Led Growing Is The Way Of The Future My Friends

Dan Kone said:

You still get smaller, fluffy buds.

LED's can't touch a 600w HPS either really. I've never run a system that used smaller than 600w hps's so IDK about that.

The only thing people really need to know about LED's is this - they are a great way to save $ for vegging, but don't flower with them. End of story.

I don't see how anyone who's ran a decent HPS system and tried LED's can dispute that.

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I only gave my first LED flowered harvest 9 out of the 12 weeks it should have had, and the buds were definitely not fluffy then (even the popcorn is much more impressive than my HPS popcorn ever was). I am pretty sure the fluffy you speak of is another issue that only really follows crappy LED panels around. I agree they are especially better for vegging (cause you can save so much power and heat production) and because even most crappy LEDs will veg well enough, but I completely disagree with LED not being capable of flowering cannabis. Plenty of people who have been running HID for years and tried a GOOD led panel were convinced. I'd say at least 75% of the people I've read use a good LED said they were likely to switch to LED completely except during the winter when they would need the heat from HID.

Again, the problem is people haven't seen enough of the grows with good LED products. Years of companies misleading about the wattage and potential of their lights has damaged LEDs rep. Although I suppose it probably deserved most of it until the last 12-18months when huge strides were made and now instead of 3-4 wavelength 1w no lens panels everywhere, we will start to see 3w diode full spectrum panels with tight lens angles. In the next couple years it will be very difficult for anyone to say that LED can't flower. It won't take years because the tech isn't capable now, its because people still need to buy and grow with them because they don't believe or don't know which can actually flower well.

Here are some pics of my plants I spoke of, not that impressive. I with the grow I have going now that started 12/12 a little over a week ago. These pics are at various stages, again plants were only given 9 weeks of 12/12 when all but 2 were rated as 12 week strains. I ended their season short because my patient was going to need the supply, and I wanted to get started on her Rick Simpson's Cure supply grow. I can't seem to find my harvest day pics, those oldest pics here are 3/19 but I harvest them 12 days later.

for commercial applications LEDS have along way to go...lets see how many leds I need to cover my 100 x 200 ft warehouse grow I use 1 600 watt mh per 3x3ft area now

colonuggs said:

for commercial applications LEDS have along way to go...lets see how many leds I need to cover my 100 x 200 ft warehouse grow I use 1 600 watt mh per 3x3ft area now

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Yeah LED is definitely more practical for people growing in a house instead of a warehouse. I don't think it would be too hard though because you could make use of light movers just like you could with HID. I think the reason why we don't see much of that yet is because the LED panels/companers were mostly crap until the last year or 2 when the tech really bloomed, and because the high upfront cost along with the risk of the DEA coming down on you at anytime makes the Pros not worth it enough for warehouse level investments into LED. For a 3x3 I would just get a single true 300-400w LED panel, for 100x200 WITHOUT light movers it could cost up to $250k without any bulk order discounts.

So yeah the tech will need to get a bit cheaper, but I think its low enough for people making use of light movers. People with 100x200 indoor grow areas probably have enough money that a 250k isn't as insane sounding as it first seems (100x200 is 20,000 square feet and most US homes are not more than 2000 square feet and cost up to $500,000). $250k of LED for that space is still WAY more money that what it would take to get started in that space with HID, but all the air conditioning you might need (both in upfront and cost to run/maintain) and how much electricity costs in your area... who knows

As far as upfront cost, how long it will last, and all that jazz with present costs it probably isn't as worth it to switch to LED for most people (especially because they already invest money into HID systems). But if you're like me and you can't modify your house to redirect the warm air flow from your tent outside the room it is in, and you normally only need air conditioning for 1 week of the whole year, LED was a great choice for me in the heat/AC savings (plus more higher quality pot to boot, but I replaced a 400w HID with a 395w LED instead of 180-200w which would have been more appropriate). With my 400w HPS I only had a 4 month window to grow during the year or temps would be too high, now with my LED which uses almost as many watts I can grow at least 9 months out of the year without worrying about heat.

colonuggs said:

for commercial applications LEDS have along way to go...lets see how many leds I need to cover my 100 x 200 ft warehouse grow I use 1 600 watt mh per 3x3ft area now

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[video=youtube;kxPvN9ke2Xg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxPvN9ke2Xg[/video]

Bad Karma said:

[video=youtube;kxPvN9ke2Xg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxPvN9ke2Xg[/video]

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See that is pretty good even though its done with outdated UFO LED panels. I want to see a warehouse grow with 3w diode full spectrum panels!

jdizzle22 said:

See that is pretty good even though its done with outdated UFO LED panels. I want to see a warehouse grow with 3w diode full spectrum panels!

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Closest I can find is a large grow room with 2W & 3W Stealth Grow LED lights.

