Led vs T5 flourescent....

Moflow

Moflow

Well-Known Member
Kingrow1 said:
With 6 x 18watt t8s i could do that and slightly bigger plants, i would have expected more from a veg tent on cobs to beat t5s but rep+ for posting a comparison picture :-)
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I'll fire up a pic in a week or two when the 5 x 10l pots fill out ;).... lol
Horses for courses, I'm not saying any light is better or worse.
This setup suits me at moment.
 
Kingrow1

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
Moflow said:
I wonder what par readings one would get under 100 watts of t5?
Or t8?
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Forget par and ppfd, its not accurate for photosynthesis and makes no measurement of the effect of combined spectrums, it is good for comparing one led with another but not a led and t5 as per the inherent problems.

Literally led users jumped on imperfect science and tried to make it law, wattage and plant growth is a much more accurate system here :-)
 
Yodaweed

Yodaweed

Well-Known Member
Kingrow1 said:
Forget par and ppfd, its not accurate for photosynthesis and makes no measurement of the effect of combined spectrums, it is good for comparing one led with another but not a led and t5 as per the inherent problems.

Literally led users jumped on imperfect science and tried to make it law, wattage and plant growth is a much more accurate system here :-)
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Target spectrum was a total gimmick , it was fools gold and lots of people believed it and bought in.
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
High quality LED builds have already made T5 obsolete. For new setups, vegging with T5 is just a mistake imo. Even for commercial scale I would definitely use LEDs for veg. The amortization on LED for veg is around 1-2 years now, even if you don't DIY.
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
I'd push the efficiency limits with a veg lamp too. For a lamp that runs 18-24 hours a day, it's worth underdriving and getting top bins to get efficiency of 50% or higher.

Upgrading veg to LED is a no brainer. Upgrading flowering to LED might not be worth it for a lot of people.

Just don't buy products that make outrageous claims with a "bargain" price. Right off the bat, if they don't list their "actual wattage", it's obviously a bullshit product. Good products will tell you things like what drivers are being used, and the bins of the leds (if applicable, Vero don't have bins)
 
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Kingrow1

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
churchhaze said:
High quality LED builds have already made T5 obsolete. For new setups, vegging with T5 is just a mistake imo. Even for commercial scale I would definitely use LEDs for veg. The amortization on LED for veg is around 1-2 years now, even if you don't DIY.
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Id rather t5s for spectral qualities, top end phosphor does a damn good impression of sunlight, leds cant touch this yet.

Still moflow posted some ok pics, others would be helpfull to gauge a 100watt veg tent.
 
Kingrow1

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
churchhaze said:
I'd push the efficiency limits with a veg lamp too. For a lamp that runs 18-24 hours a day, it's worth underdriving and getting top bins to get efficiency of 50% or higher.

Upgrading veg to LED is a no brainer. Upgrading flowering to LED might not be worth it for a lot of people.

Just don't buy products that make outrageous claims with a "bargain" price. Right off the bat, if they don't list their "actual wattage", it's obviously a bullshit product. Good products will tell you things like what drivers are being used, and the bins of the leds (if applicable, Vero don't have bins)
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Veg tent is an easy place to swap out for leds though, thought it be more popular but mainly just see diy for lower wattage.
 
Kingrow1

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
Yodaweed said:
Target spectrum was a total gimmick , it was fools gold and lots of people believed it and bought in.
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The spectrum changes reguarly as they bring in more science claims, this is also a frustration to them as finding the better led in this mountain of shit they have created is such a complex issue now.

Were we meant to stay away from snakeoil or buy in on every new hogh priced product... i forget the advise now....
 
