Is it worth investing in LED?

I am fairly new to growing I prefer organic grows and am beginning to invest in some high end grow equipment. I wanted to reach out to any growers who have used LED and seen a noticeable difference within there grows. I know I can save a lot of money in the long run with LED, as far as electricity goes. However does it really make that much of a difference in quality and the amount I yield? And if so, where is a good spot to shop for LED equipment?
 
Terrible idea, no body in this section has ever had good results. LED's belong in the garbage can. Plants just whither and die under LED light.

Incandescent or bust.
So nice to hear feedback, thank you so much! What lighting system would you recommend? For best quality and quanity?
 

smowstack

Active Member
I am fairly new to growing I prefer organic grows and am beginning to invest in some high end grow equipment. I wanted to reach out to any growers who have used LED and seen a noticeable difference within there grows. I know I can save a lot of money in the long run with LED, as far as electricity goes. However does it really make that much of a difference in quality and the amount I yield? And if so, where is a good spot to shop for LED equipment?
I use led and I use cfl for veg. But, I would say if you are just starting out a 400w or 600w hid (depending on the size of your grow room) are the best use of your money. You can buy a 400w mh/hps on ebay for $100. It would take a long long time to make up for the increased cost of led in energy savings.

I use led because cost is not a problem and I switched from a big grow room with many 1000/w switchables to a two bedroom apartment with two closets. I have a 200w cfl in one closet and a clw220 led in the other. I use 2x2 in each closet. Size is very important. If you let us know the size of your grow area people could reply with more knowledge.
 

smowstack

Active Member
For a ball park number 600 watts of top quality LED will replace 1000 watt HPS for yield but will give you a better quality product.
ok, so clw says my 220w has a draw of 180w and is comparable to a 400w hid. Is that correct? It would be so much easier for me if I could exactly know what led is comparable to what hid. I know just about everything an hid can do, I am very new to led.
 
I use led and I use cfl for veg. But, I would say if you are just starting out a 400w or 600w hid (depending on the size of your grow room) are the best use of your money. You can buy a 400w mh/hps on ebay for $100. It would take a long long time to make up for the increased cost of led in energy savings.

I use led because cost is not a problem and I switched from a big grow room with many 1000/w switchables to a two bedroom apartment with two closets. I have a 200w cfl in one closet and a clw220 led in the other. I use 2x2 in each closet. Size is very important. If you let us know the size of your grow area people could reply with more knowledge.
Thank you so much! So I should stick to my 1000 w MH light? I've wanted to upgrade, just not sure if it'd be worth it. Is MH what people are still using? I am curious to find out what high end growers are using for indoor grows?
 

captainmorgan

Well-Known Member
ok, so clw says my 220w has a draw of 180w and is comparable to a 400w hid. Is that correct? It would be so much easier for me if I could exactly know what led is comparable to what hid. I know just about everything an hid can do, I am very new to led.
CLW would not make my list of recommended pre builts. DIY COBS are your best value. What size area do you need them for?
 

Sativied

Well-Known Member
Terrible idea, no body in this section has ever had good results. LED's belong in the garbage can. Plants just whither and die under LED light.

Incandescent or bust.
BEEP BEEP!

Ignore the LED hater OP. Plenty of people get great results in this section. Typical downsides though are less yield (from a given space, from spreading the ppf out...) and smaller fluffier buds. If you smoke your own from a small grow it's a not an issue as much but if you want to sell commercial quantity and quality nuggets HPS is a better "investment". If you want to save on electricity but don't mind tripling the setup costs then LED is the obvious choice.

Is it worth investing in LED?
Depends on what you want to gain from the investment. Money-wise it's actually not a great investment at this point. Before the end of the year there will be new leds that make the popular leds people use here obsolete. But, buying a highend 1K watt HPS now and replacing it with LED within a year isn't a great investment either. So in conclusion I suggest getting the cheapest HPS set you can find if you're looking for a good investment o_O
 
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Sativied

Well-Known Member
It's not just energy savings you have to think about but also the cost of replacing HID bulbs.
Especially with the new DE and CMH bulbs. With a 30-40 bucks hps bulb however it seems irrelevant compared to the cost of an equivalent LED setup. Besides that, the life expectancy of a diy cob isn't the same as 'led' in general and when you need more than a handful the chance one fails eventually increases too.
 

churchhaze

Well-Known Member
Sativied is not giving you truthful information, he's just spewing his unfiltered biases toward leds. The reality is that he has little to no personal experience with them, and you can tell by the ignorant statements he constantly makes.

That being said, if you have to ask whether LED will save you money, you're probably better off with HPS.
 

Sativied

Well-Known Member
Sativied is not giving you truthful information, he's just spewing his unfiltered biases toward leds. The reality is that he has little to no personal experience with them, and you can tell by the ignorant statements he constantly makes.
Still stuck in your projection routine... you accusing me of LED bias... Here you go: http://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/delusional-disorder

Churchhaze is just a butthurt LED pretengineer spewing ad hominems and parroting the bibled without ever having completed even a single decent cannabis grow... :clap:
 

churchhaze

Well-Known Member
I've been using HPS since 1999, so I already know what HPS buds are like. There's just one spectrum. The high pressure sodium spectrum. There are so many different types of leds and spectrums, you can not make generalizations like "you will get airy buds". It makes no sense, and shows a complete lack of understanding of the subject. You want to give out advice, but you just don't want to do the research. Do you remember when I had to show you how to read the led's datasheet to find out that luminous efficacy was higher at lower currents? You didn't realize that until we forced you to read the datasheets. You're the type who will never admit he's wrong until you're literally forced into no other possible direction, then you insist that someone else guided you there. Nope.
 

Sativied

Well-Known Member
If I cared as much about trying to discredit you as you've been trying to do from the moment you had your initial meltdown I'd dig up some advice you posted that's not to far from mine above. I could also easily add some comments from greengenes and even SupraSL to underline the rather fair statements I made above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_honesty
 

churchhaze

Well-Known Member
Calling me a pretend engineer is just low. I don't have a job as an engineer, but I spent a lot of time earing my engineering degree, and it wasn't at the RIU church. You're a dick. I put a lot of work into that.

I'm sorry you're so against education. Your claims are baseless regardless. You come here spewing personal insults, but never have any facts based on truth. You just speculate based on the products YOU WANT to buy, that none of us would touch with a 6 foot pole.., then talk about how those products are inferior to your precious gavita (which is clobbered by my meager 2.4uMol/J vero killer build....)
 
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