re: GreenThumb J's Twilight 165W LED Grow Journal & Review - BC SweetTooth - DWC
Hey everyone, Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been busy with my other journal harvesting my White Widow.
The BC Sweet Tooth turned out to be male. So i chopped it.
The Twilight LED is now in my flowering tent as a supplemental light.
So, with that being said, that brings an end to this Journal.
I haven't heard from Twilight in weeks, so I dont know how interested they really were with this journal when they gave so many other growers better lamps to review.
However, i still thank them very much for this opportunity, as it was a very cool chance to get to use a "sort of new" piece of growing technology, and it was very very nice of them to offer it to me.
My overall impression of the light.
Pros:
it did perform well. It kept heat to a minimum, and caused the plant to stay short and stout. The lack of heat produced meant i needed
no additional cold air intake other than the air exchange created by the exhaust fan in the tent.
The spectrum is very well rounded.. Great vegetative growth. I cant really say how it performed in flower, as we did not make it that far in the journal.
- Easy to use. Plug and grow
Cons:
- Under powered. 165w only draws about 96w from the wall.. You aren't going to grow much with that.
- The lack of heat produced did not keep the LED tent warm enough, therefore i found vegetative growth to be very slow compared to vegetative growth under a MH or a T5HO fixture. This was due to lack of transpiration, which promotes water and nutrient uptake. The more water and nutrients your plant takes in, the faster it will grow. People dont understand that theres a good reason that MH and HPS bulbs work so well, cause they create heat which will cause your plant to drink water at a faster rate. if your plant is healthy then rapid nutrient uptake will occur as well, and you will have
- Its a bit over priced for the size of panel. For
less money, you can get a 300w TopLED panel which is just about 2x the watts than the Twilight Classical 165w LED
- Very small footprint. This lamp is ideal for one very small plant off in a corner somewhere, or used to start seedlings in their first couple weeks of life.
- Very short power cord. most HID reflectors come with a 15' power cord. This cord is only 6' long! making it kind of difficult to arrange the electrical in your grow space if using short corded panels.
Final Thoughts:
While the lamp was under powered, it
did perform reasonably well. It was my first (and probably last) grow using LED's tho, so i don't know if that was a factor at all, as i didn't grow the plant any differently than i normally do, other than make sure the tent didn't get too cold.
Everyone has heard my opinion on LED's but let me try to quickly summarize it for those who are catching up late, or just cruising through.
While i think LED's are a great technology, they aren't anything new. Light emitting diodes have been around for quite a long time now, and i feel that at this point, they should be able to keep up to par with traditional HID lighting. The fact that you need 2-3x more LED watts than HPS to achieve the same yield should speak for itself. The fact that LED's cost on average 2-3x more expensive than HID lighting is also something to seriously consider.
For example, from topLED's website (because i shouldn't bother the mods talking about non sponsor sites where i can buy sponsor products at half the price), i can order a MARS II 1200w panel shipped to my house with tax and exchange rate for about $600 and a bit. I feel that this particular panel could easily match, or even outperform, a 600w HPS.
However, for that $600 and a bit, i can buy
three 600w HID packages complete with ballast, CoolTube reflector, timer, Yoyo, and a MH and HPS bulb as well for $200 per package. With those 3 lights, i can grow 3x the amount of product as the single LED panel. Now in order to match that, i would need to have 2 more 1200w LED's at a bargain
of a deal at $600+ each. Thats another $1200+... Now how many 600w lights could i buy with that money... see where i'm going?
Alot of people say its the power consumption reasons they buy an LED.. And i can understand how people try to justify their huge purchase with this little myth. However,
on average around the Country (the US at least, its a bit cheaper here in Canada) it costs
approx $35/month to run a single 600w HPS for 12 hours a day in the flower room. So for a flowering period (2 months) it would cost you about $70
approximately. Sure it doesn't seem like a whole lot, but yes, it adds up quickly. Especially if you're in an area where power costs are much higher. But lets talk about where it really counts. The size of your yield.
If you're someone that doesn't grow perpetually, you have to wait for a grow to finish before you can clean up, and decide what you are going to do next. If your last harvest wasn't very large, you could smoke up your medicine before you even plant some new beans! And that would be a huge bummer to have to sit around for months on end with no smoke, or going to your local dealer buddy to buy some stuff on the street, thus costing you your hard earned dollars. This is why i always stress to people grow as big as you can! Less plants equal more space for the plants you
do have, to grow even larger. Bigger plants yield heavier harvests, its not rocket science to figure that out. My good friend
TheCapn also stresses the fact of using your space efficiently, keeping your plant counts low, but pulling in huge harvests with each plant. Now onto the bread and butter
If you yield say 14 ounces from one plant under one 600w HPS, and you wanna swap it out for a 600w LED because you think using half the power is going to save you money, but you yield an ounce or even two ounces less (most likely more than that) you have already lost money on your investment.
