Full LED grow room/aeroponic system. first attemp

This post made me register

I've been trying to do research on them and I've only come a crossed yours and a guy using a UFO led. Plants look nice, I'm waiting for the update now too .

Are you sold on the flood lights or still open to new things? I'm kind of looking at the procyon 100 myself; 56 Cree xlamp high power leds.

dont know, lol. they look good but i havent tried them, hahaaa

Hey Thunder, do you know how many more days until harvest and when you can test the smoke quality of the LED power? I'm waiting to see what happens with your journal so I can make an accurate decision on what route I want to go. When you doing another update too? Love the journal, keep growing!

I think it would be fucking awesome to use a little of every light and see what happens.. but this LED thing has me more than excited.

avo said:

This post made me register

I've been trying to do research on them and I've only come a crossed yours and a guy using a UFO led. Plants look nice, I'm waiting for the update now too .

Are you sold on the flood lights or still open to new things? I'm kind of looking at the procyon 100 myself; 56 Cree xlamp high power leds.

Click to expand...

hey avo. i do think the floods are better. you can place them and focus them on which specific area you need the light. the panels might do better in a smaller grobox setup

thunderchunkie said:

hey avo. i do think the floods are better. you can place them and focus them on which specific area you need the light. the panels might do better in a smaller grobox setup

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Floods are nice. If you have a static room (actuall walls) you can hang lights and mount lights all around.

Shit, one could turn a basement into a literal sun-shop.

avo said:

Hey Thunder, do you know how many more days until harvest and when you can test the smoke quality of the LED power? I'm waiting to see what happens with your journal so I can make an accurate decision on what route I want to go. When you doing another update too? Love the journal, keep growing!

Click to expand...

as far as harvesting goes, im 41 days into flowering. im looking at at least 3 weeks to go but because theyre sativas, it may be a week-10 days more. i sure as hell cant wait to taste, smoke and get fucked up in general after this shit is dried and cured. and i will do that properly, hehe.

P.S. these buds for me! hahaaa biatches!

thunderchunkie said:

as far as harvesting goes, im 41 days into flowering. im looking at at least 3 weeks to go but because theyre sativas, it may be a week-10 days more. i sure as hell cant wait to taste, smoke and get fucked up in general after this shit is dried and cured. and i will do that properly, hehe.

P.S. these buds for me! hahaaa biatches!

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We've got to know the end-yield to see what the LED's are capable of!

Yeah I figured I would need to get some flood lights as well for added support but with little information out there there's a lot up in the air with little to back it. How much did you spend on all your lights? I don't recall a total price being stated in your journal. I've never been as far into a grow as you but what would happen if you got curious and wanted to try and smoke a little bud off one of the plants? I mean real little, like .5g or less.

better to wait. If you pinch off some, dry it and smoke it, you won't be able to tell anything from it just yet. I know it's tough, but you have to wait.

Im way impatient and i snip a little here and there...Throw it in the oven on bake
@170 for like 10 minutes turn it off leave it in there but just keep checking on it you dont want it to be too dry.....It's always better to wait though....but im poor and can't afford to buy some dank right now lol

Man, just don't do this, you'll thank your patience later lol.

Duece.

Hey Thunder, what is your blue to red ratio? I read somewhere that it should be 2:1 red/blue for veg and 4:1red/blue for flower.. But shit, I think I would much rather take you word on it as your grow is by far the best LED grow I have seen. I see a lot of people on here asking what the yield of an LED is.. this is the best link that I have seen that will show the UFO LED vs. 400W HPS.
YouTube - LED Marijuana Grow

Did you change up the ration on your grow? I want to set up two different environments, one for veg and one for flower. I would like to have 8 plants in the flower environment with hopes of harvesting a plant every week.

I saw earlier in your grow you mentioned you purchased the lights off of ebay.. Was that the LED wholesalers? Are the flood lights that you have a single color per light? or mixed? sorry for throwing all this shit on here at once.. but I have been watching your grow for a while and have either missed this.. or its not here..

