[I seem to have typed a little bit more than I'd planned on, lol. Would not have posted this had Mike not appeared to be cool with some amount of tangential discussion. GrowLEDHydro, if this is a problem let me know and I'll ask a mod to delete it. I'm a fan of you (and others) trying to show practical results of your product and believe that whatever the results end up being, you'll ultimately sell more products - and have happier customers - by doing so.]
EDIT: The
main thing that I have concerns about is the spectrum produced by LEDs in general. LEDs are by nature are a "digital" thing rather than an analog one in that they produce (more-or-less) POINT spots of the light spectrum, while an HID, CFL, the sun, etc. produce their light spectrum in a curve. I am not convinced that we are at the "point" where the best spectrum for all phases of growing is being produced by them. With other types of lighting, they might not be nearly as efficient (for the sake of argument), but as they produce their light in a much larger and connected piece of the light spectrum, they are (obviously) more likely to include
some amount of the best parts of the spectrum for growing. I am not knocking any LED or manufacturer in general or as a whole, I'm just of the mind that more research, experimentation, and practical grows would be very helpful. Actually, I have to give them a nod because many of them seem to be doing more work along these lines than the HID manufacturers have done
taken as a percentage of the length of their existence as a whole. After all, it was not the HID manufacturers who did all the grunt-work and experimentation when their products first came out, it was the growers who experimented with parking lot (etc.) lights.
i hate to disagree with you but u dont save on power unless you can match a 1000w hps with the 600w led light. ill break it down. with a 600w hps you drawl i dont know lets say around 750w with the ballast and vent fans and everything needed to vent the room. with this 600w led light it drawls 749w without count you venting, so u use more then you would with a 600w HID. know you can save on heat, but if you have a good vent system heat isnt as much as a problem. now you might get better more potent bud from led because of the less radiant heat not hurting the THC like it dose with HID. but at the end its all down to what kind of setup you have and ur grow area.
now if this 600w led can beat a 1000w hps then you save.
Don't fall into the trap of assuming that your situation is the same as everyone else's. I withhold judgement on LEDs because I've never been able to afford to purchase one in order to do my own side-by-side under controlled conditions (clones from the same mother, multiple runs with different plant-spacing and grow styles, same nutrient types - with the caveat that differing lighting can and will affect nutrient requirements and that if one overfeeds the lesser, it's not the light's fault that the plants were burned (and thus gave even less than they could have) - etc.). But I can think of situations where even a little extra heat above ambient would be a problem (or just unwanted). And the same goes for venting - either the ducts required for the fans, the noise, or the heated (however much - or little) air that is output. Sure, in many cases that is not the case and in many more a little ingenuity will provide a viable solution, but this is not universally the case - which is a big reason why some people prefer water-cooled setups (next to silent, instead of a 6" - or whatever - ducting system you can run two 3/4" - again, whatever - sized water lines, etc.). There might be some who look at those people and say, "Why do you need to water cool your setup? My light doesn't produce a prohibitive amount of heat and all I've got to do is..."
Not that I'd recommend (or condone) someone growing in a sealed college dormitory, but some do and a cool-running light would seem to be something that they would have an interest in.
but at the end a watt is a watt no matter what kind of light source it is.
A watt is a watt - this much is true.
But "a watt is a watt no matter what kind of light source it is" is a misleading statement. If two different light setups use approximately the same amount of electricity, but one is significantly cooler than the other... Then by definition it is a more efficient light. Electricity in provides light and heat out. That's how it works. Which is NOT to say that the cooler-running light is automatically the better one to use. The most efficient light still isn't worth a pile of beans (I mean REAL beans
) if it is not producing the correct spectrum. And there are other factors such as a light's penetration capability (one reason I wish they'd quit screwing up the lottery draw and finally produce the correct (lol) numbers - so I could do a bunch of different canopy experiments) that
must be considered. And even then it's not so cut and dried - one
might conceivably produce more with less power with a light that has less penetration-ability - but this would depend of course on the configuration of the garden, grow method, strain(s) used, etc., etc.
There's an awful lot of factors involved in determining whether any given setup works - and works as well as it possibly could. And they are pretty much all inter-related.
you have to be able to beat a 600w yield for it to be more cost effive
I don't know about the cost-effective argument but yeah, I would have to see a 600-watt LED beat a 600-watt HPS to truly climb on board. Or at least for the performance to fall within accepted ranges. But since there is not ONE correct gardening style and ONE available strain of cannabis, there is still going to be a lot of room for variance.
i dont think its the air temp that gives ur plants heat stress but its the radiant heat that hurts and dries out ur plants from HID light. thats why i can grow out side in 115F* weather and be fine.
Err... Radiant heat produced by the sun at high noon on a 115°F day is a bitch too, lol. A lot of the reason that plants will survive outdoors (and why they can droop worse on very humid days when the air is still) is because nature has provided them with a built-in cooling system. Plants uptake a LOT of moisture on a hot day and transpire most of it for the cooling-affect that it provides (large trees can and do transpire THOUSANDS of gallons of water on a hot day). That is also (part of) the reason why a good DWC setup combined with a good amount of air moving constantly across the plants can survive in someone's uninsulated attic in the summer time - and give a harvest of at least some amount.
I'm just saying that there are other factors at work in determining whether a plant lives or dies in the heat than the type of light - and that I expect that they are the more important ones.
i dont think 100w will have enuff intense light. i believe 180w is the bar min u should go with led lights. what would you rather have ten 100w HPS or one 1000w HPS? i would chose the 1000w hps for sure. same thing with leds i would think? more intense light and penetration = fatter buds witch = more yield of grade A+ bud.
