New to LED

[Sir Smokalot]

Hello community,

I am from Germany and was usually growing with MH/HPS. Reading this forum convinced me to give LED a try.
get the impression, that there are tons of helpful advices and many friendly people with good knowledge about Led on this platform.
I purchased 3 Mars hydro reflectors 96x5w for a 3,5' x4,5' growing area. I find these have a good ratio of price and performance. Hoping it suits well and will give me good results.

For the moment i don't have specific questions, but I am sure, they will come...

I was following the disussions on 420mag and other platforms, but one thing I can't figure out... - in almost every discussion you can find a comment like: "Wow, these lights (Led in general) decreases my electricity bill about 50% ...bla, bla"
Ok, I can see advantages for led's:
- less heat
- better, healthier, maybe little faster growing
- maybe a better yield
This all is great and reason enough to switch to led and gives you a little energy saving by less cooling, faster growing and so on, but in my opinion this seems not to be such a big thing.

The setup that I bought by following the recommendations for perfect coverage from Mars-Hydro has a Power consumption of 600w - same as before with MH/HPS.
So my question is - do I have an error in reasoning, or is real saving energy with Led's a myth??
Wondering that this issue is so underrepresented.

A comment is highly appreciated

 

[Pigeons420]

Good day, Sir Smokalot!

You pose a great question and one that's common around here. Before I give my opinion I will state my biases.

I'm an HPS/MH guy myself. And I've been running it for about a year consistently.

Before that year, I was running a smaller HPS system and was in the market to upgrade my system. Like you, I did my homework and I thought LED was the answer for me. With money in hand I was prepared to pull the trigger. What stopped me was that I wasn't 100% committed to the LED. I started to look deeper into the different kinds of LEDs and realized that they're not all the same, not even close. I found that the members around here that are running LEDs are using high-end units or multiple smaller units. Once I started comparing price I was shocked to see that I would have to spend 100%-500%+ more than an HPS system of equal intensity. The price didn't make sense. I wasn't ready to spend 1000$+ for an LED when I could spend 300$ for the highest end HPS system.

I guess before I take another hoot I'll conclude. For the price, intensity, coverage and penetration you need to spend some serious cash to compete against a 1000W HPS system. You certainly CAN compete, but you need to spend the money. My monthly hydro bill increased 25$ a month by adding my entire grow room onto the grid. So I suppose it's a personal preference.

***Disclaimer***

Like anything in the field of growing cannabis there are many different ways to grow and harvest marijuana. People are passionate about what they create and believe. There are always conflicting opinions. But it's important to weigh all the options and make your own personal and informed decision.

All the best my friend

 

[Heirloom]

I have to back Pigeons on this. I think the LED grow light industry is on to something, but IMHO it still needs refining....both in quality and price. I've seen too many 'driver' issues and such where an entire row or two of lights go out. Then it's up to you to take it apart and fix it.

Your 96x5 reflector states it uses an actual 200-205 watts and is comparable to a 250w HPS. With 3 that is 600-615 actual watts that is supposed to replace 750 hps.

Only way to know what your MH/HPS lights are actually using is to plug them into a watt meter and monitor. Then the only way to REALLY compare the two systems is to compare harvests.

I'm considering trying LED in a small tent over winter to make some seeds. Not having a harvest of buds on the line might make me feel better about trying it.