What kind of light HPS or LED?

D

DaCannon17

New Member
Hello! So I'm setting up a new tent 3x3x7. I'm trying to get people's input on what kind of lights to use for top quality and yield. I grow single bucket Dwc and Scrog. My first grow I used a 250w hps with great results I got about 0.8g dry per watt. Now I want my yield to be more around 14oz. So I've been looking at LEDs. Am I going to get enough core coverage with a 450W to get the kind of yields I'm looking for? Or should I stick with hps? Also the reason for this question is to save money on electricity. Oh yeah and I only have 1 plant in flower at a time so those yields I'm looking for is per 1 massive lady. Please help.

Peace&Love
Cannon
 
:welcome:

Well it depends on how much you wanna spend, a 600w hps would get the results for
cheaper price then a 450W LED.
Also phillips 315w cmh full spectrum bulbs have longevity and low heat for a good price too. :woohoo:
 
Why not do both? If you already have a hps...get a 300W or 450W LED to add. Two lights one plant. Works for me.
Using this combo 500 grams is easy with the right strains
 
I would think it would all depend on how fast you want to get your return on your investment for the LED through the savings on your electrical bill. According the the web site of the LED you referred to the core coverage is 3x2.5, though while watching their video which only showed the PAR #s for directly under the center of the light the guy kept referring that you could see the whole footprint reading on their web site. I looked and could not find the other readings. But then again I am old and not real savvy when it comes to navigating web sites.

Do I think the LED will produce double what your 250 watt HPS did? don't know about doubling but I am pretty sure you should grow more then with the 250 HPS when you break it down to grams per watt. Less monthly cost on the electric bill? well thats a no brainer, 255 watts verses 600Watts. It is going to be about 42.5% less of what the 600 HPS will be. Before I piss of every HID loving grower on the site, let me state, HID's are great lights for growing, but much like the old muscle cars of our youth they are not very efficient. And in your situation I would say the LED is the way to go if you really want to up your yields. Couple of main reasons. 1- safety. That is a lot of heat for such a small tent and while an air cooled lamp will help with the heat you have the added expense of a vented hood plus you will want a high temp over-ride so incase the fan quits you do not burn your home down. 2- LEDs spectrums are in tune with what your plant needs so you have no wasted wattage for spectrums the plant does not need. and 3- if you are only able to get 11 ounces of dry bud verses 14, is it worth risking a potential fire which , best case sneer you all get out with out being burned and your home is only damaged, worst case sneer you do not wake up and everyone in the house dies. For what a few ounces one way or the other?

And for you HID lovers, I will say if used correctly and safely, they are like the muscle cars of the good ole days. Hard to beat but like those cars, I do believe they can be beat.
 
Colt I'm going to look into the Mars as well. Older grower I like your perspective on the lights. If anyone has great experiences with LEDs chime in with the brand, watts, yield, and space.
 
DaCannon17 said:
Hello! So I'm setting up a new tent 3x3x7. I'm trying to get people's input on what kind of lights to use for top quality and yield. I grow single bucket Dwc and Scrog. My first grow I used a 250w hps with great results I got about 0.8g dry per watt. Now I want my yield to be more around 14oz. So I've been looking at LEDs. Am I going to get enough core coverage with a 450W to get the kind of yields I'm looking for? Or should I stick with hps? Also the reason for this question is to save money on electricity. Oh yeah and I only have 1 plant in flower at a time so those yields I'm looking for is per 1 massive lady. Please help.

Peace&Love
Cannon
Click to expand...

Despite the crazy claims of LED companies saying things like (saves 50% electricity) I have found this is quite misleading. At the most you probably could save about 20% electricity over HPS with LED, but not much more than that. For cheapest solution and best results I would suggest getting a 600w HPS or 600w EYE Hortilux Blue for that area. If you want to fork out more money for LED it will be a much steeper price for initial purchase but may slightly reduce electricity needs therefore giving a slight Return on your investment over time, but it will definitely not be immediate.

I would say if you do go the LED route, ask each company you are considering for a 4'x4' grid with PAR measurements across the whole grid. Many companies like to quote the center PAR measurements which really has no bearing on how a light actually will perform or spread...for instance a 5w flashlight will have amazing PAR readings in a 1"x1" area, but would not even come close to being able to grow a plant. Therefore its important that we stress to these LED companies to provide 4'x4' grids with PAR measurements so we actually can make educated decisions instead of play their games. If they don't provide this info, how can we really know the truth about their light footprint?

