Poor Man's Grow With Home Depot LED Lighting

[Th34v4t4r]

Well I'll pull up a chair...

Also I like the leds ... half power consumption for similar output compared to traditional lighting...

I picked up my 600w viperspectra for £140 It's on its 1st run.. I'm expecting good things.. I've owned the 300w viperspectra for a year Nd put 2 grows out. It did well but just didn't fill my tent. I need more coverage. Have a look through the led ranges. Mars hydro, viperspectra or some quantum boards.. leds is the way forward (so is white light but we get what we can on a budget)

 

[Ricky11]

Looking at your de

Well I'll pull up a chair...

Also I like the leds ... half power consumption for similar output compared to traditional lighting...

I picked up my 600w viperspectra for £140 It's on its 1st run.. I'm expecting good things.. I've owned the 300w viperspectra for a year Nd put 2 grows out. It did well but just didn't fill my tent. I need more coverage. Have a look through the led ranges. Mars hydro, viperspectra or some quantum boards.. leds is the way forward (so is white light but we get what we can on a budget)

Your kind of setup is what I one day aspire to have , I used to smoke bud a lot ever since my teen years , but I had a kid 4 years ago and another one 3 months ago so I quit smoking all together 4 years ago, for many reasons that I won't elaborate on.
Now we live on a property so I'm finally 'allowed' to smoke again , on two conditions of my wife , 1 is that I can only smoke what I grow and number 2 is that I can only smoke when the kids have gone to bed.
So I have accepted that my Glory days of wake and bakes and all day sessions are a thing of the past and that I'm gonna have to be patient and wait 3 months before I can even taste that sweet herb again.
I have always been passionate about cannabis and hemp , I love the way it grows and it truley makes me happy to see such an amazing medicine thrive.
First grow is basic and I'm okay with that , as I progress I will ensure only the greatest quality supply's for my grows , but that's the great thing about this plant , it will literally grow anywhere anytime, with the right conditions.

 

[Ricky11]

This is day 3 from sprouting and day 2 sprouting for the other little girl , I also removed the diffusers from the LED's , which I might add were a bit*ch to remove from these.
I assume they will now have more direction on the light , I just hope they last and don't somehow go bad.
I know it's early days but I'm not seeing much stretching , hopefully this is a good sign that my lights are sufficient for this stage and that my babies are using that enery to form real strong roots. Any thoughts?

 

[TriangleCheese]

The LED market is like the wild wild west right now... total chaos and no set pricing structure on what you can get and no consistency in specs or standards. There are many 1000w-2000w LED arrays out there for under $100, and no one really knows what is good and what is crap. There are well known brand names out there, indeed sponsors of this forum, but there are many many new name brands popping up almost weekly now. Dealing with a company now might seem like a good thing, especially at the price points they are offering these things, but who knows if that company will be in business a year from now?
I have taken the blind plunge and moved from high power HID lighting to experimenting with some of these newfangled LED systems to see how they compare, knowing that no one can tell me how to use these correctly, what the proper distance is from my plants at their various stages, or even if these lights will hold together for the next few years.
At the cheap end of this market, it is a crap shoot... but a wise buyer can get in very cheaply right now, and I see no rational reason not to jump in at this point. Save up a bit for flower, and look into spending another $89 or so for a strong new tech light... at that price it is hard to go wrong. If you are not much into experimenting, spend a bit more on a brand name... You can't go wrong with a MARS light.

Well I'll pull up a chair...

Also I like the leds ... half power consumption for similar output compared to traditional lighting...

