led ratings if you please

[gasman420]

hi guys and gals i have been looking at loads of led companies lately and have narrowed it down to a few, deff not those chinese knock offs, i would like to hear from any of you that has used and been impressed by yield off them and also what make and model they are as they are quite expensive i dont want to buy the wrong ones
taker her easy

 

[budlover123]

What is the difference between a Chinese knockoff and an American or European Knockoff.

As far as I'm concerned, the closest thing to a rating any of these companies give you is the wattage they run the thing at and the color of the leds in nanometers.

Would you buy a reflector, ballast, and bulb combo that only works with that one bulb type if you had no idea if the bulb was any good or not?

To further clarify, 400 watt HPS bulbs = 400 watts HPS performance. They all work about the same, some are better than others, but marginally. 400 watts of LED = ? (where ? indicates a wide range of performance)

LEDs are another story, you could be pumping a bunch of power into 3 watt leds and get less light than you would from the same amount of leds running at 1 watt, if the LEDs are efficient or not, wattage tells you nothing, not like it is a clear indication of performance like with HID bulbs

As far as I'm concerned, Chinese or not, you really have no good idea about what you are paying for.

Are they actually putting decent LEDs in these $1000 dollar lights? Maybe, but even if they mention that the LEDs are made by a reputable manufacturer, it doesn't mean that they are any good.

I want to know how many lumens a white or red light outputs, and how many miliwatts of blue a blue LED emits before I'll buy one of those expensive ass lights.

yes, lumens do work for red if you are comparing it to other red lights

If we actually get the facts on these lights that would be great, but it would also be a good opportunity for assholes to misinform, so please, supply the sources of your info. Good luck though, I can't ever find it.

 

[sm0k4]

All you can do is check out other LED journals and get a light you like the results of. There are a few companies out there getting positive reviews.

 

[budlover123]

That is about thae best you can do, and it's almost as good as spending $1000 and finding out for yourself because who knows about the reviews. They could be wrong for any number of reasons.

 

[sm0k4]

It would have to be a review or journal from a respected or long-established board member though. A positive review from a recent member could be a red flag. Or you can research LED technology on your own and then you can sniff out the BS lies from the truth.

 

[Oldmac]

I swore a couple of years ago I would not enter into any further LED discussions here, but I would like to make a couple of points.

There is a least one company that has supplied very usefull information about thier products, Theroreme Innovation.
The TI Pro-Bloom 600 has a listing of it's total photosynthetic photons per unit of time, 183 umol/s (micro-mole per second). They contain 150 LEDs; 105 red, 18 blue, 15 white and 12 "proprietary" (UV & IR).
I purchased 2 of these in July '08 for a cost of $2590 and they were pre-production units, serial # in the single digits. There were no reviews at the time but they gave good specs. Plus it seemed that alot of smart people worked on the engineering. Only problem is they are a Canadian company and if you deal direct and are in the US, you need to deal with NAFTA paperwork. That means providing federal bussiness ID or individual name and SS #.

I used them in a partnered grow, with a skeptical partner, but proved to him side by side with his 1000w HPS, that 2 pro-blooms could keep up with produced weight. That's 1,150 watts actual to 660 watts actual.

If you adjust your growing style to SOG or SCROG they can out produce the HPS. I have built aero/fog trays I call "fogfognugen" that are 2- 4x4 trays with 2 pro-blooms per tray mounted on a light rail. Yes we bought 2 more, actually this past year we bought 2 more to replace the 2 originals since the pre-production units are stainless metal and the production units became plastic housings, and the mounting was "rube Goldberg" to the light rail to keep them at even heights. The two originals are now being used in another grow with smaller foggy trays.

I have also seen a 165 Lumigrow that a friend purchased to use over one of my 2x2 trays, and he is having excellent results with it. Tho I don't have any specs for that light.

In my personal grow I've been using a DIY light for the last 4 years. While it was originally going to be a all LED light, it wound up being a hybred LED/T5 due to a mistake on my part. It consists of 240 red Cree's 635nm (nobody had 660nm ATT) driven at 650ma for abt 1.75w each and 8- 2' T5 driven to VHO 40w each. 420w total red LEDs / 320w T5 2700k. That's 740w total not counting drivers, PS and ballasts. While it does not save a whole lot over a 1000w HPS the finished wgt and product is superior.

I've been using LEDs in one form or another now for nearly 6 years. Oh, I forgot to say "LEDs have a ways to go". LOL

OM

 

[grow101]

Listen to Oldmac here. With LEDs you will still need high output power (100W LED won't outperform a 400W HPS), and UV and IR (at least far-red 740nm) are missing from most units, but are essential for a balanced grow light. You can easily even this out when you use LED in addition to Fluorescents and metal vapor. This combination will give you more than each part of it would promise. I'm not saying 90W LEDs wouldn't grow anything, and if you are doing just a little self supply you might be happy enough with that. My 100W DIY served me well enough for 3 years (now serving along 250/400W MH/HPS), I hope my opinion is of some kind of value.

 

[Oldmac]

Thanks grow101, when I first started with LEDs I was shooting for at least 50% energy savings overall. I sort have in the Veg stage of my personal grow, "transplanting" RW macro plugs into 4" delta blocks where more blue is needed for establishing roots. This veg period is rather short, just a couple of weeks or till they are about 8" tall. But have since seen the light and am more interested in a better finished product and wgt then in energy savings.

In the interest of full disclosure, I use supplemental far red (730nm abt) even with the TIs. Far red is not that neccessary durring the flowering photoperiod, but it is more a factor of when you use it. Far red applied just before lights out (abt 15mins) and going at least 15min to 30min after lights out is more improtant. The last light your plants should see is far red. This has two effects, it adds abt 2 hrs to the dark period (in the plant's chemistry) and helps to keep the plants shorter. There is scientific evidence to this effect. I also use the same effect at lights on but can't confirm it's usefullness, I just copied what greenhouse operators do, they call these trigger lights. You need to watch the plants carefully that you don't over due the morning routine, since it jumps starts the plants growth and could offset the shorter node spacing.

Rather then use LEDs, it is cheaper and easier to controll if you use halogen incandescents, such as GE Reveals for a far red source for this supplemental lighting.

OM