180W Super Lemon Haze Grow - Lots of Pics!

[NuhNugz]

he has 120watters .. so wuts wrong with that?

The issue with smaller lights is you don't get the proper mixture of colored spectrum lights. I personally don't see an issue with spending 1000+ for lights considering the power you spend running a 600w+ conventional bulb ..or the amount you have to buy after replacing every grow ...or most importantly the 300+ dollar per zip of the stuff you're growing.

i've noticed many growers are very budget orientated with equipment ...even maybe a bit tight minded.

My obvious answer is ... grow ... sell to medical patient ..work your way up ..or like everything else that is new ... wait for the price to come down.

I kinda associate things like this with home windows and insulation ... you can continue to spend way more money than you need heating/cooling your home for eternity ..or you can spend the money .. get better windows and insulation ...with the money you save each and every month in power costs you eventually pay for the windows/insulation many times over.

 

[Bandit420]

In my very limited experience with LEDs the problem with the smaller lamps is not the spectrum but the intensity to punch thru a full canopy.
For my particular garden I have zero confidence that any LED only set up will produce more herb than I can smoke without spending several thousands dollars on hi end lights.
My bloom hut should have at least 600 watts of lighting in there. Rather than using a 600 watt HPS I broke it down to 430 watts of Son Agro HPS and 155 watts of LED. This set up outperforms my old 600 watt lamp by about 1-2 oz along with increased potency per harvest.
If the LED makers started to market their low watt lamps as supplemental lighting I believe that too would open up the market to more buyers. That way a grower who is using a 4-600 watt hps can introduce an LED to the garden to see the effects. Then the grower could buy more and more lamps untill they felt confident enough to eliminate or drastically reduce the HPS watts and would thereby lower temps, blower power, etc.
I think alot of it comes down to the light makers being realistic in what their products can actually do and responsiblity of the buyer to do the research on the company and the parts used in the lamp.

 

[NuhNugz]

i hate to disagree with you but u dont save on power unless you can match a 1000w hps with the 600w led light. ill break it down. with a 600w hps you drawl i dont know lets say around 750w with the ballast and vent fans and everything needed to vent the room. with this 600w led light it drawls 749w without count you venting, so u use more then you would with a 600w HID. know you can save on heat, but if you have a good vent system heat isnt as much as a problem. now you might get better more potent bud from led because of the less radiant heat not hurting the THC like it dose with HID. but at the end its all down to what kind of setup you have and ur grow area.
now if this 600w led can beat a 1000w hps then you save.

but at the end a watt is a watt no matter what kind of light source it is. you have to be able to beat a 600w yield for it to be more cost effive, you only have to replace your bulb on HPS once a year. now since my room sucks and has air leeks in the summer time it gets to hot to run my HID so i run the leds. i believe leds will make you plants live in higher temp grow rooms, i dont think its the air temp that gives ur plants heat stress but its the radiant heat that hurts and dries out ur plants from HID light. thats why i can grow out side in 115F* weather and be fine. and last year i grew indoors in 100F* and my girls lived, i just got spider mites..lol. now in the cold winter time leds dont help me as much and its cheaper to run my 1000w HPS instead of my 1,500w heater to heat my led space.

I dont agree with you here ... if youre going to refer to 600w HID as a baseline then it should be equated properly ...

How much electricity does my light use?
Each H.I.D. light uses the amount of wattage the light is plus an additional 15% for the ballast. So, a 400 watt HPS uses 400 watts for the lamp and another 15%, or 60 watts, for the ballast - for about 460 watts total, give or take. This is a general rule and the electrical consumption could be a little more or less than this.

HID lights lose 1.5-2% of effective lumens continually but continue to draw the same power.

Most HID lights need a 240v outlet ..which requires special wiring and hiring an electrician to do it safely.

So that 15% + 2% alone could either be added to the LED as efficiency ..or taken away from a HID setup to begin with as a start. In other words ... a 1000w bulb is effectively 1150w or 850w depending on method of figuring.

I haven't even begun to calculate heat/w .. the cost of cooling nutrient solution or the ambient air temp... or the cost of replacing a bulb every other grow.