Have you looked at Advanced LED? They actually provide the datasheets for every model they carry: Datasheets

For flowering you want to see at least 510 Micromoles across the entire grow area, 800 micromoles is about the goal for most growers, but this is across the entire grow area, not just the center PAR reading. With LED, the lights are very directional so in most cases multiple LED units are needed to compare to the spread of a HPS bulb. I would highly suggest asking for a 4x4 grid with PAR measurements every 1/2' from the LED companies because this is the only accurate way to know if a light will cover your grow area correctly.

PAR measurements and intensity have been studied numerous times and have a direct correlation with yield, no other lighting measurement has this direct relationship. :)
 
Dr Fish said:
How can you trust the data sheets when advanced changes it the to suit their needs... DS 200 LED Grow Light vs TopLED MARS II 400 Now there's this data sheet... DS200 Datasheet Check out the par/watts on each sheet.... You can't have it both ways.... One has to be wrong....
Click to expand...

Wow, good eye! I never noticed that and that is quite a significant difference... at that, I guess you can't even trust data unless its from a 3rd party unbiased lab.. Good find Dr. Fish.

I just emailed them asking why the difference so lets see if they respond and what they say. That's pretty shocking to me as I never noticed that.
 
Hey Icemud, good info there :) But I have to disagree with you one the savings point. LEDs are more expensive than HID but when you consider the cooling costs associated with HID, I think the energy savings would be closer to 40%. That adds up quickly if you live in a place like me where electricity costs are 15c per kwh.

As for PAR output, the only way you will get a true reading of that is if you own or can afford a PAR meter. None of the companies are going to tell you the truth, they are going to skew results to show that their light is better than the competition LOL its the way business works.

To get the best feeling for how lights preform, find growers on here using the lights that interest you, follow their journals and see how they made out. The experiences of others is a better gauge of a product than whatever BS a company is going to provide you :)

I own a Mars LED, which I am quite pleased with, but its by no means the BEST LED on the market. The problem is, the price of the higher end LEDs outweighs the extra performance.

If you look at the 2 lights compared in Dr Fish's post, the Advanced LED is a better light, it has CREE LEDs as opposed to the Epistar in the Mars light but the price is 2.5x that of the MARS 400 but only 50% better performance.

So, all in all, consider your budget and other growers opinions :) In my opinion, the MARS products are the best bang for your buck :)
 
I agree that all companies will skew the facts in order to make them look better. This has me thinking of starting a new thread, though it may have to go on the off-topic forum since it is not just the LED companies that skew information.

"Truth in Advertising?" Just once I would love to see this in my life time. I would buy their product and be a long time advocate for them, but I doubt it will ever happen. Imagine what advertising would be like on a day to day basics. Wake up catch the news and her is the next add you see... "I drive a (fill in the blank) not because I have to but because I am being paid to. Is it a great car to drive? Reliable and affordable? Great gas mileage? No, no and not really but hey unless you make a butt load of extra spendable cash chances are this is going to be the best POS you will be able to afford."
Here is another, "Here are XYZ LED company we offer you, over-priced, lights which will save you some costs, due to using less electricity and not having to exhaust to cool your grow room but lets be real here folks, you will be truly lucky if our $80 deluxe LED grow light will veg 1 plant, let alone flower it. Why do we charge so much? Face it, it is new technology, Will our plants grow great weed? Sure will and it does but not for $80 dollars, thats going to cost considerably more. Can't afford more for something that actually works? Yeah well life is tough and if My department doesn't start showing higher profits I will be right there with you so tough luck, get a second or third job. It is all about the money and when you have something that works and is new, make the profits while you can.
The list goes on and on.
This last week end I was driving along the coast here in Oregon and saw a sign saying, "Voted best Coffee on the coast" I asked "she who must be obeyed" did you vote? because I know they did not ask my opinion on it. We stopped in and had a cup. Her is my vote. While I have had worse tasting coffee in my 55 years of life, that coffee was no where near the "BEST" I have ever had on the Oregon coast.

Guess I am just sick of constantly being lied to, yet expected to be dependable,reliable and trust worthy or loose your job that pays the bills. Talk about double standards.

