Price to change?

Jackalope

Well-Known Member
I am currently running 1000 watt hps lights. Looking to change someday for cheaper electric bills. I realize upgrading to a LED is going to cost upward of $1500 for a really good system. I've seen them as high as $2400 and up. Any suggestions of a " True " replacement for the 1000 watt HPS? What kind of price am I looking. You get what you pay for so I am willing to pay for the right light. What I don't want to do is spend that kind of money for less performance.
 
How big of a footprint are you flowering with today? The Quantum Boards seem to be popular now. I not hugely convinced of the electric bill drop paying for itself very quickly. The Mars fixture that I am running now is a 740 watt draw at the wall in a 4x4. Heat and not have to change the bulbs are positives to LED. I supposed some electricity savings can be had with not having to manage excessive amounts of heat. The total equipment costs can vary quite a bit. If you are electrically savvy you can DIY some fixtures that would be cost effective. Wit LED's you are probably better served with several smaller fixtures to more evenly distribute light.
 
Chilled LED, Check out Vader recent on Youtube,

$2,300

complicated hook-up maybe? IDK, looks cool tho, lol..

maybe a cob set-up, ?
 
I don't really want to build anything myself. By the time I will be using it I will be growing in a 4x4x8 tent. Running a 1000 watt light in a tent that size can create heat issues at some times of the year. I need to run a 6" exhaust fan on high which is not a huge problem. At 75% they work fine. At this time I have a air cooled fixture that is not in use. Looks like I will be setting it up. Hard to change when the lights I have work. At least at current prices. I grow only for myself. Its not like I sell weed to pay for the light any time soon. Like someone mentioned cheaper electric bills will take a long time to eat up start up costs...... While LED is the most popular and gives you the ability to make your own lights. My hair is curly enough without electricity's help. I am more interested in the CMH or plasma technologies. Lots of improvements in the light they put out. I'm just not sure if they have solved any heat issues.
 
Jackalope as far as I've been able to see there is no real chance of 'saving money' with led- at least wth the off the shelf stuff. The higher initial cost negates what savings there are. That may or may not be true if you're saving money by assembling your own. Definitely can be said that there are other good reasons to switch to led, but the argument of saving money just doesn't seem to hold water.
 
I was looking at cmh but they seem to be geared more towards veg than flowering. Any old thing will work for veg. I spend a fair amount of time machete-ing back the plants in the veg room as it is. .
 
Yes it is. Maybe I just need to revisit the whole thing again. It's not like my research was all that extensive. While I read that cmh will work 'fine' for flowering - in the end I couldn't really find anyone who preferred it to Hps, and it seemed like everyone I asked was mostly using cmh in veg. Every thread I dig into online just seemed to start with glowing endorsements but fizzle out before we got to the good part - which would be -amazing results in flower.
 
Honestly for the money if you can manage the heat i would stick with what you have. Just growing for tourself how often do you grow? Just curious as that is my situation as well.
 
Yeah that's what I'm getting. Like I said the only reason to change would be monthly costs. If there is no savings I see no reason to change. I guess I got a couple upgrades along the way. The change from fluorescent shop lights to my first 400 MH was the most dramatic. Boy was I a happy camper. 600 watt HPS to 1000 watt HPS surprised me a lot also. I had heard that the 600 was the most efficient light out there. Might be more efficient but the 1000 packs on a lot more weight. All strains under the 1000 watt light were all noticeable bigger then their sisters in the 600 watt tent. Hell if I could keep the heat down I would look into a 1500 watt lol.
 
I'm happy with my Migro 400 to replace my SunSystem 315 CMH. Much higher PAR levels without the heat damage. During veg I had it turned down to as low as 80 watts to keep the plants from wilting.

My first grow with Migro 400

12/3/2017

Placed seedlings in (reused soil that I pulled the roots out of previous grow) with SunSystem light at top of tent using ratchets. Average PAR 300 something at sprout level.

Three of the plants weren't doing well. Droopy. Replaced SunSystem with a MIGRO 400 on 12/22/17. Flushed plants with just Grow Big added. Cob is one foot away from large plant. Adjusted wattage down to 160 total watts! Still has 30,000 LUX at top of small plants or 400 PAR! In the summer this will save electricity in veg.

