As was pointed out - yours is one of the few that I consider a successful LED grow. So please, sf, don't think I'm picking on you. Quite the contrary. Gonna use your numbers because I respect them.
The rest of this post is not directed to sf, but to everyone. I think what's got me concerned are the two things Doc and ledtester pointed out. So I'm gonna do a little math using basic circumstances. And I'll use sf's numbers for comparison. A little bigger. A 6 plant medical grow. (No offense, sf, but what you smoke in a month would last me about a week). We'll assume the medium, pots, and nutes and all other costs not related to the lights are the same:
This is from the HGL site, describing the 126 Penetrator:
Maximum Coverage Area of 24" x 36" @ 12" above your canopy, with a Recommended Lighting Area of 18" x 30"
I have a couple of different ways to light that area - that's even a little smaller than my smallest, but pretty damn close - but for flowering, for a very good yield one could use a 600HPS. A ducted 600 + a fan would be about the cost of the one 126 Penetrator. Which sells for $475 from their site. So that seems to me to be a fair starting point for a comparison.
Then we have all the things we all know about that makes the LED more efficient over time - lower electricity for the lamp, lower heat, less AC, etc... all that equates to : the electricity bills would be much lower for the LED setup. For me I would likely save about $50 a month. And every Year you'd have to spend $ on another bulb for HID theoretically.
BUT at the end of 8 weeks at even just .5 g/w the HID will deliver at least 300g dried almost guaranteed. And that is a VERY conservative grow. If SS did it he would get 450+ from that area almost guaranteed. McBudz is getting a POUND a month from two 6x6 areas.
6 harvests a year (1 every 8 weeks perpetual) = 1800g/yr
Now lets use $15/g as a number for a value for that smoke. If I had to go to a dispensary and buy it. Again - conservative I believe for good smoke.
Using our conservative .5 g/w: 1800g x $15 = $27K worth of meds. / yr.
Factor in the cost of the replacement bulb: $100
And the difference in the electricity / month: 12 x $50 = $600
Value of HID Meds $26,300
Now we do the same with the LEDs:
Using sfhaze's numbers of a solid 1.0 g/w. If someone can show me higher we'll use that. But I'm using a best-case scenario for the LEDs and an avg for the HIDs so seems fair.
Using that 126 Penetrator that equates to 126g of meds per grow in the same area.
6 Grows/ Yr = 6 x 126g = 1008g of Meds/yr = $15,120
We don't subtract anything cause the LEDs are more efficient.
Value of LED Meds: $15,120
$26,300
- $15,120
----------
$11,180 More meds from the HID.
And this is assuming that the site is not over hyping the square footage coverable by the LED light. A 600 could actually easily cover more than that area, I leave it to you led folks to let us know whether you think their 126 really could cover 2'x3' well.
So, as far as I'm concerned, as far as g/w - in order for the LED to really provide the same amount of meds for the same price - it would need to be slamming out a CONSISTENT 2g/w AT LEAST! If you matched best case scenario against best case - the LED would need to crank out over 3g/w to compete.
SS - I hope you don't mind my putting all this stuff about HIDs in your beautiful thread. I guess I have just sorta written off the final conclusion as far as a comparison of HSS vs HGL this time around. There's really no doubt about which light performed better. So I was trying to extrapolate from your very well documented numbers and grow to a broader comparison. As I am going to be spending some serious $ on new lights in the near future, and I'm such the technogeek - I have really been hoping that LEDs would be my answer. Your grow has really helped me nail down the numbers for myself as well as I could possibly have hoped without actually having the LEDs to test.
EDIT: I was just re-reading their site - and they compare their 345 to a 600 in terms of watts but the growing area is only 30"x30". I guess because of their flat design it gets funky figuring out optimal # of plants. So running those numbers they come out about the same as a 600HPS (again assuming you use .5 for HPS and 1.0 for LED ) but the cost of the initial light offsets any power savings or bulb the first year.
The numbers on their site simply don't make sense.
126 : Maximum Coverage Area of 24" x 36" @ 12" above your canopy, with a Recommended Lighting Area of 18" x 30"
345: Maximum Coverage Area of 36" x 36" @ 12" above your canopy, with a Recommended Lighting Area of 30" x 30"
almost 3x the wattage and only 30% more sf
Its like they decided what the numbers needed to be, then used those numbers for advertising.
Sun
and 
for showing us the vast difference between these two brands of LED. I think HGL LEDs are probably comparable to equal watt CFL's at best but certainly not HID's as once claimed by the makers. Good if you've got heat issues I guess but still way too expensive IMO. Whatcha doin for your next grow mate???
) to be more competitive, because you can tell by the hit count, peeps were watchin...
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