Sorry for babbling, still on my 1st cup of coffee
 
TheCelt said:
Hey Icemud, good info there :) But I have to disagree with you one the savings point. LEDs are more expensive than HID but when you consider the cooling costs associated with HID, I think the energy savings would be closer to 40%. That adds up quickly if you live in a place like me where electricity costs are 15c per kwh.

As for PAR output, the only way you will get a true reading of that is if you own or can afford a PAR meter. None of the companies are going to tell you the truth, they are going to skew results to show that their light is better than the competition LOL its the way business works.

To get the best feeling for how lights preform, find growers on here using the lights that interest you, follow their journals and see how they made out. The experiences of others is a better gauge of a product than whatever BS a company is going to provide you :)

I own a Mars LED, which I am quite pleased with, but its by no means the BEST LED on the market. The problem is, the price of the higher end LEDs outweighs the extra performance.

If you look at the 2 lights compared in Dr Fish's post, the Advanced LED is a better light, it has CREE LEDs as opposed to the Epistar in the Mars light but the price is 2.5x that of the MARS 400 but only 50% better performance.

So, all in all, consider your budget and other growers opinions :) In my opinion, the MARS products are the best bang for your buck :)
Click to expand...

The original poster was asking about HID vs LED and I have to say the best bang for the buck is still HID/HPS. The last thing I wanted to do was get into a Brand X vs Brand Y discussion since both are sponsors here and I understand that the forums don't like that type of post. But in all reality, for cost, HPS still puts out a much larger acceptable footprint vs LED for the cost. LED however does slighly up the quality of the product with more resin and trichomes and flavor so if quality is what he was seeking I would suggest LED. His original question though was what is the best bang for the buck and HID does come out on top for that question. I've used LED including the brand you mentioned as well as 2 other, and also HID and when looking at wattage used vs yield, LED requires almost the same wattage to produce the same yeilds as HID, with only about a 20% reduction in wattage used. This is why I mentioned it in my original post.

Now with that being said, HID and LED produce the same heat at equal wattage, but HID with air cooled hoods allows for a direct extraction of the heat, where LED vents this heat directly into the grow area, therefore they both need cooling, so comparing the energy needed for cooling is going to be about the same. Lets say you want to replace compare a 600w HID vs LED. With LED you will need approximately 500w of LED (actual draw) to compare in yield with that 600w HPS and looking at heat you will see that 600w HPS puts out approx 2046 BTU/hr where 500w of LED puts out 1705 BTU per hour. Not much of a difference but when you look at the ability that HPS can route a good percentage of heat out of the growing area, the cooling needs will be about the same.

I did actually purchase a PAR meter and since I have used both the panels that you mentioned, there is a drastic difference in PAR output in the panels. (verified by my apogee quantum meter) cheaper brand LED chips put out less light energy that the premium brand LED chips do and this can be verified through the data sheets of the LED brands for example an epistar red chips at max will put out about 240mW light energy where as a premium cree chip running at the same voltage and amp will put out around 350-400mW of light energy. so with about 1/3 more light energy, this is why better brand LED chips will show better results at the same wattage. They promote more electrical efficiency. This is off the data sheets of cree and epistar.

Cheaper chips also have a LM80 of around 37,000 losing about 20% of the output by this timeframe, where as premium chips have a LM95 of 67,000 hours meaning that in double the time, they only lose 5% of the light output. So a LED running cheaper chips will have to be replaced in half the time as a LED panel running better brand chips.

So looking at all that data, if you go LED and are looking at it as an investment, investing in a panel with better chips will outweigh the benefits of the quick buck you can save for a cheaper panel. Now back to the original OP question about HID vs LED. When looking at the footprint of LED vs HID, a 400w HID will put out a much larger uniform footprint than a 400w LED. Most LED's in this power range will have a footprint about 2'x2' and not much larger where as a 400w HID actually will be more around a 3'x3' area. Thus in the OP post using a 3x3 tent they would require the purchase of multiple LED panels raising the initial cost to almost double a HPS system. This is why I suggested to the OP a HPS system for cost effectiveness.

So to answer the OP's question, HPS would be the cheapest route to get results in terms of yield which was the main concern of the OP. IF they decided to go LED, well thats a matter of personal taste and reasoning but in terms of investment, spending a little more to get a panel with premium chips would be a better investment producing a higher yield based on photon efficiency, longevity but the savings will not be huge compared to HID.

as you all know, I'm a LED nut and love the technology, but I also like to be honest as much as possible and for the OP to be truely happy with his next purchase I think HID would be the way to go in terms of yield. I gotta get ready for work so my apologies for this rushed response :) I do appreciate everyone's feedback and input on the question and I just wanted to offer the best suggest for the OP's money.
 
