Consider how 250W led can replace 600W hps/mh

Hello there,

I was thinking about something , specially about some marketing companies who sell led panel and scream 250W replace 600W .

From all i 've read and heard, most of people are ok to say , that most of the time its just bullshit ,
They said 600W but the panel is powered by 250W one example among many others ....

But i also read , that on 600W hps , lot of W are lost first by the ballast , then the lamp itself lost something about 40% ( ?? ) thermal radiation ( IR ?? ) , so on 600W power at start , in the end a 600W hps it rest thing like 300W ??

And on this 300W remaining , most high pic 60-70% relative power are between 500-600 wavelength, so not really the best part of the spectrum for the plant right ?

So in the case , we could say, with 250W of great led at least , could almost be closer than a 600W ???

And by this , perhaps some brand haven't got wrong with this commercial argue ?? ....

Bullshit.

Depends on the LED in question. With softly drivin CREE CXB3590's it could be possible. Not so much with anything else.

You gotta dig deeper than shitty WATTS to give an even and practical comparison ... (IMO)

To beat a fresh gavita by 2.4x, you'd need a lamp with 100.8% efficiency. Not going to happen.

Edit: I just realized he was specifically talking about 600W, not a DE.... still... not even close. You'd need around an 85% efficient lamp for 250W to compare with a 600W HPS. This is still very unlikely to happen in the near future and would cost a fortune to buy.

It is getting to the point that 2/3 wattage is reachable... 600 watt LED to replace 1000w HPS and 400 to replace 600.

I just got nailed on some other thread for claiming it is hard to beat that good old 600w mh/hps with an led. And I grow under led.

churchhaze said:

To beat a fresh gavita by 2.4x, you'd need a lamp with 100.8% efficiency. Not going to happen.

Edit: I just realized he was specifically talking about 600W, not a DE.... still... not even close. You'd need around an 85% efficient lamp for 250W to compare with a 600W HPS. This is still very unlikely to happen in the near future and would cost a fortune to buy.

Click to expand...

Well I'm not sure I agree with you 100%. Over a single square meter a 600w hps is putting down ~1100umol/s/m2 assuming 38% efficiency, 4.97umol/J, and zero losses to reflectors or anywhere else in the system.

A 250w panel composed of CXB3590's, 36v, driven at 700ma can be 59-65% efficient depending on the CCT. If we use the 3500k it's 64% efficient, assuming 4.7umol/j, we're looking at 752umol/s/m2. When we consider reflector losses and what have you, not such a bad case to be made for high quality cobs.

It would be expensive for sure, over $500 for cobs alone. But there is still a good case going for it if hyper efficiency is needed.