50W Killer Setup GOD knows how many LUMENS!

kagenical

Well-Known Member
It's true! YOU have no idea of what you're talking about. You haven't a clue, while I do!

I mean those cool 3 Watt plus LEDs that are called Luxeon IIIs. The ones they use as automobile headlights

I would never even advocate those stupid lights filled with the little ten cent LEDs, I mean LEDs that are used for real illumination, not indicators.

But enough of that, I don't have the time to educate the unteachable.

The pic below is of a 35 LED array, made up of 35 3 Watt LEDs. It covers an area of about 30"x24". It produces at least 35 grams of trimmed, dried flowers per week, or 1 lb after 10 weeks (24 plants). I only grow Masterlow autoflowering under it. All in total it cost $160 to make. Unfortunately, it will only last 5 years at 24 hours per day. The success is due to the light being evenly spread out though the little grow space. It is made of royal blue, blue, red-orange, red, and white LEDs. It's not too hot, so odor is kept low. It CLEARLY outdoes an HPS, and MH for my needs.

Lumens???.... you just don't get it. U CHaMP! Thanks for your input, chronicless.
Where did you get 35 of those 3w Luxeon's for under 160$? Most go for about 10-20$ a piece around here.
 

DWR

Well-Known Member
you've played folf too....sh*t me too...I didn't think there was anyone else out there that had played folf before!....j/k....just got a REALLY weird sense of humour I guess:weed:.....

^^ ermmm im a golf pro ^^
 

xenu

Active Member
show us proof. show us your whole setup. show us its worth 3 months of time working with these tiny lights for an amount of product that is 1/8th what you would get with real hps.
Those "tiny lights" are the size of a nickel. I built the setup in an afternoon. Cutting the steel with a hacksaw and drilling the holes was the hardest part.

Proof? That would be hard, as I live in an apartment building, and with it being winter and no open windows, nothing grows right now.

Besides, you're not supposed to show these kinds of things online.
 

Ser0 Products

Well-Known Member
is it ok to just use HPS all tha way through??? my setup is 3 Cfls, and Flourecent tube, and a 150watt HPS... is that good enuf for 2 plants veg to flower?
 

deucedub

Active Member
sero thats pretty much my entire set up as well...allthough i have 6 cfls, 3 floro tubes and 150 hps...and my plants are beefy as shit!
 

Ser0 Products

Well-Known Member
fa sho thank you... im sooo excited for this new grow!! i think im just gonna do 1-2 plants, so mine is like a smaller version of yours!!! do you just use your HPS wit tha Cfls or do you not introduce til flowering?
 

The Martian

Active Member
Hi all.
Hey I'm the martian!!!!!!!
Ha Ha Ha.
nice to see someone else is trying out LEDs.
I intend using some LEDs for my new grow.
Do a search for my posts, and you'll see what I intend trying out.
BTW, get those lights as close as posible without damaging the plants, when they get a bit bigger, not too important at that size, but will soon.
 

The Martian

Active Member
Hello again.
why white LEDs?????
Because they report a higher lumen output???
most of the White LEDs your talking about produce mostly blue, (which BTW is usually the lowest output of the LED colours), which exites a phosphor coating, that in turn re emits the rest of the spectrum to make white, (and most of this re emitted light falls in the middle of the spectrum, the part the plants dont want).
A lumen is very heavily skewed towerds what we see, not what a plant uses, so is a very bad measure for output for a plant.
I'd imagine 30 40 lumens of red would be far more use to a plant than 120 lumens of white.
Why do poeple not do any homework, I've only been researching this for under a week, and I'm stunned at the ignorance of some of the poeple who are supposedly experimenting.
Go find the chlorophil absorbtion spectra, THEN go find the human eye response specrtum graph, and then in your head overlay them, they couldn't be more opposite.
The Time for LEDs is coming soon, its just that most poeple expect to flower 3 square foot of weed under 30 odd watts of cheapo crimbo tree lights, not gonna work.
BUT real proper high output LEDs are getting better and cheaper all the time.
Granted if your going out and buying your lights LEDs are still prohibitively expensive,
But doing it yourself it is becoming possible to build some real lights. As I intend doing very shortly for my new grow.
I'm still of the oppinion though that one will need at least 120 150 watts of highpower LEDs per 2.5 3 square foot of space, and most of the "experiments" Ive seen have had the lights way way too high, (one of the main benifits of the LEDs being cooler).
Do a search for Light and the inverse square law, and you'll undertand the importance of having a light source as close as possible.
Toodle Pip All
 

