First Post - LED For Grow Tent

[purpcaper]

I certainly appreciate the suggestion and I certainly have. Although that instance is great for my hopes. I have taken to doing that and sadly in the end I imagine it will be trial and error, it is just a shame the led situation is not as clear cut as other lighting methods.Thank you again.

 

[coopexquisite]

MO o e has a hard answer because no one knows! There is too much uncertainty in leds and the makeup of these lights. Lights can use 1 watt, 3 watt, 5 watt, 10 watt leds etc.

I have a 300 watt hydrogrow light. Why do they call it a 30 watt light, because it has 100 3 watt leds. How much power does it pull st the wall? 190 watts.

If I base my measurements off of 300 watt, for my 2x2 area, I get 75 watts per. At 190, I get 47.5 watts per.

For the ease of simplicity, just use the wall draw. For a 5x5 I would try to have at least 875 at the wall spread amongst 2 or 3 lights.

Also need to look at the light spectrum. Good idea to get a light with more than just blue and red leds. Ir, uv, orange, and white help to fill out the spectrum. Find something with at least a claim of 9 spectrums.

I'm a newb. Take this with a grain of salt. Hope you find the right light/s for your build.

 

[purpcaper]

Nothing was equated, you were rude. Rationalize it however you want. I dont care what you do and don't do, no one asked you to cater to anything. I thought, treating others with respect and courtesy was already covered. However I cannot expect too much now from someone that has 6k posts in a marijuana forum and calls Wattage an imaginary number. Then you mention 7 moot points about topics I didnt question and the psychobabble that followed. The information advertised is not "made up shit" in every case and that is what I am trying to clear up. Your attempt to pussify my accusation of your being a infant is pathetic, no one said you were mean, I said you were rude, which you were. Secondly "leds draw usually half" is what I originally wrote, lolwat? is how you responded, considering how much of a Rubik's cube (Secondly "leds draw usually half" responded with an lolwat?) seemed to be for you to negotiate and the fact that you couldnt even get a space in or spell your words right, I am pretty sure you are not the lead on diction here. "Yes led's usually do draw about half of what they advertise. i. e 1000w usually 450-550 actual draw. Again many sources. Most ads for leds list actual watts. Hence one of the basis for my question." Has nothing to do with "unsavory ......" companies, it is a concept that is literally portrayed in the market right now. Again your meek attempt to lessen the validity is hilarious, almost all companies list the actual draw, AGAIN for now we may be going on the 8th time, that is not the problem. Never was. I needed the application information. DO I APPLY DRAW WATTAGE OR ADV WATTAGE?Pretty simple chief. I guess you just need those little serotonin boosts from the lowly quips you insert into your "plain-speaking and an honest attempt to help". "Spoon feed"? To paint a picture that what you were working with was to elevated? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL Or mean for me, LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. Reach on, again you were just and continue to be wrongfully and sheepishly, rude. "What is the conversion rate of advertised led watts to actual consumption draw?" Is not generic, it in 100 percent actuality could not be any more of a specific question. Im done, there is not much more to push my point other than many other replies have been given without having to be cheap or without trouble understanding what I wrote. It is a shame that at whatever point you are at you have no mechanism for reflection. What you wrote was unnecessary. It follows basic guidelines, that if you can not be polite and show respect when addressing someone, then dont.

 

[purpcaper]

MO o e has a hard answer because no one knows! There is too much uncertainty in leds and the makeup of these lights. Lights can use 1 watt, 3 watt, 5 watt, 10 watt leds etc.

I have a 300 watt hydrogrow light. Why do they call it a 30 watt light, because it has 100 3 watt leds. How much power does it pull st the wall? 190 watts.

If I base my measurements off of 300 watt, for my 2x2 area, I get 75 watts per. At 190, I get 47.5 watts per.

For the ease of simplicity, just use the wall draw. For a 5x5 I would try to have at least 875 at the wall spread amongst 2 or 3 lights.

Also need to look at the light spectrum. Good idea to get a light with more than just blue and red leds. Ir, uv, orange, and white help to fill out the spectrum. Find something with at least a claim of 9 spectrums.

