300W LED vs. 400W HID Demonstration

[Tyrone Hamilton]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Awesome thread so far Sun, and it's only gonna get better! Now get some sleep, you're of no use to us tired...

I have to say I love the CRF / TRF discussion - DocBud, IrishBoy, SS, The Lurker... you guys ROCK!

 

[Propa Gator]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

The photos, the show. What is there to know?
We will watch to learn now, and upgrade our grows.

https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/what-you-listening-106.111508/post-1175300 I'll Follow The Sun

 

[dogsnova]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Propa G...... I just went and listened to that Beatles link... I dig that tune...

Lookin back on that page... Hell I think you posted the best one...lol

 

[Propa Gator]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

I dig that tune

So did everyone in '64/65 Dog, and we bought the records.

It was the hair that pissed off the establishment, and inspired a generation.
Long hair??? Oh yeah, and smoking weed

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Nice countdown. Looks like I got here at the right time! Exciting times ahead

~Peace~

Very good timing! MJ Crescendo!

This is were we all sing along.....

Thanks dog, one of my favorite tunes .

Now this is gettin' exciting!

How are you judging the distance to keep the LED from the canopy?

In the pic the height of the LED looks even to that of the MH. My thinking would be you could get more light intensity by lowering the LED till you find the "sweet spot".

It's getting very exciting. I've been waiting to do this grow for a long time, and it's finally come together.

I'm judging the distance to the canopy right now by the experience I gained with this LED light on a grow I just completed. I underestimated the intensity of this LED light on that grow, and would have run it a bit higher in retrospect, so I started both the HID and LED at 28" off the canopy, and today I dropped both lights down to 24".

I haven't noticed any stretching, just overall vigorous growth in both tents.

trust me that led light should be plenty close enough. these 3w leds are better off not being too close. in veg i have mine around 26" in veg and its plenty close. plus i am sure he is trying to harden them off since they came from CFL's

yup, been watching them very closely for any signs of stress, but at 24", they're doing OK. I may have to break out the infrared thermometer and see what the canopy temps are.

the setup looks great SS.. even thing looks as even as its gonna get.. Ive been waiting to see this for some time now. thanks allot for doing this grow for us.

thank you Irish, I've been waiting a long time myself. I'm glad you're here and following this grow .

Well, all-righty then. Let the games begin!

indeed

Count me in!

thank you molotov!

Well im strapped in for the ride and ready to see dis comp get it on.

right on Nasty!

Incredible work. Can't wait to go into orbit.

thank you, Two Tokes!

love your user name

Awesome thread so far Sun, and it's only gonna get better! Now get some sleep, you're of no use to us tired...

I have to say I love the CRF / TRF discussion - DocBud, IrishBoy, SS, The Lurker... you guys ROCK!

thank you OBX!

I decided to go with a CRF on this grow also, so I hope the discussion on CRF's continues.

The photos, the show. What is there to know?
We will watch to learn now, and upgrade our grows.

https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/what-you-listening-106.111508/post-1175300 I'll Follow The Sun

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

I'm strapped in

Gotta love the hempy, yeah. I probably missed it, but what is dat dere for?

Even if it's just a belly button, it sure looks perfeshenal

Looks like a grommet Horse; in reference to what that is. SS tends to be a bit OC+ (obsessive compulsive + ) in his grows. eheh! No offense SS!

GLAD YOUR ROCKING THIS TEST!!! There are many people excited and I am on the edge of my seat!! I am getting ready to invest again in units...and it is all down to wattage at this point. Can't wait to see again what that 300 can do!

Thanks SS. Much respect.

-Go

No offense taken Go. In fact, what you said above cracks me up because the grommets could very well be something to appease my OCD, but in this case, there is a method to my obsession .

Those are 1/2" rubber grommets, Horse, and you drill an 11/16" hole to install them. I found this reinforced tubing that won't kink or collapse, and that fits snugly into the grommet so I can easily set up a drainage system.

