L.E.D. grow lights?

[James Bond]

No Mr Bond I'm not into LED sales. Actually I'm an old school head who's probably been smoking pot more years than you are old. I remember 10-15 years ago when the big debate among indoor growers was Halide vs. HPS. For years growers wouldn't think of using HPS bulbs over Halides even for flowering. Now try to find an accomplished grower who dosen't flower with an HPS. I was recently laid off from a white collar job and haven't grown for years and am getting back into it. Bond the last time I grew herb the internet wasn't even up and running! So Bond since researching LED's and state of the art grow rooms, I've found that you are wrong about the High Tech LED's...They do work! Having the web to do research is a great tool and I've been waiting to see if someone on any of these forums has purchased any of these High tech LED's. So finally we are now beginning to see some real results...even 6 months ago when I started this research I wasn't considering an LED product...now my mind has changed. The inital start up cost is expensive and I believe the lights will pay for themselves in the long run...lower operating costs, no bulb replacement, no heat signature, no expensive ventilation. And with one good harvest the LED's i am considering purchasing, probably the LumiGrow, one good harvest will pay for the lights.

If the lights don't work shame on me for not listening to you and if they do...you lose! So the debate rages on LED's vs HID's???

I'm not into sales...I'm just a futurist.

And to the guy who bought the UFO... Return it and do some research on Real LED Products.

And the debate rages on...LED's or HID's

We will have to agree to disagree then. I hope it works out for you, but I sincerely don't believe you will get the results you want with LEDs.

Also, I am sorry to hear about you losing your job. I am getting laid off as well, Friday is my last day. I don't know if I would consider my job white collar, but I was making $50k as a draftsman and 3D modeler. Paid the mortgage anyways.

 

[TeaTreeOil]

i also forgot to mention the person who said you could get an led that out performs a 1000watt hid. wtf are you thinking? for that 1795 price tag i could buy almost ten 1000watt hid systems. so which plants would be better? your couple of lanky plants? or the multiple rooms full of thick lush plants i could grow with that amount of money. for anyone who fell for this lil fad give urself a big

TEN 1000 WATT?!?!

Well one should cost around $72/month. TEN?! That's $720/month! Nearly 9 grand a year. Or $864/year for one.

*10 cents per kWh

LED seems to 'pay for itself' over a few years.

 

[sittinherebored]

TEN 1000 WATT?!?!

Well one should cost around $72/month. TEN?! That's $720/month! Nearly 9 grand a year. Or $864/year for one.

*10 cents per kWh

LED seems to 'pay for itself' over a few years.

oh i wasnt really thinking about the electricity part just the initial costs. leds right now are still not advanced enough i think. maybe in a couple years ill think about it but they never seem to get shit for penetration with the rows of lil keychain lights. the bulbs need to be bigger and more powerful

 

[Spliffious]

thought it would be interesting to experiment with one of these new led devices... i chose a cheaper model.... heres a pic.

ohh yah and i am using a fogger in my dwc. it works well for root rehab....

 

[bf74]

damn Sir, no wonder you are the ninth wonder of the world!!!

check out my new diary in my signature and you can see my setup..

Tell me how to improve it, please...

I just have to say 7-10 grams?! I dont claim to be some pot god, but you sure do talk alot of shit for someone who obviously dosent have alot of experience.

 

[OGkushman]

Some guy's selling new SuperLED's for 450 bucks instead of 650 bucks. http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/for/1118299423.html

 

[bf74]

They're not 'kind of good for veg.'

Plants vegged with insufficient light intensity will become spindly, with thin stems and long distances between nodes. If you want spindly plants, go get some LEDs.

CFLs will do better- and that's not saying much.

cfl's will NOT do better. peace

 

[Treeth]

"Al B = Retarded"

... laughed real good at that one.

Hey everyone, i'm new to the board, but I've read pretty much every worthwhile thread here. Ate most of it up. I tell people (1) al's my mentor...

I've gotten good at making cheap led arrays using only the best, phillips lumileds. I have yet to / I am in progress with testing, however, I think densities of around 300 watts a square foot in dees are more than sufficient to be driving remarkable fruit growth, especially in something like a sog set up.

