LED Technology in the next 3-5 years?

CaliMackdaddy

CaliMackdaddy

Active Member
What are the possibility of using LED in the next 3 years for full on grows, 500W bulbs? or more? Post comments as im very interested in where its going, ive seen articles saying that the price per lumen within the next few years will be a fraction of what it is today.
 
the market controllers are not intrested in leds they do not fit the diverse needs of the industry the way mh hps an plasma do

in 5-6 plasma will be standard

it out preforms hps now and is only ludicusly expensive due to hps being such a cash cow that they are not ready to kill off yet , it is old technology being revamped by nasa
 
I think in 3-5 years led light arrays will have graduated from 3w leds to 5/6w possibly even higher around 10w as more leds are made in greater variety of wavelengths. Efficiency improves, lifespan improves, and the spectrum fof optimum cannabis growth and fruitation is honed in on. I know there are large 100w led bulbs but I'm not sure yet how valuable insanely large diodes would be for growing since the wattage would add up so quick there may not be enough watts available to hit all the spectrums if that.makes any sense.

Plasma will hopefully start to drop in prices and the spectrums will likely be refined as well.

Another new light technology that is still a lot longer off in terms of growing applications is laser. I read not too long ago that I think it was bmw is working on laser lighting technology that will replace led headlights in cars. Maybe in 20 years we'll be growing with lasers?
 
CaliMackdaddy said:
What are the possibility of using LED in the next 3 years for full on grows, 500W bulbs? or more? Post comments as im very interested in where its going, ive seen articles saying that the price per lumen within the next few years will be a fraction of what it is today.
Click to expand...

LEDs will never be the primary source of energy for any plant... LEDs as a secondary light source is a common practice but as a primary light source I would SAY NO... NEVER...
 
phxfire said:
LEDs will never be the primary source of energy for any plant... LEDs as a secondary light source is a common practice but as a primary light source I would SAY NO... NEVER...
Click to expand...

There are tons of growers that use leds as primary sources of light for many different kinds of plants.
 
No, the bulbs won't go above 5 watts. But efficiency might increase. All LED's that are above 5 watts are several LED's withing the same dome.
But we might see cooler LED's with longer lifetime and maybe a 50% increase in lightoutput/w
At that point LED's will have outrun the HPS and MH by far. Cheaper LED lights with do just as good as HPS and MH and higher end LED's will do awesome.
Something like that..
Maybe I'm wrong with the efficiency guess, but the rest should be spot on. ;)
 
THT said:
There are 20 watt, non-directional, LED arrays available right now from CREE http://cxa.cree.com/ can't a lens be put on this to make it applicable to your needs? These are not all that expensive and from what I hear extremely bright, white spectrum light. Possibly something worth looking at.
Click to expand...

I know there are LED's with high wattages, but these are made from more single LED dies withing the same fixture.. which means trouble when it comes to heat management.. And I'm not sure that just because the wattage is higher at one single point, the so called penetration is better than several, more efficient 3 watt led's. just my 2 cents.
 
With the caveat that nobody can really predict the future with certainty, I'll take a stab at it anyway:

-Prices on LED diodes will continue to go down, with per-diode performance going up. But since diode cost only represents a relatively small fraction of the total cost of a panel, by itself this is probably NOT going to translate into a proportionate decrease in panel cost. This is particularly true since the market for grow-specific lights is pretty small.

-With a *lot* more cumulative growing experience and evolution of design out there, manufacturers of panels are going to be putting out better and more refined panels. Combine with cheaper LED diodes, and we're talking panels with more optimized spectra, and with more efficient energy usage.

With better designs out there the quality of the copycat-knockoffs will also probably improve too over time.

Add these things together, and I think the net effect will be that over time panel performance will continue to improve, and prices will continue to go down, but I don't think we're going to see and sudden and dramatic improvements in either performance or pricing in the next few years. There will be slow improvement in both.

