LED vs. HPS

[sfhaze]

Originally Posted by t420

What a waste of a thread...

If you built two rooms at $1000 each not including the cost of lighting, place an led in one and hps in the other, which will return my investment to me quickest? My money at this point in led development is on the HPS.

That is the bottom line and up until recently I would agree with you. Except that it's changing fast.

The cost of electricity is only going up - using a HPS light to heat a room is very inefficient - add some insulation and maybe make a heat exchanger on the air inlet if the grow room needs heat. Add a real heater if that isn't enough.

The newest high power LED fixtures work much better. - I've tested the ones from Haight Solid State, but I'll bet the HTGSupply ones also work. I also tested the Lightblaze (almost the same as the Procyon) and they work as advertised.

I started with HPS years ago and the power bill was hundreds of dollars per month, been trying to get LEDs to work ever since. I started with the LED plantbars (crap!) moved to spots(sort of worked) and then the Lightblaze(Procyon copy) which worked. The problem with the lightblaze is it only uses red and blue and you can't use it with seedlings. The Haight Solid State lights also have white which fixes that issue - plants grow great!

The bottom line for me with California power rates was a payback in just one cycle on the power savings. With these lights the yield is fine.

[t420]

One of the so called advantages of the led is power saving, if I have to run a 600watt heater to heat the room the power savings become negligible, heating a room with your hps is not inefficient when you consider that it both lights and heats the room. A 300Watt (at least) led which seems to be everyones recommendation plus a small 600 watt heater makes a total of 900 watts of power! Where I live the temperature can drop into the minus' so where a led won't heat a 12x12x8 room it might work in a cabinet. Insulation does nothing to help a system where intake temperatures are 1-2 degrees. Personally I don't like either option and am more interested in growing with 65watt cfls, cheap to run, cheap to buy, still produce enough heat when running an oscillating fan and are much closer to the suns spectrum than mh/hps without the additional risks. Leds designed for growing have only one advantage over cfls, in some cases no and in others not so much power is wasted on the green spectrum which we interpret as white light, 50% of this is reflected away by plants. Peace.

[sfhaze]

Originally Posted by t420

One of the so called advantages of the led is power saving, if I have to run a 600watt heater to heat the room the power savings become negligible,

With insulation the heater wouldn't need to run all the time so even you would save a lot of power with LEDs. LEDs have gotten a bad name from all the crap that people have tried to sell in the past, but it's the future.

[t420]

Maybe I wasn't clear, sorry btw I'm Australian and use celsius in regard to temperature. My room is climate controlled by inline thermo/humidistat and night time temps go down to 1 - 2 degrees. Going by company's claims of heat output it would take in my grow room close to three hours to heat up by led alone, not long after this the temp rises out of range and cool air needs to be brought into the system, which means the heating process starts again. The heater brings it up to temp in about twenty minutes, again shortly thereafter it rises out of range and more cold air is brought in which requires heating. The HPS would need constant ventilation but that works out much cheaper than heating the room with an extra appliance. In my situation the CFLs work perfectly and require hardly any ventilation whilst keeping the room at 75F (to put it in your terms). Again it's what meets the requirements of your environment.

[abia]

