Time to make the switch?

[onewarmguy]

Hey my fellow budders, I've kind of decided to make the switch from HID to LED lighting. Currently I'm using 1000W HPS bulbs with a white daisy reflector, in a 3 ft. X 3 ft. enclosure to grow a couple of plants at a time. I'm thinking I only need a 600W LED? There are so many of these on the market these days I'm lost. I know Mars Hydro is good but they're a tad pricey. Suggestions from AMAZON for a reliable LED lighting panel?
Thanks

 

[TysonOG]

Build your own quantum board! HLG has a 550 that would replace a 1000w but i think thats too much for a 3x3. I have a 3.3x3.3 tent and I use my 1000w hid, at 75%.
I was literally on their site just now trying to buy a veg light, but they're all sold out.

 

[Nunyabiz]

Build your own is best.
Can build one exactly like mine which is 24x26" which should fit a 3x3 pretty well,
Cost about $380, it's 325 watts but puts out way over 1000 PPFD across the canopy.
I like having slightly more light than I need that way I can dim down the LED so it runs cooler, last longer and as the years go by the LED will lose a little power as they age but I have more power than I need so just turn it up.

If you're not into building your own then Mars Hydro and Budget LED are probably your two best bets.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Currently I'm using 1000W HPS bulbs with a white daisy reflector, in a 3 ft. X 3 ft. enclosure to grow a couple of plants at a time.

WOW, that's an inefficient combination. Overhead vertical-bulb-orientation usually are unless you've got a large space and multiple lights, but that's kind of on the extreme edge, isn't it? 111 watts of HPS light per square foot. Even with the hit you're taking by your choice of reflector setup, with that amount of gross light, I doubt you'll be happy with any kind of LED product that costs less than the ones that Mars Hydro sells, lofl.

I'm thinking I only need a 600W LED?

You could grow any cannabis strain known to man (or any other type of plant known to man) with a decent 600-watt LED grow light product - if it is actually a 600-watt one. Good luck finding such a thing on scAmazon's website. I just did a search on it for both "600-watt LED grow light" and "600w LED grow light." Before giving up in disgust, I had only found three. Two were off-off-offityfucking-off brand Chinese knockoffs of other Chinese knockoffs of Chinese blurples (one included some COBs, too) costing about $380 and $480, and the third appeared to be a counterfeit of an HLG product that's. But it's almost $600 so, either way, you're better off spending your money on a product that's being sold by a business that will definitely be here tomorrow and probably even the day after. HLG - or even one of these two (current) forum sponsors who sell HLG knockoffs: Mars Hydro, Budget LED.

On the other hand, you could also grow any cannabis strain known to man in a 3'x3' space with a decent 600-watt HPS bulb and a good quality (air-cooled, by preference) horizontal reflector. And that'd likely be significantly cheaper to purchase. You could probably get by with (somewhat) less wattage by choosing one of the "hyper-efficient" LED products produced in the last couple of years, but that's going to cost you more, too. HID vs. (decent) LED, it's a question of whether you want to spend a lot more now or a little more each month on electricity. Plus a bit for occasional bulb replacement, because they'll be down ~10% output after a certain amount of use. It's been almost eight years, so I could be misremembering, but I think the person at EyeHortilux (recognized best HID grow light bulbs) told me that I should replace my HPS ones after nine to ten months of 12 hour per day usage. I don't even have a vague memory about the MH @ 18 hours per day as I didn't even really pay attention to that part of the answer at the time (had already realized I got bigger yields running HPS all the way through instead of only during flowering).

By the way... I'm assuming that you're using that reflector so that you can throw enough of that 1Kw bulb's output onto the walls of the space (instead directly onto the plants) that you won't end up bleaching the chlorophyll out of the leaves. But what was the motivation for going with a 1,000-watt HID setup for a mere nine square feet of garden area in the first place? It was free and so is your electricity, or...?

 

[Vegan4life]

I used two of the HLG Quantum board 260 watt kits, in a 3 x 3 tent with great results. I now have three of the HLG Quantum board 260 watt kits in a 3' x 5.5' space.

 

[Stunned]

If you think Mars Hydro is too pricey, you'd best stick with what you got
You won't get anything decent enough to compare with what a 1000 watt Hps is going to give you

 

[The Dirty]

I too used to use a lot of hid watts in a small space and when I did the switch to 2x hlg 260 panels I've found that my 480watts at the wall is enough for my 4x4.

@Budget LED a site sponsor sell comparable lights to hlg so go check them out. Maybe start with one for that space.

