LED lighting Good or Bad?

smokebros

smokebros

Well-Known Member
L.E.D's should not be used as replacements for traditional HPS/MH lights. they are a great supplemental light (additional light). For vegetation, if you can find a good deal, go ahead and buy a L.E.D.
-I'll use my cfls, and get bud that is just as good. For flowering, you see ppl use led's w/ other lights
 
luckandleather

luckandleather

Active Member
CFL's are sounding good, for a closet size space. Just saw some pricing for LED's. If I could find a good buy, I can justify the expense.
 
JLStiffy

JLStiffy

Well-Known Member
I have a bud who uses LED for Veg moms. He sells cuttings for a living but even than he say's he would not reply on them to flower. He say's they sux. But he also has three different makes and two of them are apparently the best their is to offer (hence what his bud who owns the grow store says') So he gets good deals, and buys three. Is he happy? Not worth the investment yet. T5 by quantum big boy 16lamp is good choice for CFL :) Or go get a 600HPS since they onl run 3.3amps continuous.
Heres something about LED they still pull wayyyy to much juice for what they are! Usually around 400-800 watts! Think about that if its wired 120V- those damn amps
 
FootClan

FootClan

Well-Known Member
JLStiffy said:
I have a bud who uses LED for Veg moms. He sells cuttings for a living but even than he say's he would not reply on them to flower. He say's they sux. But he also has three different makes and two of them are apparently the best their is to offer (hence what his bud who owns the grow store says') So he gets good deals, and buys three. Is he happy? Not worth the investment yet. T5 by quantum big boy 16lamp is good choice for CFL :) Or go get a 600HPS since they onl run 3.3amps continuous.
Heres something about LED they still pull wayyyy to much juice for what they are! Usually around 400-800 watts! Think about that if its wired 120V- those damn amps
Click to expand...
your 600w runs 3.3 amps??? My 600w quantuim digital runs at 5 amps.........what brand of 600w are you using that runs at 3.3 amps?? My 400W runs 3.4 amps...... do you know something i dont im confused...
 
JLStiffy

JLStiffy

Well-Known Member
Hi,
I run 240V, but in any case watts/volts=amps. So 600Watt / 240V = 2.5Amps but than I add a surcharge of 15% so thats 690 Watts /240V =2.875amps. 2.9 Amps is what will be provided to you buy your ballast company's. But I do not include the 15% surcharge on my load but what I do count for is the running watts of the ballast itself. So that will be an extra 200watts for a coil over core and digital are 100 watts for ballast operation. So a 600watt HPS wired 240 is now 800watts / 240 equals 3.3 amps.

For you Quantum I did the math for you it equals as 600watt/ 120V=5amps. But really, you also need to add 100Watts for ballast. Thats 700Watts/120V=5.8amps.
That inturn will allow you to run two 600 digital on one 120V 15Amp breaker. You dont want to try and exceed a 13amp load since breakers like to pop around that.

Your 400/120=3.3amps. Its just your voltage that is causing you to draw more amps. I run everything at 240 for efficiency by running my units cooler as well as my wiring does not heat up as much. You draw what I draw, a 600 is a 600! Our bills would be the same or Very close if we were both billed at the same cents per kilowatt, and if our threshold were also the same!
 
Icannabis

Icannabis

Well-Known Member
Really? LEDS are fine buy something with 1 watt or more per led...and nothing produces like a HID yet. And CFL are good too. Just boils down to what your looking to do.
 
secretweapon

secretweapon

Active Member
Do your research because there are tons of cheap Chinese clones out there that If you got one of those you will prob be very disappointed with the performance.
 
ganjalibera

ganjalibera

Active Member
finally someone else talking about LEDs. here's my experience with them:
1st crop
before I bought my 120w LED (Red, Orange, Blue and White LEDs), I was finishing off some outdoor girls under 600w HPS so I stuck my new seedlings under there too. After the girls where done, I ordered the LED and left the new seedlings on a window sill (not a great idea). The LED arrived and it had a faulty plug and I also had guests, so i stupidly delayed fixing the plug for about a week. After that, I set up the LED and grew the new girls (Fast Bud) to harvest. I don't know if the early mess up affected the overall growth (probably), but the final results were a flowering period longer than expected (at least 3 weeks) and buds that were fragrant and frosty but not very dense. In the grow tent, I also put an almost dead chilli plant that started to get nice and vigorous again.

2nd crop
Because of all that, I recently started a new crop with the hope of avoiding the previous mistakes. I planted 4 other autoflowering beans, La Diva, Big Bud, AK47 and Master Kush, and tried again. To my huge surprise, it didn't work :(
The seedlings, after a promising start, started to yellow and curl and pretty much stopped growing. In the meantime, the chilli plant in the tent is doing great, flowering and producing lots of chilli peppers. So, what the fuck???

My conclusions (and those of a friend of mine who had the exact same phenomenon happening) are that LEDs are good on reasonably established plants but not so great on seedlings. The plan is now to use a 120w CFL (Red and Blue) for a while and then add the LED to contribute. We're also contemplating the idea of finishing the plants off under the expensive 600w HPS.

I hope all this shit makes some sense
 
Beagle

Beagle

Well-Known Member
I've seen an all LED grow on another site.
The person worked for a lighting company and sent in his own custom specs.
The buds looked pretty sweet.

I know it's possible, but ridiculously EXPENSIVE!
 
FootClan

FootClan

Well-Known Member
JLStiffy said:
Hi,
I run 240V, but in any case watts/volts=amps. So 600Watt / 240V = 2.5Amps but than I add a surcharge of 15% so thats 690 Watts /240V =2.875amps. 2.9 Amps is what will be provided to you buy your ballast company's. But I do not include the 15% surcharge on my load but what I do count for is the running watts of the ballast itself. So that will be an extra 200watts for a coil over core and digital are 100 watts for ballast operation. So a 600watt HPS wired 240 is now 800watts / 240 equals 3.3 amps.

For you Quantum I did the math for you it equals as 600watt/ 120V=5amps. But really, you also need to add 100Watts for ballast. Thats 700Watts/120V=5.8amps.
That inturn will allow you to run two 600 digital on one 120V 15Amp breaker. You dont want to try and exceed a 13amp load since breakers like to pop around that.

Your 400/120=3.3amps. Its just your voltage that is causing you to draw more amps. I run everything at 240 for efficiency by running my units cooler as well as my wiring does not heat up as much. You draw what I draw, a 600 is a 600! Our bills would be the same or Very close if we were both billed at the same cents per kilowatt, and if our threshold were also the same!
Click to expand...
thanks for explaining it ......Plus rep
 
ganjalibera

ganjalibera

Active Member
Beagle said:
I've seen an all LED grow on another site.
The person worked for a lighting company and sent in his own custom specs.
The buds looked pretty sweet.

I know it's possible, but ridiculously EXPENSIVE!
Click to expand...
LEDs prices are going down fast, same thing happened for CFLs
 
D

Datakeova420

Active Member
I've read in another thread where hightimes did a test grow and another RIU memer did a test grow a 300w led vs 1000 HpS n the LED outperformed
 
H

Hillcrest

Active Member
The best way I heard to explain the efficiency of LED lighting was this...............

"When my local council decides that LED lighting units are more efficient that HPS for street lighting and make the change.............. I'll consider it then)
 
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