Upgrade advice needed!!+rep

Well when i got rid of my CFLs i upgrade to HPS since it is an old and trusted system that works great and it's very easy to use since it has a lot of beam spread ,, it's cheap and reliable on the other hand it consumes a whole crapload of power and builts up a lot of heat.. I never experimented with leds so far, they look really nice but i hate the fact that their beam is so concentrated . Since i m growing a couple of plants in my closet i need wide beam lighting in order to keep everything up and growing so i m going with hps... also since my last grow i got a 150 watt MH which i use in order to improve veg stage for my plants.. so far so good so i m going to upgrade my 250watt hps to a 400 in the next months... Imo go hps
 
Yeah, not real sure about LEDs... They may work okay if you have lots of supplemental lighting... but I've never seen a pure LED grow that was really successful.

I'd go with an MH/HPS conversion, myself. Basically the only light you'll ever need.
 
T5 high output floros are the shit. Don't ask me why, it's just like, the fucking law or something. I have one lonely T5 and I love it. Can't wait to get some more.

What's funny is that I checked my T5 with a light meter today, and it doesn't read nearly as high as my CFLs do even though they're lower wattage and lumen rating than the T5. Anyway, despite that strange fact, the seedlings I started under the T5 were WAY better than the ones i started under CFLs.
 
Depending on your budget either go with a dual system like a switchable ballast so you can use a MH for veg and an HPS for flower or go straight HPS but spring for a MH conversion bulb to use for flower. Plants need different light spectrums at different stages of growth and only going with one type of light will not work as well and it will reduce production.

HID lighting has far more than just been proven to out produce other lighting sources. When grams produced to watts used is figured HID lighting wins hands down.
 
IF you want to grow good, high grade smoke, get into the metal halid / hps conversion systems. A 400 watt system is going to give you the penetrating power you need to grow two or three solid plants, and isn't too large of a system that becomes difficult to operate, especially in regards to heat control.

Compared to your cfls, you will need a new approach at dealing with heat, but once you conquer the heat issue, you'll be quite happy. You can get into a 250 watt system, but they don't bring out the full vegatative potential of cannabis, imo. You're obviously upgrading for a reason, and that's to grow the smoke you see pictures of.
 
Nothing beats LED's for vegging and anyone that tells you otherwise has never even seen one in real life, much less grown with them. I just bought two *MORE* LED panels, all blue this time, after seeing how they kick my 400w metal halides ass all over the place (and the LED's were only 135w and mixed red/blue. Blue is best for vegging. For flowering, go with HPS for now. They are coming out with new technology LED's in the future but they aren't there yet; these will totally embarrass anything else out there.
 
potpimp said:
Nothing beats LED's for vegging and anyone that tells you otherwise has never even seen one in real life, much less grown with them. I just bought two *MORE* LED panels, all blue this time, after seeing how they kick my 400w metal halides ass all over the place (and the LED's were only 135w and mixed red/blue. Blue is best for vegging. For flowering, go with HPS for now. They are coming out with new technology LED's in the future but they aren't there yet; these will totally embarrass anything else out there.
Click to expand...

Now this i am inclined to agree with. I spoke badly about LEDs earlier on, but as vegging lights, they seem to get the job done admirably. I wouldn't buy one myself unless I had money to burn, as they are insanely overpriced, but yeah, they seem to make good vegging lights if cost isn't a factor for you.
 
You can get them off fleabay for about $50 - $60 for a 50w. I paid $400 for my first set of three 45w (ouch!!). The real beauty of these is that they give off nearly no heat, just barely warm. You can let your plants grow right up into them with no ill effects. Consider that the effectiveness of lights decreases to the square of the distance, not as a linear line. And, when you compare the electricity usage ...there is no comparison. I wish you could look into these new blue ones I just got, DAMN they will blind you!! I had to take down all my pix on my former grows (with the LED's) because I had posted pix from Photobucket and discovered that when anyone posts a single photo from Photobucket, I can make a couple of clicks and see every photo they have. I had family pix and everything else so they had to go. There are a few more guys on here that use LED's and have found them to be unreal during veg. I was a little disappointed when I flipped the plants; they just didn't respond all that great with the LED's. But considering that I had my lights on 24/7 during veg, I saved a lot of money and I didn't have to air condition the grow room. Also, LED's last for like a hundred years. Check on fleabay; just make sure not to get the cheap little 12w jobs; that's just a toy.
 
I was trying to check out your pics, potpimp. I wasn't busting on LEDs, just saying I don't really know about them and haven't seen a pure LED grow that was really successful. Mainly because they're kind of cost prohibitive for most people, so people who use them generally use them for supplemental lighting in conjunction with floros or HIDs.

I'd love to see some pics of your LED grows, though, if you get around to posting them up somewhere else.
 
potpimp said:
Nothing beats LED's for vegging and anyone that tells you otherwise has never even seen one in real life, much less grown with them.
Click to expand...


