LED grow light info?

lbezphil2005

Well-Known Member
Dude, check out this link: www.blackdogled.com and then get back to me. I just purchased the 700 and will be putting it in a 3 X 5 room - guy said it will be like having a 1000 watt mh and 1000 watt hps in there. I don't know about that, but this is the best designed light i've seen so far, and I've been looking into LED for almost 2 years now. Don't wast your money on the little panels, if you are going to wait a little I am starting a journal soon with this setup and some kickass seeds from amsterdam. should have my light within 3 weeks
 

twrecks47

Member
thanks dude! appreciate it, you ever heard of combining LED capabilities with HPS? to much for the plants you think?
 

gobbly

Well-Known Member
my favorite LED's: http://www.stealthled.com/
Another decent company: http://www.hydrogrowled.com/Default.aspx

That black dog look decent too, though I don't have any direct or indirect experience with them.

Far as finding info there are kinda two levels to it. First you want to do some research on light, spectrum, and photosynthesis. This info applies regardless of the light source you pick, and is really a science unto itself. A first step is to not look into lumens (and related measurements like lux), instead start looking into PAR (photosynthetic active radiation). Lumen is to people what PAR is to plants (at least this is the easiest way to get used to thinking of it).
Once you are secure with concepts like wavelength, kelvin, chlorophyll types and peaks, PAR intensity (moles), etc, you are ready to start looking into leds. This involves researching topics like drivers, emitters (diodes), optics, spectra. You should have an idea of what wavelength emitters you want to mix, what wattage and optics combinations you want, etc.
You can skip all this research and just buy from one of the companies linked here (they all are good). Keep in mind that LED is a 2-4x price premium, and though there are benefits over HID/flo, many people wouldn't see the premium as a value. If you go into LED without the proper budget you will be disappointed.

Edit: Mixing LED with HID isn't bad. HID is often supplemented with cfl's, usually the HID will be up top, and the cfl's will kinda wrap around the sides of the plants to improve penetration. I wouldn't get a hybrid though, if I were to mix led and HID I would want to position the LED's independent of the HID (again I'd wrap the sides and lower portions of the plants with the LED). The cheap panel you linked on ebay is crap. I wouldn't even trust it for supplemental lights. If you want to supplement, the UFO's seem decent for supplemental light.
 

lbezphil2005

Well-Known Member
heard of great results. You need to check the specs on usable light spectrums first then make your decision on using led's for supplemental lighting I would get 50/50 red blue but different spectrums of reds and blues,
 
I have a led ufo its a good light but by itsself I was dissapointed with its yeild (mostly due to its coverage area) but the 1 plant grown under produced some nice bud,

I highly recomend adding it with a HID light thaw what I'm doing and I'm loveing the results
 
Top