What about watering? are you giving the plants a constant mist, or is there a feeding tube directly to the roots? whats the off vs. on ratio? are the plants getting watered during the 12 hrs off?

Any input you can provide would be much appreciated.. I hope your LED's yield more than that UFO, it would make me feel a lot better about purchasing the LED's. If not, fuck it.. 30g's a week is not bad.

bonghits420 said:

Hey Thunder, what is your blue to red ratio? I read somewhere that it should be 2:1 red/blue for veg and 4:1red/blue for flower.. But shit, I think I would much rather take you word on it as your grow is by far the best LED grow I have seen. I see a lot of people on here asking what the yield of an LED is.. this is the best link that I have seen that will show the UFO LED vs. 400W HPS.
YouTube - LED Marijuana Grow

Did you change up the ration on your grow? I want to set up two different environments, one for veg and one for flower. I would like to have 8 plants in the flower environment with hopes of harvesting a plant every week.

I saw earlier in your grow you mentioned you purchased the lights off of ebay.. Was that the LED wholesalers? Are the flood lights that you have a single color per light? or mixed? sorry for throwing all this shit on here at once.. but I have been watching your grow for a while and have either missed this.. or its not here..

What about watering? are you giving the plants a constant mist, or is there a feeding tube directly to the roots? whats the off vs. on ratio? are the plants getting watered during the 12 hrs off?

Any input you can provide would be much appreciated.. I hope your LED's yield more than that UFO, it would make me feel a lot better about purchasing the LED's. If not, fuck it.. 30g's a week is not bad.

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The LED is more efficient than the HID.. but the HID produced more in a single grow.. ~3x more.

Still.. nothing is beating the HID's.



E

Enigma said:

The LED is more efficient than the HID.. but the HID produced more in a single grow.. ~3x more.

Still.. nothing is beating the HID's.



E

Click to expand...

True, but the UFO produced more bud per kwh of electricity used. I know it took longer to finish off the grow using LED when compared to HID, but it still used less energy. Generally speaking, if energy consumption is one of your main concerns, and $$$ isn't really a problem, LEDs will be the way to go in the future. Still a little too costly for the average joe, but if you have the money, if you buy enough LEDs you can in theory outperform the HID, while using less energy, which in the very long run would end up paying for itself. Theoretically speaking at least. Not to mention that using LEDs gives you the option of spending less $$$ on ventilation. And the LEDs lifespan is longer than the HID.

Overall, from what I have seen around my area, number one reason why people get caught is because they have a big mouth. Number two is a spike in their energy usage, and number three is smell. LEDs have the potential to significantly reduce numbers two and three, in my opinion.

So I did a little bit of calculations. Half because I was interested, and half because I was bored. So according to the grow that we saw on Youtube, the 400 watt HID produced 91 g, operating for 1,050 hr at a ratio of .217g/kwh. The 82 watt LED UFO produced 36 g, operating for 1,218 hr at a ratio of .36g/kwh. Total energy consumption of the HID therefore was ~ 420 kwh, where as the energy consumption of the LED was ~ 100 kwh.

This means that the HID produced ~3x the bud, but used over 4x the energy to do it.

Playing devil's advocate here, lets say that we were hooked on using the LEDs but wanted the results that you can get from the HIDs. If we were to purchase 3 UFOs, this theoretically would produce the same as a 400 watt hid. The cost of the HID would be roughtly around $200 and the UFO roughtly around $1500.

Going one step further, lets look at the overall cost in electricity alone. If we were to assume that the electricity company would charge around $0.15 per kwh (a random number), the HID would cost approx $40.32 to run for 12 hours per day, 7 days a week, for 8 weeks, or an average flowering time. The UFO would cost $8.26 to run for the same time. Using three of these, it would then cost us about $24.79 per 8 weeks. Meaning, taking away the initial investment costs, the UFO could theoretically produce the same amount of bud, while saving $15.53 per grow.

