LED vs. HPS

[sfhaze]

Originally Posted by 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

Here is my journal: Haight Solid State LED Grow Journal

[budalicious]

Lurker turned contributor here at 420mag... :-)

I just bought the PPF-800 and am starting a grow with some clones I'm rooting in a humidity dome under a small 22W T5. I am just starting to grow indoors and have been working on getting my 2x4 Growlab 80L and a homemade aero system ready for real time. Just wanted to say I'll be starting a thread soon documenting my grow! (very exciting).

I decided to go with the Haight Solid State LED grow lights after extensively researching lighting systems and requirements for the space I have to grow in. I wasn't too excited about increasing my electricity usage let alone increasing my electricity bill.

Before I took the plunge and made the purchase, I attended the SF Indoor Gardening Expo and was very interested to hear what others in the industry had to say about LEDs. I found out that pretty much everyone I spoke to - vendors and attendees were skeptical and also didn't really know much about the results of growing under LEDs other than having heard (not tested) that that vegging is good but more expensive than fluoros and flowering with them doesn't stack up against HID (mainly due to light penetration distance). Many were optimistic about the future of LEDs for growing indoors but ultimately believed that currently LEDs are "not there yet".

I made my way to one of the only 2 LED vendors at the expo (Sunshine Systems - creators of the infamous UFO LEDs). In speaking with the reps there I got the sense that they were tired of the skepticism they probably faced heavily since one of the guys there seemed quite defensive. Regardless of this, they were showing pics of a comparison grow in the flowering stage that Orange County Cannabis Coop is supposedly doing with Sunshine Systems 300W lights (300 x 1W LEDs) compared to 1000W HPS if I recall correctly. The pictures were quite impressive to say the least. They were for sure helping to convince attendees to take advantage of their UFO show special for $300.

Despite the obvious success OCCC had with the SS LEDs I was still not sure I wanted to go with those lights since having come across the Haight Solid State LED grow lights. It seemed logical to me that the light penetration distance would be significantly greater with the 6W bulbs vs 1W even with less overall LEDs.

After the expo, I visited the HSS showroom since it wasn't too far out of my way and they happen to be open. I just had to see the lights in person after seeing the others at the expo. Being a smart consumer, I wasn't impulsive but was definitely tempted. A few days later though, I decided I would go for it.

I must say...that light is bright! I am very excited to start growing under it and sharing the progress with those who choose to follow my grow. :-)

Grow journal link to follow soon...

[TorturedSoul]

In general with LEDs I would be more concerned with the light spectrum (since the LEDs are simply points in the curve as opposed to the entire curve) than with penetration.

Will be interested in seeing your upcoming grow journal.

[PitViper]

PLZ.....This is to anyone who is going to buy or has a LED "get a real light to grow plants", you waste your time and money with LED.Ill say it again its like bringing a hybrid to a drag race you will get there sooner or later but you dont have the muscle at the end.I am pushing 1 gram a watt atm anyone here say that with LED?Sorry to sound hostile but this has been tested by some very expert growers in the 420 community, and they got trashed at the start of this thread.Dont ask a question you dont want to hear the answer to.I have seen the grows with LED look in from time to time they just dont have the kick yet.I do beleave they never will and lighting will go in a different direction.MH and HPS have been around for years and is still the way to grow plants any plant.I am not going to put a lightbrite over my garden even though they have all the pretty colors.LED have been out for how many years now and 95 perecent of the growers still use MH and HPS whats that tell you guess we dont keep up with the times.We here are not ones afraid to spend money if it was going to help my garden i would jump on it.Before i purchased my lights i asked a few questions did some research and found LED are not the answer for your garden.Even asked at the hydro store he refused to carry them,told me to look on e..y you find them used because peeps found they dont work.

[sfhaze]

Baloney, Not all of us can afford hundreds of dollars per month for power bills. Pit's got two 1KW just for bloom so spends over 350 dollars per month on power - that is great for him but it's not a solution that works for everyone.

I'm really looking forward to budalicious's grow, don't let the neysayers get you down.

[PitViper]

Bologna......1 gram per watt is 1 gram per watt if i got a 100 or 1,000,000 if your doing half that its not my falt it the LED and the grower,And if your worried about money stop spending it on things that dont work.Ill run my HPS for a 1 year for the money you spent on your light brite and have happier healthier garden.Bring a plant grown with LED to plant of the month and win. The power lights are 30 to 35 bucks per 1000 a month.That's all i have to say about that.

