I should have mentioned this is an autoflower and the LED was added to the CFL's just 16 days ago. My post wasn't intended as a rebuttal to your experience, just describing my experience in relation to my personal expectations. Your plant looks nice as well. Just my personal experience, I'm liking the LED so far.
Ah, that would make just a little difference. All good bro.
I like LED as well. I'm just trying to justify the cost involved. I didn't expect the results of the cfl to be as good as they appear to be, and the LED's I expected more out of.
This is a great discussion friends, thanks for the civility
I think the value proposition is either found or lost in the grams/watt ratio that is achievable.
If the ratio is similar to HPS, then I'd conceed that LEDs are probably best for stealth, low heat closet type grows.
If the ratio exceeds HPS, there's a huge value in my view.
Say for example you could get 1.2 g/watt LED and 1 g/watt HPS. That extra 20% is worth $270 per grow per 126 watt light (assumes $300/oz value). That puts the payback at only 1 grow cycle - right?
This in no way negates the reality that still need to have the start up funding to aqcuire the lights.
And of course we need to see more of these LED journals finish up so we can start getting a larger sample of what is possible. Ideally, we'll see some 2nd and 3rd journals so the learning curve will be factored out.
Just my personal opinion
I've been thinking about your question. I think your thinking is sound, I just think your numbers are off. Here's how I see it. We'll use this grow for the example with a few changes for ease of math.
1. add +1 - 126w. make yield 1.5g/w for the LED. 504w vs. 1000w
LED - 4@$450 = $1800 initial cost
HPS - $700? high side??? bulb, dig balast, hood??
I'll use 4 harvests for each year.
LED - 4 x 126w = 504w @ 1.5g/w x 4(harvests) = 3024g year
HPS - 1000w @ 1g/w x 4 = 4000g
LED = $0.59 per gram
HPS = $0.17 per gram
but your using 1/2 the electric (I'll figure it at using 60% to account for fans)
I've seen people say a 1000w will increase their power bill about $60-$80 a month. LED using 60% less is about $24 - $32. So add +$45/month for power @12 = $540.
So HPS goes up to $0.31 per gram being less costly per gram while yielding you a little more than 1 LED harvest.
Let's throw cfl in the mix for people like me who won't grow with HPS. While not as cool as LED no where near the heat of HPS.
cfl's - 2 - 300w hoods w/ flower and veg bulbs. $700
CFL - 2 x 300w = 600w @ .75/w x 4(harvests) = 1800g year
For the sake of argument let's also throw up numbers for LED @ 2g/w
CFL - $0.38888 per gram
LED = $0.59 per gram @ 1.5 g/w and $0.446 @ 2g/w
HPS = $0.31 per gram
Expected yields -
cfl - 1800g / year
LED - 3024g / year @ 1.5g and 4032 @ 2g/w
HPS - 4000g / year
Still yielding less for more cost. Unless someone can show they can pull 1.5+ it's actually more expensive than cfl's while yielding you only about 200g +/- a year.
Now Soniq where I think your argument comes in more is if you compare watts for watts but HPS than loses it's power disadvantage and only having heat as the disadvantage.
Change the LED numbers above to reflect:
LED - 8@$450 = $3600 initial cost
LED - 8 x 126w = 1008w @ 1.5g/w x 4(harvests) = 6048g year
8 x 126w = 1008w @ 2g/w x 4(harvests) = 8064g year
I didn't do much math last post so I'm a little surprised my guess of 1.6 or more was as close as it was. You'd actually have to pull more than you would with HPS as an actual yield or be buying or selling retail to supplement your stash for the retail cost to come into play BUT .... IF someone could pull 1.5g/w and decided to use the same watts that your getting an extra 2 harvests a year. 2048g / 27g/oz = 75.85 oz @ $300 (conservative) = $22,755. Lots and LOTS of if's in that line of reasoning right now with the results being shown though.
Now if a rank amateur can pull 1g/w or a little more. Well .. their is an entire industry dedicated to fancy expensive wine openers because people can't use a $2 corkscrew correctly.