Apparently Icemud has already had both cups of coffee this morning :thumb:

Very well written and very clear. By far the most complete and accurate reasoning I have read so far on the question.
Sure wish I had paid better attention in English class when I was younger.
and it is a fact, that a watt of power produces the same amount of heat weather it is a LED or HID, those silly Watts do not care.
I know you are current with growing with both and are very knowledgable in both, my experience with HID's for growing is way outdated, and even with my experience with electrical, it has been many years since I have worked with HIDs in the field. As for 500 watts of LED to compare with 600 watts of HID, I will take your word on that since you have more experience in the actual usage and comparison, though I would have put it more in the 450 to 480 range. But honestly thats not really that far off either way.

I do actually agree 99% of your whole post, the only thing I did not see you mention though was the cost per KWH brought into the equation. I do know that Oregon for example has cheap electrical power and if you actor that in, your statements would be 100% right on, though not every place has cheap electrical. In fact some places it is down right expensive. Take that into account and it could change the total yearly cost to run those lights and offset the higher initial upfront costs of the LEDs. A lot of variables with important information left out of the equation. The key word there was "Could". It just as easily could not change a thing depending on his costs per KWH. Another thing I did not see mentioned was availability and what kind of back up plan for break downs? I would think, that HIDs would be more readily available to buy on a moments notice should a fixture fail as opposed to waiting on a warranty issue to be resolved. With just one light, if it fails, your fault, the manufactures fault, anybodies fault, the plant does not care they just want the light. Better have a contingency plan or be prepared to loose the whole crop.

I really hate these kinds of loaded questions here, because to be fully 100% accurate on the answer, one has to know all the variables and we seldom get to know them all. That and being a good communicator and knowledgable like Icemud helps a lot too.
 
oldergrower said:
Apparently Icemud has already had both cups of coffee this morning :thumb:

Very well written and very clear. By far the most complete and accurate reasoning I have read so far on the question.
Sure wish I had paid better attention in English class when I was younger.
and it is a fact, that a watt of power produces the same amount of heat weather it is a LED or HID, those silly Watts do not care.
I know you are current with growing with both and are very knowledgable in both, my experience with HID's for growing is way outdated, and even with my experience with electrical, it has been many years since I have worked with HIDs in the field. As for 500 watts of LED to compare with 600 watts of HID, I will take your word on that since you have more experience in the actual usage and comparison, though I would have put it more in the 450 to 480 range. But honestly thats not really that far off either way.

I do actually agree 99% of your whole post, the only thing I did not see you mention though was the cost per KWH brought into the equation. I do know that Oregon for example has cheap electrical power and if you actor that in, your statements would be 100% right on, though not every place has cheap electrical. In fact some places it is down right expensive. Take that into account and it could change the total yearly cost to run those lights and offset the higher initial upfront costs of the LEDs. A lot of variables with important information left out of the equation. The key word there was "Could". It just as easily could not change a thing depending on his costs per KWH. Another thing I did not see mentioned was availability and what kind of back up plan for break downs? I would think, that HIDs would be more readily available to buy on a moments notice should a fixture fail as opposed to waiting on a warranty issue to be resolved. With just one light, if it fails, your fault, the manufactures fault, anybodies fault, the plant does not care they just want the light. Better have a contingency plan or be prepared to loose the whole crop.

I really hate these kinds of loaded questions here, because to be fully 100% accurate on the answer, one has to know all the variables and we seldom get to know them all. That and being a good communicator and knowledgable like Icemud helps a lot too.
Click to expand...

4;cups to be exact and yet still sleepy eyed...lol great posts everyone! Time for work, have a great day everyone.
 
The xte200 does not have an edge over the ds200 if you use the data from their comparison with the mars 2 400... plus the mars2 400 doesn't get thrashed so bad with the new data sheet.... the ds200 on site data sheet needed the par/watt reduced for the ds200 so the xte 200 looks better on paper... it is their new and better light.... I have a ds200 and was checking the data sheets to see how much better the xte200 was... Looking forward to see how well they backpedal on this.....
 

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