LED lighting for flowering?

Just finishing up my first grow, using a 4x4 tray and a 1000W HPS light. It worked well but it creates a TON of heat and uses tons of energy.

We used an LED for the veg and it worked well. I was under the impression LEDs are only really used for veg, but some have told me you can use em for flowering as well. During flower we put a couple sick plants under the LED again (to separate them from the room, as we suspected they may have been hermy-ing), and some of them did show some signs of recovery under the LEDs. But the main thing is during the summer, the power and cooling demands of these HPS lights would pretty much prevent us from growing for 4 months or so a year, and it'd be nice if we could plug in some LEDs instead (even if we're using an LED on one tray and the 1000W in another, and rotate the plants between them on a weekly basis or something).

So, anyway, anyone ever use LEDs for flower? Any experience to report? Thanks

anyone? is the 'the light doesn't penetrate enough/isn't the right spectrum' stuff true or not?

its true, but with LED's being new and all I guess the jury is still out.

Im using LEDs to flower. You can check out what the plants look like here: https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/379628-1st-grow-138w-cfl-240w.html

I have tried with a 240 watt LED it works, and will keep you growing through that 4 months but you will only see yields around that of a 400w HPS so maybe 1/2 of your 4x4 tray I'd add some CFL or HO-Tubes to help. I have a 216w tube I was using with my LED. They are both now collecting dust. I use 2 - 1000w to cover 2 custom built 4X6 tables and 3x 200w CFLs in my clone room

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LEDs are the snake oil of indoor growing - foolish purchasers (myself included) fall victim to the Average Watt Fallacy and end up with a couple hundred dollars worth of pretty Christmas lights that work about as good as a florescent tube. A CFL will outperform any LED I've seen in veg, an MH will make the comparison laughable. Right now HPS/MH are the best for flower, there are some good ceramic bulbs out there too.

I have 4 LED UFOs, I've taken a bat to one - I'll put up some pics later. They are absolute garbage and anyone who buys one is an idiot with more money than brains. I never had much money to be honest.

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ps I've made a prototype for an elliptical trough reflector that focuses LED light into a useful flowering light. Luckily I took my LED apart before smashing the housing, now I have a few bucks of electronics that I've paid hundreds for.

If you've bought LEDs think this way - "I'm not going to track down and beat up the vendors, I was the one stupid enough eat the bull shit."

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CFLs huh... how do they compare to HPS and LEDs, in terms of yield, quality and efficiency? Are you just atlking about over-the counter setups?

Sounds like LEDs are not the way to go... any more experience would be good to hear of course either way.

Sold my LEDs on eBay and went with a 600 watter. They do work, they are slow as hell to flower with. I don't agree with Hobbes that they are all junk and only idiots buy them. That is rather closed minded thinking about a brand new technology that does show a promising future. I have seen great side by side comparrison grows. I just prefer to get the most yield for my buck and sold my LEDs.

Guys correct me if I'm wrong but Serapis you had a bunch of 12 inch sq. panels and Hobbes had ufo's......I wonder if you had gone the whole hog and got a pair of 300W/600W units if you would have had the same sort of results or would feel the same way. I used panels like serapis and had pathetic results but still researched more and saw on youtube many grows to completion under bigger panels that could and do compare to HPS. I have a pair of 600W dutch poots over a 8'x4' space so know what they do and what I saw on some vids could compare.

The point being that many have been burnt in the hype and over exaggeration of this new technology including myself but one must take into consideration that if you bought properly from the start with LED you can get results, all other factors like cost etc. aside.

Really it just depends what you want to do...

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"I have a pair of 600W dutch poots over a 8'x4'"

I have one 600 watt hps over a 8'x3' area and produce close to 4 grams per watt cured (25% of cut weight) - everything documented in Weed Science and Grow Lab below.

LEDs will not produce the same results as HPS per watt without the proper adapter. There are no pictures on the net of tremendous LED grows with 1/2 the watts of HPS.

Don't buy the lights, buy the plants that the lights will grow.

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check out this guys grow.... he just started flowering a few days ago...... https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/378470-confined-space-850w-led-master.html

LED are more a supplemental lighting concept as they reduce heat greatly when compared with HPS but they do not produce high Lumens. I run two 600 watt HPS with 2 150h Kessil LEDS in a 8x8x7 tent and it works well. I plan on getting 4 more h150 LED for optimal lighting. The decision to go with 2 600 hps and supplement with LED instead of buying 4 600watt hps has really paid off as it is much easier to control temperatures and requires less ducting and smaller fan for Air Cooling the 2 600 hps instead of the 4. The only thing is that the LED are kind of expensive.

Cost of 1 600w HPS setup Approx

Lumatek ballast 250$

600W hortilux bulb 110$

6" cool tube or aircooled hood 120$

Total cost: 480$ per set up


LED h150 Kessil Cost and Lighting Comparison:

cost of H150 Kessil LED is approx 250$

It takes approx 3 LEDs to give off comparable lumens/PAR/red/blue spectrum.

so 750$ for LEDs compared to 480$ for a 600w HPS setup. That is 270$ cost difference per 600w lost and will cost me 540$ more to run 6 LEDS instead of 2 more 600HPS.

I rationalized it based on the fact that a 600w hps consumes 648watts while the leds consume (approx 36w each) around 108 watts.
The difference in my electric bill should make up the difference in the 540$ in the first year or so if that i figure.That doesnt not include the price of electricty i would waste running A/C and larger fans to cool 4 600w hps. Also i really like how specific the spectrum and how the LED really penetrates through the canopy. I think mixing HPS/LED will provide for optimal spectrum and lighting on a minimal electricity usage.

