LED vs. HPS - veg to flowering using LED

[berrydizzle]

Never seen a water cooled HPS but it sounds sweet!!

[bctoker]

It wouldnt be too hard to wire up your own led grow lights, it would just be alot of soldering. I have thought about doing it for a microgrow, and try and grow maybe some lowryder. But overall from what ive seen of them, they are not quite worth it compared to HID's, and theere would be a hell of a startup cost in order to get a decent grow going.

[Medical Marijuana]

Give it time, and prices will come down. Guerilla growers will find the LED's most helpful, as a small bank with storage batteries can be run from solar panels. Over time, the initial set up costs will be more than recouped, when you factor in power costs.
The biggest thing is that it is a step in the right direction as far as Global warming, and the Kyoto Protocol on energy consumption.

[tonystarks]

LED's would just work in conjuction with another lightsource, if I am not mistaken?

[Medical Marijuana]

^yes, that is correct.

[tonystarks]

A good friend of mine changed every light on the inside of my car to amber colored LED's. He said that he could buy 2000 LED's for around $300 USD. This is something I am going to look into if they are just normal LED lights.......

[sfhaze]

I've been reading more on the plantbar5's, they may work fine with half the LEDs I kind of expected. Reading the vendor's claims, 2 of the plantbar 5's per shelf may be just fine. That's only 40 watts for the whole cabinet (plus a 20W fan). I'm not sure exactly but it looks like each plantbar5 has about 250 LEDs and runs 10Watts.

The cabinet is plastic, using hids might just melt the whole thing if the fans stopped running. The other nice thing about the LEDs is that they aren't high voltage. Growing on multiple shelves means having lights under a shelf that has plants on it, with these LEDs there is no risk of shock should some water get on the lights.

Back and Decker Cabinet
17"x36"x71" ($120 at Lowes)

Up to 20 plants with limited or no veg time on 2 shelves

4 ledtronic plantbar5's (2 per shelf) (about $1000)

4" inline fan and carbon filter (about $150)

Expected yield 0.25-0.5oz/plant, 5 to 10 oz's per 2 month grow

[naturalhi]

Originally Posted by tonystarks

A good friend of mine changed every light on the inside of my car to amber colored LED's. He said that he could buy 2000 LED's for around $300 USD. This is something I am going to look into if they are just normal LED lights.......

As in everything else there's more to it than just the LED bulbs to buy!

For every bulb there is also a resistor required!
The bulb has to be super bright!
If I remember correctly the bulbs also need to be squared off on the end and polished to narrow and clarify beam.

Been studyin' this for a while =>O

[OG Kushsta]

Originally Posted by shthd843

If you grow a decent amount, forget the price of the LEDs, honestly. The amount of energy a grower willl save is amazing... Cutting back on a lot of energy bills. An added bonus of LEDs is their low heat...

I gotta make the switch.. I had a few days on my last Harv.. where I went into the Veg room and it was 99 degree's. I had no choice but to switch to flower cycle so I could cool it down.. L.E.D. is the Future for me.

[CubsRule420]

if you do a search for diy led grow light on google and you can find an example of somebody making one of these themselves. they do it in a square shape and the leds all have to be straight to be able to get the exact type of light required. you also can buy different types of leds that handle different light frequencies. if you do some research on the topic on diy sites and then look up electronics sites to find what you need. the whole thing could be built for fairly cheap as in a 4x2 block for less than 150 fairly easily. the one thing i was thinking about was instead of doing in conjunction with something else could you make strips of leds that would go up the sides of the plant like the floros do normally?

[zolar]

i've been looking around led stuff a while and just saw them in
one of my favorite garden supply catalogs peaceful valley farm supply [groworganic.com] they sell organics for commercial agriculture products in sizes from 1 lb to whole tankertrucks of
fish emulsion!!! so i guess LEDS are begining to be economically viable as more folks buy and make them the prices will go down

look at your power bills and do some math and comparisons

i'll be trying them in a small veg cab next year i hope

[Zenmaster]

u can buy leds on ebay for about 150 bucks for 900 of them in either red or blue or both even if u find the right auction but u can also buy 1400 of them in 2 packed up boxes for 250 bucks on ebay aswell check out these 2 stores i was shopping around at one day

eBay Store - Hi iQ Telecom Ltd: HPI SA 21 25 parts, Mini T parts, Team Losi Mini-LST << $250 for 1400

eBay Store - High Tech Garden Supply: L.E.D. GROW LIGHTS: << little more expensive buy nows but cheaper auctions SOMETIMES!

[Boss]

If you are going to put the LED's under shelves, PLEASE check the LEDs first. The ones I have need about 18" or more to get the light in an even pattern on the plants. I have the 220 square with the mixed re/blue spectrums. You will wanna make yours spread the light out faster so the shelves won't have to be 3 feet apart :-)

[Boss]

Really seeker? I wanna see it. It would be cool to see how they have them setup.

[dava04]

Dear all,

As a manufacture of LED in China I maybe a bit biased here, also I don't grow weed so feel free to dig or ask questions, but time for myth busting.

The LED can replace HID HPS etc no problem, yes cost is high but you have to remember that the lumen out put is at least 3 times greater than HPS. HID or florescent. This means that you can use 3 times less lumen, so if your HOS is 2000lm then a 600+ lumen light will do the job.

This said Lumens are misleading and the real figure you should look at is LUX this is lumen/m2 and gives a better comparison.

Further more the difference between LED light made from small leds and power leds is great. Power LEDs are, more powerful, typically about 70+ lumen per watt, one bulb can be 1 watt or more, yet there is an issue with the heat produced and they are expensive.
Lights are also made with small leds, less expensive and no heat problem, when building your own pay attention to MCD, the brightness of the small led, bigger is obviously better, your typical decorative led is useless, special small leds go up to around 20000mcd which decorative are needed about 2000mcd.

As coverage you need to pay attention to the angle of the LED, most standard LED, like the one you put in your car for the sake of beauty have only a 30deg range, not useful, however you can have up to 120 degree, useful.

Someone mentioned that they need to be close to the plant to penetrate, while I'm not so sure about that, I would say you all have lights on adjustable chains anyway so whats the deal.

The most important thing colour, LED colour is stipulated via nanometer, its a semiconductor after all so its accurate. Whats the plants favourite type of blue, find the exact wavelength and go buy that wavelength LED, same for the red, it must stand to reason then that the yield will be much higher.

Finally safety, no heat, no aircon, no hot roofs for the police to see in countries like the UK, also much lower electricity bills, no aircon bill, and LED save atleast 70% on normal bulbs, do the math, the lights pay for them selves in about a year or two even at today's price, good quality lights should last at least 10years.


Feel free to PM for more info or if you have questions.

Hope this helps.