I'm a newb. Take this with a grain of salt. Hope you find the right light/s for your build.

Thank you for your reply. Matter fact you are speaking exactly how I have been going through it in my head and you hit the exact situation dead on.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

This is not proper behavior on this forum purpcaper. You are going overboard and acting mean to people giving you information. This is not a flame war forum. Please try to act a little more mature.

 

[purpcaper]

Dont single me out, I dont care who you are. Tell on me. Overboard? I apologize to you sir if as a new user I refuse to put up with the Initial snide and unnecessarily condescending comments. I am addressing what was communicated to me. "Acting Mean" Maybe you should take a look at how I treat the members of this forum. You will see a very clear separation between the 100 I have interacted with that in no way shape or form talked down to or disrespected me and the 1 that did. I guess singling out a member in complete bias is proper behavior? You are no one to merit overboard, I earned my freedom . I react in kind. Day 1 kindergarten, treat others how...All being said. if you plan on addressing me again, please try to act a little more professional. Oh and by the way its PurpCaper as in my name, so have a little kuth and capitalize it. Its a Proper noun, you should treat it with the proper behavior.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Read your stuff back Purpcaper and see you are acting like a child. Read it like it wasn't you that wrote it. You will see that your posts are inflammatory and the tone is antagonistic. Life is too short to be mean. I earned my freedom too. Thanks.

Oh and your name is lower case. You may want to fix that before getting mad at people.

If you still have questions unanswered go ahead and ask I will be happy to clarify. I have done quite a bit of study on leds and efficiency. We can't categorize all leds the same way because they are as different in efficiency as mercury vapor and CMH.

Even using watts law like I wrote before won't be good for comparison because efficiencies range from 40-65%

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Old school blurples like viparspectra won't go much past 40% and in this case it is much more advantageous to run CMH.

New cobs and quantum style boards can run 55-65% that's a huge efficacy difference. Now for LEDs the honest manufacturers will give you actual watt draw, amps, PPF, and hopefully PPFD. They will also tell you efficiency in either lumens/watt or umol s of photons/ joule. Anyone who doesn't has not done the tests or is trying to hide something from you.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

So for example the diodes I am using are Lm561c. They are high efficiency whites and can reach up to 200lumens/watt. Even though lumens are not really as useful to use anymore a lot of companies use them because it was the language of efficiency for a long time. A good Cree cob will do 185lumens /watt when run at low amps. An hps will run about 140 lumens per watt. A blurples using epistars like a viparspectra will run about the same as an hps.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

A really helpful dude is dan from timber grow lights. He can also help quite a bit with coverage questions.

 

[Jay233]

Hey Purpcaper, just read through from start to finish in an attempt to offer help. I do understand your frustration with deciding which led light will be most effective, efficient and suit your needs the best. I'm confident that many of the people who have posted to help have felt the same as you do now... minus the anger. I have felt that way myself when I was researching leds myself. You have recieved lots of excellent advice from a lot of the replys. I know Shiggity knows his leds and he has taken the time to help and explain also. Pretty cool if you ask me. May want to reread through the replys (after a bowl ) and if there is something that you are not 100% firmilar with you can nicely ask for clarification and I'm sure you will get all the info you could ever want to make a wize choice.
Best of luck and welcome to 420. Growers helping growers

 

[purpcaper]

I appreciate all of the help from all of the replies the last couple of hours thank you. I appreciate it.

So are: Viparspectra, king plus, morsen, galaxyhydro, mars hydro, are they not good brands?
I have always done consumer shopping with a bit of research and banging against other reviews almost all of those brands have awesome reviews online .

Lets also add a hypothetical :
5x5 grow tent
12 plants

To grow these plants healthy and without limit what would the call be.
Would I need 10 of the 1000w theoretically due to the draw or is there any amount of equivalency ?
Note:I am not looking at these lights specifically, I just would like to see the answers using this context, thank you so much again. You guys are awesome.

