LED users please come inside

[themanwiththeplan]

Its been at least 2-3 years since ive looked into LED's i was wondering has the technology improved enough to compete with HPS? will 600w of LED yield the same as 600w hps yet?

theres so many led makers out there that claim its so much improved these days but you never know. the last thing i'd wanna do is plop down $1000-2000 on LED's that dont measure up.

if anyone could link me to a side by side comparison grow where someone used two separate light sources (not in the same tent) of the same wattage with the same clones/strains under both id REALLY appreciate it but a google search only netted LED v. HPS user "d*ck measuring" contests.

 

[wvx]

I have a 360w LED panel from advanced led.

I just bought a 600HPS to replace it.....

YMMV

EDIT::

If you are going with a stealth grow, or scrog in small space then yes, it works fine, but it does not work for what I needed it to do. I think if i had 3 more it would have worked very well.

But my LED panel was $1050 if i remember right, and i think i shelled out around 600 for my hps setup and i wont need another light with it.

It comes down to each persons goals and circumstances. I should have bought a HPS to begin with, but I had done alot of research and believed alot of hype..
But dont believe me.... ask around, but make sure you take your bullshit meter.

 

[themanwiththeplan]

I have a 360w LED panel from advanced led.

I just bought a 600HPS to replace it.....

YMMV

EDIT::

If you are going with a stealth grow, or scrog in small space then yes, it works fine, but it does not work for what I needed it to do. I think if i had 3 more it would have worked very well.

But my LED panel was $1050 if i remember right, and i think i shelled out around 600 for my hps setup and i wont need another light with it.

It comes down to each persons goals and circumstances. I should have bought a HPS to begin with, but I had done alot of research and believed alot of hype..
But dont believe me.... ask around, but make sure you take your bullshit meter.

i wouldnt be shocked though to find a 360w led beats a 600w or even matches it. i was just concerned with watt for watt.

My reasons for LED wouldn't be i can get away with more yield/lumens etc while using up less electricity. i like the benefits of how long they last without having to buy a new bulb (a good 600w-1000w bulb can run 95-120 dollars) and you have to replace them often if you want maximum lumen output (after 3-4 harvests they lose a lot of their output or so has been my experience)

I like the idea of less heat/fans needed (where i live it routinely hits 100+ every summer) and less fans needed.

supposedly i seen theres LED fixtures that feature 5w led's...im pretty sure that wasnt around prior to when i last looked.


let me check htg supply for it again and ill post a link when i find it...

 

[themanwiththeplan]

sorry. its not on htg. its @ the californialightsworks website. its the solarstorm. they have a 800w and a 400w system that both use 5w led's. http://californialightworks.com/Products_SolarStorm.htm

anyone used one? im curious to know if this performs just as well as an hps of equal wattage. so anyone used a 400w solarstorm and compared it to a 400w hps?

normally id just plop down the $$ but its a pretty expensive investment on something that appears to be pretty new since i can find good reviews of it.

 

[1st tymegrower]

just curious what u came up with? imlookin and reading alot about LED too but know nothing about them. if i buy a 400 progrow led is that all i need 4 a full harvest. veg and bloom can i have 2 much led light in a set-up?

 

[themanwiththeplan]

just curious what u came up with? imlookin and reading alot about LED too but know nothing about them. if i buy a 400 progrow led is that all i need 4 a full harvest. veg and bloom can i have 2 much led light in a set-up?

sure you can have a full harvest with a 400w LED..the question becomes HOW MUCH will you yield. what is the quality? are the buds airy?


Im trying to figure out if the 400w solarstorm yields the same as a 400w hps growing the same strain in the same conditions.


the closest to a useful review i found was someone grew with a 800w solarstorm and a 1000w hps. they did the same strain in two separate areas/cabs. he grew a haze/northern lights cross so it was hard to tell what the difference in growth/bud density was. in the end he got 1 more oz with the 1000w hps than he did with the 800w LED solarstorm.

that gives me hope that watt for watt it can match the yield of hps (1 oz short with 200w less isnt too bad at all imo. makes me think if he had 1000w of LED he could have easily beat the hps but not by much...mayb an oz more?)

its just so expensive i wanna know what im getting myself into before i actually get into it! $2K is a LOT of money for a light that could potentially be useless crap (hoping it isnt lol)

 

[1st tymegrower]

has anyone seen the blackdog led? just curious as 2 why no matter what size light u buy, b it the smallest or biggest they still have the same flower footprint / veg footprint? shouldnt the footprint expand the bigger the light more watts that is also?

 

[HotShot7414]

I have a 360w LED panel from advanced led.

I just bought a 600HPS to replace it.....

YMMV

EDIT::

If you are going with a stealth grow, or scrog in small space then yes, it works fine, but it does not work for what I needed it to do. I think if i had 3 more it would have worked very well.

But my LED panel was $1050 if i remember right, and i think i shelled out around 600 for my hps setup and i wont need another light with it.

