why keep it closer than 6inches away? with it a bit away it gives it a better foot print to cover all my plants! I have the central air in my house hooked up to my hoods. I use a portable a/c unit for myselfthen why not keep them closer? i would use 1000ws but my tops always would always burn when they were close to the glass. how do you keep you lighting that cool? do you use a chiller? my exhaust is 720 cfm 8 inch. 1000w was too hot for me, but i never tried a chiller.
surely the extra you spent on expensive led lights is much more than you would have spent on heat removal.............. A sacrifice I was willing to make being all about the quality and a home hobby gardener who didn't have or want to invest in expensive heat removal. Made sense for me.
The thing that most people dont understand, mostly due to lack of knowledge because they aren't electricians, is that power draw can be less than the power output. It can draw 300w yet put out more watts of light than its drawing.. not to mention comparable companies sell 300w units for $800+What everyone is failing to take into comparison is that the Blackstar 500 is actually only producing somewhere in the neighborhood of 300w of output.
Not really man, lets do some theoretical math. My lights are under a 3 year warranty, I spent close to $1,000 on lighting and am saving roughly $30 a month on electricity times 36 months of gaurenteed operation is $1080 right there. Not to mention I would have had to replace my HPS bulbs every 6 months or so - I was running plant max bulbs at roughly 40 bucks a pop times two lights so 80 bucks every six months - 160 a year times 3 years is another $480. I grow autos so in order to maintain lumenus efficicacy six months of 20 on 4 off is about right to keep it fresh under hps. I was also running 4 105w clfs as side lighting that were $20 bucks a pop and last at the most about a year so there is another $80 a year - $240 over a 3 year period.surely the extra you spent on expensive led lights is much more than you would have spent on heat removal.............
stepdown transformers I get it. Still that light is not throwing out 500wThe thing that most people dont understand, mostly due to lack of knowledge because they aren't electricians, is that power draw can be less than the power output. It can draw 300w yet put out more watts of light than its drawing.. not to mention comparable companies sell 300w units for $800+
hps bulbs are cheap.........my ballasts have 5 year warranty..........i only run my lights in 12 hour shifts so electric is cheap enough.............i run a 400 and 600 in a cab 1.2m x 1m x 1.4m hi with no cool hoods just ruck fans and heat is no problem...........you got some pics of your plants?Not really man, lets do some theoretical math. My lights are under a 3 year warranty, I spent close to $1,000 on lighting and am saving roughly $30 a month on electricity times 36 months of gaurenteed operation is $1080 right there. Not to mention I would have had to replace my HPS bulbs every 6 months or so - I was running plant max bulbs at roughly 40 bucks a pop times two lights so 80 bucks every six months - 160 a year times 3 years is another $480. I grow autos so in order to maintain lumenus efficicacy six months of 20 on 4 off is about right to keep it fresh under hps. I was also running 4 105w clfs as side lighting that were $20 bucks a pop and last at the most about a year so there is another $80 a year - $240 over a 3 year period.
Then I'd have to buy venting and fans to make sure I wasn't heat stressing my plants like I was without it so if you look at the big picture I did save some money.
Plus the kicker - I sold one of my digital GYO 400w ballasts and air cooled hood to a good friend for $60, it was less than a year old and burned out on him after only 3 months of use. Ballasts do fail - I know GYO is a shitty brand but still, less than a year. That would have had to have been replaced as well.
So I spent about a grand and growing perpetually over the next three years will have covered my investment and then some in power/bulb replacement savings, I get better buds than I did with my hps set up the way it was running and only sacrifice a small bit of quantity which isn't a big deal to me since I'm not commercial.
Even if I did over estimate my electricity savings (I was looking at what my bill was this time last year for the last three months and got an avg savings of $30 per) I'm still there if I was only saving $20 a month plus bulb replacement costs ect. Given what they can do with spectrums it will beat out HID in the long run. What I can't figure out is why all the people are on the hate wagon around here.
The savings, of course, is only valid assuming the warranty is there and backed up which from my research I believe the companies I purchased from will still be around and stand by their product. The most important thing one can do when considering LED lighting is research the hell out of the company you are considering.
why keep it closer than 6inches away? with it a bit away it gives it a better foot print to cover all my plants! I have the central air in my house hooked up to my hoods. I use a portable a/c unit for myself
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i just vent into my house...........even helps keep the chill off the room in winter without putting heating on...........all good mate i respect other peoples way of growing...........still reckon hps 12-12 from seed would serve you better......heres a few i did 12-12 from seed.....View attachment 1750852View attachment 1750850View attachment 1750858View attachment 1750857View attachment 1750856View attachment 1750855View attachment 1750854View attachment 1750853
To each his own, I'm just trying to show people that quality made led lights are a viable option and in the long run similar in costs to running a ventilated high wattage hps/cfl set up. Plant pics per your request. Since I'm growing autos I do have to keep the lights on more than 12 hours a day (keep mine on 23 hours a day now) or you'll wind up with half assed plants. The pics of the flowering plants and nuggets were from my first all led grow. My second all led grow is underway. The first two pics are plants at 3 weeks. When I broke it down leds made sense for me. I'm still getting close to 1.5 oz off each auto like I did with my hps/cfl set up.
In my experience (about 3.5 years of growing) both hps and led will grow good pot, I just don't see why we have to have a full on verbal brawl every time someone brings it up. By my math it was cheaper for me in the long run to do it this way when I took all the x factors into account. By almost any math it is equal over the long run if you have quality lights with a warranty. Plus I had nowhere to vent that wouldn't have been painfully obvious.
no those are all normal reg or fem seeds...........all 12-12 from day 1..........quickest finish was around 10 weeks but it depends on srain...nearly all plants hit 2-4 oz dry each.......there are a few that dont of course.Nice grow - to clarify those are autos correct? If so, how long did it take from seed to harvest on a 12/12?