I picked up my 600w viperspectra for £140 It's on its 1st run.. I'm expecting good things.. I've owned the 300w viperspectra for a year Nd put 2 grows out. It did well but just didn't fill my tent. I need more coverage. Have a look through the led ranges. Mars hydro, viperspectra or some quantum boards.. leds is the way forward (so is white light but we get what we can on a budget)

You got a 60x120 cabinet am I right? I am using 60x60 small tents and I will get my 300W VS reflector series LEDs in 2 weeks. I am planning to use my crappy DIY LEDs in veg. tent and keep the plants in veg. until the plants in flowering tent is harvested. I will use 2x 300W Viparspectra LEDs in my flowering tent. I am not sure if this is overkill or not. If you think that is overkill, I can split these 2 LEDs equally among two tents and make them individual grows, not like a veg. or bloom cabin. That will be way more convinient for me but I like to use my setup efficiently.

 

[Th34v4t4r]

You got a 60x120 cabinet am I right? I am using 60x60 small tents and I will get my 300W VS reflector series LEDs in 2 weeks. I am planning to use my crappy DIY LEDs in veg. tent and keep the plants in veg. until the plants in flowering tent is harvested. I will use 2x 300W Viparspectra LEDs in my flowering tent. I am not sure if this is overkill or not. If you think that is overkill, I can split these 2 LEDs equally among two tents and make them individual grows, not like a veg. or bloom cabin. That will be way more convinient for me but I like to use my setup efficiently.

The coverage of a 300w viparspectra is 1.5x1.5 in flower at like 22inch I think. I've used it in my big tent as a stand alone and it did get a coverage of a square foot easy. Without the height. I think the 2 of them will be fine.... that being said... I'd find a kicker for them in flower with a cob light... even with the 600w and 300w. When it comes to flowering time for me.. I'm looking to chuck another 300w in there with 2 cob lights to kick the red spec up more.... I do have the bonus on the 600w where I can turn the blues off. On the 300w series you cnt switch veg/bloom.

Youngernplants don't need 300w to get going. So the basic cheaper leds will be fine for the first month... keep the 2 vipers in your flower tent to give you extra coverage. WALL TO WALL

 

[Th34v4t4r]

Just a bonus statement. When it comes to overkill. I don't think it's possible with leds... again with that being said if you think you've gone overkill in your space with the lighting... look into c02 supplements #MoreYieldsBaby

 

[Oldbear]

One great things about these plants is that they will take best advantage of whatever the grower is able to provide.

 

[TriangleCheese]

Just a bonus statement. When it comes to overkill. I don't think it's possible with leds... again with that being said if you think you've gone overkill in your space with the lighting... look into c02 supplements #MoreYieldsBaby

I will go for Exhale CO2 and 2x 300W in my flowering chamber then. How do you compare this 300W Vipar to a 250W HPS? Can it match the power? I think 2x300W should provide significantly more light compared to 250W HPS.

 

[Mosspb]

I tried this approach as well my first time, then as I always do I can't help but dive in with both feet. I bought a 7:1 LED adapter on Amazon that was amazing. Cheap too.

 

[Th34v4t4r]

Wish I could give a comparison. I've never ran a hps or hid.. I had a 2x 300w cfls. But with the reflectors it shadowed the viperspectra light. I found cfl a bit crap to be honest. Good for a tight space but not open like mine....

And just a note with co2.. smaller grows don't really need c02.. c02 helps the plant run st full capacity with excess heat and light.. I don't think I'll need it in my tent but I will get a little bag to hang when flowering. Nothing overkill. Also if you have extractor on 24/7 You will just suck the c02 straight out anyway..

 

[TriangleCheese]

Wish I could give a comparison. I've never ran a hps or hid.. I had a 2x 300w cfls. But with the reflectors it shadowed the viperspectra light. I found cfl a bit crap to be honest. Good for a tight space but not open like mine....

And just a note with co2.. smaller grows don't really need c02.. c02 helps the plant run st full capacity with excess heat and light.. I don't think I'll need it in my tent but I will get a little bag to hang when flowering. Nothing overkill. Also if you have extractor on 24/7 You will just suck the c02 straight out anyway..

