Does LED have Noise? And T5 24w for entire grow?

The Kayaman

The Kayaman

Well-Known Member
I wana do a grow in my tent in my closet but is has to be essentially dead silent. Is this possible? I live in california and have tried previous grows with metal halide and hps but they’re so hot I needed lots of fans and the whole thing was a hot and loud inconvenience.
I was under the impression LEDs are heatless and noiseless is this correct? I don’t want carbon filters or any big fans really, just a couple of plants under a small silent light, any ideas? I need the whole thing to not be costly for electricity.

Also would it even be possible to veg a plant entirely using one 24w t5 tube bulb? Or would I just be wasting my time? My plan was to veg two autos under a t5 24w then flower them under a 1000w King LED. Planting them weeks apart so it would be a harvest every month. Even with small yield, a new harvest every month would be great no? What do you think?
 
JavaCo

JavaCo

Well-Known Member
Most LEDs have active cooling so a fan that makes noise. Some Leds are passive cooled so they have a special heatsink to help cool them. They produce heat just not as much as other light type like HPS. Top of the line LED is in the 60% efficient range. SO 60% light and 40% heat but the light gets turned to heat also laws of thermodynamics. Growing in a small space without ventilation will more than likely fail, pretty much mandatory to have fresh air or you will get bud rot or PM especially if you live where it is humid.
 
printer

printer

Well-Known Member
How big is a small tent? What is the height? What is the normal temperature in the room? What is the local humidity? How tall do you want to get the plants? Are you a little handy? Have tools?

First off, how stinky a plant? I found my plants did not give off much smell in veg. Even then a small carbon filter will work. Some people have made their own, just a canister that had activated charcoal from fish aquariums. Google building carbon filter. A fan does not have to be loud. Some computer power supply fans are quiet. If you can get hold of one and then get a 12V wall adapter to drive it. You do not need a lot of airflow. More to keep the air fresh. Add a 100W equivalent cool white Led light bulb and start growing.

I used a cardboard box with a light bulb in it. The box was lined with white paper, I had access to drafting paper. The box was not sealed fully, the air was able to circulate in and out.

 
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Canagen

Canagen

Member
The Kayaman said:
...
I was under the impression LEDs are heatless and noiseless is this correct? I don’t want carbon filters or any big fans really, just a couple of plants under a small silent light, any ideas? I need the whole thing to not be costly for electricity...
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While some LEDs are noiseless, all will give off a certain amount of heat. Even the 12v computer fans can be an annoying source of white noise in the dead of night. The volume will depend on the diameter of the fan and how fast it has to spin to move air. I had one of those 300w chinese LEDs and you could hear the whine even in a closed off closet.

There are LEDs that do not require a fan in operation so all you will have to worry about is exhausting the heat out silently. HLGs come to mind but plenty of clones too.

Cheers.
 
printer

printer

Well-Known Member
A trick to reduce the fan speed is to give it less voltage than rated. Say a 12V fan on 9V. I have the luxury of having multiple adapters (women buy shoes, I buy adapters, but only for a couple of bucks at thrift stores) and different voltages. Going too low in voltage will cause the fan to shut off, as said, a bigger fan spinning slower will reduce the flow and the noise.
 
The Kayaman

The Kayaman

Well-Known Member
Thank you everyone for the replies, very helpful. I found a mars hydro 1000w LED on Amazon it has no fans and supposedly doesn’t run hot.
 
CanadianJim

CanadianJim

Well-Known Member
xtsho said:
If you veg under t5's you want the HO "high output" 54 watt ones. I use a HO T5 to veg. It works fine, doesn't make any noise and puts off very little heat.
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The 2 foot t5 HO bulbs are 24 watts each. I use one for seedlings. I used it for veg once in a pinch, but the light's footprint wasn't the best. Very long and narrow. It can be used in a closet without cooling though.
For veg of a few other plants, I used a 2 4 foot bulb fixture, those bulbs were 54 watts each. I've moved on to LEDs and smaller panels can be used with just a heatsink. If you're just growing one plant at a time the small panels are a good choice, more than that can get pretty pricey.
 
madvillian420

madvillian420

Well-Known Member
cheap blurple lights run hotter and louder than quantum boards. if you NEED silent and want a decent harvest you should look to better LED's. T5 is a waste of time for anything other than seedlings, clones and the first couple weeks of veg.
 
CanadianJim

CanadianJim

Well-Known Member
madvillian420 said:
cheap blurple lights run hotter and louder than quantum boards. if you NEED silent and want a decent harvest you should look to better LED's. T5 is a waste of time for anything other than seedlings, clones and the first couple weeks of veg.
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Not necessarily, there are plenty of guys on here who have used t5 lights for the full grow, you will just have better results with the current crop of LED lights or HID.
HLG has some quantum boards that aren't too expensive, in fact some are on sale now.
 
The Kayaman

The Kayaman

Well-Known Member
madvillian420 said:
cheap blurple lights run hotter and louder than quantum boards. if you NEED silent and want a decent harvest you should look to better LED's. T5 is a waste of time for anything other than seedlings, clones and the first couple weeks of veg.
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Yeah I was considering the King LED 1000w blurple from Amazon, has small fans comparable to a computer apparently, doesn’t sound too bad noise wise. Then I found the Mars Hydro TS 1000w on amazon which has no fans at all and people are saying it isn’t hot. Not sure if blurple or normal white light is better but right now im stuck between those two. Don’t wanna spend much more than 130 on a light, I don’t mind if the harvest is light.
 
Hust17

Hust17

Well-Known Member
Honestly the air circulating fans I run in my tent are louder than any of my lights.

It’s good you’re concerned, you’re on your way to success.
 
printer

printer

Well-Known Member
madvillian420 said:
Did you finish this grow?How much did you harvest? Those bulbs are pretty weak man lol
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I ended up putting it outside during the summer, it is too bad I threw the box out. It was a 75W equivalent bulb so about 23W real watts. Never got warm. I am starting some mothers from seed, I will have to try doing a cheap grow again. At the time I was legally limited in the amount of plants I can grow and wanted to get the most out of it, I have a higher limit now.

The 1000W rating is annoying to me. It is like back in the day when stereos were rated at 50W and actually they could put out 10W with a headwind. I know they want to 'compare' themselves with other lights, I wan to know the actual wattage from the wall, how much heat is being put out into the area. I just searched for "mars hydro 1000w LED on Amazon" and in the add it said,

"Sunlike full spectrum with 342pcs LEDs, draws 150w from the wall."

If that is acurate think of the heat from a 100W and 40W incandescent bulb in the space. That is how much heat the Leds will put out. it will bring up the temperature with no ventilation, a little air circulation would do wonders.
 
The Kayaman

The Kayaman

Well-Known Member
I can have a couple of small fans running most of the day and can even keep my tent completely open a lot of the time, just not at night. My tent is tall so I can leave a good gap between it and the plants. I’m trying LEDs instead of HID this time because I thought why would I want to pay to have energy wasted as heat instead of light, then have to pay more in fans to bring the temp back down, it doesn’t make sense.
 
coreywebster

coreywebster

Well-Known Member
The Kayaman said:
Do you reckon the 1000w in a 60”x30”x20” tent with minimal ventilation would be too hot? My last 250 HPS grow failed because of heat problems.
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sorry, what are the dimensions? Normally its width x depth x height. I cant see it been 60" wide and only 20" tall so I assume 60 is your height.

So 2.5ft x 1.66ft you want around 125-150w , that mars ts1000 is 150w
It will be a lot cooler than a 250w hps.

I am assuming your looking at the ts1000 and not one of their older blurple LED since you wanted one without fans.
 
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