HollywoodRpi69

Active Member
Ah an Led Experiment excellent, Its intesting to see the leds used right from the start, I had such amazing results as far as root structure from the aerogarden I started there, Good Luck. I'm not introducing the Red till 6 weeks in but thats just me I have no real experence to base that on read/ heard it somewhere etc
 

Sellasie I

Active Member
Nice topic! I recently purchased three 225 blue/red LED panels and plan to try my 1st grow since like '93 with them. Starting off with only 2 or 3 plants lol nothing major. These are the ones i recently purchased

 

rusty Shakleford

Active Member
Hey dude what wattage are those LED's? any update? Most important What spectrum are u useing? dude I am going to go this route but NEED to know how to get the most out of it. Thanks dude or dudette.:bigjoint:
 

FreeBird2k

Active Member
dude get one of those propane camping lanters and burn it for like 20-30 minutes everyday and you will be amazed.
No, don't use propane.. use Dry Ice that can be purchased from grocery store. all you need to put small chunk of dry ice smaller than the size of the nickle coin. Set it about 1 or 2 feet about the plant on the Styrofoam. the mist will flow down to the leaves to collect CO2. ( don't put too much Dry Ice in small room, cuz CO2 is heavier than O2) just once every 2 weeks.

Another option to obtain Dry Ice is to get CO2 fire extinguisher ( little spendy than grocery store)
 

theflyingsorceress

Active Member
Hey, ya'll. I'm also growing LED with three separate panels, and one CFL. Two panels and the CFL are in my bud area, and one panel and flourescents are in the veg area. I have a lot of other plants going, too, so it won't just be the good stuff. I have a large family to feed, which was the selling factor to me deciding to go ahead and sink some money into this endeavor.

I just started; the plants I have were grown under HPS/MH and I bartered for them, so I don't know how well they'll do. So far, they've been under the lights for three days and they are doing amazing. I did figure out yesterday morning to move the CFL closer, and they seem to be responding to that quite well. Also, my LED's are mounted on the wall, not overhead, and the CFL is overhead, so I had to put them up on a tote for awhile until I either lower the LED's or get a more permanent table. The latter is actually pretty likely, because I want to have different heights for different plants (and types of plants) because I have two very tall strains and one very short, bushy strain. Obviously, the shorter ones will need to be up higher in the range of the LED's whereas the taller ones will not.

I also have clones, and they're doing great. I am a massive recycler, so I'm using egg cartons and the plastic containers that my organic salad comes in to get them started. I've done cloning quite a few times before, just not for myself, so it's pretty cool.

I'll see if I can remember to drop by and post pictures tomorrow.
 

Snowchild

Active Member
LEDs are not lame. I reckon they will be developed into a powerful alternative to HID lighting. There's a company in China, i think, that is developing something like a "super-LED". They intend it's application for replacement of conventional, costly street lamps and other industrial lighting. Billboards, airports, sports stadiums.. countless applications. Now without a doubt there will be someone who sees the potential in applying the technology to the horticultural industry. Make sense? This new light bulb is the size of a quarter and is a hell of a lot brighter then any current single LED, and even a 600W HPS. I'm excited to see the days when i have the ideal set-up and capital. I wander what insane lights await?
 

Ap0c0leS

Active Member
Your title is kind of wrong. Lumens are really a measurement of light produced to the human eye. Leds dont produce in the spectrum relevent to the human eye, they produce in the spectrum relevent to the plant's and that is why they are the future of grow lights.... Low energy , High life time , great energy bill!! not much required on the ventilation either.. I havent seen anyone try C02 With their LED's either... That would be an interesting experiment along with a UVB 10.0 Bulb during flowering used as a CFL ( Actually you can get UVB CFL'S) and an Infared 5 minutes after lights out to turn the plant instantly into flowering mode ( i think.. still being experimented...
 
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