If you're going to consider true w/g then you need to figure in everything ..not just what you see right here and now as important... other factors ..cost of driving to go get new bulbs... cost of freight..sales tax ..ect. Hopefully someone here has some time to actually sit down and put together some sort of excel program to input all those various variables.

2 years or less ...resistance based lightbulbs will be dinosaurs and a relic of the past.

 

[logitech227]

True that Irish, I'm behind you on this one. People think LEDs save you all sorts of money but a watt is a watt and only way to save any amount money is if LED can produce more then one gram per watt. Yes they have benefits but at the end of the day if a 180w led does not produce a 180 grams then what are you saving? Now I know a 400w hps will produce minimally 200g in the hands of an amateur. That 200g minimum in the medical world is worth 1900-2000 dollars and if you cant swing a light bulb with that and handle the $20 utility increase then you probably need to take an economics or business class.

Yes you need fans but a 400w hps is not a problem to cool. Slap it in a cooltube, attach an inline 185cfm 45w fan you buy from lows and your cooling is solved. You cant tell me otherwise because I run 400w HPS all day in a cooltube with those exact configurations and pull 12oz a month. $3,336 dollars in positive cash flow out weighs the once or twice a year bulb replacement and annual $360 utility usage.

All I am getting at is if leds match HID then great and that is awesome but your not really going to save any money. I mean if you consider saving 75-150 dollars a year HUGE DEAL then by all means stock up on LEDs but you cant say your saving all sorts of money like a flood gate opens because your not. Im running 360w of GHL led and in the small space their in a have to run the same amount of cooling as I would with a 400w HPS.

If you run 1000w of LED I can assure you you will need some sort of cooling unless it is in a very large opened space, but odds are you will need a fan or two and at the end of the day that 1000w of LED is the same as 1000w of HPS. You really dont save all sort of cash. I think there is a misconception among a lot of none LED users.

Me personally I dont see any benefit of LED if you want to do large scale grows. They real benefit of LED shines threw for the small micro grows. But if you want to run 1000w of LED there will be no benefit over 1000w HPS hands down. Odds are you wont produce 1000 grams and you will need to run cooling of some kind but really you may save 100-200 dollars a year for bulbs replacements and the slightly larger increase for cooling if you used HPS.

Im just saying.......I know million and one people will disagree but whatev I guess. You want to talk money....I do it all day and facts and figures on a sheet a paper speak very very loudly.

ON A DIFFERENT NOTE...

GHL's lights do kick ass and I am more then pleased with them but I am not saving any money using them over a 400w hps. I just want to make that clear

 

[GrowLEDHydro]

sorry mike didnt mean to thread jack, i forgot i was on ur thread! i just speaking my opinion. i wont post anymore on this subject on ur thread!

haha..its cool man you guys know I dont give a fu..! Talk about what you guys want whenever you want to..

 

[TorturedSoul]

[I seem to have typed a little bit more than I'd planned on, lol. Would not have posted this had Mike not appeared to be cool with some amount of tangential discussion. GrowLEDHydro, if this is a problem let me know and I'll ask a mod to delete it. I'm a fan of you (and others) trying to show practical results of your product and believe that whatever the results end up being, you'll ultimately sell more products - and have happier customers - by doing so.]

EDIT: The main thing that I have concerns about is the spectrum produced by LEDs in general. LEDs are by nature are a "digital" thing rather than an analog one in that they produce (more-or-less) POINT spots of the light spectrum, while an HID, CFL, the sun, etc. produce their light spectrum in a curve. I am not convinced that we are at the "point" where the best spectrum for all phases of growing is being produced by them. With other types of lighting, they might not be nearly as efficient (for the sake of argument), but as they produce their light in a much larger and connected piece of the light spectrum, they are (obviously) more likely to include some amount of the best parts of the spectrum for growing. I am not knocking any LED or manufacturer in general or as a whole, I'm just of the mind that more research, experimentation, and practical grows would be very helpful. Actually, I have to give them a nod because many of them seem to be doing more work along these lines than the HID manufacturers have done taken as a percentage of the length of their existence as a whole. After all, it was not the HID manufacturers who did all the grunt-work and experimentation when their products first came out, it was the growers who experimented with parking lot (etc.) lights.

i hate to disagree with you but u dont save on power unless you can match a 1000w hps with the 600w led light. ill break it down. with a 600w hps you drawl i dont know lets say around 750w with the ballast and vent fans and everything needed to vent the room. with this 600w led light it drawls 749w without count you venting, so u use more then you would with a 600w HID. know you can save on heat, but if you have a good vent system heat isnt as much as a problem. now you might get better more potent bud from led because of the less radiant heat not hurting the THC like it dose with HID. but at the end its all down to what kind of setup you have and ur grow area.
now if this 600w led can beat a 1000w hps then you save.

