A real led discussion

Here's one thread that uses from start to finish growing with prosource ufos. this guy was able to yield 7 1/4 oz
http://forum.grasscity.com/advanced-...challenge.html

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from earlier in this thread, This is a great looking crop, and the lights look way better. If I had $500 to blow, Id buy one of these babys!

jonnymafia said:

from earlier in this thread, This is a great looking crop, and the lights look way better. If I had $500 to blow, Id buy one of these babys!

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I have 4 90w ufos that i use to fill in the corners around my 1000w hps, so i'm not anti-led by any stretch, but that prosource grow still only works out to .56 grams per watt...not terrible, but not great for a dialed in setup like that guy clearly has...with all the other parameters locked down and a good hps, .75 grams/watt or better is very attainable.

On the other hand, those big boy ufos clearly are using 1w leds...the future is definitely 2-3w leds. 5 years from now i'm sure i'll have sold my lumatek and switched to 3w/bulb ufos...altho it may take 5w bulbs to truly match the penetration of a 1000w lumatek. would be nice to see a controlled grow like this with 2w led bulbs...maybe they can actually approach the dream of >1gram/watt

Guys, i totally agree and lately ive been researching through Cree LED's, the best way to go about designing and having made, your own led fixture..... right now 3w leds are attainable and proficient, extraordinarily bright and penetrate thoroughly. but 5w leds produce WAY too much heat to handle without extracting the heat or water cooling the fixture. maybe you are right though.... maybe in a couple years they will get the 5w leds heat down to a manageable level.... but for now, i'm looking to build out of 3w's, i actually think they may be just as effective as 5's, and use less energy.

oh, and i broke down and bought two more lights off of ebay, this time the recangular 120w fixtures instead of the ufo style 90w lights that i bought before... i'll post pics in a feww days of these two lights stacked against my stealth grow SG602.... it should be interesting, but i'm not expecting too much out of these lights

CHEERS

bonnie 'n' klyde, thank you for starting an informative thread about LEDs, it is much needed!

Mr. Sobchak said:

bonnie 'n' klyde, thank you for starting an informative thread about LEDs, it is much needed!

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Thanks, man that was really cool of you... +1

i use a 600w http://www.growledhydro.com/ light this panel uses 3 watt/3 chip High Power LED's at 90 degree viewing angle and 11 different spectrum.
here are four girls at 28 days of flowering. ive tried many different leds in the past and have journals on most of them, look in my sig some good reading on leds in those.

since they arnt even half way threw flowering thigs should get allot fatter/bigger. cant wait to see how this grow turns out? the two of the left are XJ-13 and the two on the right are Hindu skunk. both are on day 28 of flowering in this pic. t

so im about 14 days in from when seeds got in soil . first five days under 24 hr under 35w shop lights then switched to my one 90w tri band led. they are looking pretty good , just trans planted to a little bigger pot with some fox farm soil two days ago and man i swear the look even better now , started foiler feeding leaves with nutes about two days ago as well ( fox farm nutes as well ) still have a bit to go so i can sex them and see if these are gonna be my mommas.

I heard that LED's have a good spectrum but bad output, they are suppose to be suplimentry lights for bigger HID lights.

I found this on youtube comparing LED vs HID, very cool, really shows the difference between them. This is not a hate on LED, just think they are not great as the main light source

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CtROw3uiVg&feature=player_embedded#

LED produced 1/3 of what HID produced.

canadian said:

I heard that LED's have a good spectrum but bad output, they are suppose to be suplimentry lights for bigger HID lights.

I found this on youtube comparing LED vs HID, very cool, really shows the difference between them. This is not a hate on LED, just think they are not great as the main light source

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CtROw3uiVg&feature=player_embedded#

LED produced 1/3 of what HID produced.

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And, not to be rude, but here is a site where the maker of this led fixture is getting .9grams/watt...... EXTREMELY impressive, since only the very elite hps growers get 1gram/watt.

not to mention the heat output saves LOTS of money on a/c when compared to hps. This guy is really trying, but even with a solid year of trying, he is still fashioning fairly crude lighting fixtures..... i GUARANTEE that within the next year, myself and a few other ingenuous growers/led officianados will be getting 2grams/watt or more!

If i was a gambling man, i would put money on it!! and here is the light that will get us there.... behold the newest 3-5watt chips from cree:

White Cool Neutral Warm
Color Royal Blue Blue Green Amber Red-Orange Red

0.9? wow impressive, could you give me a link to this site?

