Actual watts vs brightness

[Hebrewdiver]

This is my second bp2000 the first was like 21.5x12 and stated a actual watt of 205 as stated on line and in the user manual with .5watts leds and worked great which led me to purchase another bp2000. The new one called an upgrade states an actual watt of 160 in the user guide but 205w online. The leds show .2watts and it's 18"x12" with a slightly larger driver and 1150 leds. The first bp2000 has 656 as stated online and in manual.

How much difference will the led chip size, the actual wattage, and the unit size make in a 4x4 tent? How crucial is the actual wattage in a grow compared to light brightness.

Why would the manufacturer decrease the actual wall draw wattage and changing the led chips from.5w to.2w and adding more led chips? Seems to me that is a downgrade and not an upgrade.

 

[OGpapa]

Better quality led lower draw

 

[Hebrewdiver]

Better quality led lower draw

What do you mean?

 

[OGpapa]

Progress in chip design has continually improved. Heat management is better understood and the chips have become more efficient, producing more light than ever before.

 

[Regrowth]

What brand is that? Can you check what it draws?
Even with the most efficient diodes, 200w isnt much for a 4x4, 160 is even less.
Are you running both in there? I'd suggest 400w - 600w if possible for good coverage and ppfd.
Might be able to squeeze by with 300w and still be happy.

 

[bluter]

Even with the most efficient diodes, 200w isnt much for a 4x4, 160 is even less.

this right here.

it's a platter type bestva which isn't much of a light no matter what. i wouldn't necessarily call the new one an upgrade. i'd have to know what they used for chipsets and drivers. i would hope they used better ones in the newer rig, but i see no specs on either.

 

[Hebrewdiver]

What brand is that? Can you check what it draws?
Even with the most efficient diodes, 200w isnt much for a 4x4, 160 is even less.
Are you running both in there? I'd suggest 400w - 600w if possible for good coverage and ppfd.
Might be able to squeeze by with 300w and still be happy.

Actually I’m running 2 bp2000, both product manuals show 160 actual watts, and a vispra 1500 which states 150 actual watts in my 4x4 with 4 plants. The bp2000 are Bestva that I ordered in October off Amazon. My first Bp2000 was purchased in February 2023 it started 205 actual watts it worked really well in my 3x3 that is why I bought the second one but spec were not the same so Bestva sent me another one in exchange for a positive review on Amazon. So now I have 3, 150 in my 4x4 tent and a 205 actual watts in my 3x3 tent. I hope that will be enough.

 

[bluter]

I hope that will be enough.

give it a run and see. can guarantee it'll definitely go better with than without. you can't bottle light. nothing will replace it. run as much as you can in the flower space.

a very rough estimate for led is run 35 - 50w per sq/ft in flower. with gains in tech efficiency, it's probably come down a bit, but that will still put you in the sweet spot.

 

[Sativa1970]

Watts = volts x amps x ohms( resistance). Amps increases ohms. Increasing the number of LED at a lower Amp would lower actual usage by lowering ohms. Ohms are energy, often relieced as heat. Larger driver could be it is working less so staying at an efficient power range.

 

[bluter]

Watts = volts x amps x ohms( resistance). Amps increases ohms. Increasing the number of LED at a lower Amp would lower actual usage by lowering ohms. Ohms are energy, often relieced as heat. Larger driver could be it is working less so staying at an efficient power range.

that's what everyone hopes is happening.
what is curious is the incredibly different final specs across a number of the same rigs marketed as identical.

ie : if you change the rig and the spec you should probably reflect that, particularly in the nomenclature.

 

[seaofgreen18]

Howdy All idk about all of the above but what I do know is I track my electricity on Their website every day consumers breaks it down from KWH to $$ per 24 hrs on a graph and i was running a 630 lec full power then upgraded to a 645w and I run that full power and my usage for a day stayed exactly the same or really close and its BETTER QUALITY light and i know that the output in lumen is MUCH MORE than that little ole LEC same operating cost as a 630 lec i just checked it this morning I watch my usage REALLY CLOSE on the power companies website we have a smart meter nit a Dial but i check it every day!

 

[seaofgreen18]

Its a 5×5 veg footprint 4×4 flower to where as the lec was half of

 

[Sativa1970]

that's what everyone hopes is happening.
what is curious is the incredibly different final specs across a number of the same rigs marketed as identical.

ie : if you change the rig and the spec you should probably reflect that, particularly in the nomenclature.

If these were unnamed chinesium lights I would question the legitimacy. The accepted nomenclature is HPS equivalent light wats. A 2000 series has light equivalent of a 2000 wat HPS. The actual power used by the LED light is just how it gets there.

45wats is a difference of roughly .3amps at the outlete. An extention cord can easily consume that much in ohms.

 

[bluter]

The accepted nomenclature is HPS equivalent light wats.

most quality mfgrs are using actual draw as the advertised standard now in conjunction with chipset.

in earlier days too many crap builders used hocus pocus numbers to justify an hps equivalent that was simply garbage. chipset, emitter count, and actual draw specs are the key pieces of information most judge a led by now. quality mfgrs have responded by cleaning up their advertising approach and literature.

