300W LED vs. 400W HID Demonstration

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

hmm. well your doing all the work, so you get to choose.

I guess id just love to see a HID with internal ballast compared to a same wattage LED. So the heat produced by each can be part of the comparison.

But im not buying one of each to run the test anytime soon..so ill just shut up and learn.

You make a very good point, and not a little thought goes into doing a comparison like this one.

Should the technologies be tested in the manner that most end-users are going to implement them? I'm certain the ratio of HID light systems with external ballasts to those with internal ballasts would favor testing an external ballast in that case.

Should I match the temps in the tents by providing unequal levels of ventilation, or keep the ventilation equal and run somewhat different temps?

When you plan one of these things, the first thing you have to ask yourself is, "what are the goals of this comparison?"

For me, it's important that the information be useful and applicable, and so one of my primary goals is to use the technology (within the limitations of my garage) in the way I believe the *majority* of growers are going to use it.

I don't believe most growers are using internal ballast HID's, so it's important to me to use an external ballast, even though your point makes perfect scientific sense.

As a product tester, however, I think my focus needs to balance science and practicality, because my singular agenda is to provide the best info I can, that will be useful to as many people as possible.

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

You should include in the front page how many cycles the HPS and MH bulbs have on them.

Any and all HID bulbs I choose for this grow will be brand new with zero cycles.

thanks for the heads-up on adding the info

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Ok I just got back from checking the wattage on my 300w GLH led unit..... Sorry I can't take pics, my daughter took my camera with her on vacation.

The best I can do is post the numbers for you guys sorry. The numbers were taken after the unit had been running for aprox 45 mins.....

Amps 2.92
Volts 113.1
Watts 361 to 365
Power Factor 98

I also counted the rows of led's... My unit has 22 rows of led's wide and 12 rows of led's deep. My unit could hold 24 rows of led's wide. I'm not sure why their not in there..

SS if your unit has 24 rows of led's wide then that explains the 20w difference for sure..

Mine's the same, 22 X 12.

I can see the two "unpopulated" rows that you're talking about, but our lights sound like they have the same layout and number of LED's.

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

This is going to be an awesome product comparison and I'm buckled in to ride this out till the end.

Glad to have you!

I will have to admit that I wasn't to stunned by the grow tent temps when comparing an air-cooled hid to an LED lamp. I have found that the worst heat is from air-pumps, ballast, fan motors etc that are in the general room along with the tent. The miscellaneous items tend to bring the overall room temp up if you don't actively cool it. The other big factor is properly exhausting the HID waste heat so that you are not paying to re-cool it during the summer months. This is where HIDs become prohibitive to smaller growers.

So far I'm giving a thumbs up for the LED light! (But I am bias as I so dearly want to see this tech expand and grow in popularity so that prices can start coming down.)

I'd love to see an Air-cooled HID vs LED bubble grow as I am very interested in the LEDs lower light penetration and fewer wavelengths and if it makes a difference in heating up a reservoir. IE does a HID light hanging over a tank of water heat the water faster then the same wattage LED. I have my guess but not the numbers.

It's an exciting time to be a grower, that's for sure .

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

The moms grew a lot the last two days. I think their roots have hit bottom.

I've been using GH Maxi-Gro dry nute to supplement the OC+, but from here on out, it's just OC+ and water.

I'm very excited about Osmocote+, and would like to thank DocBud for researching and introducing to our community the use of these controlled-rate fertilizers to grow cannabis. If my results with it are anything like his, I'll be using it extensively in the future.

I have enough faith in the product to use it for not just the moms but also for the plants in the comparison, but I will be going with GH 3-part flora series because I want to use more mainstream nutes.

These are the flowering clones I cut from Vicky, one of the VK hybrids from my other current journal.

They're still looking good. I have them down low in the corners of the cab, and they seem to like that light level.

thanks for following!

 

[The Lurker]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

I love watching things grow. GH nutes have always been good to me, also...

(Warning: This turned out to be a longer than intended, The Matrix, 'Down the Rabbit Hole' post. If you want to see how far down it goes, take the Red pill and keep reading. Otherwise, take the Blue pill and skip past it. Don't say I didn't warn you - and don't shoot the messenger. Thanks!)

