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Interesting design... is it all a solid unit?

18 inches is my happy place. My lights have a 120 degrees lens angle (according to company reps) and I've found 18 inches to be the best combo of penetration and footprint. For what it's worth, I do this with a 750 watt panel...

Have you looked at Black Dog? You didn't mention them. You should definitely be able to get an awesome panel for the area you're covering well under your 1500$ budget. I've had great results.

From what I understand, UV B radiation is not particularly beneficial to plants. UV B exists within the range of 315-280 nm, which is well outside the accepted range of light used by plants during photosynthesis. Here's a chart I found at growguide.com that offers a decent explanation of which...

+1 for shear MacGyverness.

It takes plants time to adjust to new lighting, for one. I second the use of H2O2 (or Hygrozyme) to prevent algae/root rot. Do you test the pH of your nutrient solution before you water? You should also be tracking the temp (around 75 is a good rule of thumb) and humidity (40-60%) in the room.

That's interesting... I picture the 50w diodes/lights being set up almost like an HID with it's own ballast and cooling unit... definitely different. I worry that having so much power coming out of one diode limits the spectrum you can provide, and I firmly believe that you need a pretty rich...

I have some of the old Black Dog LED panels, but I also upgraded to the universal Platinum. The thing is a beast--way more substantial than the old platinum that I have. It puts out a lot of light, and the spectrum looks pretty rich. But the most important thing is that my girls responded really...

Welcome to CO, Pazzo! Thanks for the response. I use about 6 to 9 gallons, depending on how green the plants are, so that sounds about right. This round goes to me :) Life has been pretty hectic around here, but one of these days I'll focus and post some current pics... next round, after I...

This is almost better birth control than having to clean up after a table with young kids when you're waiting tables...

I, personally, would not buy this. The spectrum doesn't look very good, and the board on which the LEDs are mounted looks flimsy and low quality. Cheap parts... I predict sub-par results and unit failure.

Great variety in this thread! I'm doing beets, kale, lettuce, banana peppers, ghost peppers, lemon cucumbers, strawberries, carrots, cilantro, zucchini, yellow squash, all sorts of tomatoes, patty pan squash, sage, rosemary, thyme, lavender, string beans, and whatever else I decide. I'm popping...

Also, have you ever tried House and Garden nutrients? I've never had better results... and they may seem a bit expensive comparatively but if you do a cost analysis they're really quite reasonable.

6'x6' seems a bit much for a 300 watt LED... I'd say the effective footprint is closer to 4'x4'. Also, I don't know if a 300 watt LED "more than replaces" a 1000 watt HID. 400 watt is more reasonable. Marketing is often unrealistic. That being said, I'm glad you got your PH problem fixed. You...

You could survive eating nothing but granola bars for a while, but would you be healthy? No. While red and blue are the "most important" spectrums for vegetative growth and flowering, the plants utilize many other wavelengths of light, visible and otherwise, to produce desirable chemical...

Just a piece of advice, whichever LED you go with: the plants will take roughly 30 days to adjust to the LED spectrum, so take that into consideration when switching over. Your first harvest may be a bit underwhelming, but it will get better. You can influence the epigenome of an organism only...

I use black dog LEDs, and I love them. You can see the power of the diodes as soon as you turn the unit on... so nice not to have to cycle... and my girls seem to really love the spectrum. A little pricey up front maybe, but you make that money back in savings soon enough. The size of light...

To all the green nay-sayers: There are pigments/organelles within plants that do use green (and other wavelengths of) light... perhaps not for vegetative growth or direct bud development, but often in the synthesis of other desirable chemical compounds. Looking into existing research can...

Is it just me or is induction lightingthe same concept as neon filled with a different noble gas? And I believe there is mercury involved. I'm not sure how specifically tailored the spectrum can be.

Anyone know if they're related to katydids? Looks similar.