Are Cree leds worth the extra money

[coralbeauties]

Just curious if you feel Cree leds are worth a premium over Chinese leds? I’m looking at lights that come in either china leds or Cree leds. The Cree light does come with meanwell drivers but are they worth $125 more over the Chinese LEDs and drivers?
Thanks for your thoughts
Jeff

 

[bradreef]

I say no. From what I've read, cree could be the same with a basic quality control certification.

 

[Hooz]

The Meanwell driver is worth most of the price difference by itself.

As for the LEDs, I'd imagine that actual Cree LEDs would have a little tighter binning... Meaning stricter quality control, and closer to the color they're supposed to be. So a 450nm blue would actually be closer to 450nm, instead of maybe 445nm or 455nm. Even the big names have issues with that, though. How many posts have you seen where someone has two identical AI lights, both at the same settings, but noticeably different "colors" over the tank? That's quality control and testing/binning.

You'll have to decide if that's "worth it" to you or not, though.

 

[TTipsyDragon]

My father in law works at cree with a PhD as a research scientist with over 100+ patents. cree over the years has pretty much made huge advancements to the diode space. If you had to pick cree over some other brand, cree will normally give you a better spectrum (true to what they say) and just perform better for longer. However things that say they have cree leds in them sometimes lie or use counterfeits with cree's branding on it. So if its from china, it most likely does not matter

 

[bubbgee]

Hi Jeff,

Cree is the highest quality one, probably less chances of being burned out early. The Meanwell drivers are a must have though.