Mars Pro ll Epistar 160 Review and Grow by The Mugwamp

[The Dalai Farmer]

Hi all and I will be reviewing the Mars Hydro Pro ll Epistar 160 LED,
which I was lucky enough to win on one of the many Mars Hydro giveaways/competitions.
So firstly I would like to thank @MarshydroTina for this wonderful opportunity to hopefully grow some prize winning beauties I should add that this will be my first time growing with an LED, as up to now I've only grown using 250w mh/hps so should be interesting.

Specs
Weight 10kg
Item NO. Mars Pro II Epistar 160 led
Draw power 120V :2.5A;300W 240V:1.37A;295W
Spectrum 440nm, 460nm, 630nm ，660nm,730nm(IR), 2700k-3000k
Chip Brand New SMD Epistar
Dimension 68x40x16cm
Work Temperature -4°F ~105°F (-20°C ~ 40°C)
Compare to HPS/MH/HID 400 watt
Lifespan 50000 hours
N.W/G.W 10kg
UPC Number 600740988851

Delivery
Very fast delivery which was tracked the whole way, which is always handy.
The light came well packed and in discreet cardboard packaging.
Contents
In the box you will find 1x power lead, 2x steel hangers, instructions and warranty card.

Build Quality
Very well built machine that looks to be made with quality materials. I should of checked out the specs beforehand, as I was expecting it to be a lot lighter for some reason, the actual weight is around 9.5kg which is quite a lot more than my old reflector and bulb. The metal case of the light looks very tough and durable, in fact it looks to me like you could drop from a height and it still wouldn't dent it, hopefully I don't put it to the test.
The Grow
I will be growing 5 girls (all Autos) in my 80x80x160 cm tent (3 of which will be in the G.O.T.Y Finals), which are between 9 and 15 days old at time of switching from the 250w mh to the Pro ll Epistar.
Strains
1 x Dinafem Auto Cookies Day 15 (Dinafem Solo Cup Challenge)
1 x Auto Seeds Sucker Punch Day 12 (Auto Seeds Final)
1 x Seedstockers Purple Punch Day11 (Seedstockers Final)
1 x Bomb Seeds Cosmic Bomb Day 10
1 x Zamnesia Purple Couskush Day 9
( Zamnesia Final)
Kit List
Lights
250w mh for first week or so and have now swapped to the Mars Hydro Pro ll Epistar 160
Tent
80cm x 80cm x 160cm
Extractor & Filter
4in Swiftair Filter& 5in cheap crappy Inline extractor
Fans
1 x 6in Oscillating Monkey Fan & 1 x 6in Clip on Static Fan
Pots & Grow Medium
4 x 12l Root Nurse Fabric Pots and 1 x Solo Cup with Coco and Perlite (2nd run)
Nutes
GHE Flora Micro, Grow & Bloom, Vitalink Cal/Mag & Ph Down,Tap Water.

Set Up
Really easy to set up, simply connect each end of hanging wires to light and other ends to your ratchet hangers (not included), then simply plug power lead in to machine and other end in plug socket and switch on. It has 2 switches, Grow and Bloom, so for seedlings and vegging you just switch the grow button on, and for flowering you switch both on, simple.
I have it set at around 20in above plants for now and I'll update again in a week to check on progress.

 

[Prez2.0]

Welcome to the world of LED
I'm sure you'll enjoy

 

[Marshydro]

good start, I'm sure you'll love leds

 

[The Dalai Farmer]

Welcome to the world of LED
I'm sure you'll enjoy

good start, I'm sure you'll love leds

Thanks guys I'm already happy as the temps in tent have dropped a huge amount already, I've just got to get used to the purple glow now

 

[The Dalai Farmer]

@SgtMcDoobie as promised

 

[Towlie]

Nice thanks for the tag that light looks awesome can't say I'm not a bit jealous but I'll get over it lol

Good luck with this grow mate hope you get some monster buds I'm sure you will I've subbed so ill be watching nice choice of strains my favourite has to be the auto seeds because there genetics are fire

 

[The Dalai Farmer]

Nice thanks for the tag that light looks awesome can't say I'm not a bit jealous but I'll get over it lol

Good luck with this grow mate hope you get some monster buds I'm sure you will I've subbed so ill be watching nice choice of strains my favourite has to be the auto seeds because there genetics are fire

Thanks mate and yeah sorry about that Mars Hydro usually have a comp/giveaway every other month or so, so keep entering and hopefully your time will come There's no argument about Auto Seeds either, I've only grown the girl scout cookies so far and no complaints, big yields, good smoke and pretty strong too, so I'm looking forward to trying the Suckerpunch

 

[The Dalai Farmer]

Week 1
So far so good I certainly don't have any complaints about the light after seeing how much they have grown in the last 7 days.
Before Mars Hydro Pro ll Epistar 160

7 Days Later

All 5 have been topped in the last couple of days and at the moment, all looking nice and healthy.
Temperature
It's nice to see the temp in tent has lowered significantly over the last week, before, using the 250w mh, the temp was around the 35c but now it barely reaches 30c on the warmest days, so that's a positive start. I still can't believe how cool the whole machine stays either. I couldn't find any hot spots on it anywhere, all you can feel heat wise is the warm breeze being blown out the sides of the machine by the 2 internal fans.
Noise Level
There is some noise as you would expect with running 2 fans for internal cooling and extraction, but it is no louder than my 6in Oscillating Monkey Fan makes, so no problems there.

So after week 1 all I can say WOW and for my first foray into the LED scene I couldn't be happier now I really can't wait to see how much they're gonna grow in the next 7 days :drool:

 

[Towlie]

Looking good mate keep an eye out for cal mag deficiencies they start to appear around week 3-4 for me when using leds

 

[The Dalai Farmer]

Looking good mate keep an eye out for cal mag deficiencies they start to appear around week 3-4 for me when using leds

Yeah cheers mate I read about the cal/mag deficiency thing with Leds so I started upping there cal/mag intake to around 0.75ml/l from 0.5ml/l and I'll keep an eye out around the 3-4 week mark. I don't know what a cal/mag deficiency looks like anyway, but hopefully I don't find out, cheers