Its great to watch the plants under the blue and the red / purple, and the differences in the leaf growth and behavior under only red or blue light...

I could spew for days. Intellectual property my friends!

I dunno. I want to share the treeth!

Anyone seriously interested in a test unit? I love the shit.

Pimp and spam teh wares...

 

[joebaze]

im down for a test unit!!!
got sprouts goin through dwc.
always wanted to test the led theory!

 

[rasronin]

Wah wah yield isn't high enough. But wait I thought you said they cant grow at all? You losers change your argument every time you post

This is a Lowryder2 strain. It is a quick-harvest low-yield strain. And if you don't think this plant looks healthy, you are MORONS

Conclusion: Leds CAN grow herb. Anybody saying otherwise is wrong. People arguing against me in this thread are clueless idiots who cannot form a solid opinion. I think any 3rd party person who reads this and sees you posting pictures of lite-brights to try and back up your nonexistent arguments will agree with me.

Idiots, all of you. Keep your deluded points of view, have fun! Keep it up and maybe you can change the whole growing community with your "pretend lumens" discovery

I've made all my points, I'm done with this retarded forum. Rejoice! Now you can discuss your wrong ideas amongst yourselves without anyone telling you your wrong. Adios.

I agree, those guys are fools. You may have paid 600 but that shit is gonna last way longer than their not so cheap sodium, metal whatever lights, plus i'd think you would save on the electricity bill too. Nice plant by the way.

 

[rollin214]

I'm a newbie at this indoors stuff and just purchased some LED panels for growing. I'm using just 60 Blue light LEDs: 465nm (nanometer) wave length, 165 Red light LEDs: 650nm (nanometer) wave length. (Soon will be 120 Blue and 330 Red) The results have shocked me. This is my first time growing indoors and the luster of green and the aroma of these plants are far superior to anything I was able to grow outdoors. The last poster was dead-on. Those pics are worth a thousand words! I have not yet gone into the flowering stage because I'm getting over the top foliage growth and more (strong)stems=more (beautiful) buds! LED's work, they are here to stay and they are going to revolutionize (smart) home growing. Trade those bulky, power hungery, b!tch to install, leaf burning HID's in for some LED's. As long as you get the nm's (wavelengths) right along with their proportion and up time, you will be amazed. I know I am.

Grow On Growers

 

[sammons]

I won't quote anyone because this thread is just too jam packed full of rubbish I'd be here all day. LedGrow has said some pretty convincing counter arguments to the dribble that has been said and there are still stubborn and under educated people trying to argue their misinformed point of view. If you would like to get up to speed with the whole LED thing please read below:

First a little History:
I am a Mechatronic Engineer and have been serious about researching LEDs for growing for 4 years. When I started my research, LEDs were not up to scratch to effectively grow plants! The theory was there but not the production. In the year 2000 SolarOasis engineers developed and manufactured the world's first commercial LED plant grow light, it was insanely expensive then and it still is now and it is still ineffective. Around 2005, Hype about High Power LEDs started to get people interesting in the potential of LEDs. Then people started to advertise "LED Panels" as so called "LED Grow Lights" that still used 5mm LEDs and were also severely under powered. But unlike The Grow Bars from Solar Oasis they only used 470nm Blue and 625nm red LEDs which are the cheap, common LEDs. The forums lit up with people asking about grow lights and there were many making their own. The realisation of the Procyon 100 light was the first commercial example that I was aware of that used high power LEDs. Unfortunately it doesn't work as it was hoped either. It contains only Cree Red and Blue LEDs which are not actually aligned to the Photosynthetic response of both Chlorophyll A and B as much as they try to tell you. Thus, is not only inefficient, but is missing other colours that we now know are also important (UV and FR. Other manufacturers produced similar lights like the famous UFO light that has been so heavily copied in china. More powerful lights began to emerge from china but still restricted to the Red/Blue mostly due to cost, but also due to demand to get any old LED grow light into the market.

