LEDs May not be all hype?

So I've done a lot of indoor growing and have never even given a thought to using LEDs. But upon talking to a buddy of mine who lives in Canada I'm now rethinking my past beliefs that LEDs suck. He says he gets a higher gpw % with led than he does with hids and the quality tends to be better. I call bull shit. Anyone have personal experience? I'm probably gonna pick up a couple higher watt lamps and do a side by side in the near future(outdoor is taking all my damn time) so any input on the lamps will be appreciated too!

A common question. GreenGenes is in here doing a fine job of comparing LED to HPS, check this thread out, decide for yourself.

I personally don't like the better or worse. I think of them as different. Now I have never grown HID because it scares me. I went from cfl to led and am very happy.

I guess that yield is better under hid. But I am swimming in personal growing under a 160w led and i don't know that would be the case with equal hid wattage. But if was growin hid I would be using more juice.

If you want no heat, less energy pull, and can afford the capital, LED is great.

led and induction all the way. once you use quality leds and / or induction you will never go back to hid.

Yes the quality of LED bud is better than HPS when you compare the same cuttings. Buds have more density and more funk. Probably more potent but that is subjective without a good test.

My best yields with years of bare 600W HPS was .56gr/W but most of the time I got .3-.4gr/W. With just a few tries with LED, my best has been .9gr/W using the same system and same cuttings. I do not select for yield, so commercial growers could get much better numbers than I do. There is lots of room for improvement to look forward to.

SupraSPL said:

Yes the quality of LED bud is better than HPS when you compare the same cuttings. Buds have more density and more funk. Probably more potent but that is subjective without a good test.

My best yields with years of bare 600W HPS was .56gr/W but most of the time I got .3-.4gr/W. With just a few tries with LED, my best has been .9gr/W using the same system and same cuttings. I do not select for yield, so commercial growers could get much better numbers than I do. There is lots of room for improvement to look forward to.

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You grew with hps for years and never pulled more than .6 per watt? Thats almost seems like you were spending more on electricity than you were pulling in nug. With 4 to 5 grows of the same strain under a 600 hps you should be pulling at least 1g per watt but with a good yielding strain closer to 2. Dont get me wrong, im liking the led im running, but a half gram per watt off a 600 after years of growing under hps means you're muckin it up, not the light.

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The additional electric cost for 2400HPS and the air system was about $150/mnth. That works out to about $3500/mnth minimum worth of bud. That seems like a positive economy.

So lets say I was mucking it up with HPS, then I am still mucking it up with LED because I have not changed methods or system. So how does that explain a sudden and consistent increase in gr/W from .4 to .9?

BTW this is what 600HPS X2 at .56gr/W looks like. Makes one wonder what 2gr/W must look like eh?

gram per watt is b.s. Every strain varies in yield. Foremost genetics and veg time are far more factors. Under hps, led, CMH, induction, mh, plasma if you veg master kush . Blue dream or super lemon haze for same amount of time . The bd or slh will yield 4 times more than mk.

hyroot said:

gram per watt is b.s. Every strain varies in yield. Foremost genetics and veg time are far more factors. Under hps, led, CMH, induction, mh, plasma if you veg master kush . Blue dream or super lemon haze for same amount of time . The bd or slh will yield 4 times more than mk.

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My shittiest yielding strains i pull a gram per watt minimum.

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SupraSPL said:

The additional electric cost for 2400HPS and the air system was about $150/mnth. That works out to about $3500/mnth minimum worth of bud. That seems like a positive economy.

So lets say I was mucking it up with HPS, then I am still mucking it up with LED because I have not changed methods or system. So how does that explain a sudden and consistent increase in gr/W from .4 to .9?

BTW this is what 600HPS X2 at .56gr/W looks like. Makes one wonder what 2gr/W must look like eh?
View attachment 3146722

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Like this

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kmog33 said:

Like this

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3 x 600 watt lights, pulled 3200 grams off this gdp, which i guess isnt quite 2 per watt but its pretty close on an ok yielding strain.

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7 LBS from 3 lights, sorry but Id have to see that to believe it.

Anyway, that is beside the point. If you can pull 7LBS with 1800 HPS then you could do it with 900W of top notch LED.

You could hypothetically increase your yield by matching wattage. 600 or 1kw of LED would likely out yield their respective HID counterparts now.

SupraSPL said:

7 LBS from 3 lights, sorry but Id have to see that to believe it.

Anyway, that is beside the point. If you can pull 7LBS with 1800 HPS then you could do it with 900W of top notch LED.

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We actually pulled 10 lbs off a better strain. As you can see in ther pics there are 3 lights on light movers over a 15x20 ft area.

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It was an experimental room that just did super well, light movers are kind of the shit for efficiency. Unfortunately i can only find pics of this particular run. Our other rooms were bigger.

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SupraSPL said:

7 LBS from 3 lights, sorry but Id have to see that to believe it.

Anyway, that is beside the point. If you can pull 7LBS with 1800 HPS then you could do it with 900W of top notch LED.

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he weighs it wet. There's no way. The best I have ever seen is 3 lb's under a 1000, those plants were 7 feet tall. 4 15 gals under each light .. I don't believe it either.

After seeing one autoflowering plant pull just shy of 24 oz with pics to prove it, I think I can bite on this.

hyroot said:

he weighs it wet. There's no way. The best I have ever seen is 3 lb's under a 1000, those plants were 7 feet tall. 4 15 gals under each light .. I don't believe it either.

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Dry weight sorry but ive pulled 2.5 off a single 600 doing nl x big bud, so im sorry the best youve seen isnt the best ive run. You ever seen a pound pulled out of a 36"x 20"x 5' , cuz ive done that too lol.

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hyroot said:

he weighs it wet. There's no way. The best I have ever seen is 3 lb's under a 1000, those plants were 7 feet tall. 4 15 gals under each light .. I don't believe it either.

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And you should be pulling 3 pounds off a single 7 foot plant.... but the yield makes sense considering theres no way a 1000 watt penetrates 7 feet deep lol. Lots of larf i bet.

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Heres a 10x10 tent with a single 600 coversion bulb in it, bet you didny think a 600 could covers this much space either lol, as someone who has run several large operations, 20k watts or more, i know a little about what you can actually do with hid lights, i posted pics of a 15 x 20 foot area with 3 lights over it as you can see, that mean off of each 5x5 we pulled less than a pound. Which really isnt that good. We were seeing how much space lights on movers could cover and it did fairly well.

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