New Grower Kind k5 led. Think twice before peeing on an electric fence.

[BigSm0]

The title was to lure in as many as possible.

The length of this is inevitable but I'll do my best. Not hating or slandering. This is just my story over the past couple months.


Few months ago I picked up 2 kind k5 LEDs. Growers house for 2880 shipped. Shortly after getting them 21 LEDs burned out. So I went off the 90 day return and wanted a refund. I paid 200 in return shipping and double boxed then with over 75$ in material.

Kind emailed me saying the lights arrived damaged. I was ruined. They offered to send them back free of charge" how nice" now damaged and not working. I contacted growers house who I purchased them thought and after some time they offered me a refund -25% restocking.

A few things that got me thinking. Now kind accepted these lights in this condition from the shipper and didn't raise a question? How come the photos they sent me had a perfect kind k5 box directly behind the light? Why would t they send me proof that both lights were damaged? This I asked for many many times. Why did kind throw away all packaging when the shipping company went to inspect the lights? How was the damage on the light so bad where the only way to cause it would be both lights would have to came out of each box and be struck. It wasent impact damage like being banged around it seemed like it was dropped on a curb with no box. Again on both of them but no proof?


Kind was the worst company to deal with up until i told them I was going to alert everyone I knew about these crazy questions I had above. They played hardball up until they caught wind of it. They offered me a 650 dollar check or a free light.

 

[namvet25]

Kind lights in my opinion are way over priced and they still use the old light housing that hardly anyone has used for quite a while.Sorry to hear all your problems but at least you got somthing back.

 

[BigSm0]

im happy I got rid of them to be honest. Shortly after getting them growmau5 posted a legitimate comment. Guess he has a friend who stuck one in a sphere to test it and it came back at 22.5% efficient. That's waaay worse than most lights, lower than hps too. So switching to save had the opposite affect.

 

[autogogo]

scratch another one off the list

 

[BigSm0]

scratch another one off the list

Happy I could save you from something that's not what it appears to be. A KIND efficient award winning led grow light. If your looking to upgrade. I suggest going with a Cree cob unit or a cmh315. Price wise it's the cheapest way to upgrade from hps. Most less expensive LEDs don't save you much compared to hps unless it's more efficient. Cobs and the cmh has twice the efficiency.

 

[BigSm0]

Guess this thread was a dud. Now it won't last since they are now paying the rent. All I have to say is do your research before buying no matter who it's from. Even the biggest and best places may get ya by the balls if you let your guard down.

 

[Son of Hobbes]

Guess this thread was a dud. Now it won't last since they are now paying the rent. All I have to say is do your research before buying no matter who it's from. Even the biggest and best places may get ya by the balls if you let your guard down.

We actually don't take a dime from the Live Vendor trial. $0.00. All value of our asking price is taken as 100% equipment, which we donate to our CannaZone testing team to give a grow-and-show documented journal and a review of the light. They grow with the light and document their results, give their personal review, and at that point leave it up to the members to decide if that's for them or not. Proof in the pudding kind of stuff. We're not here to make a case of "Light X" is better than "Light Y," but rather to show if a light X and Y does what it says it does, how the grower feels like it's performing compared to their normal setup, etc. Essentially we have people that have been here for YEARS with good reputations giving a first hand experience with lights that many members here, myself included, would otherwise have to take the word of someone we've never met on another forum, or Amazon reviews, the hydro shop guy, etc, to see if it works as advertised. We're evolving our testing procedures and getting some things hashed out, but so far it's been pretty successful and I think we're keeping pace with things.

We want to showcase the Ferrari as much as we do the Geo Metro of LED's, ya know? The results often speak for themselves and we'd rather give members options with verified results. Are they the BEST for growing? That's up for debate. But that debate is not the purpose or intent of our testing group.

Anyway I hope that help explains things.

 

[BigSm0]

It does. I was under the impression that since this thread wasn't in the best interest of the vendor that it would have been removed. It happened before, not here but it did. Now the everything that I wrote above happened. It's not right and unfortunately it came to me making threads in multiple forums for them to do something about it.

A lot of people get this wrong. It's not about Ferrari vs get metro. People switch to led for 2 reasons energy and heat savings. If the company says it will do both things and doesn't thats when the debate on cheaper lights comes up. That's all. If a 200 dollar light produced more photons and less heat than a hps I would buy 20 of them and promote them till my fingers fell off. Unfortunately kind has made many claims about energy and heat savings and the recent data states otherwise. Again and again yes it will grow. But people should be aware of the facts before dropping 1695$ on a light that gives you 165 par watts. I wish the lighting market would change. Unfortunately I don't see it happening but luckily due to great places like afn people can hopefully learn a little about companies that are allowed to lie all over the Internet. It's sad really. I fell for it. Not that it would have been a catastrophic failure of a light but I purchased it based on false claims and quickly learned they were untrue. Not to mention the loss of diodes almost instantly.

In my experience this company has a very tough policy. They make it seem like there is very little risk with the 90 day return policy. I would have sent it back either way. It's one hot light and my plants didn't respond well to it either. But then to hear that both were damaged in return shipping but wouldn't provide proof of the damage really upset me. Then the biggest fact is they signed for the lights on arrival to kind and with boxes in the condition they stated but didn't question the shipping company then? Also when I made a shipping claim they took away all my chances for a refund by throwing away all packaging material. this all happened and the only choice I had was to accept the lights back.

 

[dcat0921]

Thanks for the info. I personally thought they were pricey but hadn't heard much else as far as quality or anything.

 

[BigSm0]

Thanks for the info. I personally thought they were pricey but hadn't heard much else as far as quality or anything.

I think they could make a good light if they cut into profit a little. Swapping out the epistsrs for Cree would increase the efficiency a lot and people would really be getting their money's worth. Quality wise it's much better than I expected but still with cheap LEDs and drivers.

https://www.autoflower.org/threads/kind-k3-diy-retro-build.54603/

Check this out dcat not the typical Mars conversion