The Reason We Are Having Our Summer Sale

We know the recession is making most of us count our pennies! So we're doing what we can by having a HUGE Summer Sale. Please show your support for LOW prices by coming to our store and Help Us Help YOU!

NONE of our prices are inflated!

You can see our products & prices at http://www.nationalgardenwholesale.com

For the DISCREET SHOPPER who prefers privacy when making major purchases we now offer convenient after hours shopping by appointment only. Call us during normal hours at 816-241-2122 to schedule your after hours shopping experience!

Why We Do Not Offer Light Package Deals

We can only think of 3 reasons for having a light package deal where a retailer groups together an H.I.D Metal Halide(MH) or High Pressure Sodium(HPS) ballast, reflector and bulb and offers them as a package.

Reason 1) Different packages for different size growing areas. Maybe one reflector is better suited for instance, for covering a large grow area so you pair it up with a bigger size ballast. No need for creating a package since mostly common sense to someone with experience and can be done quickly at the time of the sale.

Reason 2) A high end system where every component is of the highest caliber and most likely all components are the highest priced components available because they're considered the best. Group all of these high end components together and because the combined price is so high you can knock a bunch off the price and still make some decent money. Quite frankly we don't run into too many wealthy customers that want to pay top dollar so so they can feel they've gotten the ultimate light setup!

Reason 3) Make a package of all of the cheapest components so they can say, "We have the best priced HID lights"! Unfortunately we think this is the most common reason for creating a light system package.

Recently we've been in a price war on lights and quite frankly I'm not happy to admit that! The competition was going cheap cheap cheap and saying ha ha ha so we were in a very bad predicament. We only carry major brand lighting and have found that of the two brands we've carried that Sunlight Supply is very good quality. We've mostly sold Sunlight Supply's Sun System 10 ballasts and even though they're considered economy ballasts we've only gotten 13 total of their Metal Halide and High Pressure Sodium lights back in 5 1/2 years of selling their brand. Sunlight Supply is not the cheapest brand out there for us to carry yet with a return rate like mentioned above why would we want to carry any other brand of lighting?

Sunlight Supply has many models of ballasts to choose from. We mainly sell the Sun System 10 ballasts because I refuse to sell their cheapest Budget Gro Ballast or their Ballast Kits where someone can assemble it themselves. Occasionally a customer requests one of Sunlight Supply's high priced ballasts because they associate price with quality which is usually the case but NOT always! The highest priced ballasts, the Sun System I's and VI's have the same 5 year warranty as the Sun System 10's yet the Sun System 10's have an MSRP around $100 less. I even tell the few customers that request the higher priced ballasts that I don't think it's necessary to pay more since they have the same 5 year warranty as the Sun System 10 ballasts and I've gotten so few of those back over the last 5 1/2 years.

Lastly, we have over 25 different reflectors, 20 different ballasts and approximately 75 bulbs in-stock to choose from so making package deals for every configuration would take a LOT of time... maybe a lifetime! So, rather than come up with any light system package deals we feel it's better to just discount ALL of our MH and HPS light components: ballasts, reflectors and bulbs, so we can recommend what's actually best for the customer needs rather than the customer just buying what's on sale.

We hope you agree with our reasons for NOT offering light package deals!

Most Common Things Manufacturers Skimp On When Making HID Lights

Ballasts 101

If it did not matter what the ballast enclosure was made of then all you would see would be ballast enclosures made of steel because steel is a lot cheaper than aluminum. Why aluminum is used is not so much that it's a lighter material but because it lets heat escape much better than steel, or quite simply doesn't get as hot. Why heat inside the ballast is bad is because heat is what causes the most stress on components inside the ballast, like the capacitor. Manufacturers commonly brag by listing that the capacitor used is rated for up to 105 degrees operating temperature. Steel ballasts can easily get much hotter than 105 degrees inside, not good! It's kind of like your car might be able to go 120 miles per hour but if you floor it for very long or get up to 120 very often your engine probably won't last long at all! The same is true for components like capacitors. That's why manufacturers spend more to make aluminum enclosures to let the heat escape better! It's also why manufacturers go to the trouble of adding openings in the ballast case, louvers, or add fins on the casings to provide more surface area for the heat to escape. The transformer is what is inside the ballast creating the vast majority of the heat. That's why some ballasts have barriers built inside or outside that separate the heat sensitive components like the capacitor from the transformer.

Reflectors 101

The most common way to cut costs Manufacturing reflectors is by putting less reflective aluminum inside the reflector, the aluminum insert. I've seen some manufacturers say their aluminum insert is made of "Hi-Shine reflective inserts" or "AlumaBrite a highly reflective imported aluminum". But what exactly do those terms mean... "Hi-Shine" and "Highly reflective"?? What I can understand is when Sunlight Supply tells us they use 95% reflective German aluminum for almost all of their reflective inserts. I can only think of one, the Yield Master II Classic that they use 86% reflective German aluminum in order to have a reflector to compete with "cheaper" brands. But even so, Sunlight Supply makes a Yield Master II Supreme which is identical to the Classic except they use the 95% reflective German aluminum insert in it and the Supreme lists for $18 more than the Classic version due to that difference.

Bulbs 101

Plants, unlike humans, can only use red and blue spectrum light for photosynthesis. We humans like to measure light output in units called lumens. But the problem is that lumens measure the light that we humans can actually see, not the amount of light that plants can actually use. Human eyes are not sensitive enough to be able to see all light colors. That's why on a dark night we might not be able to see anything but if we put on some night vision goggles then Voila! We can see! Humans can only SEE certain colors of light and plants can only USE certain colors of light. So in a nutshell, the more blue and red a bulb produces the better it is for plant growth. Hence, what we'd call a cheap bulb for growers is one that does not put out much red and blue light. That might not always be the case because price does not always reflect quality. Sometimes we can have cheap yet good quality too but more often quality costs more to manufacture!

All Products We Carry Are At or Below Our Suppliers Listed MSRP!

You can see most of our products & prices at http://www.nationalgardenwholesale.com
We stock many of Sunlight Supply's Products, and we can special order any items not in stock.