Ha ha: A grand equals 1000. No shit. Your last question, however, was whether I meant pounds. A pound is equal to over 2 dollars at this point. 1000 x 2= 2000. And 2000 pounds would be even more ridiculous than my conversion from pounds to dollars. So it's logical, just not easy to follow (my mistake)
Energy savings are over 80% compared to HID's, and the cheapest, feasible professional/consumer model available runs about 1500 dollars, for eight light bars (that still don't cover a very large area). That, however, is by no means the smallest. A single light bar, consisting of 3 led lights, was around $200. But it's nothing to run a grow op off of. check out LED Grow Lights.com Home Page for a sampling. They seem pretty much run of the mill.
I had never heard the point about running Led's on hydro to improve taste, and, quite honestly, can not make any comments about it as i'm yet to make my first harvest. I can say that it would be possible that using led's as supplemental lighting might have such an impact, but it's hard to predict what would happen if one were to isolate single wavelength bands (a red led of say 660, the best wavelength for chlorophyll a, will put off wavelengths between 10-20nm plus or minus) and give the plants only those. Do you know what wavelengths are responsible for taste? I certainly have no idea... I have even read that plants will respond to UV-B light by producing more THC to protect themselves. Would that have an affect on taste? Probably... but I don't know how you could control it. That would take a much better understanding of the plants than we have, and more than a little experimenting. What is obvious is that the plant, under HID lighting, is probably already receiving the wavelengths that the LED's would give it. The question is that of efficient light use and energy consumption. Unless you're shining UV or IR light on a plant (and I'm not sure how much of this would be put off by an HID lamp, if at all) then the wavelengths won't be different. The reason you save so much electricity is that you're not wasting energy putting out light the plant uses less of, but obviously at the cost of not giving it everything it perhaps could use, coupled with the high efficiency of LED's themselves. Anyone interested should check this thread out at reeferman.com by cogitus: Cogi's LED experiment - Reefer World
Energy savings are over 80% compared to HID's, and the cheapest, feasible professional/consumer model available runs about 1500 dollars, for eight light bars (that still don't cover a very large area). That, however, is by no means the smallest. A single light bar, consisting of 3 led lights, was around $200. But it's nothing to run a grow op off of. check out LED Grow Lights.com Home Page for a sampling. They seem pretty much run of the mill.
I had never heard the point about running Led's on hydro to improve taste, and, quite honestly, can not make any comments about it as i'm yet to make my first harvest. I can say that it would be possible that using led's as supplemental lighting might have such an impact, but it's hard to predict what would happen if one were to isolate single wavelength bands (a red led of say 660, the best wavelength for chlorophyll a, will put off wavelengths between 10-20nm plus or minus) and give the plants only those. Do you know what wavelengths are responsible for taste? I certainly have no idea... I have even read that plants will respond to UV-B light by producing more THC to protect themselves. Would that have an affect on taste? Probably... but I don't know how you could control it. That would take a much better understanding of the plants than we have, and more than a little experimenting. What is obvious is that the plant, under HID lighting, is probably already receiving the wavelengths that the LED's would give it. The question is that of efficient light use and energy consumption. Unless you're shining UV or IR light on a plant (and I'm not sure how much of this would be put off by an HID lamp, if at all) then the wavelengths won't be different. The reason you save so much electricity is that you're not wasting energy putting out light the plant uses less of, but obviously at the cost of not giving it everything it perhaps could use, coupled with the high efficiency of LED's themselves. Anyone interested should check this thread out at reeferman.com by cogitus: Cogi's LED experiment - Reefer World
Those lights on the website are pretty much traffic lights. they can be rewired to suit your needs.