[sfhaze]

Rates here are as high as 44 cents per KWH, do the math..... If I had to pay 350 per month power bills I would give it up and just buy from the clubs. These LEDs are game changes for a small scale patient and they aren't that much more expensive.

[toadilyinsan]

Originally Posted by 123ABC

I was not having a go at you. No disrespect intended. After all, I am here to learn so I will read your journal. There is no need to become defensive. Its funny, there always appears to be emotionally driven posts when it comes to LED's...

What is new and unknown is always scary and causes people to over react aggressively. It is human nature and the internet just magnifies it.

[PitViper]

Toad.......Its scary if my plants aren't supplied with enough light to bloom properly and we need to add another source such as floro.That is the point and as far as going to a club, i bet they use HPS thats why there yield is up.Everything about this LED that comes from sfhaze is about money.If you can't afford to play get out of the game.The ones who suffer here are the poor plants that dont get enough light.We are all on some kind of budget but the key here is to get te most bang for your buck LED is not it.

[tronix]

Originally Posted by funkmaster

i have grown organic with HPS but i was trying to get past the balist and heat and electricity,

go with a 430 watt Son-agro...very low heat..I was averaging 85 degrees, in a 2'X3'X6' cabinet.

and my electric bill only went up about $10.

[obxgardener]

The only argument I can see for an LED is heat... like Pit said, grams per watt is grams per watt. Don't matter what the watt costs, cause you're spending it either way.

For grams per watt efficiency, you're not going to beat a 600 HPS on a mover.

I mean it in the nicest possible way, but the LED start to finish plants on this thread look kinda weak, especially when compared to HPS grows.

[obxgardener]

Originally Posted by TorturedSoul

Hmm... Have you priced CREE LEDs lately?

Ok I just stumbled into this thread but I did read the entire thing. And I am only asking for the sake of learning as the good ones are way out of my budget and the cheap ones are CHEAP.

For those using LEDs, are you using fixtures that contain CREE LEDs? They are as far as I can tell the only really good ones.

Techhead, that question was for everyone but as you've built your own I am especially interested in reading your answer.

Also, I saw only one reference in this thread to the ProSource Illuminator SuperPro Series Tri-Band Spectrum Hybrid. What a mouthful lol - but at 700 watts and a price tag of $2700, I guess they might have felt it deserved a somewhat more illustrious light than "Biggest LED Yet". Has anyone gone to their site and read up on it? I can't remember exactly what the policy is on off-site product links but typing prosource 700 led into google will bring up their web site as the first result.

The "Tri-Band" in the name, incidentally, is not a blue spectrum and two different red ones, it is blue, red, and orange. Their homepage has an explanation of why they included the orange light and it reads like it makes sense - BUT they are in the business of selling you their product, so of course it is going to. Also, I am not a plant biologist, so what do I know? Next to nothing about this subject.

Although the cost is outrageous, this would seem to be close to something that I would compare with a 600 watt HPS. I would not use two 300s because I would wish to compare a "single" light source. As for the cost vs. cost, you could argue that back and forth, the cost of a 600 watt HPS with multiple bulb replacements PLUS the cost of the air conditioning needed over the course of a year PLUS the cost of the electricity needed to run the light and the climate control might come out somewhere in the same universe as the cost of the 700 watt LED PLUS the cost of the heater (yup, can't use one of these things to heat your grow room in the winter lmao) needed over the course of a year PLUS the cost of the electricity needed to run the light and the climate control.

I really don't have a clue whether it would compare or not. Unless the LED were to give me an immediate-replacement (72 hours max) warranty then I wouldn't automatically count it as being good for n number of hours/years anyway due to the fact that stuff happens, but that's just me.

And whether they are only making a buck or two or are raping everyone, the fact is that research(?) costs money, making products that have low enough sales initially to mean that their supplies costs a lot more than things bought by the million-part package, etc.

Basically, anyone that insists on being on the bleeding edge in ANY product market is going to pay the premium that people who decide to wait several years just isn't going to have to.

So as much as it pains me to say this... I can't really give much credence to comparisons that focus on cost (although I am still interested in reading about it). The cost of a developing product vs. the cost of one that has been more or less fully developed for years, even though they are both measured in the same dollars, pounds, golden foo-bird droppings, etc... really IS "apples to oranges."

I did see the "apples to oranges" phrase mentioned early in this thread. Comparing one light's harvest against another (if all other conditions including genetics were the same) would be an apples to apples in my book. THAT'S a proper experiment.