Haven't added to my Swipe File in awhile; maybe it's about time. Anyway:

Ok I just got back from checking the wattage on my 300w GLH led unit.....

Amps 2.92
Volts 113.1
Watts 361 to 365
Power Factor 98

I also counted the rows of led's... My unit has 22 rows of led's wide and 12 rows of led's deep. My unit could hold 24 rows of led's wide. I'm not sure why their not in there..

Thanks dn , I appreciate you checking. I'd love to know Power Factor (PF) for both units as well, but as mentioned above, different meters use different calcs to get their results. Unless you've got a purely resistive load (like an incandescent bulb), you're going to get imperfect estimates most of the time. That PF seems a little high to me, I'd expect a little more inefficiency, assuming we could get a truly accurate measuring device...

That said, I looked at the product pics earlier. (Both have 22 rows x 12 deep, or 264 LEDs total, as you two mentioned. Thanks for clarifying!). It looks like they took 5 IRs out of the old units, and added 2 reds and 3 blues in their place. At 500ma that should add ~3.5-4w to your total.

If I can trust those voltages, and the actual draw current used by both was similar, then the change in voltage may account for the rest:

Watts = Amps x Volts

If amp use is constant, then as your volts increase, so does your power (watt) usage. Use a ratio to figure out the new watts used by the same system at a higher voltage:

Take dn's ~363w (avg) x (118/113.1) = 378w, + 4w (new LEDs), and you've got about SS's panel draw. Or thereabouts. Maybe an EE can give you a better explanation (anyone?), I'm probably forgetting something...

(The body is the second thing that goes. I forget what the first thing is--!)

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Many power ratings for products are standardized at a particular voltage, and 110V is common. The power in your area will generally be something different than the rating on the box, however.

We've got dirty power in many areas of the country - with transient spikes, dropouts, brownouts, under/over voltage, resonance, line noise - you name it. Rarely does what's coming into your house stay constant. Many fluctuate within the 110-125v range more than you'd think, and outside of that even. One of these days, I'm definitely going Solar, folks...

That's why computers and other sensitive electrical equipment usually have some sort of Line Conditioner built into it - so it doesn't get fried by dirty power from the utility grid.

I can't vouch for the quality, though. Many of the units themselves or components that go into such equipment suffer from crap quality and poor design, esp. in the mass market. Every manufacturer seems like they just want to cut costs. I doubt the LED panels have much better in them. Many constant current (LED) circuits with a step-down transformer won't even have a decent Filter Cap in the circuit in case of the load being momentarily disconnected.

(All transformers are also inductors and can store large amounts of energy. If you get a momentary power loss and then re-voltage situation, that could trick your system into wanting to continue providing current (that can't go anywhere), so your voltage continues to rise; then the current gets re-connected - and POOF! - kiss your $1000 LED unit goodbye.)

These things are basically a bunch of computer chips stuck on a board that produce light instead of processing 0's and 1's. Take a $1000 laptop, stick it in a small box, and then subject it to tons of heat and humidity. How long do you think it'll last like that? Exactly. Cooling is paramount.

If you have one in the house, treat it the same way as a laptop. Get a decent line conditioner, (+surge protection and UPS), make sure it's got great airflow, and keep the humidity under ~55% or so. And for God's sake don't drop them!

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Differences that can result from manufacturing tolerances or other factors aside, a few points that the watt readings above reiterate to me are:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1) Digital Ballasts on HIDs are much more efficient than magnetic ones. (I normally see magnetic ballasts on a 400W pulling about ~460-480w on the line side.) Sure, we knew that.

2) Electric appliances almost never draw what they're rated. Ok, so we knew that too. Let's see now:

HID w/Lumatek: About 7% higher (428w/400w) actual power usage than rated. Not bad.
GLH Spectra: Almost 27.3% higher (382w/300w) actual power usage than rated. Hmmm.
HID w/Magnetic: Forget about it--! (28.5%)

3) Overclocking your LED chips and running the board hot (over it's rated amperage - in this case, about 43%) mean you're going to pay for a lot more juice than a typical flowering-spectrum board running at 350ma. No freebies there.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

How much more $$$ ? Well...

This same board running at normal levels will pull about 250-260w with the chips it's actually designed for. Call it a 120w difference.