 

[Sativa1970]

Ther is a bit of hocus pocus with everything that runs on magic wall pixies. All space heaters, no matter the sizes use 1500wats. 20 amp breakers are rated for 16amps. 100wat car stereo put out 25 wats to the speaker and so on. We have shifted from incandescent to cfl to led but still refer to house bulbs by incandescent equivalent. Efficiency ratings and math are hard so advertisers use and occationaly abuse equivalence.

The new light leds configuration are less than 4% more efficient than the old vertion. Easily possible with lower wat, lower ohm leds. Sounds like insignificant power savings. Being 45 wats smaller sounds like less light. Hard sell without the 2000 series stamp. But the math adds up.

 

[bluter]

Ther is a bit of hocus pocus with everything that runs on magic wall pixies. All space heaters, no matter the sizes use 1500wats. 20 amp breakers are rated for 16amps. 100wat car stereo put out 25 wats to the speaker and so on. We have shifted from incandescent to cfl to led but still refer to house bulbs by incandescent equivalent. Efficiency ratings and math are hard so advertisers use and occationaly abuse equivalence.

The new light leds configuration are less than 4% more efficient than the old vertion. Easily possible with lower wat, lower ohm leds. Sounds like insignificant power savings. Being 45 wats smaller sounds like less light. Hard sell without the 2000 series stamp. But the math adds up.

early bogus claims were based on the total amount of watt a series of emitters could theoretically sustain. in reality they aren't driven anywhere near. a lot of early claims were based on unused capacity. some still are.

the idea of a 1000 series / 2000 series etc is all just simple marketing today. as the tech advances it has less and less basis in reality. but you gotta call it something to make people buy.

chipset, emitter count, and true driver draw specs are always gonna be the decisive answer in the new world now. the measurement of output is now getting standardized to ppfd maps. an important move leveling the measure between all fixtures regardless of design.

 

[Icemud]

Why would the manufacturer decrease the actual wall draw wattage and changing the led chips from.5w to.2w and adding more led chips? Seems to me that is a downgrade and not an upgrade.

The simple answers:
efficiency... Every new series of chip generally is more efficient than the previous release. Higher the efficiency, the more light you produce per watt (typically measured at chip level at lumens per watt on spec sheets, and in the grow light market in PPF/Joule. For example.. about 6 years ago, my Citizen CoB grow lights were at the peak of technology pushing about 1.7PPF/Joule... now 6 years later many fixtures are pushing 2.5-3PPF/joule, almost double what my "top of the line" Cobs are doing.


light distribution and uniformity in footprint - older LED used high watt LED chips (3w and 5w) and would feature much smaller arrays of light... these chips had to be driven fairly hard and would produce extremely bright light, however the result would be a 1/2' x 1/2' area of intense light, and the rest of the grow tent would be underlit.. By using lesser watt chips with for of a LES (light emmitting surface) vs the 3w and 5w chips you are getting a much more even canopy of light distribution.


Chip Lumen Maintenance/thermal degregation. The higher wattage chips also had much more waste heat that had to be dealt with back in the older days of LED grow lights... LED chips lose efficiency over time, just like HPS bulbs, but at a much much slower rate. The rate of degregation generally referred to as Lumen Maintenance or LM80 is a test that shows how a LED chip will degrade over time... The hotter the chip and the poorer the cooling, the faster the chips efficiency degrades...Other factors also play into a chips LM80 rating such as brand, build quality and materials and fixture cooling efficiency but lower wattage chips don't run as hot, therefor don't need large heatsinks, mechanical fans etc to cool..


There are probably other reasons as well (including cost to produce) but overall those would be the main reasons you see many similar lights in the industry... large arrays or bars of lower wattage but high efficiency chips.


Also... Chip BIN... BIN is the way LED chips are sorted... if you buy LED's, they are sorted by brightness BIN and color BIN. Many cheaper LED companies will use the lower BIN chips as they are much cheaper and more available that top BIN chips. The efficiency difference can almost be 50% different from a top BIN chip to a bottom bin chip. By adding a bunch of low BIN chips in a very large array, it gives the impression to the unknowing grower of ..."wow this light is a beast" but in all reality, a similar light with TOP bin chips could get away with 1/2 the LED chips and still have better output...

Hope this info helped.

 

[bluter]

Why would the manufacturer decrease the actual wall draw wattage and changing the led chips from.5w to.2w and adding more led chips? Seems to me that is a downgrade and not an upgrade.

The simple answers:
efficiency... Every new series of chip generally is more efficient than the previous release. Higher the efficiency, the more light you produce per watt (typically measured at chip level at lumens per watt on spec sheets, and in the grow light market in PPF/Joule. For example.. about 6 years ago, my Citizen CoB grow lights were at the peak of technology pushing about 1.7PPF/Joule... now 6 years later many fixtures are pushing 2.5-3PPF/joule, almost double what my "top of the line" Cobs are doing.


light distribution and uniformity in footprint - older LED used high watt LED chips (3w and 5w) and would feature much smaller arrays of light... these chips had to be driven fairly hard and would produce extremely bright light, however the result would be a 1/2' x 1/2' area of intense light, and the rest of the grow tent would be underlit.. By using lesser watt chips with for of a LES (light emmitting surface) vs the 3w and 5w chips you are getting a much more even canopy of light distribution.