And yes, LED is a new technology that has just become introduced into the growing seen. I can't wait to see the advances in the technology, It will be revolutionary i imagine. HID will be old school one day, but for now HID (even though it's expensive for electricity/heat) are superior, but LED are right behind them and advancing.

sorry, i meant to include that link in my post.... here's the site!

http://www.ledgrow.eu/

Thanks for starting a thread that actually is attempting to have a POSITIVE view on what is one of the most contravertial technologies in the grow community!

I have only been on this forum for about 6 months or so and had mixed input about LED vs "other" light sources. I began the idea of growing 2-4 plants at a time at about 18-24". I wanted it to be in a cabinet for a few reasons. I found the cabinet first, then worked back from there, but had already lookied into lighting sources first.

The internal specs of the cabinet are 38"h X 40"w X 22"d. I found it at a thrift store for $17.50 and knew it would be ideal.

I knew now that temp control was the first concern to address. Even 150w HPS was going to be too big of a pain with ventilation and giving enough distance between the tops of the plant and the light. I found a "UFO like" 90w 660nm and blue light on ebay for $140 including shipping, so I settled on that one.

I lined the entire interior of the cabinet with mylar and flush mounted the light to the ceiling after cutting circular holes where the fan ports on the light were.

My first attempt at flowering was with 2 plants. One was a strangely pruned mother plant that had very few nodes on it. The other was a samll seedling that was 11" with few off-shoots. This resulted with 6 8ths. At this point I was happy with good bud. I then did another full grow that contained 3 strains. 2 were like the mother in the first grow, 1 was like the 11". The 3rd one was a new strain that I hadn't flowered yet.
During this grow I realized that I was nute burning all of my plants, but the new strain took it poorly and locked up pretty bad. I didn't notice until week 6 of flowering that I was feeding TRIPLE the nutes my mistake!! ( was feeding Tbs. instead of Tsp.)

Once this issue was corrected, all 3 strains exploded with growth!

I began flushing with just water in a hydro setup at week 8 and harvestedat 10 weeks. I would have let them go longer, but I had plants ready to go into Flower that I had been keeping short and bushy. After drying for a couple days, I ended up with 54g and that was with the burned plant yeilding only 3.5 g. That was 0.6g/watt which is respectable to most that I see on this forum.

The one thing I will say from my experience is that LED is a great light for what I wanted to do. There is no heat control that I have to do and the cabinet peaks out at 81 degrees. Humidity is more of an issue than heat.

I can't speak for how well LED would do in a large room with huge plants, but it is great for a cabinet.

I have 5 plants in my cabinet now and they are avg. of 16" tall when they went in. These plants have over double the nodes from the way I trimmed them during Veg. than the ones in previous grows I have done.

I also installed 2 CFL floodlights (23 watts each) on either side of UFO light to attempt a fuller spectrum of light.

LED I think is best for people that are wanting to grow their own bud without drawing attention to themselves.

Grow well! (Sorry this got a little long, lol)

btw, all of my plants are from bagseed from two different bags! The first 2 strains seem to be sativea dominant and the one that nute burned seems to be Indica dominant.

luckyskindaguy said:

Thanks for starting a thread that actually is attempting to have a POSITIVE view on what is one of the most contravertial technologies in the grow community!

I have only been on this forum for about 6 months or so and had mixed input about LED vs "other" light sources. I began the idea of growing 2-4 plants at a time at about 18-24". I wanted it to be in a cabinet for a few reasons. I found the cabinet first, then worked back from there, but had already lookied into lighting sources first.

The internal specs of the cabinet are 38"h X 40"w X 22"d. I found it at a thrift store for $17.50 and knew it would be ideal.

I knew now that temp control was the first concern to address. Even 150w HPS was going to be too big of a pain with ventilation and giving enough distance between the tops of the plant and the light. I found a "UFO like" 90w 660nm and blue light on ebay for $140 including shipping, so I settled on that one.

I lined the entire interior of the cabinet with mylar and flush mounted the light to the ceiling after cutting circular holes where the fan ports on the light were.

My first attempt at flowering was with 2 plants. One was a strangely pruned mother plant that had very few nodes on it. The other was a samll seedling that was 11" with few off-shoots. This resulted with 6 8ths. At this point I was happy with good bud. I then did another full grow that contained 3 strains. 2 were like the mother in the first grow, 1 was like the 11". The 3rd one was a new strain that I hadn't flowered yet.
During this grow I realized that I was nute burning all of my plants, but the new strain took it poorly and locked up pretty bad. I didn't notice until week 6 of flowering that I was feeding TRIPLE the nutes my mistake!! ( was feeding Tbs. instead of Tsp.)

Once this issue was corrected, all 3 strains exploded with growth!