I also wanted to mention that other than someone posting a few pictures (Johnny Hempseed?), there have only been TWO actual grow journals referenced in this entire thread as far as I could see. One was Be Irie's, the other was Seahawks referencing one that is just getting started on another web site (Is this allowed? Why not have one here?) which is under a different user name but I will assume it is his.

Why doesn't everyone who claims to have some sort of growing experience with any of the various LEDs actually post a grow journal here? Not that ANY of you are telling tall tales - I tend to believe someone until they give me reason not to (which has repeatedly caused me problems, but if I ever get to the point where I do NOT trust my fellow man, what's the point?) - but there might well be some misremembered things, some slight over-assumption, etc. Not to mention that others can learn from your results and possibly even provide some useful advice for you.

Techhead, I'd really like to see a journal of one of your grows from seed (or cutting) to harvest since you've built your own LED setup and seem to use it exclusively. THAT would be interesting to see.

Hope I have not stuck my nose where it doesn't belong and I really hope I have given no offense. You guys are going places where I can't and I will continue to read along (lack of budget at present) and live vicariously through your postings.

TorturedSoul

PS By the way, what is the point of adding white LEDs to a grow light? Just to make the plants look better in digital pictures? No, I'm serious here; from back in my school dayz I (seem to) remember (- correct me if I am wrong -) that white light is just a "combination of all the colors under the rainbow" (well, not exactly but I don't have my thinking cap on right now lol, so I'll go with the white = addition of all colors & black = abscence of all colors analogy). So it would seem to me that a white light (be it LED, HPS, MH, burning phosphorous, etc.) would be rather inefficient in this application when it looks like the whole selling point is that these things provide ONLY the exact wavelengths that the plant uses - IOW, that they provide PARTS of a white light... So why then include white light on top of it? I would think that if the little bit I've read about the addition of the orange light is correct, that it would be much better in a "tri-band" LED setup. Thoughts?

Just thought this post should be "bumped"... Not looking to take long hot showers with ya Tourtured, but gotta say I love the way you write.

[sfhaze]

Originally Posted by obxgardener

The only argument I can see for an LED is heat... like Pit said, grams per watt is grams per watt. Don't matter what the watt costs, cause you're spending it either way.

For grams per watt efficiency, you're not going to beat a 600 HPS on a mover.

I mean it in the nicest possible way, but the LED start to finish plants on this thread look kinda weak, especially when compared to HPS grows.

Well, not exactly because the more power you use the higher the rate - so no not all watts are equal. If 1 gram per watt is the target I don't see any reason that Bubblelitious can't beat that with the Haight 800 model. I might even beat that myself in my little cabinet. That's going up against one the the best growers around - Pit with his two 1KW on movers. Most of us should expect to get half that with HPS, about 0.5 grams per watt or about 1 pound from a 1KW - not 2.2 lbs. But anyway, it's as good a target as any.

Any update on your grow Bubblelitious? With the 190W model you need to yield 6.7 ounces to "win". That really seems doable but it might take a run or two to tweak everything in.

If he gets more the 1g/watt, will you switch Pit Viper? At a minimum everyone should quit saying they "don't work". Lots of them don't, but they are getting there.

[PitViper]

The top 5 percent of the growers can pull 1 gram per watt or better so i say give it a shot. Thats means you need a pound for every 430 watt.And your 190 watt LED is to replace a 800 watt hps isnt it or a 250?so you need 800 grams with your 190 watts grow me a 1.75 with your 190w ill change.even compare it to a 250 watt hps thats 9 ounce.Isnt that the claim they can replace a higher watt light and grow better.Lower watt LED is equal to hps or mh.Grow me a forest ill be proud.sorry just looked at the 190w its supose to take the place of an 800hps lmao.grow me 800 grams with the 190w.This is the claims that the 800 makes, lets see it.

[sfhaze]

Originally Posted by PitViper

The top 5 percent of the growers can pull 1 gram per watt give it a shot. ....

Come on Pit that is really asking a lot, to beat the top 5% of growers.

Isn't a more typical result with 1KW about 1lb or 0.5lb with a 600W? That's what I was told at my Hydro store. So if the Haight 800 model can produce more then 8 ounces - then it at least beats a 600W. That's without light movers or being in the top 5%. That would be 1.2g/watt. I think it's doable and better then your result with HPS which is the bottom line.