[video=youtube;s7ssah3VOqE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7ssah3VOqE[/video]

manfish said:

Actually someone did a comparison between led's and mh & hps...identical grow rooms...identical plants...same light schedule...same nutes...EVERYTHING totally identical...there was no appreciable difference in plant size...quality or yeild...the big difference was cost of electricity for the mh and the hps versus the led's, and of course the price of the led grow lights

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I would really like to see the source of that.
im totally not saying whats better or not, but I have seen the outcomes of plants from HID bulbs.. Never seen as many from an L.E.D to come up with a conclusion..

FriendlyGuy said:

I would really like to see the source of that.
im totally not saying whats better or not, but I have seen the outcomes of plants from HID bulbs.. Never seen as many from an L.E.D to come up with a conclusion..

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I 2nd that if anyone has a link to it. I'd bet money on people thinking they were using more LED watts than they were, and that they were not 3w diode panels (and especially not full spectrum)

Thanks for that video bad karma!

From the comments on that video:
@fugi2002bx 9.5lbs , leds cost 11K , electric bill on LED is about 120-130 dollars, I have a small a/c running on fan mode so thats also about 20bucks a month.
my bill total is usually 180-230bucks a month inc the fans and stuff.

UPDATE: ok so if it is true that in that video 8 SG602s costing 11k were used, that means the power bill for the LEDs is only 2800watts into a total of 2304 2w and 3w diodes plus fans (counting the wattage to the fans you get an average of ~1.21w per diode (my all 3w diode panel is 1.51w per diode, and now you can get 3w panels run average of 2w per diode) . So that works out to about $3.9 per actual watt after bulk buyer discount.

These guys look like they might have that tech that keeps more than 1 led from dieing at a time, but when I read this line on their page I began to doubt them "We went as far as to test a light with an 11-band spectrum, but found that because of the varying power requirements of the diverse range of chips, we could only run the light at a substandard intensity." I agree that 11 might be more than necessary, but my panel runs them at different wattages just fine (and takes the extra step to use tech that keeps 1 dead LED from taking out the power supply to a bunch of others). I think these guys make a good product, but they charge twice as much as other companies who sell all 3w diode panels with that safety tech I mentioned. I also don't like them not talking about the lens angles which they only ever mentioned as "optical diffusers" but then never mentioned how much or how little they diffuse (what the angle is?). BUT BUT these guys do get MASSIVE credit for telling for explaining how they calculate the name wattage and the actual wattage (never seen an LED company do that on the website for everyone to see)

jdizzle22 said:

Thanks for that video bad karma! Did you happen to see in the comments at the time if anyone knows how many watts of LED is actually being used? I think I've read 8 panels were used, but I don't know if they were all SG602s. 11k of LED could be anywhere from 2200w to 5500 actual watts

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I know the title of the vid says 8 panels, but it sure looked like a whole lot more then that were being used in that grow area.
LED lights have really come of age in the last 2 years, but unfortunately not everyone documents their grows for us to see.
Stealth Grow, Spectra (GLH), and ProSource Worldwide have all earned my trust through customer grow journals and videos that prove their products effectiveness.
Black Dog may join that list soon if I can find more evidence of results from their LED lights, what I've seen so far is encouraging.

If the comments from the video are right and he's paying $230 a month (we'll go high end for the sake of argument) using LED's.
I would hazard to guess that if he was running a full HID set up in that room it would cost him $750 or more a month in electricity.

Bad Karma said:

I know the title of the vid says 8 panels, but it sure looked like a whole lot more then that were being used in that grow area.
LED lights have really come of age in the last 2 years, but unfortunately not everyone documents their grows for us to see.
Stealth Grow, Spectra (GLH), and ProSource Worldwide have all earned my trust through customer grow journals and videos that prove their products effectiveness.
Black Dog may join that list soon if I can find more evidence of results from their LED lights, what I've seen so far is encouraging.

If the comments from the video are right and he's paying $230 a month (we'll go high end for the sake of argument) using LED's.
I would hazard to guess that if he was running a full HID set up in that room it would cost him $750 or more a month in electricity.

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i'm not saying led's won't have a future in commercial gardens, i'm simply saying it's a ways off. even if led's have come a long way in the last couple years, hps is reliable, and led's generally aren't. yes there are a few company's that stand behind their products, but the cost for the fixtures vs hps is also pretty ridiculous. when you're growing commercially, you are generally willing to pay more money for more reliability, so the extra cost per year to use hps, knowing that you're going to be replacing fewer light fixtures and having generally fewer problems, is fairly negligible when you're yields are typically larger, and more consistent. if you also consider that if you have a magnetic ballast you can generally give it to a hydro shop and have it back in the next day or two, vs. shipping it back to the manufacturer of the led fixture, waiting a couple weeks to find out they say you misused it so they're not gonna warranty it so you gotta pay outta pocket, then finally a couple weeks later getting it back so that light lost a month of producivity. not very practical when you count on those lights to make money.

Go over to thc farmer to the LED forum and monitor a guy using 12 357 Magnums. Looks pretty impressive so far. I'm pretty sure it's Ledbudguy who got banned from RIU. This grow is as close to commercial as you can get.

xXOnyxXx said:

dam jdizz my bad bra, a few too many bongs and waddya get? brainfart ...

