333mA. When you start doing Parallel strings though you would want to consider using resistors and fuses on each string, that way if 1 string goes out the driver won't push the extra current to the other strings and blow those up.

[rleahaines]

I have used rapid leds - the solderless connections to me are worth the extra $$.

[kerry]

I have used hundreds of these from this eBay guy in Ca so you dont have a long wait time either because he stocks them. http://www.ebay.com/itm/3W-x-10-PCs-High-Power-Red-660nm-LED-Specialist-for-plant-DIY-item-/110813289474?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19ccfc9c02 . I have only had one fail but I was driving them pretty hard to so I dont think it was really the fault of the LED and I didnt have a substantial heat sink on them either. I use the drivers from Rapidled. I know there are nicer LEDs out there but with limited funds I have found these to work very well for personal use.

[symon_say]

I don't think there is to much difference, cree have better performance, but cost 3 times more, and don't perform 3 times better, and if its for algae scrubber, algae won't see the difference, because you're gonna put the leds really close and to be cover just add a few leds more.

[inky]

I don't think there is to much difference, cree have better performance, but cost 3 times more, and don't perform 3 times better, and if its for algae scrubber, algae won't see the difference, because you're gonna put the leds really close and to be cover just add a few leds more.

It would depend on the accuracy and the stability of the wavelength from the LED. If this varies, then Cree are the winner if they are more accurate and stable.........

[tomservo]

What you want is Taiwanese LEDs, the mainland stuff is junk. Epistar, EpiLED, Bridgelux, Cree are all Taiwanese. Phillips Luxeon is probably the best efficiency wise on blue and far red, although I think Epistar may have trumped them somewhat recently. Look for 660-670nm red rather than 650-660, if you have the option. I recommend ledfedy.com, these guys sell dual chip blue and red emitters, nice b/c you can run them at 700ma with two 3w chips on board, you get some efficiency gains and you're only running the chip at 1/2 power. I've bought like 500 3w emitters from them. If you are buying a 100+ email their sales dept and they will usually give you a better price too.

[MorganAtlanta]

The only LEDs I've had trouble with are CREE XR-E royal blues. I've had to replace about 20% of them on my display lights in two years. My scrubber lights are a mix of Epistar, EpiLED and no-name Chinese, and I haven't had any failures.

[SantaMonica]

No failures yet with these: www.ledgroupbuy.com/deep-red-660nm

[Floyd R Turbo]

my opinion - $1.99 for grab-box emitters, meaning you might get 630nm, you might get 670nm, you might get high brightness, you might not. that's why they're cheap. $3.40 for Steve's http://shop.stevesleds.com/Philips-Luxeon-ES-Deep-Red-3-Watt-LEDs-Luxeon-ES-Deep-Red.htm which are the best bin, highest brightness that Philips offers - specifically selected. bottom line, you get what you pay for. we're talking about $1 per LED and most need a dozen or so. It's like buying a full aquarium setup and having a custom acrylic tank built, and going with a thinner wall material because it saves a buck, when in the long run that makes for a weaker tank that will bow more and cause more problems over time, yet it's the most important thing in your entire system.

So buy the cheap ones if you want to just know what you're getting

BTW cree doesn't make a deep red 660, just 630.

[chriswf]

The only LEDs I've had trouble with are CREE XR-E royal blues. I've had to replace about 20% of them on my display lights in two years. My scrubber lights are a mix of Epistar, EpiLED and no-name Chinese, and I haven't had any failures.

Crap. I bought 2 Cree XR-E blues off rapid.
Bought my reds from some site I found on here. Someone said he had been using them, and they were working great.
Here they are:
http://www.satisled.com/3w-high-power-red-led-star-emitter-for-plant-grow-light-660670nm_p433.html

Power supply from RAPID.

And heat sinks - some that someone linked on ebay here, they were like 11$ each.


For wiring, I'll run all my reds parallel, then my blues in a series circuit right?
I know the differences in wiring parallel and series. And I know what the differences will actually do to the lighting. (A lot similar to car audio, how you wire it can change the ohms).

I'm still reading about wiring and spacing.
As far as spacing, from my understanding I'll be doing 4" from the center of each LED.
I'm definitely planning it slowly, since my RED LEDs won't show up for a while because it's the Holidays and they came from another country too lol.