I know this doesn't sound like a lot, but it ends up being a savings of $93.18 per year. What that, more or less boils down to, is that in order for you to make your money back on purchasing the LEDs, you would need to grow for ~ 13 years ($1500 for the UFO - $200 (your going to have to spend that anyway)= $1300 (the amount you pay over the cost of the HID), then 1300/93= 13.something or ~ 13 years). After that, you get savings back.

Not quite worth it just yet, but getting there. I personally can't wait till they start making LEDs that can get even as close to half of the grow that an HID can. Even at that point, I think it's worth it. Just my two cents though.

Alright, I'm tired, to bed.

Awesome calculations specialkayme. What I really love about LEDs right now is one how effecient they are and two, how cool they stay. With these lights you can literally have them right in front of your leaves and not worry about it.
The cost of the LEDs right now however is high up there, but I'm willing to bet with more research we will see that go down.

Duece.

Thanks uberpea.

One thing that I forgot to mention in the above calculations, is you save that much money .... bla bla bla, but in doing so you theoretically get the same amount of bud that you would from a 400 watt HID with only using 246 watts. For most of us on here this means little more than a bit of energy savings, which over the long haul doesn't mean more than a hill of beans. For others (not myself personally) it could mean much more. When you are using 3 different 1,000 watt HID bulbs in a perpetual harvest you are consuming quite a bit of electricity. This might tip off the feds. If you switch to LEDs this brings your energy consumption down almost in half, with no theoretical change in quantity of bud, giving you the same amount while keeping the feds out of your hair. Or, on another side, you could double your quantity while using the same amount of electricity.

I agree that they arn't quite there yet, but just seeing what LEDs can do now, when they arn't even popular yet, makes me drool at the thought of what they will be like in the next few years.

All are valid arguements!

I'm sticking with the most efficient HID, the 600w, since the ease of use, low cost, and simple design of the cooltube are all in my favour.



E

bonghits420 said:

Hey Thunder, what is your blue to red ratio? I read somewhere that it should be 2:1 red/blue for veg and 4:1red/blue for flower.. But shit, I think I would much rather take you word on it as your grow is by far the best LED grow I have seen. I see a lot of people on here asking what the yield of an LED is.. this is the best link that I have seen that will show the UFO LED vs. 400W HPS.
YouTube - LED Marijuana Grow

Did you change up the ration on your grow? I want to set up two different environments, one for veg and one for flower. I would like to have 8 plants in the flower environment with hopes of harvesting a plant every week.

I saw earlier in your grow you mentioned you purchased the lights off of ebay.. Was that the LED wholesalers? Are the flood lights that you have a single color per light? or mixed? sorry for throwing all this shit on here at once.. but I have been watching your grow for a while and have either missed this.. or its not here..

What about watering? are you giving the plants a constant mist, or is there a feeding tube directly to the roots? whats the off vs. on ratio? are the plants getting watered during the 12 hrs off?

Any input you can provide would be much appreciated.. I hope your LED's yield more than that UFO, it would make me feel a lot better about purchasing the LED's. If not, fuck it.. 30g's a week is not bad.

Click to expand...

i think my red/blue ratio while flowering was about 70/30%. for flowering I got rid of two of the red/blue spots and replaced them with red only floods. i used a couple panels above the plants too when i started vegging but moved them to make a more efficient array while flowering using only the floods on top of and around the plants. i still use the panels on the walls just for extra ambient lighting and because the whole room is lined with either mylar or flat white paint. my electrical bill has gone up only 7$ a month, that was during vegging/24/7. and i have 4 panels and 7 spots running. so right now i have 5 red/blue spots directly on and surrounding them plus 2 red only spots, par 70's i think, dont remember, hehe.

as far as watering goes, my girls get nutes 24/7 by continuous flow, not a mister but a steady stream. the only time i turn off the water is when i flush and clean the rez.

I did get the lights from LEDwholesalers on ebay. I think for the whole lot of them i paid around 300$ just a little hefty, but i wanted to use them for this experiment and definitely as supplementary lighting in the future. the cost didnt really bother me because i already have a couple of HID's anyway, ill make the 300$ back soon enough, lol.