The LED Lighting market is developing at an extremely fast pace and research and development is increasing the efficiencies at an exponential rate, and the cost of LEDs are coming down dramatically. As of January 2009 there has been a breakthrough that promised to be able to reduce the production costs of LED dies by 90%. As that sort of technology filters through to the manufacturers and LEDs become used as the predominant lighting source, the retail price will drop even further. Lights are developing and since early 2008 TriBand and QuadBand LED lights have begun to emerge as the manufacturers have realised that the RED/BLUE lights are failing to produce results in budding/flowering. These new lights can have UV (395nm), Royal Blue (455nm), Orange Red (630nm), Deep Red (660nm), and FR (730nm).

There is no point sitting around crying that your UFO that you bought of Craig's list isn't working. Don't come to forums to whine that LEDs are no good and people should stick with HPS. If you had done your research you would know that its not the LED technology that are failing you, it is the mis-use of the technology and mis-representation of what LEDs are capable of. With such a cut throat market, and a mass of stupid people, of course people are going to cash in on the LED hype. But the Fact remains, LEDs will be the future of indoor growing whether you like it or not. Companies are using the revenues from sales of crappy LED Lights to fund the research that is required to produce better lights.

As for penetration, light is Light, the difference is the frequency. A possible explanation why light from a MH or HPS would "Penetrate" the plant canopy better is because plants do not absorb green/yellow/orange light very well. The light either passes through or is reflected, giving the lights chance to bounce around and get further down to lower leaves. These frequencies are not absorbed by plants, so the perceived increase of light penetration of a HPS does not mean that your plant is getting more usable light.

Next point I would like to make. LEDs are a different light source. It’s not like removing a Metal Halide and putting in a HPS. They don't emit light in the upper infra red region (radiant heat). This is both good and bad. GOOD because it will be the end of frying your leaves and buds and end to wasted energy and end to noisy, expensive extraction fans and carbon filters and greatly reduced heat signature! But BAD because during winter your indoor grow may end up being too cold. You may need to think about not only ventilation but heating as well. But that is not the end of it. If you have tried growing with 600W or 1000W HPS you end up having to ventilate your grow area in order to cool everything down due to the enormous amount of heat generated by the lighting. If you want to add any CO2 it’s much like an open fire, 90% will go straight up the ventilation shaft. The use LEDs makes it possible to seal off the grow space and introduce CO2 without it all blowing away.

The rated lifetime of LEDs is often stated as 50,000 hrs, it is incorrect to assume that after 50,000 hrs the light is no longer usable. The figure means that in 50,000hrs the light output will be 70% of its original brightness. And in 50,000hrs after that is will be 70% as bright as it was after the first 50,000 hrs, so in theory will just get duller and never actually die. (As long as the power supply can keep going that long)

So now we have a light source that uses half the energy to produce the same results, doesn't burn our plants, and reduces suspicious electricity bills. LEDs make it possible to eliminate smells and open the way for increased production through CO2 supplements. LEDs have an instant on (no warm up) and no cycle times we have to worry about. No more dead timers from the inductive load of inductive ballasts killing the relays and won't need replacing for a long time.

Unfortunately LEDs are not cheap! It is the efficiencies and features I mentioned above that make LEDs so promising. If you are trying to grow on the cheap, LEDs may not be for you. However, you can get a single 600w LED 5 Band LED light for less than US$900 posted to your door. If you can make that back in less than 6 months, the next 7-10 years is all profit and much more stealthy.

Just don't go around saying they don't work as well as a 600w HPS until you have tried a grow with 600w LED using UV, BLUE, RED, Far RED LEDs. Please Please Please don't go around saying, "I have tried LEDs and they suck" when all you have done is stick your plants under a 10w LED panel off eBay!!!
Regards
Phil

 

[xesvuli420]

wow, this thread was a hot one there for a minute, and just died off. What happened to all the people buying one to test? lol

Ok, I get it. LED users say LED's are the best, HPS users say LED's are worthless when it comes to yield. Has anyone actually used both to get a solid comparison?

I have a problem. I am growing inside a non-ventilated closet, and can NOT vent it! I do have a fan running thou, and can NOT raise the power bill by more than 15$. But I need something to give these guys light. Someone with EXPERIENCE please help me find a solution to my problem.