I may set these buckets with an active hydro recirculating system, and I would also need drains for that. For now, I'm just going to elevate the buckets a little and have them drain into a tray.

The drains are plug & play, so I can just stick them in there when I water and take them out when I'm done so they're not in the way.

The I.D. of the tubing is 5/16", so a bit smaller than the traditional 7/16" hempy hole, but I think it'll work OK. The tubing is labeled:

5/16" I.D. C6580 PVC W.P. 250 P.S.I. USA KTM090217 14:34

fits perfectly into those 1/2" grommets.

The bucket drains might offend hempy purists, but that's OK, they're not coming over to help me water 8 buckets, lol.

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

veg update:

Here's a couple of pics of the LED tent without color correction:

and now corrected:

and now the HID tent:

I wasn't able to bury as much of the stems as I was hoping because the buckets just weren't tall enough, especially with the 2" of perlite filling up the bottom.

The bucket setup is coarse #4 perlite for the bottom 2" up to the hole, and then 60/40 coco/perlite above that.

For nutes, I'm using:

The application rate on the bottle is 2 1/3 Tbsp for a 3-gallon pot. I used an even 3 Tbsp, or approximately 1 Tbsp per gallon, and I incorporated it evenly into the coco/perlite.

I'm watering with RO water supplemented with 5ml of Botanicare Cal-Mag per gallon. The Cal-Mag brings the PH down to 6.0, so we'll try that and see how it goes.

The lower foliage is still showing some signs of the magnesium deficiency I had earlier when I was using tap water, but the new leaves are looking great.

There was no transplant shock at all going into the hempy buckets, and their growth has been off the charts since I transplanted them.

Both the LED and the HID plants are adjusting to their new light sources and doing well.

 

[MJ Crescendo]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Setup looks like it is going very smoothly! I like the Dynamite and amount you fed them with. Should keep the girls happy throughout the grow. There is so much free space in your tent. Mine is packed full lol

I bet by now you have the LED tuned in quite well. You know I'll be rootin for the GLH to win. I'm on the ride to learn more about the coco/perlite with Dynamite all purpose as the source of feeding. Seems much easier then mixing up concoctions twice a week. I also like the idea of coco/perlite for airpots. Haven't decided on my grow medium for next grow (RP OG#18 just got here) under my 180w, but hopefully by the end of this I can make a solid decision.

Best of luck
~Peace~
-MJ

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

I have a copy of the Blind Faith album with the controversial cover that was pulled, and a very well-played Sgt. Pepper's .

 

[dogsnova]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Is it later yet?

I would say it's getting close..

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

I still have an unplayed Sgt. Peppers complete with the paper cutouts. Bought three the day they came out, played the living fecal material out of one, recorded the second on 1/2 tape and kept the 3rd for later. Is it later yet?

I like to check ebay's completed auctions to get an idea of how much my old crap is worth

That was smart buying three and keeping one mint and unopened. It might be later for that one, depending on your current personal economy .

Auction house, ebay bidding frenzy, collector in Japan who needs it to finish his collection. You could do well if the timing is right.



fond memories of ditching school, firing up the cannabis du jour, slapping on the headphones, and kickin' it with some Floyd.

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Setup looks like it is going very smoothly! I like the Dynamite and amount you fed them with. Should keep the girls happy throughout the grow. There is so much free space in your tent. Mine is packed full lol

I really like these CRF's. They make growing a lot easier and less work. I have some outdoor LR2's in dirt that I'm also using Dynamite purple on. They've been blooming for a couple of weeks and look like they have a calcium deficiency, so I also switched them from tap water to RO + Cal/Mag.

My tap water has plenty of calcium, so not sure what's up with that, except that I remember reading somewhere that tap water calcium is not as accessible to plants as the calcium in a product like Cal-Mag. Gonna keep using the RO and Cal-Mag for now, as it seems to be working better in both the coco plants indoors and the soil plants outdoors.