What's that save me $$$-wise with either a flowering (12h) or vegetative (18h) light cycle over time? Call it $0.2 / kWh from PG&E.

Peak rates are - what? 46 cents now? More? EDIT: Schedule E-6 'Time-Of-Use' is now 58 cents per kWh for Tier 4 and up! Holy crap!

Let's find out:

^^^^^^
(Column A is Kilowatts, obviously.)

Hey, I could probably buy another whole LED light for that, couldn't I? Maybe increase yield even more? Hmmm......
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Here's the thing, folks (and folk-ettes!). Regardless of what the chips are actually rated at, those 1w boards everyone uses are not designed to dissipate all that extra heat from running it at 500ma instead of 350ma (43% more!). Personally, I wouldn't fill a Metal Core Printed Circuit Board board using your typical 1W emitters more than ~70% full of LEDs-to-spaces (even at a nominal 350ma) anyway, and I'd try to keep them under 60% filled - and preferably, closer to 50%. The heat sinks and cooling used are barely adequate for the board when they're filled at their stated capacity, like most of the boards you see on the market now.

Which means my safety factor is about a 200w difference from this unit, using this same (288 unit) panel. I'd rather buy two 140-150w units and get better, more consistent coverage, instead. And higher g/w overall. Yes, that'll cost a little more - but not that much. And definitely not in the long run.

The larger heat sinks required simply won't fit into the existing panel, you need to get a larger casing for that. Higher CFM fans (if you can get them) will only do so much. Past a certain point, they won't whisk heat away fast enough from the back of the LED. Junction temperature keeps rising...

Any more than keeping these ~70-75% filled (...let alone overdriving a panel with almost all the spaces filled--! ), and you will have to do at least four things:

A) De-rate the lumens produced per watt by an increasingly significant factor, TWICE - for increasing a) CURRENT, and b) HEAT, which go hand in hand. This is worse for red LEDs than blues and whites. Heat and Current (ma) = inefficient light production.
B) Shorten the lifespan of each LED and increase it's catastrophic failure rate. Heat destroys LEDs. That's why all those drop-in replacement LED bulbs from Lights of America (i.e. 'Lights of China') die after two weeks in a recessed lighting fixture, same as CFLs.
C) Reduce the residual lumens at the end of its lifespan, provided it's still working. Forget 70% remaining after 7 years, you'll be lucky to get 50%, driving a panel like this. Put this over mothers you no longer like!
D) You will get Color Shifting as well. Higher heat means the chromaticity (emitted light frequency) changes. This is worse for red LEDs than blues and whites, also. So much for targeting specific PAR wavelengths and driving efficient photosynthesis. Too bad flowering lights use a majority of red...

There are several things I don't like about the HGL units, also, but not filling the every space on the board with LEDs wasn't one of them. (Wasn't too happy about those 'light engine' clusters, though...) Leaving empty (dark) slots on the board was one thing they did get right.

At least there's a 5 year warranty on these units. Buyers will probably need them.

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Now, that's not to say they won't produce light (they will, and you'll get more from increasing the current like this - just not as efficiently, or long-lasting), or get results. Some folks are certainly already doing so. And if you're ok with all that, then great! If it works for you, do it. I respect those who are early adopters of any new technology or idea.

And, having been in the product business, I'd be really interested to see what the defect and failure rates are 4-5 years down the road. Maybe I'm overstating the case a bit - but I don't think so.

It's just that people need to know what they're buying, and go into any purchase with eyes open. Which is what being an informed consumer is all about - and the reason we're doing these tests. The proof is always in the pudding.

The better DIY guys at least have the sense to use huge heat sinks, and space the LEDs out more over a larger area to dissipate heat better if they're going to overclock them.

There's still a lot of crap out in the market now...manufacturers using low-bin LEDs in their units that are 30-60%+ less efficient even within the same product family--! ...than a good, high-bin, quality LED:

Wow, a 150% difference in lumen output between the lowest and highest bins for a white LED. Wonder which ones most panels are using?

I'll take 30W in high-bin LEDs over 50W of your typical panel LEDs any day. Nights, too.