WELL I AM NOT AN LED SALES MAN. I THINK DO NOT KNOCK LEDS TILL YOU TRY THEM. I AM GETTING AS GOOD IF NOT BETTER RESULTS WITH THE LEDS I AM USING. I THINK MAYBE A WEEK OR TWO LONGER IN FLOWER BUT NOT SURE. I WILL POST THE PICS VERY SOON. I THINK MY PLANTS ARE A SATIVA. A ONE PLANT HAS MATURED EARLY THAT WAS A SEEDLING FROM BEGGINNIG TO END LED. IT WAS IMPRESSIVE. NOT HUGE BUDS FOR AN INDICA BUT VERY POTENT AND POLINATED. AS FAR AS WATTS COMPARED TO LED. IT TAKES ALOMOST AS MANY LED WATTS TO GET SUCCESS AS IT DOES HPS. ALMOST. THE HEAT IS THERE. NOT BURNING PLANTS THOUGH. ESPECIALLY IN THE HEAT OF SUMMER YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HEAT. LED STILL PUT OUT HEAT IN A CONFINED AREA. NOT LIKE HIDs BUT THE HEAT IS THERE. IN THE WINTER I THINK HEAT WILL HAVE TO BE APPLIED BUT MOSTLY AT NIGHT.
I AM NOT A SALESMAN. JUST A PRO WEED PERSON. I WOULD RATHER SEE HOME GROWN THAN AFGANI OR OTHER ISLAMIC GROWN WEED THAT COULD BE USED AGAINST US SOMEHOW. GO AMERICA LETS GET SMART AND LEGALIZE THIS STUFF. LETS GET SMART AND OUTLAW LIQUIER AND BEER AND FIRE UP THE BUDS AND CREATE WORK HERE AT HOME AND INCREASE TAX REVENUE. GO ARNOLD. THE SAVINGS FROM LEDS ARE NOT GOING TO BE IN LIGHTS USAGE BECAUSE IT NEEDS JUST ABOUT AS MUCH WATTAGE AS HID BUT IN COOLING, BULB REPLACEMENTS AND SUCH.
THANKS FOR READING MY THREADS AND JUST KNOW IT TAKES HI POWER LEDS TO WORK AND GO FOR IT.

[sfhaze]

Originally Posted by Pitviper

so tell me abia. In your opinion, How many LED lamps would I need in a 8x8 area, normally lit by 2 1K HPS lamps on 7 ft movers. How many and how much?

My estimate would be from 600W to 900W with the best of what's available. Something like 3 of the ppf-800's from haight solid state or 3 of the 300W tri-band from HTGSupply. It would take like 8 of the Procyon's or lightblazes. You should yield about 2lbs per cycle.

[abia]

pit i believe that at least 3 300 watt blue and red at 8/1 ratio. maybe even use a couple 90 watters also. the measure of watt watt is not as far apart as the claims are. but it still is more economical in the long run.

[abia]

Tried to downloads some pics to show how well these led are working. But not succesfull. Sorry

[omenman]

no chance your best bet is run smaller hps's and then leds on the side...

[Jam996]

pics??

[inferno420]

i dono where i live power just went up 43%. HID usaly cost less but use more power they give more buds shorter time but at same time use more power.

i dont think it can actual be compared by bud production unless someoene gets say 400 wats of led and 400 watts of hps and see which one actualy gorws more bud.

They are 2 totaly diff types of light and each has advantages over each so i dont think it willever be which is better its going to be which is better in what setting and how much watts do u have to work with ect.

[HeadMed]

your charged by watt/hours having equal wattage led to hid would be an equal powercost... unless your thinking equivalant wattage... like 14wcfl = 60 incadecent.

My understand of the issue is spectrum. We can pump more power into LEDs and make them brighter, but the spectrum of light porduced is very very specific, and altered by the chemistry of the silicone that makes up the diode. plants aquire their energy from a broad spectrum of radiation. Even with mixed boards (different colors of leds in same fixture) plants are lacking light.... go look at the light spectrum charts... theres not only one red... theres a range of red hue's ... same with blue's etc. Not saying the plant won't grow... just saying it's not getting a well balanced diet of radiation... HID right now is more complete... the sun is even better (and free).

There have within the last few years been some interesting law suits filed back and forth between hollywood movie/tv studios and comercial lighting manufacturers in regards to specific chemical makeup of leds and produced lighting spectrum... hollwood claims some reciepes and don't want them reproduced (without getting paid).

As we learn more it all improves... has been around for what 85 to 100 years and it;s still improving...

I expect LED's will as well. Who knows... maybe theres something better in the works.

[Filbert]

I see a lot of figures on watts, dollars, wavelengths, color temperatures and on and on...

Wouldn't lumens at varying distance be more of an equalizer for rating the output used by the plant?

[Tead]

Well...lumens would be alot closer than most measurements... but, for example, lumens in the green spectrum would be useless. Not all lumens are created equally.
Having said that, I still think Lumens would be the best available measurement. Screw watts, or mfgr's claims. Let's measure!

Cheers

[norcaliwood]

Has anyone started a post about these LED's yet "with pic's". And if anyone is going to buy any of these things contact me I can send a link that might help. So far all I have seen was talk about them, I was thinking of trying them, but guess I'm alittle too old fashion to, I'll continue with my mh-hps, till I can see something Thx Yall Stay Down