I currently have a setup but am working on a second with improvements and wanted advice on led grow lights. Currently, I have King led 1000 watt which seems to be working well but could use a little more for 6x6 grow tent. Any advice as to what I can add to my one existing and what I should look for for the new setup? Then should I do 1 higher wattage or 2 lower for the better spread?
LED light
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I used a King X6 Dimmable 1800W COB LED Grow Light in 2' X 4' tent for my previous grows. I could have used more light.
If you are looking at low cost lights, I'd recommend four Mars Hydro TSW-2000s. They'll run you $881.96 USD with the member's discount. Add $24 USD in Canada. This will give you 34.2W/sq ft, which is above the minimum recommended 30W / sq ft. The cost per light is less than the King X6 Dimmable 1800W COB LED Grow Light, with a comparable power draw. I have the TSL-2000 with the same electronics and LEDs. It seems to out perform the King, at least in the veg stage of growth. I've had my plants under this light for three weeks now. Since I've up-potted my root-bound plants ten days ago, they've experienced explosive growth.
@SmokeSara may be able to get you a better deal on multiple lights.
If you are looking at low cost lights, I'd recommend four Mars Hydro TSW-2000s. They'll run you $881.96 USD with the member's discount. Add $24 USD in Canada. This will give you 34.2W/sq ft, which is above the minimum recommended 30W / sq ft. The cost per light is less than the King X6 Dimmable 1800W COB LED Grow Light, with a comparable power draw. I have the TSL-2000 with the same electronics and LEDs. It seems to out perform the King, at least in the veg stage of growth. I've had my plants under this light for three weeks now. Since I've up-potted my root-bound plants ten days ago, they've experienced explosive growth.
@SmokeSara may be able to get you a better deal on multiple lights.
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- #3
I have read alot about cob leds and have been interested in getting one but still studying. Unfortunately, I need to stay under $500 mark for now.
I don't think you'll be able to put 30W / sq ft in your tent for $500. With COBs you'll lose a lot of your tent's height, unless they are spaced close together. I suggest getting two of the Mars Hydro TSW-2000 lights for half the tent now, and more as you can afford them. You can put your ancillary equipment (dehumidifier, humidifier, heater, etc) in the area of the tent not used for growing.
Three 600-watt high pressure sodium setups would provide 50 watts per square foot of intense light, assuming you can match the footprint of the lights' output with the tent's shape. You might manage to find those for $500 or less. Almost certainly, if you don't need air-cooled reflectors and, instead, can get by with the el cheapo simple aluminum ones (although I'd recommend saving up to upgrade those for your next grow). Or maybe you could choose a mixture of lighting technologies that would allow you to fit within your budget limit now, and then swap out the type that you're not as fond of at some point in the future (or perhaps you'll end up discovering that whatever "mix" you come up with works even better than all one type, who knows?).
That's always an option, too. If you can "subdivide" your tent to an extent by hanging some kind of reflective material at the practical edge of your light's (/lights') coverage, that would help confine all the photons to the portion of the tent that you actually have plants growing in.
I'm also optimistic about the new TS series of LED products. And I agree with Old Salt that they work quite well for the growth phase. Hopefully, as more people begin to harvest plants that were grown to harvest under them, we will learn that they work well all the way through.
That might not be a significant issue, depending on how they're set up (and the power level at which they are being driven). I have an older LED panel that contains six COBs. It came with glass lenses, and with them installed, one really needs to keep some distance between the light and the plants. But without the lenses in place, I had plants literally grow right up to the LED panel (my Jack Herer started to tilt the LED panel, LMAO, and it weighs a little over 30 pounds
). The tops of the plant got kind of crunchy. But, again, that was the result of the plant growing all the way up to the thing. Had I been... less of an idiot, things would have been fine. However, that product - with the six COBs, a ring of ten mono leds around each COB, and a little fluorescent UV bulb in the middle - only consumes 350 watts, total, which means that the COBs weren't being run very "hard." That's going to make a big difference; if you run COBs @ 100 watts each, yes, you'll want more distance.- Thread starter
- #6
Awesome really good feedback here thankyou. I know cheaper isn't ideal and you get what you pay for which is why I don't want to go too low but am limited, unfortunately. I tried to get a decent star setup going and who knows how it will turn out. For the most part, the light is the biggest upgrade I need. I was just reading about mixing led and hps for nice results and am interested in trying that. So overall I'm thinking to get a 600 to 1000 watt hps to add to my current led. Please let me know if that is a good or bad option for limited money?