Yodaweed

Yodaweed

Well-Known Member
Moflow said:
What is meant by Target Spectrum?
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Target spectrum is those LEDs that claim they have the best spectrum (mostly blurples) like this LED https://www.amazon.com/MarsHydro-Spectrum-Certificate-Hydroponic-Growing/dp/B00XC3LBIW/ref=sr_1_13_sspa?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1530715083&sr=1-13-spons&keywords=led+grow+light&psc=1

It says " The most effiecent spectrum for growing plants based on 8 years of research and testing, outperforming hps,mh,cmh, induction and fluorescent in equal wattage tests"
 
Youngrastagrows

Youngrastagrows

Member
xtsho said:
I've been using a 4 ft 4 bulb T5 to veg and HPS to flower for years. You can have both for under $400. Until decent LED's come down in price I see no need to switch. I haven't seen any LED grows that are better than HPS. Now there are reasons to use LED's. Heat being one of them but more and more I'm hearing about people still having heat issues with LED's. Electricity costs are another reason to use LED's but where I live the power is cheap so it doesn't make sense to invest the money in quality LED's because it will take years for me to recoup the initial cost based on electricity savings.
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Not ragging on your views man but I have a viparspectra 300w 120 true watts ( something like that ) and it cost me about 110$ shipping and handling doesn't run hot at all even has a daisy chain connection ( haven't tried it yet ) but it definitely grows the herb man. You can find em on Amazon but it's like food you never know til you try it man
 
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Tim1987

Well-Known Member
Youngrastagrows said:
Not ragging on your views man but I have a viparspectra 300w 120 true watts ( something like that ) and it cost me about 110$ shipping and handling doesn't run hot at all even has a daisy chain connection ( haven't tried it yet ) but it definitely grows the herb man. You can find em on Amazon but it's like food you never know til you try it man
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Dont buy the 900.
I made the mistake of doing so. 600watts of hps absolutely trumps it.
If you ever want more watts, choose a different led.

:peace:
 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
Youngrastagrows said:
Not ragging on your views man but I have a viparspectra 300w 120 true watts ( something like that ) and it cost me about 110$ shipping and handling doesn't run hot at all even has a daisy chain connection ( haven't tried it yet ) but it definitely grows the herb man. You can find em on Amazon but it's like food you never know til you try it man
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I only use the T5 for veg. I have an HPS in my flower tent. My T5 is a four foot light with four 6500k 54 watt high output bulbs for a total of 216 watts. You can daisy chain five of them together. It fits perfect in my 2 x 4 tent and gives even light all across the tent. I've had the fixture for years, works excellent for what I'm using it for so I see no need to spend any money to buy an LED. I'll probably setup an LED system in the near future but I'll put it together myself. No way I'm buying any of that cheap stuff off of Amazon when there are plenty of DIY plans out there that will actually make a quality LED lighting system. I'm definitively not wasting my money on a cheap purple light.

I've been growing for decades and I've survived all that time growing excellent weed and getting very good yields without an LED. The problem right now is that the decent LED's cost way too much unless you put them together yourself and the cheap purple lights can't touch my HPS so it makes absolutely no sense for me to change what I'm doing.
 
Moldy

Moldy

Well-Known Member
Yeah, they burn out pretty fast. I'm seeing 100% improvement using a cheap off the shelf China built LED. Got an auto flowering @ 3 weeks and 2 days from sprout. Don't grow autos much so maybe that's normal?
 
whitebb2727

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
Moldy said:
Yeah, they burn out pretty fast. I'm seeing 100% improvement using a cheap off the shelf China built LED. Got an auto flowering @ 3 weeks and 2 days from sprout. Don't grow autos much so maybe that's normal?
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I don't know about that. I would take t5 over cheap no name LEDs.

I use a couple led lights now. One has citizen gen 6 cobs and the other has Cree and osram diodes.

The cheaper LEDs tend to be less effecient than t5. I've used a couple different no name LEDs and threw them away.

I will take cobs and certian name brand diode lights over t5.

I still think I may add some t5 back in with the cobs. I was running agromax horticulture bulbs including uv. Makes great pot.

To each thier own though. Whatever makes a person happy. Most lights will grow pot. A lot of.it is the grower.
 
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