LED lights?

[agent 420]

While at Menards the other day I saw some lights labled 'LED'. The box said they were for lighting work areas and claimed to be super bright and as energy efficient as fluoro's. Infact, they had some compact flruoro lights in a similar style(fixture) right next to them used for the same thing.

Are these LED lights good for vegging/cloning or would it be a waste of time?

thanks.

 

[Sleepy]

how many lumens?

did they require a ballast?

superbright means nothing if not in the correct portion of the light spectrum to be absorbed by the plants.

zero UV=no good

 

[agent 420]

I don't remember the exact number for the lumens but it was definitely high.
I don't think it required a ballast.

 

[potdistiller]

Unless they are in the red or blue spectrum they are useless, lumens mean nothing for led's it is a specific wavelength (nm) that grows the plants. My taillights on my car are actually in the specific red wavelength to grow (flower) but it would be a real bitch to sit in the car with my foot on the brake for 12 hours.

 

[dubmantx]

I have seen LED growlights. Dont know if the lights your looking at would work or not though. Figure out the lumens and the color temperature and that should help. I dont think LED's get hot at all which would be cool if you could pull off getting some to work.

 

[guineapig]

over on reeferman forums there is a chap who goes by the name "Cogitus" who has some ongoing experiments involving LED lights......he made them using parts all of which are available at "Radio Shack".....he has Red Lights and has added some Blue Lights.....i think he said the photosynthetic activity that LEDs generate must be measured in "micro-einsteins" and not Lumens so there is a bit of unit conversion if you are interested in the light intensity and the light effectiveness in maintaining plant photosynthesis..... -gp out

 

[Verite]

I like my analogy of it, growing weed with leds is like humping with a two inch penis. From a functional standpoint a guy with a two inch penis will tell you it works just fine where as every lady will tell you something quite different.

 

[igotpron]

I like my analogy of it, growing weed with leds is like humping with a two inch penis. From a functional standpoint a guy with a two inch penis will tell you it works just fine where as every lady will tell you something quite different.

omfg, you tottaly rock!!! this analogy is something id expect to here from adam corolla on love line.. haaaa to bad the fool left the show..
well k+ to all you

 

[Guest]

Check this thread out....just don't tell him he has a 2 inch penis, lol.

http://oregongreenfree.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8284&hl=

1344 LEDs using 90w power total and producing the equivelent useable lumens of a 500w HID. 6 strips of 224 LEDs, 15w each.

 

[Verite]

Funny, thanks for the link. The first two things I can tell you from the pictures is one, that that plant in the picture was initially grown under something else and put there [ I have seen plenty of led grows and yet to see one produce a plant of that size and color. ] and two, there aint no way that thing is kicking out the equiv of 500 watts of hid, just take a look at the second pic and see how dark that looks without the camera flash. Now does that area really look like its got 500 watts of hid equiv lighting it up? Hardly. The thing looks like you could develope 35mm film prints in it.

Now look at what the guy spent on it, " $135 per strip x 6 strips plus $120 for the power supply and $40 for shipping, total $970. " For that kind of money I could have got a 600 watt hid and had enough money leftover for 30 lap dances. Kinda funny the guy mentions the thing will pay for itself in about 2-3 years which is exactly around the same time you'll die from aids from selling your ass on the street for weed because your silly led growbox didnt work.

Theres a perfectly good reason a flo tube works better than leds, and a hid works better than flo tubes, and a 1000 watt hid works better than a 400 watt hid, and the sun works better than anything, etc. And thats because of the distance of usable light it throws out. And thats another reason why that plant pictured in the link didnt come from that light setup, its way too large and not the right color of green as any other plant I have seen grown under leds.

 

[agent 420]

I guess LED's are out of the question.

thanks for the advice everyone.

 

[Cakes]

Some people have had great results.

Some people have had great results.

There's a report at treatingyourself where the grower reports getting incredible potency results from using LED.

When the LED was smoked, there was a tingling (and other) feeling that began in the forehead and travelled (to the lips and elsewhere); also the visual effects and mind high were exaggerated (called trytamine like). The effects lasted 10 -30 minutes.

When normally grown HPS herb was smoked following the LED plant, then the HPS herb lacked any of it's usual mind high and instead, the body stone was extraordinary and was strong enough to prompt the tester to lie down. The effects lasted 3-4 hours (about twice as long as usual).

She used 1000W of 660nm at five inches. Gave supplemental blue/daylight fluoros when she saw the bud development wasn't proceeding. It helped a little. but still, The highest yielder of the lot was only 1/9 of it's usual yield.

I'd like any links people have on using spectrums to influence herb growth and budding patterns, etc.

 

[tokinsmokin]

so according to cakes that means theres a lot of UVB that comes from the led. Since UVB is what creates extra resin.

I understand where verite is coming from, but since there is so little heat produced you wouldn't have to spend money on fans and air conditioners. And what happens if you adjusted the strips of led's so that there were tons of strips on every branch and you moved them according to the growth of the plant, you may be able to create enough usable light at a really close distance with those, and across the entire plant so there would be no blocking light to the lower buds. I'll wait for the scientist to do this, and maybe once they figure it out I'll try it, until then I'll live with my HPS, too much of a hassle.