Why not run the numbers and get the total cost of ownership over a five year period. You'll need to include the purchase price, replacement cost for the HID bulbs, power, and extra ventilation required for the HID. I did this for COBs from various manufacturers when I designed my light. It turned out that a CXB and Citizen cost close to the same over five years. The CXB cost more up-front, and the Citizen cost more to run. You also want to have a good look at the PAR maps for the lights you are considering to see what the real coverage is.
Bulb costs are a factor, but not an extremely significant one (IMHO). Ballasts... I know of one still in use that was manufactured in the '80s, lol. Some components would have been replaced along the way, but they're cheap and available at most any electric lighting/etc. supply store. Unfortunately, electronic ballasts aren't as easy to service (and may be sealed, even filled with some kind of resin).
I'm reminded of an article I recently read about LEDs... It seems that, during the last Presidential administration, the (people who make such decisions in the) city of Detroit, Michigan ended up getting talked into replacing all their streetlights with new, "lasts for a long time" LED ones. Now they're trying to come up with the money to replace all the ones that have failed / are failing, LMFAO. Perhaps we shouldn't automatically believe all those claims of "50,000-hour lifetime." How many manufacturers actually bother to test their products in that regard? Ran every day, that works out to... just shy of 11½ years at 12 hours per day. So anything developed within the last two or three years couldn't have been tested for that length of time; it's a physical impossibility, even if they were run 24 hours per day (it'd still take ~5.7 years) and constant run means they don't get heat-cycled from being turned on and off.
I'd want to be aware of "maintenance" costs, but they wouldn't be a determining factor for me. I watched a YouTube video by Doug Demuro titled "The Mitsubishi Mirage Is the Worst New Car You Can Buy" - which was highly entertaining. "...which is the cheapest new car you can buy. I say that, not because of the starting price. It starts at $14,000, which actually puts it on par with the Chevy Spark and more expensive than the Nissan Versa. No, I say it's the cheapest new car you can buy because it's the cheapest new car you can buy."
. And then he went on to mention that dealers were offering up to 40%(!!!) discounts - on a vehicle that only costs $14,000 to begin with - because they were so hard to move off the lots. But, anyway, he stated that they get great gas mileage, but... only have 72 horsepower, weigh ~2,000 pounds, take 11.7 seconds (LMFAO)... and compared the vehicle to the Honda Fit, which is only three miles per gallon worse, has nearly twice the horsepower, and is significantly quicker (although it's certainly not quick ). Given the two choices, a bean-counter would recommend the Mirage - but I kind of doubt anyone who had ever actually driven both of them would.I'm just sayin', lol. Don't fixate on any one thing, but consider the overall package.
No, I'm not saying "HIDs are the winner and LEDs are junk."
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For the 6x6 grow tent, if you are using the traditional blurple led grow lights, you will needs around 35~50w/sft, which in total will be around 1260w ~ 1800w (true wattage); If you use the good quality COB, or the new SMD white color chips as Mars TS, SP series, you will save at least 30% energy from those numbers, which will makes total to be 882w ~ 1260w (save a lot~ ); 
Old salt is right, at least three of the TSL-2000 will help you do the job, which will have 900w in total, which with a group purchase and additional discount code witll be 1024CAD in total (our website can use other currencies now, yeah! ). In fact this light might be the cheapest one at the same quality range, it has PPE over 2.15umol/j, and usually the blurple lights only got PPE number below 1.8. Each wattage is actually below 1USD. And from a long run, you will save more energy and power bill.
Old salt is right, at least three of the TSL-2000 will help you do the job, which will have 900w in total, which with a group purchase and additional discount code witll be 1024CAD in total (our website can use other currencies now, yeah! ). In fact this light might be the cheapest one at the same quality range, it has PPE over 2.15umol/j, and usually the blurple lights only got PPE number below 1.8. Each wattage is actually below 1USD. And from a long run, you will save more energy and power bill.