I began flushing with just water in a hydro setup at week 8 and harvestedat 10 weeks. I would have let them go longer, but I had plants ready to go into Flower that I had been keeping short and bushy. After drying for a couple days, I ended up with 54g and that was with the burned plant yeilding only 3.5 g. That was 0.6g/watt which is respectable to most that I see on this forum.

The one thing I will say from my experience is that LED is a great light for what I wanted to do. There is no heat control that I have to do and the cabinet peaks out at 81 degrees. Humidity is more of an issue than heat.

I can't speak for how well LED would do in a large room with huge plants, but it is great for a cabinet.

I have 5 plants in my cabinet now and they are avg. of 16" tall when they went in. These plants have over double the nodes from the way I trimmed them during Veg. than the ones in previous grows I have done.

I also installed 2 CFL floodlights (23 watts each) on either side of UFO light to attempt a fuller spectrum of light.

LED I think is best for people that are wanting to grow their own bud without drawing attention to themselves.

Grow well! (Sorry this got a little long, lol)

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FROM: Klyde

Lucky, the addition of your full spectrum cfl's wont add much heat, but will undoubtedly quicken your harvest! similar studies have been done, using blue and red, then 3 or 4 spectrum lights and the latter almost cut the time it takes to get mature flowers in half! hope that you have similar results

And thankyou very much for the wonderful comment. i'm glad this discussion finally popped your posting cherry!! Keep us updated on any changes to your cabinet and the effects they have.... we are all interested and anyone who has posted on here im sure will be glad to lend a helping hand

CHEERS

What is the lifespan on the LED lights and can u replace the individual bulbs when they burn out , or just throw the whole system away I am very unfamiliar to LED's but am very interested in the low heat and light electrical use from LED's.

jimbizzzale67123 said:

What is the lifespan on the LED lights and can u replace the individual bulbs when they burn out , or just throw the whole system away I am very unfamiliar to LED's but am very interested in the low heat and light electrical use from LED's.

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The lifespan of an LED fixture is usually advertised at 50,000-100,000 hours. This is contingent on a couple of precise factors. The main one being the average temperature of ambient air directly surrounding the fixture. Those numbers will only hold up if the fixture is accurately heat synced and cooled. Lower priced fixtures usually include very small heat syncs and in my opinion will probably not reach their desired life expectancy.

And by the way, the LED bulbs or chips themselves virtually have an indefinite life span. The part of the fixture that burns out is actually the driver, and it is easy to replace and cost efficient.

Hopefully this wasn't too far over your head, if it was just ask and I will try to rephrase.

I can take my computer apart and put it back together I should be able to replace that part pretty easily. I have a 400W MH/HPS light and a 300W Compact fluorescent bulb. I would love to add two 90W UFO's too get another cycle going. Are the UFO's a pretty good product I saw them for around 140 on ebay. I started to look up LED drivers on Ebay and had no clue what I was looking for, do you know what kind of driver a 90W UFO uses or is that something I find out when it breks and I open it up.

probably when it breaks lol! the ones on ebay are china bullshit as far as quaility, i know i own three! but even at poor quality, they still work (for the time being!!) if i were you, i would try a more reputable brand.... look at HIDHUT, they are quite a bit more expensive, but i bet they are made with quality products. in led's, so far i have found that you pay for what you get

CHEERS

bonnie'n'klyde said:

probably when it breaks lol! the ones on ebay are china bullshit as far as quaility, i know i own three! but even at poor quality, they still work (for the time being!!) if i were you, i would try a more reputable brand.... look at HIDHUT, they are quite a bit more expensive, but i bet they are made with quality products. in led's, so far i have found that you pay for what you get

CHEERS

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Go to www.prosourceworldwide.com

They are back ordered on thier ufo's and have them on sale for $275.00 until the 17th. then they go back up to 349.00.
The illumanator lights are just plain AWSOME. 5 band tri spectrum. check em out.

bonnie'n'klyde said:

probably when it breaks lol! the ones on ebay are china bullshit as far as quaility, i know i own three! but even at poor quality, they still work (for the time being!!) if i were you, i would try a more reputable brand.... look at HIDHUT, they are quite a bit more expensive, but i bet they are made with quality products. in led's, so far i have found that you pay for what you get

CHEERS

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I wouldn't say all of the "china ebay LED's" are all the same. I got one on there, but I actually researched and got one from a seller that I had a better feeling about over all the others. I have flowered twice with it and it continues to do well for me. It was only $140 and I got it about 8 months ago.

Check the link in my signature to see my background as well as current grow.

LED's worked for ME! lol