Greetings,
I think I'm going to toss in my 2 cents worth.
The uneducated POV:
I'm going to start my grow cab construction in about 6 weeks (have some surgery to get out of the way first). I'm also a new technology junkie.. No.. I'm a new gadget, widget, technology whore. Yes, there you know my shameful secret. But I'm also the worse kind of widget whore. I love the things, but don't have any idea how they work and rightly suspect I lack the brains and attention span to find out.
So here's how it boils down for me.
MONEY.
There, the 2nd most important thing to a whore like me. Cashola, the mean green, whatever.
For about $400 I can get enough HID and Floro's to build a seedling chamber (and light it), a flowering/growth/bloom chamber with a 400 Watt HID and more floro's as side lighting. It should, skill of the grower factored out at the moment, produce some good buds.
What will it take to get the same OUTPUT in terms of buds from LED's? Well I did see the video where the UFO produced .X grams more per watt than a 400 Watt HID, but produced less over all from a single plant. These results did not encourage me.
So here's the test I want to see. I don't wanna know the lumens or watts or whatevers to gram. I wanna know what the cost is per gram (roughly). That's what might sell me a little better. Starting from scratch with 1 light and 1 plant what does it cost to produce a gram of bud with each and you have to include the startup costs since for LED's that the most painful part.
I pay about $8 a gram on the street. A HID powered cabinet will cost me all said and done less than $1000. To match the rough power of my HID/Floro lights in LED's I'm looking at another $1-2000.
How many years of growing do I have to go through to finally break even? To keep
me and only me happy my grow must produce at least 364 grams of bud a year. At 8 bucks a gram that $2,912. So to break even for me I need to produce 364 grams for $2912. $1000 for cab and lights, leaves me $1912 for other costs. So if my costs for year 1 are $1912 total that means I saved $1000 or $2.75 a gram vs. buying off the street (no mentions of improved potency, quality and taste). Every extra gram I get though increases these savings. From what I've read a person who knows nothing and simple does everything he's told to do by the people here without questions 364 grams a year is easily done. Cee's claimed he or someone he knows will get 700 grams in a similar sized area 5-7 times a year with a little more total wattage as I'll be using. I'm no Cee's but lets pretend that I'm half asses at least and get 3 crops a year.. 9-12 plants per.. Say at least 30 grams from each at about 3.5 feet on a 12/12 system. So 810 grams to 1080 grams. My lights run 12/12 year round so that means no extra energy costs, so it's nuts, seeds, medium as the big costs through the year. I could realize a significant savings on my weed costs in the first year alone..
Can the same be said for LED's and when WILL I see those same savings with LED's is my question..
Sorry about the long winded post!