 

[onewarmguy]

WOW, that's an inefficient combination. Overhead vertical-bulb-orientation usually are unless you've got a large space and multiple lights, but that's kind of on the extreme edge, isn't it? 111 watts of HPS light per square foot. Even with the hit you're taking by your choice of reflector setup, with that amount of gross light, I doubt you'll be happy with any kind of LED product that costs less than the ones that Mars Hydro sells, lofl.



You could grow any cannabis strain known to man (or any other type of plant known to man) with a decent 600-watt LED grow light product - if it is actually a 600-watt one. Good luck finding such a thing on scAmazon's website. I just did a search on it for both "600-watt LED grow light" and "600w LED grow light." Before giving up in disgust, I had only found three. Two were off-off-offityfucking-off brand Chinese knockoffs of other Chinese knockoffs of Chinese blurples (one included some COBs, too) costing about $380 and $480, and the third appeared to be a counterfeit of an HLG product that's. But it's almost $600 so, either way, you're better off spending your money on a product that's being sold by a business that will definitely be here tomorrow and probably even the day after. HLG - or even one of these two (current) forum sponsors who sell HLG knockoffs: Mars Hydro, Budget LED.

On the other hand, you could also grow any cannabis strain known to man in a 3'x3' space with a decent 600-watt HPS bulb and a good quality (air-cooled, by preference) horizontal reflector. And that'd likely be significantly cheaper to purchase. You could probably get by with (somewhat) less wattage by choosing one of the "hyper-efficient" LED products produced in the last couple of years, but that's going to cost you more, too. HID vs. (decent) LED, it's a question of whether you want to spend a lot more now or a little more each month on electricity. Plus a bit for occasional bulb replacement, because they'll be down ~10% output after a certain amount of use. It's been almost eight years, so I could be misremembering, but I think the person at EyeHortilux (recognized best HID grow light bulbs) told me that I should replace my HPS ones after nine to ten months of 12 hour per day usage. I don't even have a vague memory about the MH @ 18 hours per day as I didn't even really pay attention to that part of the answer at the time (had already realized I got bigger yields running HPS all the way through instead of only during flowering).

By the way... I'm assuming that you're using that reflector so that you can throw enough of that 1Kw bulb's output onto the walls of the space (instead directly onto the plants) that you won't end up bleaching the chlorophyll out of the leaves. But what was the motivation for going with a 1,000-watt HID setup for a mere nine square feet of garden area in the first place? It was free and so is your electricity, or...?

Thanks Tortured, The entire 1000 W setup was purchased, used, for $60 came from a failed small scale (3000 sq. ft) grow op. daisy reflector, switchable (HPS/MH) mechanical ballast and 3 HPS bulbs. Great deal at the time! The enclosure is homemade 3 X 3 X 5 high open top, using a white PVC roofing membrane with a high reflectivity index, (92% +) got that for free. I know the HPS bulbs are shot after three grow seasons and I'm thinking of switching to led mostly for power savings, electricity here in Ontario is hella expensive.

 

[TorturedSoul]

$60 for the entire light, that's not a bad deal, especially if at least one of those bulbs was new (zero hours of use). Seems kind of a shame you didn't have a larger space to run it in. If you end up keeping it for another grow, you might find some advantage in increasing the area of your grow space to about 20 square feet or thereabouts instead of 9. I'd expect your yield to go up at least slightly, assuming healthy plants and all that (including a new bulb). The difference might even be enough to pay your grow space's electric bill, IDK. I guess that's not relevant unless you're either buying bud now or would end up selling any excess.

Good luck on your lighting quest!

 

[TallGuyWithTheFood]

ive got two 600w magnetic ballasts and fixtures. Not using them as outside is still going. Could i run a 3x 6 room with those two??

 

[TorturedSoul]

Yes.

 

[TallGuyWithTheFood]

cool, now the question nobody wants to put their name on. Can i run cmh bulbs in those ballasts if they were 400w?? Can trade a mate for them.

 

[onewarmguy]

cool, now the question nobody wants to put their name on. Can i run cmh bulbs in those ballasts if they were 400w?? Can trade a mate for them.

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall reading something, somewhere, that a mechanical ballast can be used to power lower wattage bulbs, but they'll still use electricity at the same rate they were designed for and discharge any excess as heat. If that's correct your 600W ballasts could run your 400W mh bulbs but they'd still consume the same amount of power as they would for 600W.

 

[TorturedSoul]

cool, now the question nobody wants to put their name on. Can i run cmh bulbs in those ballasts if they were 400w?

Are you referring to the 315-watt CMH bulbs that have a different (two-prong) base? If so, that would be bad for their efficiency/performance, the bulbs, the ballasts, and possibly your house. Those bulbs require a low frequency square wave ballast. That's one of the reasons why they have different socket requirements, so nobody has a little "oops," lol.

 

[TallGuyWithTheFood]

Ok. Kinda what I'd dug up too. Bummer.