90w LED UFO Triband (I'm afraid its junk)
250w HPS (i'm afraid it will give off to much heat)
CFL's
2ft Fluor's

I have seen alot of promising videos online for the UFO's, lol but notice that most of them are posted from a LED SELLER.

Someone who has found a way to get a nice yield from a closet, PLEASE help me. Thanks

 

[directional]

You can talk shit on LEDs all you want, but my results are not isolated. There are others having just as much success as me and eventually you are going to look more stupid than you do already. peace.

If you buy a quality LED light you will be happy. A lot of people talk shit about them for some reason. I love em.

 

[SupraSPL]

its not the LED technology that are failing you, it is the mis-use of the technology and mis-representation of what LEDs are capable of. With such a cut throat market, and a mass of stupid people, of course people are going to cash in on the LED hype. But the Fact remains, LEDs will be the future of indoor growing whether you like it or not. Companies are using the revenues from sales of crappy LED Lights to fund the research that is required to produce better lights.

Quoting Phil for Truth. Big THNX to all the early adopters!

 

[sittinherebored]

the good ones MIGHT work(not taking sides on that part) but i can get an 87 porsche 944 turbo for what ive seen some of the good LEDs selling for. ooh or a sportbike

 

[SupraSPL]

I think that very much depends on your goals. If your running a micro grow, you can make use of this technology for the same price or less than HPS. If you trying to grow 6 foot tall plants under a 1000watt lamp then LED may not currently be the right technology for that style grow.

I have seen 15 watt high powered 650 NM flowering lights on ebay for $50 shipped. Supplement that with a 15 watt UVB fluoro and that could yield 1-2 ounces of dankest bud for 30 watts! The tradeoff is there is a lot of work training the canopy and keeping the lamps DIRECTLY on top of it.

 

[xesvuli420]

I think that very much depends on your goals. If your running a micro grow, you can make use of this technology for the same price or less than HPS. If you trying to grow 6 foot tall plants under a 1000watt lamp then LED may not currently be the right technology for that style grow.

I have seen 15 watt high powered 650 NM flowering lights on ebay for $50 shipped. Supplement that with a 15 watt UVB fluoro and that could yield 1-2 ounces of dankest bud for 30 watts! The tradeoff is there is a lot of work training the canopy and keeping the lamps DIRECTLY on top of it.

Well I don't know what micro grow means, but I am planting in a closet with no venting, and my plants should never get more then 4 ft high. thats why i am so concerned with the heat. the closet stays around 75f, but I can't let it go over 90 if I go with an hps. I have enough money left over for 1 decision. HPS, LED, or fluors. I hear the fluors will reduce my harvest drastically, so really I want to go with either a...

250w HPS or LED

I was looking at the
90w Triband UFO (with red, blue, and white)...take a look...
http://eloofaimports.com/magento/index.php/ufo-grow-lights/90w-ufo-grow-light-triband.html

 

[directional]

Well I don't know what micro grow means, but I am planting in a closet with no venting, and my plants should never get more then 4 ft high. thats why i am so concerned with the heat. the closet stays around 75f, but I can't let it go over 90 if I go with an hps. I have enough money left over for 1 decision. HPS, LED, or fluors. I hear the fluors will reduce my harvest drastically, so really I want to go with either a...

250w HPS or LED

I was looking at the
90w Triband UFO (with red, blue, and white)...take a look...
http://eloofaimports.com/magento/index.php/ufo-grow-lights/90w-ufo-grow-light-triband.html

ive been using a 150 watt hps for the type of grows you are trying to do since the start.. the HPS does ok but uses way more energy than LED... someone i know does the same type of stuff and uses a 90w tri-band UFO and gets the SAME if not better results. I just purchased the 5-band 90w UFO.. I can keep you posted.

 

[directional]

ive been using a 150 watt hps for the type of grows you are trying to do since the start.. the HPS does ok but uses way more energy than LED... someone i know does the same type of stuff and uses a 90w tri-band UFO and gets the SAME if not better results. I just purchased the 5-band 90w UFO.. I can keep you posted.

btw i went and visited a tri-band LED project and it looked GREAT..