Don't fall into the trap of assuming that your situation is the same as everyone else's. I withhold judgement on LEDs because I've never been able to afford to purchase one in order to do my own side-by-side under controlled conditions (clones from the same mother, multiple runs with different plant-spacing and grow styles, same nutrient types - with the caveat that differing lighting can and will affect nutrient requirements and that if one overfeeds the lesser, it's not the light's fault that the plants were burned (and thus gave even less than they could have) - etc.). But I can think of situations where even a little extra heat above ambient would be a problem (or just unwanted). And the same goes for venting - either the ducts required for the fans, the noise, or the heated (however much - or little) air that is output. Sure, in many cases that is not the case and in many more a little ingenuity will provide a viable solution, but this is not universally the case - which is a big reason why some people prefer water-cooled setups (next to silent, instead of a 6" - or whatever - ducting system you can run two 3/4" - again, whatever - sized water lines, etc.). There might be some who look at those people and say, "Why do you need to water cool your setup? My light doesn't produce a prohibitive amount of heat and all I've got to do is..."

Not that I'd recommend (or condone) someone growing in a sealed college dormitory, but some do and a cool-running light would seem to be something that they would have an interest in.

but at the end a watt is a watt no matter what kind of light source it is.

A watt is a watt - this much is true.

But "a watt is a watt no matter what kind of light source it is" is a misleading statement. If two different light setups use approximately the same amount of electricity, but one is significantly cooler than the other... Then by definition it is a more efficient light. Electricity in provides light and heat out. That's how it works. Which is NOT to say that the cooler-running light is automatically the better one to use. The most efficient light still isn't worth a pile of beans (I mean REAL beans) if it is not producing the correct spectrum. And there are other factors such as a light's penetration capability (one reason I wish they'd quit screwing up the lottery draw and finally produce the correct (lol) numbers - so I could do a bunch of different canopy experiments) that must be considered. And even then it's not so cut and dried - one might conceivably produce more with less power with a light that has less penetration-ability - but this would depend of course on the configuration of the garden, grow method, strain(s) used, etc., etc.

There's an awful lot of factors involved in determining whether any given setup works - and works as well as it possibly could. And they are pretty much all inter-related.

you have to be able to beat a 600w yield for it to be more cost effive

I don't know about the cost-effective argument but yeah, I would have to see a 600-watt LED beat a 600-watt HPS to truly climb on board. Or at least for the performance to fall within accepted ranges. But since there is not ONE correct gardening style and ONE available strain of cannabis, there is still going to be a lot of room for variance.

i dont think its the air temp that gives ur plants heat stress but its the radiant heat that hurts and dries out ur plants from HID light. thats why i can grow out side in 115F* weather and be fine.

Err... Radiant heat produced by the sun at high noon on a 115°F day is a bitch too, lol. A lot of the reason that plants will survive outdoors (and why they can droop worse on very humid days when the air is still) is because nature has provided them with a built-in cooling system. Plants uptake a LOT of moisture on a hot day and transpire most of it for the cooling-affect that it provides (large trees can and do transpire THOUSANDS of gallons of water on a hot day). That is also (part of) the reason why a good DWC setup combined with a good amount of air moving constantly across the plants can survive in someone's uninsulated attic in the summer time - and give a harvest of at least some amount.

I'm just saying that there are other factors at work in determining whether a plant lives or dies in the heat than the type of light - and that I expect that they are the more important ones.

i dont think 100w will have enuff intense light. i believe 180w is the bar min u should go with led lights. what would you rather have ten 100w HPS or one 1000w HPS? i would chose the 1000w hps for sure. same thing with leds i would think? more intense light and penetration = fatter buds witch = more yield of grade A+ bud.