I started to agree with that, but you're comparing apples to Toyotas, lol. The HPS lights you are referring to are single-source lights in which higher wattage equates higher light-output, penetration, and efficiency. But unless you're comparing them to a fixture that consists of a SINGLE LED, that argument goes out the window as invalid. Every LED fixture that I've seen pictures of uses multiple LEDs - sure some use more powerful LEDs than others, but we're talking about, what, 5-watt LEDs? I haven't a clue right now, lol, as I mentioned I don't have one. But larger, more expensive fixtures from the same manufacturer tend to produce more wattage by using more LEDs. It's kind of like using CFLs. Will one 23-watt CFL penetrate a thick canopy? What if you place another 23-watt CFL beside it, will it penetrate any better? Or just shine more brightly on the portion of the canopy that it does penetrate. Yes, the lights are different and of course the wattages and penetration-capabilities - but the idea is the same. With multi-point light sources the maths are going to be different and I'm in no condition right now to even wrap my head around them. But they are different.
(And at this point I've got to give consideration to the "multiple panels vs. one single higher-wattage panel" argument - assuming that the types of LEDs, spectrums, and power-levels
of each individual LED is the same. Well, in that I would give the same consideration to the multiple CFL setup; if a person knows that (any given light) only has a certain amount of penetration, they have the option of placing more lights deeper into the canopy. I don't necessarily find this to be the best solution, but obviously people do - I've seen grows that reminded me of Christmas trees with CFLs here and there around the plant(s), and although I chuckled, they did manage to have a harvest.)
I dont agree with you here ... if youre going to refer to 600w HID as a baseline then it should be equated properly ...
How much electricity does my light use? <SNIP>
I see what you're saying and tend to agree with it. In a nutshell (~TS~ being brief, lol?), you are meaning that people should be comparing setups of equal gross wattage?
Most HID lights need a 240v outlet ..which requires special wiring and hiring an electrician to do it safely.
Umm... NO. Most HID lights - sold for horticultural use - can use either ~120 or ~240 volt supply depending on the cord-set used (some automatically, some with a switch). Others have multi-tap ballasts that can be reconfigured in less time than it takes to open the case. In the past decades I've seen the insides of <COUGH> a few ballasts. Most of the ones that I looked at that were not of the multi-tap variety were made to run on 480v and would not be a part of this discussion. (But I freely admit that I've not seen every ballast setup. But enough to discount your statement. Maybe you didn't mean to include that bit in your C&P, lol?)
Further, the wiring used in a 240v run is not "special" and can be purchased at any hardware store (even Lowes and Home Depot department-store hardware stores).
And the hiring of an electrician is only required if one does not have the skill-set needed to grab a decent DiY book on wiring(etc.) - or to download an eBook, or look at a good DiY web site - read it, comprehend it, and correctly follow the procedures - including the safety aspects. It's not brain-surgery and it's not Eastern mysticism and unlike such things as psychiatric diagnosis/treatment, wiring is not different for every situation. Yes, there are differences between one setup and the next but if something is done according to the NEC then it is going to be standard. And even in the unsafe setups, there are only so many ways that one can provide steady electricity. A good book will show plenty of pictures of the unsafe setups too so that the reader can tell when he really does need to hire an electrician. But that has much more to do with the existing setup than with adding a new run.
But... If a person really does feel that they are over their head in doing simple wiring tasks... Then they're probably correct and really should hire an electrician. After all, some people cannot even figure out how to change the oil in their vehicle, either (and I actually watched a woman add water from her garden-hose to her crankcase once, lmfao).
I haven't even begun to calculate heat/w .. the cost of cooling nutrient solution or the ambient air temp... or the cost of replacing a bulb every other grow.
In truth all such variables need to be given consideration when comparing total electricity used. But as people's setups are different, I'd just go with the gross wattage of each fixture and make sure to mention the difference in heat-output (and requirements that might stem from it), bulb-life, etc. separately so a person knows to consider them all
in "light" of his or her setup.
You cant tell me otherwise because I run 400w HPS all day in a cooltube with those exact configurations and pull 12oz a month.
I can't argue with the possibility of grossing 12 ounces of well-trimmed bud from 400 watts (well, 430) of HPS because I've been there. But...
Per MONTH? You harvest 144 ounces per year from a single 400-watt HPS? And what strain would this 30-day flowering wonder be?
I mean if you consider saving 75-150 dollars a year HUGE DEAL then by all means stock up on LEDs but you cant say your saving all sorts of money like a flood gate opens because your not.
I consider saving any amount of money a huge deal because I consider WASTING any amount of money (or anything else) a huge deal. After all, we aren't single individuals existing completely within our very own universe; the conservation/wastage of the planet as a whole is something that is often missed.
I'm just not entirely certain what the bottom line is going to turn out to be with using LEDs for horticultural things as opposed to HPS or other types of lighting.
And I'd want to see everything factored in from concept to end-of-life. After all, look at the Toyota Prius. An "eco-friendly" automobile that people purchase either because they honestly want to "help" (or at least take more time in hurting) the environment or because they wish their neighbors/coworkers to think that is their motivation. But when you factor in things like mining and refining the ores used in producing the things (think about the materials used in all those batteries), transporting that and all the individual components, combining them all in the manufacturing process, the useful life of the components, the impact of disposing/recycling/replacing the used components... In actuality, a person who purchases a Toyota Prius is doing FAR more harm to the environment than a person who purchases the average BMW - even after you factor in driving an equal amount of miles per year in each (and the pollution that doing so produces). Err... RANT-mode off, lol. People that do things "for the good of the planet" without stopping to figure out whether or not they are actually doing any good at all are just one of my pet peeves.
Im running 360w of GHL led and in the small space their in a have to run the same amount of cooling as I would with a 400w HPS.
I would like to see some studies done in order to determine the actual gross amount of heat produced per hour in all the various types and sizes of lights. THAT would be very useful.
i love it