Help finding affordable LED that works well for flowering?

I

ImHighHowRYou

New Member
Hello everyone! I hope your having a very high day!:smokin: Thanks for checking out my very first post:thumb:

So I've been looking around a lot for an affordable led light that works as well as it could for an affordable price. At the moment I've got a grape ape clone that I've been vegging for a week and a half in a 2x2x5 box under about 100 watts of daylight cfls and about 100 watts of a big soft white cfl. (Real wattage not replacement) I think it will veg under the cfls just fine but I want to move her under a more powerful light when i flower in about 3 weeks that will fit in my box and wont have bad heating issues, so naturally I'm looking at LEDs. Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

Thank you so much for any assistance anyone is willing to give.
Have a high day:tokin::420::blunt::ganjamon::yummy:
 
Actually now that I get down to it in the long run it will probably be better to just go ahead and spend a little extra money to get a product that is gonna be worth it down the road. Thanks JJ
 
JJ Bones said:
I would consider Advanced LED 100w

Should work well for your space, not too pricey for being a high powered LED either. Many growers on here have had good results.
Click to expand...

With this light being comprised of just blues and whites, I'm surprised it works well for flowering. Allot of what I am reading seems to focus on the reds and deep reds for flowering when using LEDs. So the blues/whites do a comparable job as well? Looking at LEDs myself, so tagging along. Hope thats cool.
 
Quality and affordability haven't quite found each other in the LED marketplace, if you ask me. I was 110% gung-ho about going LED for my room and did a lot of research -- I was seconds away from ordering when a regulatory issue forced me to go a different route. LEDs have a couple of really nice features that you can't get in other lights, but if you're not buying LED for those features, I think you'll find better value for money in a small T5 rig. One advantage for fluorescent tubes is that you can swap out blue tubes for red tubes, or use some combination of both. Cool, power efficient, flexible use -- not a bad alternative choice.

Now, that said, I would also suggest the Advanced LED lineup. A DS100, as already suggested, or take a look at the DS-XML150, too. You'll find a variety of low wattage LED bulbs and such, but they're sub-optimal. You want something that kicks out a solid spectrum. To get a decent spectrum you need a variety of LED bulbs on your lamp, and to get a variety of bulbs on your lamp your lamp needs to be big enough to house them and their electronics.

One last thing to consider is light intensity. Plants can develop light damage even in the absence of extreme heat. LEDs can be pretty intense! So, you should take a look at the direction of the lenses on whatever LED you're considering. A wider angler will disperse the light more than a more narrow angle. So, 120o angle lens will bounce light down along the sides of your space whereas a 60o lens will focus a pillar of light straight down.
 
zeppelin said:
With this light being comprised of just blues and whites, I'm surprised it works well for flowering. Allot of what I am reading seems to focus on the reds and deep reds for flowering when using LEDs. So the blues/whites do a comparable job as well? Looking at LEDs myself, so tagging along. Hope thats cool.
Click to expand...

Yeah totally. Anyone welcome to tag along. Thanks. So Zeppelin in the lights there are a multitude of wavelengths of light. I'm guessing from the white leds is where most of the other wavelengths other than the blue wavelengths. Here's a list of the wavelengths 11+ Wavelengths of Color Output: 760nm, 740nm, 720nm, 660nm, 630nm, 615nm-480nm, 460nm, 440nm, 415nm, 380nm There are more colors of light in advanced leds lights than most of the other led companies' lights. I'm gonna test the light out so we'll see how it does.

I ordered the ds100 diamond series light last night from advanced led. I spoke with kyle who told me that on amazon those lights are a copy of their lights ordered from the same supplier but that the amazon lights actually are from a company in china called eshine that put 1watt leds made in china in their lights. Advanced led uses bridgelux leds that are made in the USA but I think orders their housing or something is from china maybe? Not really sure. He said they have been scamming people. I don't know how true that is, but I have ordered a ds 100 from advanced cause it's only $50 dollars more and has 3 year hassle free warranty and 90 day money back gaurantee so I thought "can't beat that" so I will have it in about 4 days. I have a Journal I just set up in grow journals if you want to check it out I will be testing out the light. Here's the link My First Grow DS100 Diamond Series LED & Nectar For The Gods Nutes I haven't posted pictures yet but those will be up about the time the light comes in. Thanks everybody for checking out my posts:thumb::Namaste::peacetwo::blunt:
 
If you take a look at the DIY sites that sell the equipment to build your own setup, the cool whites, neutral whites, and warm whites dont really show specific wavelengths, just kelvin rating ranges. LEDs in the saltwater reef tank industry that only have blue and whites have been run under a spectrometer for awhile now, and generally show they are strong in the 400-450 nm range, then mostly drop off across the nm range. Here's a good article that compares allot of LED fixtures Feature Article: Spectral Distributions of LEDs: AI-Sol, Radion, Orphek, EcoRay, Mvava — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog. When reds and deep reds, as well as greens and uv are added, the spectral range expands allot. Since coral health is dependent on zooxanthelle between the skeleton and skin (a form of marine algae), I would think the same thinking can translate into plant health. Still allot to learn for me. Great conversation.
 