I bet by now you have the LED tuned in quite well. You know I'll be rootin for the GLH to win. I'm on the ride to learn more about the coco/perlite with Dynamite all purpose as the source of feeding.

I got a pretty good feel for the intensity of this LED light from using it on my last grow. Even in bloom, the GLH 300 Spectra seemed to work better at least 14" off the canopy, and maybe even up to 16", so it doesn't need to be close, especially in veg. If I notice any stretching, I'll drop it.

thanks MJ!

 

[Propa Gator]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

G8R, waddya think about two 400 W retros hung the proper distance apart on a string with an eccentric to move them up and down? It would be a lot cheaper than a mover, easily built, [especially for the talented, you know who you are] and simple. It would also increase yield and look kinda groovy.

b

Months back b, I studied on that idea. I agree it can be done, but I have not yet seen objective evidence that light movers on any axis are worth any bother. Two stationary stacked 400 retros can ripen a 36" tall wall of colas. That's enough
While I believe that I make 'better' use of a small HID, SSs' set-up is conventional, within anyones' reach, and useful. My personal growing goals now are about large(r) scale with butt-simple engineering.

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

The benefits of bare vertical bulbs, both from heat management and light energy, are very significant and very worth pursuing.

I'm a believer, but yes, keeping things more or less conventional for *now*.

I'll be standing on the shoulders of Gators .

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

The ladies are doing great.

Hempy buckets are still heavy and won't need water for a few more days. I like the 60/40 coco/perlite mix. It's lighter than straight coco, but in these 3-gallon buckets, the 60% coco still retains a ton of water. After watering, these buckets are *heavy*, but the mix feels very loose and light.

Plants are adjusting to the LED and HID lights without any issues. Since this is a sativa strain, I don't want to wait too much longer to flip them.

I'm planning to LST them in a couple days and then veg them about a week more after that before I flip them.

temps are close, with LED on the left, HID on the right.

The twin fluorescent display shows temps inside the tents. The other two meters are showing both temps internal and external temps, with "out" being inside the tents, and "in" being outside.

Because these Accurite thermometers are located on top of the tents, they read my garage's ambient temp a few degrees high.

The ambient temp in my garage at the time was 77.

 

[smokinweedgi]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

great .very thorough journal here ,maybe have missed it but do you have total watts used/drawn for each side?

 

[dogsnova]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

rechecked my power usage on the 300w GLH unit with a Kill A Watt meter and here's the readings:

The above pic is a recheck of the light with the meter I used initially, to verify that the readings haven't changed significantly, which they haven't, and to confirm that the discrepancy between my unit and dog's unit was due to using different meters.

dogsnova measured his unit with the Kill A Watt meter at:

Amps 2.92
Volts 113.1
Watts 361 to 365
Power Factor 98

My unit with the Kill A Watt:

Amps 3.02
Volts 119.4
Watts 354 to 358
Power Factor 98

And now the 400w HID readings...

The bulbs ran for 30 min or more to stabilize things before taking readings.

This is the Lumatek digital ballast and Sylvania 400w MH bulb, at 428w.

and finally, this is my 400w magnetic ballast with the same 400w MH bulb at 514w.


sorry the pics were hard to read, it was hard trying to include both the meter and the light while eliminating glare on the meter's LCD.

Hope this helps you out Smokin'

 

[Doc Bud]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

I'm lurking bro!
Everything looks great! I haven't decided which team I'm on, the LED or HID team. Perhaps I'll just remain neutral and enjoy the grow?

RE your mysterious calcium deficiency in your outdoor grow:
Try amending the soil with some gypsum next time. Problem solved.

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

I would be a rich man if I still had just my posters from the 60's

b

in the bigger picture you're a King, my hippie friend

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

great .very thorough journal here ,maybe have missed it but do you have total watts used/drawn for each side?

High smokin!

Hope this helps you out Smokin'

thanks dog!