I’m about to replace some HPS lights with LED and I never do anything without a backup plan. I have backups for everything I use now, lights, fans, water and air pumps. I want zero down time.
HPS is quite simple, have spare bulbs and ballasts and you are set in case of failure. I’ve never had a old magnetic ballast go out but I’ve had a couple digital ballasts just die suddenly over the years, had spares so no biggie.
What about LED lights like the HLG 550 v2?, I assume points of failure can be the driver (easy enough, buy a spare driver), how about the quantum boards, what are the chances of one of those just stopping working and if so, can they be easily replaced? Good idea to have a spare board or 2? Anything else that can go wrong with it?
Good question. Mine have been on for over a year straight and no failures yet. I think the only board failures I’ve seen here were straight out the box.
I encountered a bad driver once. I’ve had no issues other than that. HLG sells spare boards. It’s your lucky day. They are $20 off and selling for $79 right now.
I don’t know that HLG sells spare drivers. There are plenty of vendors out there. @dbrn32 can point you to one of them.
The leds themselves are rated for 50,000 hours, so it’s not common to just see them go out all the time. Driver failure is probably more common, but not like you see that regularly.
If you like having spaces nothing wrong with that. But I wouldn’t feel the need to have them immediately. As long as items work when you receive them you should be good for a while.