Like any new technology, the better it gets, the more people will use it, and the more people that use it, the cheaper it gets. All that said, I still don't see LED technology entirely replacing HID lighting for growing anytime in the next five years.

HID technology is mature, and its use is widespread for all sorts of non-gardening applications. The lamps and bulbs are relatively cheap, easy to maintain, available everywhere, easy to service, and highly effective for growing. Even though HID lamps use more power and generate more heat than LEDs, those are really the only two disadvantages they have at this time. LEDs make sense right now in environments where heat is a big concern, but they are still going to have to improve by quite a bit in terms of cost before they entirely displace HIDs.

On plasma lighting, that's a chicken-and-egg thing. I think the performance of plasma already beats HPS, but the technology is still so new that costs of the plasma units themselves aren't competitive.

Remember, there is a huge functional base of HID lights in active use right now. At current HID lamp costs and with current energy costs it doesn't make sense for people using HPS to make the switch now. But as more and more people use plasma lighting, because of economy of sale the per-unit costs will go down, eventually becoming competitive with HID lighting in many applications.

Put more simply, once it becomes cost-effective for people to start putting plasma into their warehouses, and lighting their buildings with it instead of HID lighting, then it will be equally cost effective to use it for growing.

With plasma or LED, the cost of energy is a major factor too. If energy costs go up, then the relative competitive advantages of LED and plasma increase proportionately. In places with insanely high energy costs (ie powering the space shuttle, for example!), then these things are probably cost effective right now.

On lasers. . .forget it. Lasers are highly energy efficient, but they're also relatively fragile, bulky, and expensive compared to conventional LED diodes. I don't see any commercially viable laserlight growing systems hitting the market in the next 10 years.
 
I'm pretty sure Kessel lights use DiCon's laser/fiber optic diodes and the technology they used is somewhat old. DiCon has better chips, but they would bleach the plant.

In terms of LEDs, plasma and other lighting systems that might come about, I think they are the future of growing. HIDs cannot focus spectrum in the way plasma and LED technology can. They are cheap, available and have years of use and reliability. LEDs have a bad rep at this point for claims of "equality to 400w hps." Shitty little chinese 1 watt panels ripping off hopeful new takers to LED tech and forever scarred by the shitty results. Plus they put lead in it. Right now, it is cheaper to buy an LED panel than it is to set up a 400w hps grow. You hung a brilliantly bright 400w hps in a grow tent, hooray, now what? Well for starters you better put a fucking huge ass, loud, inline fan to pump air out and a carbon filter to reduce the smell because the added heat from the HPS makes plants smell more. Is that it? Well no, if you want a 400W bulb to be more efficient you have to buy an digital ballast. If you wish your bulb to NOT EXPLODE in 3 months of growing, you have to get a much nicer, much more expensive digital friendly bulb. But wait there's more, if you want your plant to be able to get closer to the light, you're gonna need a cool tube, or at the very least a fucking reflector so half your light isn't wasted. But wait there's even more, the huge amount of heat you produce can lead to your arrest. If you manage to avoid arrest then you are paying out the ass every year or less to get a new bulb. That's a lot of friggin money and effort.
Meanwhile, I'm using an LED panel that I really like. It grows well, the heat is so low I don't need a big fan, and I can use a jar of ona for the smell. The plants can grow closer to the light than an LED, saving me space. My LED can more closely resemble the light that plants crave, brought to you by carl's jr. I will have this LED for the next 5-10 years, meaning for 1 payment of $530, I have a light for at least 30 grows before dimming. That is fucking impressive. You want to know a time to pick LED? This is the time to pick LEDs. People complain about the cost of LEDs, but neglect the huge costs incurred by owning and operating HID equipment. There are some LEDs out there that can get the fucking job done when it comes to growing bud, if you don't have enough light, then add another in there. Heat is not that big of an issue so you can stack huge amounts of them.
 
TheGaussianMan said:
I'm pretty sure Kessel lights use DiCon's laser/fiber optic diodes and the technology they used is somewhat old. DiCon has better chips, but they would bleach the plant.