Oh btw, I have no idea why those LED's are so expensive, LED's are cheap. You can get a box of a 100 LED's on ebay for 28 bucks. Of course you'll have to wire them but I'm sure you could do it much cheaper. I know how to get LED's and I could probably get something built for very cheap from a manufacturer that I know. hmm should I do the experiment .

 

[Cakes]

red = the fire inside?

red = the fire inside?

I have an online friend who really knows his stuff and he reports increased cannabinoids with the use of a wide spectrum blue oriented bulb along with cfl's that are rated 2700.

This kind of information is very interesting and appealing to me as well.

I'm kind of imagining a panel where you can tune in your spectrums like a tv.

The diy guys tried LED's for projection last year when the white LED ws first made but the bulbs are still too weak for that use. They do use 400W metal halide btw.

Those fellows might still have some bulbs or else you might hook into a group buy. http://www.diyaudio.com has a forum for group buys. There are prolly other forums like that at other sites as well.

got a link on reds inducing flowering? that's kind of new news to me.

 

[marimbas]

you can have a GREAT grow with leds, but there is one BIG time problem the lighning fixture is gonna be hard to do. ITs EXTREAMELY expensive!!

IT dosnt use as much electricity as a HID. But you would end up expending way too much. the NASA uses leds to grow stuff in the space shutles but that technologie is not that close to us.

We will end up migrating from HIDS to LEDS but in a few years...

Get a HID for now a digital ballast, with a cool tube and you are set.

 

[Verite]

Im sure someday it will have its place with other similar grows [ie cfl] but like cfl's they have issues with penetration beyond more than a few inches.

 

[br26]

Cannabis is a flowering plant, and there's a chemical compund which mitigates the flowering response in a plant, and that substance is called Phytochrome. Phytochrome is photo-reversible, which means that exposure to light of one wavelength can turn it into a form which is sensitive to another wavelength, and exposure to that wavelength will reverse it into a form which is sensitive to the original wavelength again. It is largely a signalling compound. Phytochrome has two forms of interest to us, one form called by a variety of names (Pr660, Pr, P660) which is sensitive to red light at a peak sensitivity of 660nm, and another form (Pfr730, Pfr, P730) which is most sensitive at 730nm. The improper stimulation of Phytochrome in experiments thus far is what I believe to be the cause of the lackluster results. That is only a theory, however, and is unproven.

To date, all experiments have completely omitted far-red light, using only red and blue visible light. These experiments have resulted in plants which do not perform well. On Cannabisworld before the shutdown there was a side-by-side comparison of a 30ish watt LED panel and a 70W HPS and the HPS yielded more than six times what the LED panel did at only a little more than twice the wattage. Another grow on Overgrow yielded a little over a half-ounce under 36W, but 9W of the 36W was a small compact fluorescent lamp which may have helped to even out the spectrum and provide more of what the plant needed during flower.

During vegetative growth, conventional LEDs are on par with fluorescents while consuming less energy, but you need high-power LEDs to compete with HPS. I say this because conventional LEDs are able to provide the right light in terms of wavelength (color) but not in terms of intensity. So the upper leaves of a bush would receive adequate light but the lower leaves would not, much like a grow using a few linear fluorescent tubes.

During flower, the spectrum needs to be adjusted to contain significantly more red as well as far-red in order to maintain a ratio of Prfr which will cause the plant to continue to produce flowers.

The use of far red is a theory, at this point, as it is unproven and untested. It seems the logical conclusion to me after reading much about phytochrome and how it functions, though. I haven't had the opportunity to verify this theory, but there will be a time in the coming months when I will be putting Kill Bill from Reservoir seeds to the test with a custom-designed LED array.

The other benefit that LEDs have is that they can be turned on and off in nanoseconds (billionths of a second) of time and this means that you could time the light output to the chemical processes which occur in the plant. Suffice it to say that you could dramatically reduce power usage if you were only providing the plant with light at the precise moments when it could turn that light into chemical energy, and not at any other time.

Most, if not all, of these concepts are outlined in a patent which was issued in 1988 and will expire in 2008, enabling just about anyone to market a device or system which meets the spectral criteria as well as the timed pulse criteria. The patent# is 5,012,609 and the title is "Method and apparatus for irradiation of plants using optoelectronic devices"

In short: do not buy the LED lights on the market right now, because they're a rip-off for anything but vegetative growing. In time, with proper spectral adjustment, LED lights will be able to perform on par with HID lighting in terms of growing mature, flowering cannabis.

 

[Verite]

I think we might be close to there when we can look at an led an it causes our eyes to squint at ten feet.

 

[Tokin White Guy]

just saw this yesterday...
http://hummert.com/catalog.asp?P=4939
equivalent to 400w HID
uses 75% less electricity, but
$1400!!!
not worth it imo, unless you're planning on using this for about 20 years, and who grows for more than a couple years w/o upgrading their equipment anyway

 

[marimbas]

thats what im talking about, it exists and its very usefull... but we are far from that, unless that thing costs about the same as a normal lightning kit, well its a dream... also
You would have to check out once the plants get tall how good the penetration will be... because What i have read is that NASA uses it growing Letuces, radishes, spinach, and that kind of short squad plants, plants that dosnt need lots of penetration...