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As Soniq420 mentioned earlier, Excel is the great equalizer. We'll just have to make sure to do the g/watt-hr yield numbers both on rated as well as actual power use. Big difference - and results should be based on the total cost you, the user, are actually paying to grow, right? PG&E rates aren't exactly cheap.

That said, I still definitely want to see this test as much as anyone, to see what a LED panel with the dials turned up to 11 can do against a worthy, known competitor.

That's why these are so much fun--!

Cheers,

-TL

 

[Lemon Paradise]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

holy crap that was one hell of a post... I gotta go smoke a my brain is fried.. lol

great post though,,

 

[Tyrone Hamilton]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Are they from Nirvana beans?

Good to hear that it clones well because I had read that PPP clones usually take about a week longer to root than average.

I'm really a bit burned out on indicas right now, so really looking forward to smoking a more cerebral strain like PPP.

thanks for the info OBX!

No, they were freebies from Attitude... we cloned them along with 7 other strains, and they were the same or a bit more vigorous than the others - they certainly stretched more than the indicas though under our weak veg light. I just put one outside to see what happens... looking strong so far.

Me too on the indica buzz - I've got the PPP and Strawberry Cough going to change things up.

 

[Green007]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

WOW! Great post TheLurker! for the info, +reps


SettingSun - Just incase you missed this request.

SS, you mentioned you wore welding goggles to take pics of the LED with the lights on. Would you mind explaining the precautions one should use when working with both of these types of lights while they are on?

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

I didn't miss your request Green007, and I'm very happy that you brought up the issue of safety.

The reason I haven't responded yet is because I don't want to shoot from the hip on something I consider so important, so I'm in the process of gathering info for a response.

thanks bro!

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Of course, I took the red pill .

Thanks for a great post TL. Your participation in this journal is valuable and appreciated .

Question:

Would the drop in light output from the results of over-driving the LED's manifest itself as a drop in power consumption, so that we could track performance by checking watts drawn at intervals?

I've got a lux meter, so once we have the baseline numbers, we'll be able to track watts and lux as time goes, but would just checking watts with a Kill A Watt meter reflect the wear and tear also?

thanks again for your detail and thoroughness!

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

holy crap that was one hell of a post... I gotta go smoke a my brain is fried.. lol

great post though,,

Note TL's total post count.

I perk up when he chimes in .


"LUXEON Rebel" I like the sound of that.

Like a heavy cruiser in outer space .

 

[dogsnova]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Ok both units have the same number of led's that's good to know...

I think Lurker hit all the bases with that awesome post. Somewhere in that post lies the answer I'm sure of it...

On a side note....

I can say my GLH 300w unit is definitely holding it's own next to my 400w HPs setup.. So it's all good..

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

In the grand scheme of things, I don't think 20w is going to make much of a performance difference when total watts is 350+, but it would be nice to know if that kind of variance is the norm or not.

If it was a 120w light, I would be a whole lot more concerned.

 

[dogsnova]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Correct...

If we could get Irish to check his 3 units we would have a good sample


Irish by any chance can you get a hold of a Kill A Watt device and check your units?

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Just to make sure we're on the same page, I just ordered a "Kill A Watt", so that we're using the same meter and can eliminate that variable.

As soon as I get it, I'll recheck things and report back.

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

On a side note....

I can say my GLH 300w unit is definitely holding it's own next to my 400w HPs setup.. So it's all good..

Cool, I think it's a good match-up for comparison, and I don't think there will be a runaway winner, but that's just conjecture at this point.

With clones from the same mom, this is gonna be fun .

 

[Green007]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Agreed.
The anticipation is KILLING me! This is worse than being 4 weeks into flower!
You are doing an AWESOME job SS!

 

[dogsnova]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Just to make sure we're on the same page, I just ordered a "Kill A Watt", so that we're using the same meter and can eliminate that variable.

As soon as I get it, I'll recheck things and report back.

That is what I use..... Man SS you go all out ...... + reps my friend...

 

[SnowBender]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

keep in mind that measuring AC current draw at the wall will never be the same a the light source is rated for. The HID ballast takes regular 110 A/C (or 220) and changes it to higher voltage to run an ' X'watt HID bulb. A LED unit has to take 110 AC and change it to DC to run many small wattage bulbs. Both systems will have considerable losses between the socket and light source.