In terms of LEDs, plasma and other lighting systems that might come about, I think they are the future of growing. HIDs cannot focus spectrum in the way plasma and LED technology can. They are cheap, available and have years of use and reliability. LEDs have a bad rep at this point for claims of "equality to 400w hps." Shitty little chinese 1 watt panels ripping off hopeful new takers to LED tech and forever scarred by the shitty results. Plus they put lead in it. Right now, it is cheaper to buy an LED panel than it is to set up a 400w hps grow. You hung a brilliantly bright 400w hps in a grow tent, hooray, now what? Well for starters you better put a fucking huge ass, loud, inline fan to pump air out and a carbon filter to reduce the smell because the added heat from the HPS makes plants smell more. Is that it? Well no, if you want a 400W bulb to be more efficient you have to buy an digital ballast. If you wish your bulb to NOT EXPLODE in 3 months of growing, you have to get a much nicer, much more expensive digital friendly bulb. But wait there's more, if you want your plant to be able to get closer to the light, you're gonna need a cool tube, or at the very least a fucking reflector so half your light isn't wasted. But wait there's even more, the huge amount of heat you produce can lead to your arrest. If you manage to avoid arrest then you are paying out the ass every year or less to get a new bulb. That's a lot of friggin money and effort.
Meanwhile, I'm using an LED panel that I really like. It grows well, the heat is so low I don't need a big fan, and I can use a jar of ona for the smell. The plants can grow closer to the light than an LED, saving me space. My LED can more closely resemble the light that plants crave, brought to you by carl's jr. I will have this LED for the next 5-10 years, meaning for 1 payment of $530, I have a light for at least 30 grows before dimming. That is fucking impressive. You want to know a time to pick LED? This is the time to pick LEDs. People complain about the cost of LEDs, but neglect the huge costs incurred by owning and operating HID equipment. There are some LEDs out there that can get the fucking job done when it comes to growing bud, if you don't have enough light, then add another in there. Heat is not that big of an issue so you can stack huge amounts of them.
Click to expand...

Well said.
 
Having gone through a fairly extensive light learning curve, I am of the opinion that LED is vg for supplementing in the deep blue (410-420 nms) and far red (640-660 nms), not so much PAR. Combine deep blue & far red with a nice HO T5 using coral bulbs and you will have great growth and buds. As to combining mufti-spectrum red and blue in one fixture, red is much hotter, which significantly shortens its' driver life. At some point those drivers will fail and you have to toss the WHOLE light.

HO T 5s using coral growing bulbs provide 90%+ PAR. The ability to infill with deep blue and far red LEDs seems like the ticket to me, and you don't need much. Similarly, substitute plasma for T5s + infill with deep blue and far red LEDs
 
PetFlora said:
Having gone through a fairly extensive light learning curve, I am of the opinion that LED is vg for supplementing in the deep blue (410-420 nms) and far red (640-660 nms), not so much PAR. Combine deep blue & far red with a nice HO T5 using coral bulbs and you will have great growth and buds. As to combining mufti-spectrum red and blue in one fixture, red is much hotter, which significantly shortens its' driver life. At some point those drivers will fail and you have to toss the WHOLE light.

HO T 5s using coral growing bulbs provide 90%+ PAR. The ability to infill with deep blue and far red LEDs seems like the ticket to me, and you don't need much. Similarly, substitute plasma for T5s + infill with deep blue and far red LEDs
Click to expand...

New modular designs allow for replacement of "parts" of the LED, instead of throwing away the whole LED. GHL, Cidly, FERO, and a few others use modular designs now.
 
leogets said:
the market controllers are not intrested in leds they do not fit the diverse needs of the industry the way mh hps an plasma do

in 5-6 plasma will be standard

it out preforms hps now and is only ludicusly expensive due to hps being such a cash cow that they are not ready to kill off yet , it is old technology being revamped by nasa
Click to expand...
^ Haha.

Who are these clowns and where did they come from?
 
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