PurpleGunRack
Well-Known Member
Northern Canada and in the basement with plans for a tent after awhile. I’m torn between led and hid. LED is cooler and uses less power. But with my budget I’m worried it will crap out and need warranty. Hid is the tried and true light that’s easy to fix if need be. But Im not sure how warm it actually gets and if it could burn my house down for some reason. And also how much power would one 600w light actually consume over led. Also I’ve now read some ballasts can’t run hps and mh bulbs? The kit I am looking at comes with both bulbs and uses a digital ballast. And from reading that some ballasts can use both bulbs and from the info provided by the company it sounds like it can run both bulbs which would be great for a newb
Don't worry about burning the house down, just use common sense like not drying clothes or frying shrimp on your bulb and you'll be good
A HID bulb consumes about 10% more power than the name suggests.
A 600w LED consumes 600w, or else the seller is misleading you by telling you the combined max wattage of the diodes which is just bs since they're never driver over 50%.
Watt is just a measure of the power (joules per second) that goes into the unit, it doesn't say anything about how much light comes out in the other end.
HID converts about 35% of the power to light and 65% to heat. High reliablility, low upfront cost.
A blurple LED lamp converts about 35% of the power to light and 65% to heat. Low reliability, low to insane upfront cost depending on brand.
A high end LED converts >50% of the power to light and <50% to heat, depending on load. It's possible to reach ~65% light. Extremely high reliability, medium to insane upfront cost depending on brand.
A 1200w electrical heater has a 0/100 light to heat ratio, just to paint a picture
A tight budget and an, assumingly, often cold basement is screaming for some HID light, the radiated heat you get is brilliant when you have plants in a cold room