I run 2 home depot shop light t12 set ups with plant/aquarium and daylight bulbs and 1 blue h150 Kessil LED in my 4x4 veg room.

Check my grow journal for pictures SwiftGrow Journal

hopes that helps somewhat

SwiftGrow said:

LED are more a supplemental lighting concept as they reduce heat greatly when compared with HPS but they do not produce high Lumens. I run two 600 watt HPS with 2 150h Kessil LEDS in a 8x8x7 tent and it works well. I plan on getting 4 more h150 LED for optimal lighting. The decision to go with 2 600 hps and supplement with LED instead of buying 4 600watt hps has really paid off as it is much easier to control temperatures and requires less ducting and smaller fan for Air Cooling the 2 600 hps instead of the 4. The only thing is that the LED are kind of expensive.

Cost of 1 600w HPS setup Approx

Lumatek ballast 250$

600W hortilux bulb 110$

6" cool tube or aircooled hood 120$

Total cost: 480$ per set up


LED h150 Kessil Cost and Lighting Comparison:

cost of H150 Kessil LED is approx 250$

It takes approx 3 LEDs to give off comparable lumens/PAR/red/blue spectrum.

so 750$ for LEDs compared to 480$ for a 600w HPS setup. That is 270$ cost difference per 600w lost and will cost me 540$ more to run 6 LEDS instead of 2 more 600HPS.

I rationalized it based on the fact that a 600w hps consumes 648watts while the leds consume (approx 36w each) around 108 watts.
The difference in my electric bill should make up the difference in the 540$ in the first year or so if that i figure.That doesnt not include the price of electricty i would waste running A/C and larger fans to cool 4 600w hps. Also i really like how specific the spectrum and how the LED really penetrates through the canopy. I think mixing HPS/LED will provide for optimal spectrum and lighting on a minimal electricity usage.

I run 2 home depot shop light t12 set ups with plant/aquarium and daylight bulbs and 1 blue h150 Kessil LED in my 4x4 veg room.

Check my grow journal for pictures SwiftGrow Journal

hopes that helps somewhat

Click to expand...

What size is your tent and can you explain the light placement in the tent please?

Or a link to your journal, cant find it..

My Journal is under Forums/Journal/SwiftGrow Journal might be on 2nd page. My tent is a 8x8x7 i run the 2 600 hps ducting in 8inch then to a 8,6,6 y splitter that splits the 600w lights and then i run the 2 led in the middle as supplemental lighting. Im only using the middle 5x5 area at the moment since i only have 4 power growers in the tent at the moment.

Here we go https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/384835-swiftgrow-journal.html

anyone have any of these comparisons? if it can be done 'right' and come close, it would not only save me hundreds on power and keep my plants at a happier temp, but it also gratly decreases the chance you get caught... i would think anyway.

Hobbes said:

I have 4 LED UFOs, I've taken a bat to one - I'll put up some pics later. They are absolute garbage and anyone who buys one is an idiot with more money than brains. I never had much money to be honest.

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If you've bought LEDs think this way - "I'm not going to track down and beat up the vendors, I was the one stupid enough eat the bull shit."

Click to expand...

I'm really tempted to make this my signature

For about the hundredth time.



The most impressive grow thread I ever followed was a totally LED grow. Several years back, on a similar board that is now defunct, a member came into a tidy sum of money and decided to dump his HID lighting and switch to LED lighting. He researched to find the very best LED lights and he purchased a good number of different styles.

Above his plants he had two large LED panels. He built what I call portable posts for the lack of a better term, 4 X 4 posts cut in sections that would stack on top of each other, with a flat piece of plywood attached to the bottom of each portable post set for balance. (If I were making the same thing I would use PVC pipe.)

Each section of stackable post was long enough to hold an LED light bar. On some portable posts he attached LED light bars to one side and on others he attached LED light bars to all four sides. He ringed his plants with portable posts with an LED on one side and once the top LED light panels were raised high enough he added more portable posts with LED light bars on all four sides between his plants. Each time the top LED lighting was raised enough for another section of portable post with more LED light bars on them he would add another section.

His plants were the thickest most lush plants I have ever seen grown indoors. The colas were massive and the buds on the lowest portions of plants were as large or larger than most I see people get just under the bottom of their colas, meaning larger than most people’s very biggest buds other than colas are.

The key to LED lighting is to purchase the highest grade LED lights available and to purchase them in sufficient numbers AND then use them in a way that they will be able to do the very most they can for the plants growing from their light.

If people did that they would throw rocks at CFLs and HID lighting and never use either ever again. In most cases people purchase low quality LEDs because of price, and they purchase too few of them, again because of price, and then they tend to expect too much from them and use them incorrectly. The result is a bad rap against LED lighting when instead the bad rap should be on those who should never have spent their money on LED lighting in the first place considering how they did it.

pm sent
do your research

iv been following this grow since it started a couple of months or so ago and the startup cost of the light was fucked up but it seems to be getting some very nice results, shows not all leds are a shitty waste of money, my main problem is not that i dont think leds cannot work its that most are shitty bits of crap sold by people looking to make a fast buck and its hard to pick out a reputable supplier.
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/364323-my-1st-medicine-cabinet-270-a.html