I started to agree with that, but you're comparing apples to Toyotas, lol. The HPS lights you are referring to are single-source lights in which higher wattage equates higher light-output, penetration, and efficiency. But unless you're comparing them to a fixture that consists of a SINGLE LED, that argument goes out the window as invalid. Every LED fixture that I've seen pictures of uses multiple LEDs - sure some use more powerful LEDs than others, but we're talking about, what, 5-watt LEDs? I haven't a clue right now, lol, as I mentioned I don't have one. But larger, more expensive fixtures from the same manufacturer tend to produce more wattage by using more LEDs. It's kind of like using CFLs. Will one 23-watt CFL penetrate a thick canopy? What if you place another 23-watt CFL beside it, will it penetrate any better? Or just shine more brightly on the portion of the canopy that it does penetrate. Yes, the lights are different and of course the wattages and penetration-capabilities - but the idea is the same. With multi-point light sources the maths are going to be different and I'm in no condition right now to even wrap my head around them. But they are different.

(And at this point I've got to give consideration to the "multiple panels vs. one single higher-wattage panel" argument - assuming that the types of LEDs, spectrums, and power-levels of each individual LED is the same. Well, in that I would give the same consideration to the multiple CFL setup; if a person knows that (any given light) only has a certain amount of penetration, they have the option of placing more lights deeper into the canopy. I don't necessarily find this to be the best solution, but obviously people do - I've seen grows that reminded me of Christmas trees with CFLs here and there around the plant(s), and although I chuckled, they did manage to have a harvest.)

I dont agree with you here ... if youre going to refer to 600w HID as a baseline then it should be equated properly ...

How much electricity does my light use? <SNIP>

I see what you're saying and tend to agree with it. In a nutshell (~TS~ being brief, lol?), you are meaning that people should be comparing setups of equal gross wattage?

Most HID lights need a 240v outlet ..which requires special wiring and hiring an electrician to do it safely.

Umm... NO. Most HID lights - sold for horticultural use - can use either ~120 or ~240 volt supply depending on the cord-set used (some automatically, some with a switch). Others have multi-tap ballasts that can be reconfigured in less time than it takes to open the case. In the past decades I've seen the insides of <COUGH> a few ballasts. Most of the ones that I looked at that were not of the multi-tap variety were made to run on 480v and would not be a part of this discussion. (But I freely admit that I've not seen every ballast setup. But enough to discount your statement. Maybe you didn't mean to include that bit in your C&P, lol?)

Further, the wiring used in a 240v run is not "special" and can be purchased at any hardware store (even Lowes and Home Depot department-store hardware stores).

And the hiring of an electrician is only required if one does not have the skill-set needed to grab a decent DiY book on wiring(etc.) - or to download an eBook, or look at a good DiY web site - read it, comprehend it, and correctly follow the procedures - including the safety aspects. It's not brain-surgery and it's not Eastern mysticism and unlike such things as psychiatric diagnosis/treatment, wiring is not different for every situation. Yes, there are differences between one setup and the next but if something is done according to the NEC then it is going to be standard. And even in the unsafe setups, there are only so many ways that one can provide steady electricity. A good book will show plenty of pictures of the unsafe setups too so that the reader can tell when he really does need to hire an electrician. But that has much more to do with the existing setup than with adding a new run.

But... If a person really does feel that they are over their head in doing simple wiring tasks... Then they're probably correct and really should hire an electrician. After all, some people cannot even figure out how to change the oil in their vehicle, either (and I actually watched a woman add water from her garden-hose to her crankcase once, lmfao).

I haven't even begun to calculate heat/w .. the cost of cooling nutrient solution or the ambient air temp... or the cost of replacing a bulb every other grow.

In truth all such variables need to be given consideration when comparing total electricity used. But as people's setups are different, I'd just go with the gross wattage of each fixture and make sure to mention the difference in heat-output (and requirements that might stem from it), bulb-life, etc. separately so a person knows to consider them all in "light" of his or her setup.

You cant tell me otherwise because I run 400w HPS all day in a cooltube with those exact configurations and pull 12oz a month.

I can't argue with the possibility of grossing 12 ounces of well-trimmed bud from 400 watts (well, 430) of HPS because I've been there. But...

Per MONTH? You harvest 144 ounces per year from a single 400-watt HPS? And what strain would this 30-day flowering wonder be?