 

[purpcaper]

I appreciate the kind words, have you seen my last, i would really like your input on my 5x5 with 12 in it. Thank you. i added a link in the post to some lights, they arent necessarily a choice, I just want some real life context.

Thank you again for taking the time to write me.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Hey Purpcaper I wouldn't advise those lights. Oops can't send you a pm.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Is this same Purpcaper on IG?

 

[Winginit]

So for example the diodes I am using are Lm561c. They are high efficiency whites and can reach up to 200lumens/watt. Even though lumens are not really as useful to use anymore a lot of companies use them because it was the language of efficiency for a long time. A good Cree cob will do 185lumens /watt when run at low amps. An hps will run about 140 lumens per watt. A blurples using epistars like a viparspectra will run about the same as an hps.

What is a "blurple"?

 

[TorturedSoul]

What is a "blurple"?

LED panel comprised of lots of the little low-wattage mono-color LEDs. Generally produces that sickly purplish light that people don't seem to think to turn off (or at least adjust the white balance on their camera to compensate for) before taking pictures of their plants :rolleyes3 . Due to the general reputation that these panels used to have - poor spectral composition, poor penetration, poor intensity, vastly optimistic footprint predictions, overall average of relatively low wattage across the board, and the habit of unscrupulous sellers advertising the products as if they were of significantly higher wattage than was actually the case - "blurple" is sometimes used derisively. However, these days some lights of this style are... adequate, so one should not automatically assume that the term is used as an insult, lol.

As opposed to the newer type of LED grow light panels that use high-wattage COBs instead of the little LEDs, or else a mixture of both (to help fill in the spectrum).

 

[Winginit]

LED panel comprised of lots of the little low-wattage mono-color LEDs. Generally produces that sickly purplish light that people don't seem to think to turn off (or at least adjust the white balance on their camera to compensate for) before taking pictures of their plants :rolleyes3 . Due to the general reputation that these panels used to have - poor spectral composition, poor penetration, poor intensity, vastly optimistic footprint predictions, overall average of relatively low wattage across the board, and the habit of unscrupulous sellers advertising the products as if they were of significantly higher wattage than was actually the case - "blurple" is sometimes used derisively. However, these days some lights of this style are... adequate, so one should not automatically assume that the term is used as an insult, lol.

As opposed to the newer type of LED grow light panels that use high-wattage COBs instead of the little LEDs, or else a mixture of both (to help fill in the spectrum).

Do you work for Merriam-Webster dictionary??
Great explanation .

So basically a Chinese made led lol

 

[TorturedSoul]

Do you work for Merriam-Webster dictionary??

Nope. Haven't had any truck with those folks since I looked up "aint" and saw that they had inserted an apostrophe into it. "Ai not," never heard of that, so WtF is up with "ain't?"

 

[greensunshine]

Hey Purpcaper,

Let me try to help...

Basically ignore all of the advertised wattage. It's either 1) Made up by the manufacturer or 2) The manufacturer adds up the "maximum allowable power" of each LED which doesn't make sense either.

Even more confusing, sometimes the manufacturer claims that the LED will replace a 1000W HPS so they just call the LED a "1000W LED" and then the LED is just some random wattage.

A lot of times these lights are designed without much purpose by a Chinese manufacturer and rebranded because they sell, so don't try to find meaning in something that doesn't make sense to begin with!

You just want to look up the "Actual wattage" the LED pulls from the wall. Always try to find that number on the grow lights because that is your best starting point for comparing LEDs. Advertised wattage is incorrect most of the time. Some manufacturers are truthful about this.

Generally speaking for a high quality setup you need 60% Actual LED wattage to match HPS. This also depends on the spectrum too.

Also, "Viparspectra" and the chinese LEDs you see on Amazon are cheap for a reason. I've seen tests where the Viparspectra LEDs are basically equal to efficiency as HPS, which if you think about it, completely negates the point of LEDs. People are basically getting fooled because they buy them for their first grow and they "work"...well for the same power used from an HPS they would have gotten better results.

Anyways you will have to spend a bit more to get a high quality LED setup that actually saves power

Hope this helps!!!