Vipar led question

reaver1912

reaver1912

Member
Hi Guys,

I am looking into buying a Vipar led 150w was wondering if any of you have any hands on experience with it. I am planning of doing 3 girls with them start to finish, I would do more but I am not sure the lights will hold. The ladies will be pheno, and my question is related to intensity. I know that led lights work different than HID but will a 150w panel be able to give my girls all they need to become big and strong and produce a high quality smoke? Or will I have to complicate my life with extra lighting and so on.
 
PICOGRAV

PICOGRAV

Well-Known Member
Hey Reaver,

I am very new to growing, the light looks OK to me but some of the specs seem inaccurate. They say it has 90 x 3watt LED chips so pumping them at full power should at the very least draw 300 watts from the wall but its rated for half that? Anyway this could be a good thing in the end if they run them at half power, either they had problems with the chips lasting longer or heat problems.

They use LED's with lenses, added a secondary lens which is OK, the first lens on the LED chips would help with their efficiency but you would lose about 10-20% when going through the next one.

With the unit drawing about 150 watts from the wall, you might be getting anywhere from 100-130 watts into the LED's and then say if the LED's are in the realm of 90-110 lumen per watt, you could be getting maybe 12,000 lumen at about 12 inches.

Your question is 150 watts going to give you the light power you need? its hard to say with out testing, but if we take into account the worst case, 100 watts into the LED's and dropping the efficiency down to say 70 lumen per watt after the second lens you could only end up with about 7000 lumen at about the 12 inch mark and then your looking a roughly a quadruple loss in intensity every time you double the distance, the lenses would help with the drop off but still if your only getting 1700-1800 lumen from 3 feet away I don't know if that would be adequate for 3 plants?

Price wise I guess its not to hard of a loss at about $600 US if it dose not work out but I would look for a panel with more technical specification, specifically the efficiency of the LED's they use so you can better gauge the final intensity you would possibly getting.

The biggest question really is why did they use 90 x 3 watt LED's and under drive them by about half? Also high quality 3 watt chips with high outputs say 70-110 lumen per watt should cost maybe $4-$7 each, which wouldn't leave a budget for much else if that's what they used, I imagine they would have used relatively cheap LED chips and could only be in the range of about say 30-50 lumen per watt or less? I think the trick here is under driving cheaper LED's can boost the efficiency of the LED's they are using, so in the end its about half and half for me. If you are a bit of a handy man you could build yourself quite a nice panel for the same price?
 
reaver1912

reaver1912

Member
PICOGRAV said:
Hey Reaver,

I am very new to growing, the light looks OK to me but some of the specs seem inaccurate. They say it has 90 x 3watt LED chips so pumping them at full power should at the very least draw 300 watts from the wall but its rated for half that? Anyway this could be a good thing in the end if they run them at half power, either they had problems with the chips lasting longer or heat problems.

They use LED's with lenses, added a secondary lens which is OK, the first lens on the LED chips would help with their efficiency but you would lose about 10-20% when going through the next one.

With the unit drawing about 150 watts from the wall, you might be getting anywhere from 100-130 watts into the LED's and then say if the LED's are in the realm of 90-110 lumen per watt, you could be getting maybe 12,000 lumen at about 12 inches.

Your question is 150 watts going to give you the light power you need? its hard to say with out testing, but if we take into account the worst case, 100 watts into the LED's and dropping the efficiency down to say 70 lumen per watt after the second lens you could only end up with about 7000 lumen at about the 12 inch mark and then your looking a roughly a quadruple loss in intensity every time you double the distance, the lenses would help with the drop off but still if your only getting 1700-1800 lumen from 3 feet away I don't know if that would be adequate for 3 plants?

Price wise I guess its not to hard of a loss at about $600 US if it dose not work out but I would look for a panel with more technical specification, specifically the efficiency of the LED's they use so you can better gauge the final intensity you would possibly getting.

The biggest question really is why did they use 90 x 3 watt LED's and under drive them by about half? Also high quality 3 watt chips with high outputs say 70-110 lumen per watt should cost maybe $4-$7 each, which wouldn't leave a budget for much else if that's what they used, I imagine they would have used relatively cheap LED chips and could only be in the range of about say 30-50 lumen per watt or less? I think the trick here is under driving cheaper LED's can boost the efficiency of the LED's they are using, so in the end its about half and half for me. If you are a bit of a handy man you could build yourself quite a nice panel for the same price?
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Wow that's some serious stuff man thx a lot. Good info, I think I'll stick with the good old fashioned HPS until I can find a good electrician guy to build me a setup like that. I was in the market for some good leds around 200 pounds but the more I research into this the more I think it's crazy talk
 
Keif Cheif

Keif Cheif

Member
Check out the LumiGrow. Best LED for the price, and you are keeping the money and warranty at home. Just a thought. I have not had any problems with them. They just need to be brought down pretty close to the buds if you plan on flowering under them. The cool thing about LEDs are that you save a lot of money with less HVAC
 
budman111

budman111

Well-Known Member
I have the B series and 150w is really good for a few plants no probs, the old A series was good but not as good as the new B series.
 
S

shamone81

New Member
budman111 said:
I have the B series and 150w is really good for a few plants no probs, the old A series was good but not as good as the new B series.
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HI budman111 which size B series do you have?? i thinking of getting 2x B3x3 to replace 2x 600Hps 4 pots per light.
 
budman111

budman111

Well-Known Member
shamone81 said:
HI budman111 which size B series do you have?? i thinking of getting 2x B3x3 to replace 2x 600Hps 4 pots per light.
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Hi shamone, I have the B2x3 on 3 plants, growth is very vigorous and flowering is rapid, great LED for the price, no need to spend any more cash on extortionate LED's trust me, 2x B3x3 may replace 2x 600Hps, depends on your point of view but off course with LED being LED the light pretty much only goes one way - down, so you will get nowhere near as many plants under 2x B3x3 as opposed to 2x 600Hps, but I personally am not interested in quantity as I am a personal grower not dealer.



Also, a note to take, if you are taking the LED plunge for the first time in case you dont know as LED vendors wont tell you is that it is imperative you get a calcium/calmag supplement because it goes through it rapid in flowering due to a certain red spectrum wavelength for some reason.
 
S

shamone81

New Member
budman111 said:
Hi shamone, I have the B2x3 on 3 plants, growth is very vigorous and flowering is rapid, great LED for the price, no need to spend any more cash on extortionate LED's trust me, 2x B3x3 may replace 2x 600Hps, depends on your point of view but off course with LED being LED the light pretty much only goes one way - down, so you will get nowhere near as many plants under 2x B3x3 as opposed to 2x 600Hps, but I personally am not interested in quantity as I am a personal grower not dealer.



Also, a note to take, if you are taking the LED plunge for the first time in case you dont know as LED vendors wont tell you is that it is imperative you get a calcium/calmag supplement because it goes through it rapid in flowering due to a certain red spectrum wavelength for some reason.
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Excellent advice i appriciate it cheers, i too am only growing for fun its kind of a addictive hobby that got out of hand! i was only thinking of having 4 plants under EACH light so from what youve said it should work a treat.
Also are you growing Hydro?? if so what supplement you using & where from?? first ive heard of calcium calmag needed but i defo wanna use it.
 
budman111

budman111

Well-Known Member
You could get 8 plants under 2 3x2 if the led are high enough above the canopy's no probs, but I personally would go with 6, I just like 3 topped for 4 main colas, that is all i need for my medication, lots of company's make a calcium supplement, check ebay for calmag and lots will show up you will need it don't even think of not using it with LED or it will be severely retarded plants within 10 days in my personal experience. edit: yes NFT
 
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