I mean if you consider saving 75-150 dollars a year HUGE DEAL then by all means stock up on LEDs but you cant say your saving all sorts of money like a flood gate opens because your not.

I consider saving any amount of money a huge deal because I consider WASTING any amount of money (or anything else) a huge deal. After all, we aren't single individuals existing completely within our very own universe; the conservation/wastage of the planet as a whole is something that is often missed.

I'm just not entirely certain what the bottom line is going to turn out to be with using LEDs for horticultural things as opposed to HPS or other types of lighting.

And I'd want to see everything factored in from concept to end-of-life. After all, look at the Toyota Prius. An "eco-friendly" automobile that people purchase either because they honestly want to "help" (or at least take more time in hurting) the environment or because they wish their neighbors/coworkers to think that is their motivation. But when you factor in things like mining and refining the ores used in producing the things (think about the materials used in all those batteries), transporting that and all the individual components, combining them all in the manufacturing process, the useful life of the components, the impact of disposing/recycling/replacing the used components... In actuality, a person who purchases a Toyota Prius is doing FAR more harm to the environment than a person who purchases the average BMW - even after you factor in driving an equal amount of miles per year in each (and the pollution that doing so produces). Err... RANT-mode off, lol. People that do things "for the good of the planet" without stopping to figure out whether or not they are actually doing any good at all are just one of my pet peeves.

Im running 360w of GHL led and in the small space their in a have to run the same amount of cooling as I would with a 400w HPS.

I would like to see some studies done in order to determine the actual gross amount of heat produced per hour in all the various types and sizes of lights. THAT would be very useful.

 

[logitech227]

Its all about efficiency as you know and with a perpetual garden you can harvest every week if you set it up that way despite the flower cycle. A plant with a 12 week cycle means you add X amount of plants every 7 days until you reached the 12 weeks. Thats a weekly perpetual harvest in a nut shell.

How I do it is simple 1 400w cooltube, 1 light rail, 3 plants added every week using 12in pots. Actually I average more then 12oz a month because each plant pops off a little more than 3 oz-- so I let my dog have the extra shit, he likes it...lol.

I use pine apple and gigabud because they have a quick return on investment and low flower cycle. That’s efficiency. You listed a whole lot of information and data but you and I obviously have two different views on the word efficiency so we can agree to disagree I suppose? Regardless of the argument, like I said, I have 360watts of GHL leds and they are not saving me money when I compare it to the money a 400w HID makes. Like you said though, you consider saving money a huge deal regardless of the amount. Me on the other hand, I spend money to make money.

Mike I don’t want to seem like I am busting on your LEDs cause I am not. All I am saying is there really is not a huge amount of savings compared to HID but is there saving involved with using LED- Yes there is.

We can sit here all day, bickering back and forth about cost to make it, transporation and whatever but at the end of the day that changes nothing and is something that can never be elminated. 400w of LED is no different then 400w of HID but from my experience I can pull 12oz a month from HID so im making $3360 dollars a month from medical pot but have to spend 200 of that on bulbs once a year?!?! I think I am saving something there, oh ya its $3,160. Im telling you, there really is no efficency difference. But I dont think you will ever agree on that but I am just speaking my mind and from personal experience.

Like I said I am using 360w of his LEDs and they work great and do everything Mike says that can do but they dont give me any benefit so I may send his lights back because he gave them to me to use for free. They work awesome dont get me wrong but there is no clear benefit for me to use them oppose to using another 400w HPS. Plain and simple, I said it. I don’t over analyze things and don’t care to; I look at them how they are.

 

[TorturedSoul]

we can agree to disagree I suppose?

Of course! Otherwise we would all just be talking to ourselves - and we wouldn't need a web site for that, lol.

Its all about efficiency as you know and with a perpetual garden

Yeah, I'm familiar with the concept. I was just questioning the figures. So you have 36 plants in flower at any one time and they all eventually produce an average of 3+ ounces? That's pretty efficient even with the light-mover. Congratulations, you must be doing everything right. I'll have to check out your journal, sounds like I can learn a few things (I'm always in favor of doing so).

you and I obviously have two different views on the word efficiency

Yeah. I don't consider it a money thing. Or not primarily so.