Whether working with sativa or indica is probably also part of the mix. Equatorial sativa on a 13/11, 11/13 light/dark veg/flowering cycle may need less of the red spectrum for flowering since the sunlight doesn't seasonally change like it does in non equatorial areas where allot of indicas are found. That make sense? Plants indigenous to areas with larger seasonal sun changes may benefit more from more red spectrum in the flowering lighting.
 
Zeppelin, while much of what you are saying is true, you are missing a few key points of the processes that happen. There is a reason that the reef community uses only blues and whites. The main reason is that red light is defused by water very readily and rapidly. This holds true for light closer to the equator. The higher temperatures evaporate more water and the red is dispersed in the sky. This is what makes the sky have a reddish look in the evenings.

While I do agree that each strain and hybrid does perform better with slightly different spectra and light amounts, it is very hard to make a panel and tune it into a single plant. Under this line of thinking we would need a different lighting scheme for every plant we grow. Meaning it would literally take tens of thousands of test iterations to develop a light for our exact growing condition for each plant. Every grower would have to do this for each strain and have a scientific way of supplying the nutes, controlling CO2, temps, light elevation, and every other variable with each of these grows until they got exactly the right mix for their style and environment. The goal for most (some?) of us that test and develop lights is to make a light that produces very well over the widest range of plants.
 
Actually, the reefing community started out with just blues and whites when they started experimenting with LEDs several years ago. Studies with metal halides and T5s from as far back as the late 80s have shown that the essential algaes in corals benefit greatly from the red/orange spectrum. Studies I am reading recently using LEDs in commercial horticulture seem to also show that land plants use the red spectrum as well. When reefers started using LEDs, only white/blue combinations were available. Recently, as they have begun to be available, red, green and uv LEDs have been being added to the mix. First with DIY light setups, and more recently with commercial LEDs.

I am also seeing reds being used on LED setups like the Budmaster, for flowering. I dont know allot about that light's quality first hand, but it looks to be built well. Just an example I ran across. I am sure there are more.

Like I said, I am still in the research phase. Plan on looking at allot of LED information before deciding. It just seems, so far, that the red/orange spectrum is being added to more and more LEDs in both commercial industries.
 
That's interesting and I would love to see the commercial reef lights using reds and oranges for something other than CRI (to make the light more pleasing to the human eye). Most marine plant life and algae have very little photo-receptors in wavelengths above 570nm. As for Reds and oranges in land plants and for horticulture, that has been the case since the beginning.
 
Well I don't know if what you are saying is true.. If it is true then we'll see that the ds100 light I ordered isn't all that great and I will be sending it back within my 90 days and get my money back. But I am pretty sure that white light has every color in it (thats why it's white and all that ya know) and their website lists the 11 wavelengths of color in the light that I listed in my post earlier. 760nm, 740nm, 720nm, 660nm, 630nm, and 615nm are all red or orange colors. And thats only the red and orange colors. So I felt pretty safe that the spectrum of the light wasn't what I was skeptical about. The price was pretty much the only thing I debated about. But I'll have the light in 4 or 5 days so we'll see what happens.

Awesome conversation! :thumb:

Thanks for the interaction on my thread...It's my first one!:cheesygrinsmiley::tokin:

Any other 2 cents anyone wants to put in your welcome to it! :thanks::ganjamon::peacetwo:
 
Here are a couple direct links

Horticultural LED Grow Light Case Studies

The Lowdown on LED Lighting

There are more doing a Google search on red LEDs in horticulture. Like I said, I still have allot to look at.

Also, using dimmable drivers on the blues and reds with a potentiameter on each driver would allow for many different red/blue combinations from a single setup to be able to tune the setup for your particular strain, I would think. Just thinking out loud here on a Friday night.
 
zeppelin said:
Here are a couple direct links

Horticultural LED Grow Light Case Studies

The Lowdown on LED Lighting

There are more doing a Google search on red LEDs in horticulture. Like I said, I still have allot to look at.

Also, using dimmable drivers on the blues and reds with a potentiameter on each driver would allow for many different red/blue combinations from a single setup to be able to tune the setup for your particular strain, I would think. Just thinking out loud here on a Friday night.
Click to expand...

Nice research man! The diamond series light has a switch for changing color spectrum and intensity so they already have that down....
 

Similar threads

J
Is this enough lighting for my grow box ?
Replies
1
Views
1K
Hosebomber
H
HigherTheHigh
LED lighting help
Replies
17
Views
2K
Mars Hydro
Mars Hydro
Glitch911
Need help with LEDs
Replies
3
Views
2K
Mars Hydro
Mars Hydro
J
Cfl lights? Can you grow without a hps or mh light?
Replies
5
Views
3K
Fuzzy Duck
Fuzzy Duck
D
CFL & LED light coverage
Replies
7
Views
1K
Robert Celt
R
Back
Top Bottom