LED For Fun Grow

Nothing serious just a shits and gigs LED mini grow.

"Mini" huh? Looks like the only thing mini in that room is the plant (for the moment anyways )

What brand light? How many LEDs? What strain? Are you using Organics? and Why so close (the light to the plant, finding out the bleach range?)? are all the Q's I have at the moment.

I'll be joining this thread so keep a seat open.

First and foremost this was pretty much a last minute experiment. My buddy had this plant going for 2 months under a tiny 2' two bulb T5 and could no longer take care of it so he asked if I could try to flower it for him. During the veg it only grew to about a foot and a half so I knew he wouldn't get much, maybe a handful of bowl packs. Anyway he had it going in a pot of Miracle Gro (please growers, don't use Miracle Gro) and to my understanding it only received water.

So I apologize for the photos in advance. Once the buds started to get dense they also became a lot harder to photograph under the LED. The strain is Kryptonite and the LED is by Stealth Grow, SG602 to be exact. This LED is advertised to be as powerful as a 1000w HPS, but I'm going to tell you it's complete BS. It's got around 280 some odd 2 watt LEDs which puts it in the ball park of 600w + ballast (I believe there is still some kind of internal ballast that powers these lights, same like a shop T5 I'm assuming) so my advice is don't go believing all the hype. Personally I'm interested in seeing these 4 watt chipsets when they become more widely available.

So what I've found out in this little experiment is the actual distance you can get your LED's to the plant canopy before bleaching and light burn appears. At about 6 inches the top plant leaves started to become dry and fragile, after about 4 days at that height the leaves were literally burning and I started seeing rust spots around the edges of the upper leaves. Raised the light to 1 foot and problems were still evident though not as severe. At around 1 1/2 - 2 feet the plant was loving the LED. I also introduced some flower nutrients to the feeding cycle and the plant took too it almost immediately.

More pics to come.

Subbed,, really intrested to know how that light dose.

Quick question though,, how loud is the sg602?? Say compared to your circulation fan there in the first pic..?


Also i wanted to see what NM range of leds and on there web/propoganda page it says its now 25% brigther? Is that your model? Anyhow looking good,


Take it easy.

I actually *had both models of the SG602, newer and older. The newer model is slightly larger than the older one and it is infact brighter, but 25% is a bit of a stretch. The noise only comes from the 8 PC fans hooked up to the back of the light. It's actually very quiet and if you were to put it in a closed closet you would probably only hear a faint humming sound. I'd say it's about as loud as the room fan sitting in the tent.

*Edit, the light is not as loud as the room fan on it's lowest setting. Very stealthy....EXCEPT FOR THE BRIGHT ASS RED LIGHT THAT MAKES MY SPARE ROOM LOOK LIKE A NIGHT CLUB IN THAILAND!

So the light has 277 2watt LEDs. The output is 554 watts and the actual power draw is 400 watts. The company advertises a 3x3 footprint when I know a 1000w HPS covers a 5x5 footprint so how they get 1000w equivalent is beyond me. Also I've noticed the LED has little to no canopy penetration, the leaves directly beneath the canopy leaves are left in almost complete darkness so my take on LED growing is it works but it's not as efficient as an HPS, light penetration and yield. Yes you will save in electricity but you will ultimately lose in weight. I've heard as much as 20% loss on weight using only LED when compared to an HPS of the same wattage. If I were to lose 20% on each grow to save a couple hundred bucks on electricity I'd be out of business. Factor in the absurd cost of LEDs ($1400 for the Stealth LED alone, I paid the same for a 1000w Horti ballast, Horti HPS and Daylight Blue MH bulbs, an Epic reflector which is the largest reflector available, 6" Vortex inline fan, and an 8000 BTU portable AC) and you'll understand why I believe LEDs are not the best lighting option, right now. This isn't to say LED won't eventually replace HPS. Like I said before there are 3w and even 4w chipsets on the market now and I am eager to see if these will actually live up to the claims.

554/400 Watts is huge, in LED terms. If it is focused on only a 3' square,
then it stands to reason that it is blasting that area.

This should be interesting.

Good luck,

JD

I am using a China made LED with 100x3w LEDs and I am happy with it ($198 shipped when I ordered it) but I'm a small medical grower for personal use. I can't wait for those 5w and 10w to become cheaper .

Oh and if you don't like Miracle Grow, also stay away from Scotts, Osmocote, Whitney Farms, Hyponex, Bovung, Green-Light, Black Magic, and "SuperSoil"... All are owned by "Scotts/MG"

Azhden said:

I am using a China made LED with 100x3w LEDs and I am happy with it ($198 shipped when I ordered it) but I'm a small medical grower for personal use. I can't wait for those 5w and 10w to become cheaper .

Oh and if you don't like Miracle Grow, also stay away from Scotts, Osmocote, Whitney Farms, Hyponex, Bovung, Green-Light, Black Magic, and "SuperSoil"... All are owned by "Scotts/MG"

Click to expand...

I've yet to see the 10w LEDs but they sound insanely powerful. Maybe that will put the penetration power of LED on par with HID. But as far as soil is concerned, I'm just not a fan. IMO coco is probably the easiest and most forgiving medium for growing. It's near impossible to over-water unlike soil, and unlike DWC it is easier to correct any problems or issues you may run into with pH or nutrients. I will however be running a RDWC system for my next grow. I like the speed and yield DWC produces.

So I turned off the LED so I could take some actual photos of what the buds are looking like. So I'm not going to lie, the LED is doing it's job. The buds are super resinous and fragrant, and they appear to be pretty dense as well.