Like you said though, you consider saving money a huge deal regardless of the amount. Me on the other hand, I spend money to make money.

Might be because it's been MANY years since I grew to sell. Anything that I might (or might not) have grown since then has been given freely where needed. Gardening in any shape is not a money-maker for me but rather one that costs me. So yeah, I consider saving money important.

You could say that I had one of those epiphany things occur in my life way back when. After that... IDK, I guess it would be like seeing a mother carrying a baby on a hot day while walking away from her broken-down car on the interstate, pulling over to offer her a lift, and saying, "But it's going to cost you." I just couldn't do it any longer. (I'm that guy that you see fixing the car afterwards - and more often than not never telling the poor girl that I had to run to the part store. It doesn't put food on the table (although I've had a few good meals from such behavior) but it gets me through this life. Consider it... a meager and likely futile attempt to work off "a little" bad karma, lol.)

I suppose that I'd feel different about saving a couple of bucks if I was dealing I mean "selling medical pot." And although I imagine that the CEO of Pfizer Inc. sleeps like a baby at night, I still have trouble. I guess I'm just a hippy in a capitalist world and that one day I'll be just a fabled memory, lol. But until then, maybe there's hope for us all?

Mike I don't want to seem like I am busting LEDs all I am saying is there really is not a huge amount of savings compared to HID but is there saving involved with using LED- Yes there is.

I've rambled off-topic again but it occurs to me that we do have the same concerns about LEDs.

They're just not there yet (taking the industry as a whole).

As in so many products, more research and development is needed.

It's great that people like Mike put their ass on the line in order to further things.

 

[Sky Rocket]

Just found your SLh grow journal. Looking good man. What is the highest ppm you have had your SLH plant?

 

[NuhNugz]

150dollars savings a year is 1 cycle of pureblendpro nutes or 3 tanks of gas ... or a car insurance payment ... or even 5-10 top quality beans.

 

[ChicagoJoe]

jeeze, that was a long crazy read.

I love to hear some more of the slh though. Peace

 

[Keith Lake]

I attached 8 pictures but only 6 are showing. This has been happening every time Ive attached photos to a post. Anyone know whats up?

High Mike

I fixed your pic's for you.

When you use the photo icon, the popup box already has a https:// in it. So when you post a pic you need to either delete it, or start with www in your inserted pic

On the pics that weren't showing, you had two of these back to back like this

https://https:/

Personally, I've gotten into the habit of just typing [img][/img], the manual method

 

[englishgrower]

you will love the taste of slh, best tasting bud i have ever smoked, i only grew one, and the yield wasnt great, but wow, what a smoke, it also took a lot longer to finish than all the others I have tried.
I am growing another one as we speak, and cant wait for it to finish!
Looking good dude, keep up the good work

 

[NuhNugz]

See... told you it was a good plant! Good thing you kept it. I would take 20 clones off that monster and have some weirdo genetics to cross with some male medium flowering short plant.

 

[GrowLEDHydro]

High Mike

I fixed your pic's for you.

When you use the photo icon, the popup box already has a https:// in it. So when you post a pic you need to either delete it, or start with www in your inserted pic

On the pics that weren't showing, you had two of these back to back like this

https://https:/

Personally, I've gotten into the habit of just typing [img][/img], the manual method

Thanks bro.. good looking out..

 

[GrowLEDHydro]

See... told you it was a good plant! Good thing you kept it. I would take 20 clones off that monster and have some weirdo genetics to cross with some male medium flowering short plant.

Yeah im gonna see if I can revive her after flower and put her back in veg.. but then again I do have 4 more fem seeds.. we'll see..

 

[GrowLEDHydro]

If you know like I know
you don't wanna step to this

Haha.. man those lyrics kept going threw my head while taking these pics I am very satisfied with my results so far, even with the 2 week stunt in growth from that 'other' product I used..
Spectra LED 180 actual draw 240 watts.
I say about two more weeks and im done, we'll see..

The THC content- Off the hook!

The smell- oMG!

Week 7 Flower.

 

[fallss]

lookin good. stoked on my soon to be purchase of one

 

[IrishBoy]

looks like i am not the only one you has some frosty bud i love it

 

[gzusZombie]

Damn dude they are nicer then when I saw them last week! Can't wait to see em today!