Cause of droopy plants turned out to mainly be low temperatures. Moved space heater into room to keep the temps at least 72 degrees F. Small plants are now recovering.

12/30/17

Plants still somewhat droopy and stunted. Had to turn the MIGRO 400 down to just 100 watts. It was stunting the plants. Now the leaves are pointing up slightly to get light. PAR is till 250 - 325 on Hydrofarm meter.

1/12/18

Earlier in the week. Flushed plants with ph'd ozonated water 2 1/2 gallons each. Added 1 liter of water with only Tiger bloom a few days later (they are beginning to flower). Too much organic build up from previous grow.

I have found that having the light about 18" away from plant (or more) is best. I'm still only up to about 80 watts. Plants are now looking great with no wilting or burning from the Migro light. It's more forgiving to have the plant farther away with a little more wattage-light than to dim down and have the plant only a foot away to save electricity.

1/27/18

Have been slowly incrementing lighting up. Now at 360 watts. Watered and defoilated as needed today. Watered till their was run off. Previously watered with only 2 liters per plant (a week ago). The plants need watering only about half as much with the Migro system.

2/3/18

Cranked up the wattage to 440 watts. Have over 1000 micromoles of PAR. Plants doing great. No stess detected on plants after a few days. Buds are already good and have 1 more month to grow!

2/23/18

Harvested 3 of the 4 plants. Even though they were stunted they all have huge pine cone size buds. The plant I topped had too many leaves and was dwarfed to the point of the buds not getting nearly as big as the other plants that I just left alone and did no training. I'll let the other plant go for another week or so to see if anything good happens.

 
Man i'm running 8 led light in my grow 10x10 grow tent and its not enough i,m pulling like 4000 watts plus from the wall i have the air filter and an intake fan. will i be saving money on electricity think not I bellieve 6 1000 watts HPS would have been better. As for the heat its -3 out so the intake fan brings air in cools it down it 28 degrees in my tent. Hurray for winter COME summer forget it man cost a fortune with air conditioning.
 
Amusing. On most Mj forums they talk as if LED is the answer to everything. Yet when growers talk about actual KwHr used with LED systems, they say they are almost as expensive as HID lights. I have yet to find an LED system that puts out the light that HID does measuring with my light meters. I use all 400w MH lights for my indoor grows myself, and I have one that is switchable to HPS. I like 400s as they are more mobile, not as hot (you can put them closer to the plants) and they are cheap. But... I only use lights this time of year to make clones and pop seeds. At the end of next month they go out in the GH under sunlight. No need for A/C out there. Then if the rains come early in late September, like they did here two years ago, I move them under MH or HPS 400w lights again and finish blooming them. The higher night heat indoors to finish them seems to increase potency as well.

My 400w HID bulbs cost about a buck a day to run here at 12 cents a KwHr with taxes and line and use fees, running 20/4 cycles. To finish blooming, I run 12/12 and that is 60 cents a day per bulb. A/C is not needed for me this time of year or in the late fall here. I run fans indoors but they are cheap. Have to keep the air moving or they get stem rot. If I were to start again now, I would go with CMH (AKA: LEC) over HID/MH. To convert now I would need new 315w ballasts and CMH has a different connector than the mogul base (though they have converters). Also CMH at this time are about 2x the cost of HID lights. But with a reduction to 315w vs 400w, that is 21% less power to operate, or $6 less a month per bulb for me to run here. Not worth it for me. Maybe of CMH comes down in price?
 
The only reason i used the led lights was energy saving but I have 8 lights 3600 watts plus fans did i save money i dont think so. led takes longer i find to veg then bloom. Thats what ive been reading. My clone are nice but taking long to come to a point to flower but they are getting there. Its all i guess trial error get better not go broke or get busted lol I dont know
I think led still has a long way to come before realy being out there. I mean the cost must go down get a set of hps hid the plants would have been flowered and probably curing. So did I save money maybe a little time no I lost time and time mean money hope it make sense.:confused:
 
i'm going to take a reading with my hydro farm thing my lights are at 18 " from top plant

Looks like you have too much PAR. Your plants are still vegging and your PAR levels are higher than what you need for flowering. Anything over 1000 isn't going to increase yield much more and could do some damage.
 
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