Heres a breakdown. You're a medicinal vendor and an ounce of premium bud goes for $200. you grew 14 zips on one plant under one 600w HPS.. You swapped it out to "save electricity" and under the 600w LED you grew 12 zips (probably less).Well you just lost $400 in potential income to save yourself half the electrical costs to run that 600w HPS which like i said only costs on average $70 for a 2 month period. in two months, you have just lost $330. even if you only grew one ounce less, you just lost $130 in potential revenue.
Sure you might use half the electricity, but lets talk about that return of investment.
Using my average number above, an HPS would cost you $35 a month times 12 which would equal $420 (Coincidence?) a year. A MARS II 700w panel pulls half of what my 600w HPS does, and, like i expected, does a smaller footprint. Right there, with a smaller footprint, i am going to yield less than my HPS. So the MARS II would cost me $210 for the year to use. Savings of approximately half right?
Alright now (for sake of argument) i have flowered out a plant under my HPS and i get 18 zips of premium buds, and i try the same thing under the MARS II 700w. If growing the plants for the same length of time, I would bet that i would yield 4+ ounces less under the LED than i would under HPS. If an ounce of premium bud goes for $200, thats $800 lost revenue. That $800 would pay for 2 years of electricity for your HPS!!
Another huge reason people buy LED's is for heat issues, and this is the one reason i could possibly justify buying an LED panel.
Buying a portable AC unit like i have would cost people almost $600, and severely rack up your electric bill (unless you live where i do and its electricity is cheap) LED's will keep the heat down in your grow space, but at the lack of yields.
Personally, an AC unit is more useful than you think. In the winter time, i take it out of my grow space and put it in my bedroom with the dehumidifier setting on cause the apartment is very energy efficient so the interior stays warm, and the cold outside causes moisture to build inside.. the dehumidifier keeps my GF from snoring too loudly so i have to sleep on the couch. In my opinion, one of the best $600 i've ever spent.
I could go on and on and i said this was going to be quick which is wasn't. I just dont feel people should skimp on their grows. If you wanna do it, do it right. You dont need the most expensive stuff on the planet to grow good quality medicine. Its 10% equipment and 90% grower. Remember that when you are blaming this and that for problems you are experiencing in your grow room. LED's are great i think for vegetative growth, but other than that, i think that the amount of watts you need to flower as well as an HPS is ghastly overpriced compared to what it would cost you to grow the same amount under HID's. Just my 2 bits tho.
Would i buy this particular lamp? No. If i were to buy an LED i would purchase a much larger LED panel capable of flowering huge plants.
Would i suggest this lamp to someone? Yes. If they were growing in a very small space, like a 2' wide x 2' long x 5 feet tall space, that would be the maximum size i would suggest growing using this particular lamp
Thank you to everyone who followed along to this journal for your comments, your likes and the reputation given, and Thank you to Twilight Groups Ltd., (wherever you are!!) for providing me with this lamp to review. Jason at Twilight Groups is a fantastic sales rep, and i hope their company does well in the future!
I did consider doing another review on this LED panel on a feminized strain, but frankly, this particular panel is too underpowered and i would require at least 2 more of these panels to efficiently grow a plant in the method that i do, and in the 4'x4'x6.5' tent that i have.
If Twilight was willing to offer me a couple more panels, or preferable a larger panel, i would happily do another product review on a strain that is feminized, so that the journal doesn't come to an abrupt end like this. But that is for the sponsor to decide. I considered purchasing a 1000w Classical panel from twilight, but for the same price i can get 2x 600w HPS packages for my 8x8 tent. And the 1000w panel draws the same as my 600w HPS does anyways, so i'm using the same amount of power anyways.
I had photos of the Sweet Tooths last moments, but we have all seen a chopped up plant before!
Stay tuned to GreenThumb J, because i have a couple interesting journals starting up in the next month or so, as well i will be starting a blog series documenting the things i have learned, things i am learning and the things i am talking about with one of our favourite members who is no longer here on the forums at 420,
TheCapn.
So for those who are missing his blogs and his useful tips and information, GreenThumb J is going to try to give you guys a way to still get the information he has to share, and the all new things he is up to and working on as of late! Capn-Style 2.0 is currently in the works!
Again, thank you to everyone who made this journal fun to do. Having people to share these grows with is what makes this site so awesome.
Stay medicated friends!
gutted that it had to end here man.