While this will sound totally contradictory to what I previously said when I advised o go with HID lighting I do at least in part agree with your opinion of LED lighting.
　
Many times on numerous boards I have strongly defended LED’s, and not only for the vegetative growth period. NASA has had tremendous success both on earth and in space growing various plants using only LED lighting as have others who so various types of plant growth research for whatever reason or reasons.
　
The singular reason I did not mention them is because I do know that most people who attempt to use LED’s do it all wrong right from the starting gun. Using high quality LED’s and using them in sufficient numbers and using them to optimize their capabilities will result in some absolutely stunningly impressive plants/bud.
　
I have told of it before but a few years back on a now defunct ‘herb’ growing site I followed a thread by a guy who claimed to have come into a rather large sum of money and who had a great HID grow setup who scrapped his HID lighting and went 100% LED.
　
He purchased the highest grade LED’s of the time and he purchased them in large numbers in various forms/shapes/designs. He had large LED panels above his plants and he built what I call portable posts, 4 X 4’s with a square plywood bottom attached for stability, and he attached LED light bars to one side and ringed his plants with them. On other portable posts he attached LED light bars to all four sides and placed then between his plants.
　
Based on his pictures, including harvested crop pictures and dried weights mentioned I would say it was the most impressive indoor grow, for the number of plants he grew, that I have ever seen. The plants had ultra tight nodal spacing and were loaded with budsites. From top to bottom buds were found everywhere you looked. One thing that was very impressive is the buds did not decrease much in size as you went down the plants. They went from being very, very large at the top to being very large at the bottom. They were also very thick and dense from top to middle to bottom. He did not have tight dense buds at the top and somewhat fluffier ones in the middle and then fluffy as heck ones lower down and then popcorn at the bottom.
　
Had I any idea at all that the site would one day vanish I would have C&P’d the entire tread and copied all the pictures because there is no way to adequately explain how amazing his growth and production was.

The grower listed a fairly long list of other benefits that I have mentioned in other threads so I will not repeat them again here since in this case I do not think for the person asking the question LED is the way to go, but the list of positives was indeed impressive.
　
But the reason I did not advise to go LED is because most of those who attempt to use LED’s purchase inferior LED’s, which many or most sold today are.

That is in part because few know which are actually high quality and which are septic tank material.

The other reason is budgetary constraints that most are forced to adhere to. Even low quality LED’s are not inexpensive and considering the numbers of them that are needed to do it right, especially for an entire grow from seedlings to harvest, few people will throw the bucks to purchase enough.

Another reason is few know how to use them to their full potential so in the end when you combine what are the normal facts that go with most attempted LED grows is the person starts a thread or chimes in, in someone else’s thread that is about LED lighting and says they suck rotten eggs, even CFL’s are better.
　
They either do not know or will not admit that their failure is in fact their failure and not one of LED lighting. They purchased substandard low quality LED’s and purchased far to few and did not use them in a way that would give them optimal results.
　
It is somewhat similar to when someone says they want a really fast car and ask for suggestions I will not bother to tell them to consider the Bugatti Veyron 16.4.

It doesn’t matter that it is the world’s fastest production car. It doesn’t matter that it’s 16 cylinder power plant churns out 1001 horsepower and will go from 0 to 100Km/Hr in 3.8 seconds and from 100Km/Hr to 0 in 3.1 seconds.

With a price tag of roughly $1,700,000.00 (USD) (depending on the conversion rate on any given day) there is just no need to mention it unless it is someone like Bill Gates or Donald Trump asking advice.
　
Many growers consider HID lighting to be expensive but if they wanted to purchase true high quality LED’s in sufficient quantities to do the job from seedling to harvest after pricing what would be needed they would then consider HID lighting to be very inexpensive in comparison.
　
Since the initial message in this thread said; "ok, finishing up my first grow with cfls and want to upgrade.


LEDs or HPS? any convincing advice....pics help"

It appeared to me that the person was not only looking for something to flower with but instead one system to do it all so rather than suggest a dual system of some sort or a system he would likely not be able to afford if put together properly I suggested HID lighting.
　
Other than that I do not only agree with what you said I would add to it, with what I mentioned above, and say that LED lighting is actually the very best choice someone could make when buying grow lights. But if they went that route and if they cut any corners at all and if they did not use them optimally they would then curse me till the day they died and be totally convinced that I had utterly misled them.
　
Because of that I seldom recommend LED lighting, even though if the move I am considering happens I likely may go 100% LED. If the move does not happen I doubt I will make the switch since my present setup is not al I would wish it to be and it would not be all that feasible to make the switch with what I presently have to work with area wise.
 
Hey BrickTop check YouTube for "plasma light" or something like that. You can also google it too but the video shows a new breed of light that uses plasma and it's as bright as the sun. The funny thing is that, right on it's heels is a new LED technology that is even brighter than that, LOL. My mental survival in anything technological has always been to wait until the very last moment to buy what I need, buy the best quality that I can afford and **don't look back**. You're very right about the cheap LED's; those are just toys, not serious growing tools.

My brain just turns all the time, figuring out things to be stealthy, grow better, faster, more, etc. The thing that is giving me a boner lately is autoflowering. I just dropped half a dozen seeds in water last night to get a few started for a seed run. If I get two females that should give me over 500 seeds. Considering that they only get about 2' tall and go from seed to chop in 60 days, man that is the shit!
 
what up all i have flowered with led dont do it hps conversion or dual arc bulb but for veg u cant beat it just use a low wattage cfl along side it to brighten up the room a bit and your plant will grow fat and tight promise u this man:bigjoint::bigjoint::bigjoint::bigjoint:
 
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