CFLs are crap indeed. Enough for veg. but not for bloom. I think 2x 300W Vipars would be real powerful for 60x60. I am planning to circulate CO2 in the room and place the bag in front of the intake fan. I want these CO2 particles move from bottom to the top and penetrate through the canopy. Exhale bag is for much larger spaces and I think it will have a nice effect on a small room regardless of the exhaust fan. I will test this to find out how much improvement does it provide.

 

[SamSmith]

I will use 2x 300W Viparspectra LEDs in my flowering tent. I am not sure if this is overkill or not. If you think that is overkill

I have 2 HP 300s running in a 30" X 30" for a single plant DWC and its not overkill.

 

[TriangleCheese]

I have 2 HP 300s running in a 30" X 30" for a single plant DWC and its not overkill.

Nice to hear that

 

[The nutty bud]

So I had posted this in the "introduce yourself" thread and decided it would be better here since I'm going to continuously upload progress and photos,
This is a super budget grow , with only $70 being spent on the room and $60 on the seeds , the seeds are bubblegum and sour kush autoflowering and both from growers choice seeds.
My lights are just cree 120w equivalent LED's bought from home Depot , my soil is just plain old kellogs potting soil.
Germinated Friday 14th December and sprouted Sunday 16th December
The picture here is from Monday the 17th.

Sweet start !!! A good upgrade with a T5 200w 6500k 4tube. Great for vegging and cloning and you get a cheap one for about seventy-five bucks

 

[The nutty bud]

So I had posted this in the "introduce yourself" thread and decided it would be better here since I'm going to continuously upload progress and photos,
This is a super budget grow , with only $70 being spent on the room and $60 on the seeds , the seeds are bubblegum and sour kush autoflowering and both from growers choice seeds.
My lights are just cree 120w equivalent LED's bought from home Depot , my soil is just plain old kellogs potting soil.
Germinated Friday 14th December and sprouted Sunday 16th December
The picture here is from Monday the 17th.

From Nutty Buddy
The nice thing about a large fluorescent is the area coverage for cloning smaller preteens. If you hang the light vertical you can use wire shelving and increase your area space. An example horizontal you have one plane. A 3 by 6 equal 18 square feet. Vertical you can have four planes covering 2 feet by 6 ft equal 12 square foot. Using a wired rack 4 planes 4 total of 12 square feet x 4 equaling 48 square feet.

 

[dr.h00k]

...you might be surprised what you can accomplish with only fluorescent lighting...I had some successful grows using them almost exclusively...we all start somewhere......everything is relative of course...I've moved on to led's, and being a frugal(read cheap SOB) have have been using less popular brands with great success...looking forward to see how this goes for Ya'...cheerz...h00k......

 

[Ricky11]

From Nutty Buddy
The nice thing about a large fluorescent is the area coverage for cloning smaller preteens. If you hang the light vertical you can use wire shelving and increase your area space. An example horizontal you have one plane. A 3 by 6 equal 18 square feet. Vertical you can have four planes covering 2 feet by 6 ft equal 12 square foot. Using a wired rack 4 planes 4 total of 12 square feet x 4 equaling 48 square feet.

I recently just hopped on down to the local home Depot and saw a 400w equivalent LED's light fixture that pumps out 40,000 lumens , it was around $50 I think I may have to pull the trigger on this.

 

[Ricky11]

...you might be surprised what you can accomplish with only fluorescent lighting...I had some successful grows using them almost exclusively...we all start somewhere......everything is relative of course...I've moved on to led's, and being a frugal(read cheap SOB) have have been using less popular brands with great success...looking forward to see how this goes for Ya'...cheerz...h00k......

there are definitely a few down sides to shop bought LED's at this point it's more of an experiment to see what kind of nugs home Depot can produce

 

[Ricky11]

Day 7 photos and update coming tomorrow , would love to hear your guys and gals thoughts on my progress.

 

[dr.h00k]

...OH!...almost forgot...welcome to ...cheerz...h00k......