LED lights WORTH it or NOT worth it

Hi guys im just writting this thread to get your views on LED lights...

If you think there worth or not...

If they show the H bulbs compition.....

If they can do thesame job as the H bulbs.....

feel free to right even if you may feel you dont have hands on with this equipment...

This is the way i see it. Do you need a return on the investment or is this a just for fun grow? IF just for fun sure try it out and let us know how it goes. IF you need the investment to return then buy an hid and go with what is tried and true. Led are really good but you must run alot more than they reccomend (just like hid) if you want quality product. goodluck

I just got done vegging with an led and i stopped and kicked in a MH to kick up the veg becuase the LED wasnt doing it. I would recommend HID over leds unless you have
gazillions to spend and want to pick up a few of those 600wled panels that are like 1600 a pc

Imo, CFL + LED = HID

I'm running a 320w setup with 2 90w UFOs and a couple CFLS and it's going pretty good so far. I also babysat a friends plants for a couple days under my system and they shot up, definitely grew faster than they did under a 400w HPS.

it depends on the situation imho

for my situation, i have a very small space, i have a 250watt hps in there and wasn't able to get it below 100 degrees when i popped a 400watt hps in. i bought a glowpanel 45 led in order to hang off of the 250watt hps, for use as supplemental lighting. it's only been in there for a few days, i would like to think it is making a difference, but i really do not know

my situation is not one about yield or making money or supplying x number of medical patients, it's just for fun for myself

There is so much to an LED light. I am sure there is 1 out there that is awesome but it is probably way out of most peoples price range. The only way to grow with LED's is to invest in quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh9oGroryoc

heres a somewhat scientific comparison between the ufo and an hps. granted they are growing tomatoes

I bought the cheap ones off eBay. I actually like them.

The only way you'll succeed is to DO IT YOURSELF. LEDs are new and very "Hyped" up, I fell for it too. Don't get me wrong, the UFOs and better have produced some very nice crops on here from what I have seen. I bought 4 tri-band square panels, I intend on using for side lighting and a custom CFL hood/reflector. They don't use much power, and they grew my tomato and zucchini plants WAY faster than Ive ever grew them indoors. Maybe because of 24/7 light, but either way, I am happy with them for the price I paid, and the hopeful life expectancy.

This dude here LINK knows what he is doing, and is my new mentor for LED design and setup. I really like his setup, its awesome and I will have one like it soon. He's doing all of the hard "trial and error" stuff and he's got it down now.

I think a majority of the low-end LED panels should just be used as supplemental lighting to CFL's or HID. LEDs will some day replace HID, but not any time really soon.

LED's require a fair amount of research. There are simply too many emitters and optics options to just 'go out and buy some'. No single LED is going to match an HID, however with the right components, a group of them can match HID's.

Here are some pro's and con's, though by no means an exhaustive list

Pro's: PAR for PAR, LED's will give you more per watt (2nd place is MH), and produce A LOT less heat (IE they are way closer to the plants, part of the reason they can compete on PAR with MH). As a collection of many point sources you can basically wrap your plants in them. They usually last 50,000 hours, so maintenance costs are basically nil in that time, but when they die you have to buy new emitters. You have a lot more options on spectrum, since you area creating a mix, than you get with HID bulbs. Many of the advantages to LED's are the same as CFL's, however they overcome a lot of the disadvantages to using CFL's.

Con's: They are expensive. They are more expensive than you expect. Most people who don't have luck with them either just didn't buy enough, or didn't buy high enough quality made for the application they were using it for (horticulture), usually it just came down to them thinking they could spend roughly what an HID setup would cost, not realizing that LED IS EXPENSIVE. Unless you build them yourself, you usually have no idea of the real specifics of the emitters and optics, or even the spectrum, and finding par ratings on them will be difficult. When building them yourself you might find it's difficult to find specific information on what emitters or optics to get, as well as how to properly mix for a desired spectrum.
I haven't seen PAR comparisons for anything deeper than 36" in water (almost all my LED experience if from coral propagation), so it's quite possible that current LED's simply aren't going to be able to match the 1000w HID's. Most of the systems I have seen tested were compared to 400w MH systems with high quality reflectors and overpowered icecap ballasts. The LED's were all custom built by the tester, and unfortunately I don't know what emitters, optics, or drivers he used. All I remember specifically was that he mounted it all on PC heat-sinks with small processor fans mounted. The temp on the underside of the heat-sinks stayed within 1 degree of the ambient room temp.

Edit: Something interesting relating to the future of LED, companies are starting to release commercial plasma based lights. These things are quite impressive, and are as close as you can get to having a little piece of sun of your own. Spectrum and intensity can be fine tuned at the turn of a knob. From what I understand they are incredibly energy efficient as well. The only real downside is that the ones commercially available right now produce a lot of heat. I know a couple of coral propagators who got a few before Luxim (http://www.luxim.com) released them, and their feedback was incredibly positive.