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I'm confused now too, I have no idea what you are talking about

So LED users really think it makes sense to spend over 10 times more for a light that MAY do as good a job as a HID? 5 years 3 months...that's how long it'd take to save an electrical costs. What's the lifespan per panel? 5 years average? Feel ripped off?

Harrekin said:

So LED users really think it makes sense to spend over 10 times more for a light that MAY do as good a job as a HID? 5 years 3 months...that's how long it'd take to save an electrical costs. What's the lifespan per panel? 5 years average? Feel ripped off?

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Since I'm pretty small time with only 1 patient, I have a 2.5x2.5x6ft tent and a 12 spectrum/wavelength 395w LED (252x3w LEDs + (6x3w fans))

I look at it this way. I spent $1100 to replace my 400w Super HPS reflectorhoodwithglass with something almost equal in electrical useage (and I knew people would compare a ~400w LED to a 400w HPS and not the true wattage of a 400w system). I can now grow 8 months out of the year instead of only 4 (without the use of air conditioning) because this system produces <25% as much heat as a 400w HPS system. I will apparently grow higher quality pot based on the 8 or so completed grows I've read done with the company I bought from (definitely does). I should also grow more marijuana because of the greater PAR efficiency of the LEDs, the 90 degree lens on each source of light spread out over a much greater area than a 400w bulb (and they all point down anyway!) to especially make better use of LST and SCROG.

And sure it set me back $1100, but it is specially built (only a couple other companies do this as of yet) so that if an LED goes out it won't cut of power to any other LEDs, and as far as I know its the only company that offers a 5 year warranty and a 120 day return thingy. Even if it lasted only 5 years it would be well worth it for doubling the length of time I have to grow and not adding air conditioning to the cost (and so if I did ever decide to use air conditioning to help grow all year, i'd need a shit load less than if I still had my 400w HPS in there). Also higher quality/more pot can grow in space, not having to replace bulbs at $75-100 a piece, etc etc

Now sure if I was running a business down in Cali or some other state where it would be legal, I might think twice. For one the DEA could come anytime, so if I make a huge investment that takes longer to pay back than if I'd gone HID I might not make money (I haven't done any math myself to get an idea of how much longer it might take, if at all depending on the optimal set up?). Also its way more expensive, so I might not even be able to accelerate financial growth as fast if I start with little. etc etc

Pros and Cons,

PS: In retrospect now that I've had a chance to grow with it, I wish I'd settled for the 290w instead of the 395w (especially so I could have saved on electricity, as 62w per square foot is too much and should have settled for 30-40*) * in a warehouse grow I might settle for 20-30w to save money if I couldn't use light movers and get closer to 35-50

62w per square foot is too much?! Put the bong down man,seriously,that HPS grown stuff you bought is clearly clouding your rationality.

Speaking of silly talk,anyone on here tried C02 with their LED? Lol.

LED isnt good enough yet...

and by the time it becomes effective enough, plasma will replace it...

poor LED...

I don't know about Grow LEDs, but the prices for household LEDs are going down already.

For now I'm sticking with HID, but still waiting on the progress of LEDs. Would be great to have low consumption, low heat- given that the purchase price becomes reasonable.

i went shopping over the weekend........my store STILL doesnt sell em.......

Harrekin said:

62w per square foot is too much?! Put the bong down man,seriously,that HPS grown stuff you bought is clearly clouding your rationality.

Speaking of silly talk,anyone on here tried C02 with their LED? Lol.

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Oh yeah thanks for not believing at all, and also thanks for assuming I smoke which is something I don't do (I don't ever intend to use a bong even). These plants I just showed were all LED except for 1-2 that had 5-7 days under CFL as seedlings first (can't remember if the male had been or if it was 2 of the girls). I'm telling you truthfully, I have 62w of LED panel per square foot in my 2.5x2.5 tent, and I wish I would have settled for half that because I'm very sure this is too much light (reflecting walls so close that ~400w of LED is too intense. I feel that about 25-35w of LED from the company I chose would be equal enough to the 62w of HPS I had before (but again I have a small tent so I get better reflection for my 1 big panel, if I was growing commercially I'd aim for 30-45w per square foot depending on light movers.

I don't know of anyone that has used CO2 with LED. I imagine it would be a bigger pain in the ass because you can't very easily take the heat from the LED out of the growing area separately from the air filter (they are not made to have venting hooked up like HID systems). Although they produce so much less heat watt for watt it might not be a problem.

*Just because your store doesn't sell them, doesn't mean they are junk. Although you are 100% correct that your store is not selling junk LED, because they haven't found/or are sure yet of which one would be worth selling. I actually saw my local indoor garden store that they even started selling small panels that have that same safety tech as mine to keep more than 1 LED from dieing a time (and taking out the power to others). That really surprised me because I never expected to see that in a local garden store chain when only a few companies on the internet were even selling them. So yeah, they just need to decide on a good one to sell (and to their credit, there is so much shitty LED panels out there it can seem like there must not be good out there).