Chip Lumen Maintenance/thermal degregation. The higher wattage chips also had much more waste heat that had to be dealt with back in the older days of LED grow lights... LED chips lose efficiency over time, just like HPS bulbs, but at a much much slower rate. The rate of degregation generally referred to as Lumen Maintenance or LM80 is a test that shows how a LED chip will degrade over time... The hotter the chip and the poorer the cooling, the faster the chips efficiency degrades...Other factors also play into a chips LM80 rating such as brand, build quality and materials and fixture cooling efficiency but lower wattage chips don't run as hot, therefor don't need large heatsinks, mechanical fans etc to cool..


There are probably other reasons as well (including cost to produce) but overall those would be the main reasons you see many similar lights in the industry... large arrays or bars of lower wattage but high efficiency chips.


Also... Chip BIN... BIN is the way LED chips are sorted... if you buy LED's, they are sorted by brightness BIN and color BIN. Many cheaper LED companies will use the lower BIN chips as they are much cheaper and more available that top BIN chips. The efficiency difference can almost be 50% different from a top BIN chip to a bottom bin chip. By adding a bunch of low BIN chips in a very large array, it gives the impression to the unknowing grower of ..."wow this light is a beast" but in all reality, a similar light with TOP bin chips could get away with 1/2 the LED chips and still have better output...

Hope this info helped.

i'm still running cob and the gains in efficiency since that tech have been massive.

glad you pointed out the binning. very few growers know to ask for that spec. you would be surprised how many cheap mfgrs won't or can't answer when you ask them about the binning.

 

[Sativa1970]

Why would the manufacturer decrease the actual wall draw wattage and changing the led chips from.5w to.2w and adding more led chips? Seems to me that is a downgrade and not an upgrade.

The simple answers:
efficiency... Every new series of chip generally is more efficient than the previous release. Higher the efficiency, the more light you produce per watt (typically measured at chip level at lumens per watt on spec sheets, and in the grow light market in PPF/Joule. For example.. about 6 years ago, my Citizen CoB grow lights were at the peak of technology pushing about 1.7PPF/Joule... now 6 years later many fixtures are pushing 2.5-3PPF/joule, almost double what my "top of the line" Cobs are doing.


light distribution and uniformity in footprint - older LED used high watt LED chips (3w and 5w) and would feature much smaller arrays of light... these chips had to be driven fairly hard and would produce extremely bright light, however the result would be a 1/2' x 1/2' area of intense light, and the rest of the grow tent would be underlit.. By using lesser watt chips with for of a LES (light emmitting surface) vs the 3w and 5w chips you are getting a much more even canopy of light distribution.


Chip Lumen Maintenance/thermal degregation. The higher wattage chips also had much more waste heat that had to be dealt with back in the older days of LED grow lights... LED chips lose efficiency over time, just like HPS bulbs, but at a much much slower rate. The rate of degregation generally referred to as Lumen Maintenance or LM80 is a test that shows how a LED chip will degrade over time... The hotter the chip and the poorer the cooling, the faster the chips efficiency degrades...Other factors also play into a chips LM80 rating such as brand, build quality and materials and fixture cooling efficiency but lower wattage chips don't run as hot, therefor don't need large heatsinks, mechanical fans etc to cool..


There are probably other reasons as well (including cost to produce) but overall those would be the main reasons you see many similar lights in the industry... large arrays or bars of lower wattage but high efficiency chips.


Also... Chip BIN... BIN is the way LED chips are sorted... if you buy LED's, they are sorted by brightness BIN and color BIN. Many cheaper LED companies will use the lower BIN chips as they are much cheaper and more available that top BIN chips. The efficiency difference can almost be 50% different from a top BIN chip to a bottom bin chip. By adding a bunch of low BIN chips in a very large array, it gives the impression to the unknowing grower of ..."wow this light is a beast" but in all reality, a similar light with TOP bin chips could get away with 1/2 the LED chips and still have better output...

Hope this info helped.

You are absolutely 110% correct and fully explained all the variables.

Now imagine a stoner who knows nothing about lights, electricity, chip BIN, or drivers. They need help picking a light for there first 2x2 grow tent. They stand in the light isle overwhelmed. The salesman gave that explanation. There blood shot eyes would glaze over half way through. Still nodding there head in agreement, they would respond " So,,, yea,,,like,,I was thinking, the green box one with 5000 on it? because like, the green plant." Head in hand you would mutter the 1000 series is what you need. For some people series is a good starting point. For others, what series is all they need to know for now. Series gives you a ballpark estimate of light.

 

[JiggiLotus]

What do you mean?

He means it uses the same if not better LED lighting, without using the same amount - a lowered amount of electricity drawn from the plug in the wall. Making it a more convenient upgrade.