It comes down to each persons goals and circumstances. I should have bought a HPS to begin with, but I had done alot of research and believed alot of hype..
But dont believe me.... ask around, but make sure you take your bullshit meter.

Wow dude $1050 i could have bought 8 600w mh/hps systems from ebay with some change left.

 

[1st tymegrower]

initial price is not what im concerned about right now, more how productive it will b and how many plants can i safely put under it? don't want mh/hps as inow see these as a better start 4 me.

 

[richinweed]

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[HotShot7414]

initial price is not what im concerned about right now, more how productive it will b and how many plants can i safely put under it? don't want mh/hps as inow see these as a better start 4 me.

MH and HPS is more productive than LEDs i might as well plug in Christmas lights lol

 

[themanwiththeplan]

i think some are exaggerating how superior HPS is to LED's currently.

i was only able to find one grow log in which someone grew clones of some haze nl5 cross of both the led and hps. he used the 800w solarstorm and a 1000hps. in the end i believe he got just less than 1 oz more from the 1000w hps than he did with the 800w solarstorm. it wasnt a high yield on either (7.1 and 8 oz respectively) since they were sativa dom's which grew very tall. i was just hoping to see more grow logs on this. maybe under more usual circumstances (most dont grow those types of strain indoors!)


either way only 1 oz less from 200 less watts tells me if solarstorm came in a 1000w variety then i'd think it would yield more than the 1000hps.

if i could get a led system to out yield a hps system of equal wattage then i could justify that purchase. an led unit that lasts say 10-15 years saves you $1000 -1500(100 a year on a new bulb. sometimes they are even higher for 1000w bulbs..decent ones anyway)

so really a cheap hps system still runs you that much over time. its just not an upfront cost. so with price in the end being equal and the led using less heat you'd think you cant beat it.

I may still hold out to see how much more improvement gets made over the next year or two. id hate to blow 2K and then 6 months later a system with technology far superior comes out (think how 3w led users feel now that theres a 5w led system!)

 

[MasterOfTheJuice]

Im using a 200W Diamond Series LED Panel (11-band) which i got for a bit less than $350 directly from the Advanced Grow Led manufacturer in China (including the shipment via FedEx to the shithole i live in, you could probably get one for less), and planning on getting another one pretty soon, perhaps the 300W
my plants are still quite early in veg, but they seem to be loving it, growing to be very dense and bushy. you can see a pic of the light and plant in my journal.
people say the problem LEDs is with flowering rather than veg, but im still not there.
so far, i think LEDs are great.

 

[themanwiththeplan]

Im using a 200W Diamond Series LED Panel (11-band) which i got for a bit less than $350 directly from the Advanced Grow Led manufacturer in China (including the shipment via FedEx to the shithole i live in, you could probably get one for less), and planning on getting another one pretty soon, perhaps the 300W
my plants are still quite early in veg, but they seem to be loving it, growing to be very dense and bushy. you can see a pic of the light and plant in my journal.
people say the problem LEDs is with flowering rather than veg, but im still not there.
so far, i think LEDs are great.

come back and let me know how it goes in flowering! or actually i see ur journal...ill follow u.

 

[richinweed]

Google george cerventas...he is on youtube....he has done start to finish led grows....i may not have spelt his name quite correctly...

 

[dbkick]

initial price is not what im concerned about right now, more how productive it will b and how many plants can i safely put under it? don't want mh/hps as inow see these as a better start 4 me.

LED make a very nice fairly expensive per watt (some brands much more than others)veg light, I use nothing but LED in veg but in flower you're gonna more than likely be disappointed , I know I was . Running 2 blackstar 500 (yes yes, the "cheap" china made panels)in a 4by4 tent from start to finish. Canopy penetration is like 0 , I'd like to try a small sog with the panels but I just can't put my plant count into a gamble and growing with led is just that for me, a gamble.It's also a different experience, there's certain things you'll have to do , takes longer to learn if you ask me.

 

[dbkick]

I do like the way they veg though...

 

[dbkick]

but in that picture you can clearly see I'm not getting any light down low and should have probably (and probably did) done some trimming, the end product was very small buds and not much at that. it was my first attempt with led so I wasn't expecting much but I was expecting more than I got. the whole tent ended up in the tamisium.

 

[AutoBudz]

Ihave been researching LEDs as well. Check out this LED grow case study, it's a pretty informative read

http://growweedeasy.com/LED-grow-lights-marijuana

 

[PetFlora]

Did I miss how big an area you will be growing in. Check out IndaGro Induction PAR 420. Very impressive to cover 4 X 4 area, very efficient too

If led is where you want to be, forget 2+ watt fixtures. The higher the power, the farther away they need to be. Due to Inverse Square law, you lose what you hoped to gain.

Here is my current 2 x 4 tent using one 3 yo ufo 90 R/B 9:1 + a couple low watt screw bulbs to provide missing spectrums. ufo is probably 60w + supplements leds= ~ 80w TOTAL. Plants are 5 weeks old from seed