Can LED's do a pound or better per harvest?

[Buju09]

I'd agree, give it max 2 years this will have been adopted by most major electronic companies on some level. I mean I've been seeing LED light bulbs for 20 bucks ( was imagining a cfl style set up with led's screwed in instead hehe) in you're general hardware stores (RONA, HD, etc) and like the CFL's that were once higher priced they'll come down as well as production ramps up across the market.

I mean were seeing televisions, phones, using LED tech it only makes sense it will bleed further into the lighting market as it's consumer interest improves. Essentially we should thank every person who paid the higher costs at the beginning of its product life cycle or we would never have enjoyed some of these great LED grow diaries from a technology that died off due to lack of funding.

 

[CalcioErba2004]

LED fixtures can be bought for about a dollar a watt if you look hard enough. A 600w digi ballast, a magnum xxl hood, 6in HO can fan and a 600w horti bulb runs about the same price...

I am HID all the way...but I still got and LED 240w fixture to test it out. The one thing that HPS lights don't have that these LEDs do have is UV. Buds will always be frostier under UV lights(mH are UV as well). After doing some light readings, LEDs blow CFLs outta the water. A 500w LED unit put out way more than 792w of CFLs. We haven't tested HIDs yet but I'm sure it will be close.

The best part about LEDs is no noise. I don't have to worry about big extraction fans making a bunch of noise and possibly alerting people to the fact that something is going on inside my house, making curiosity peak enough to break in and steal my stuff(its already happened). If a lb is 2000 bucks then why not just invest into LEDs and see your return come back on not getting robbed and not paying as much in power to cool your grow.

Now lets talk about space. Where I can fit 1 1k HPS, I can also fit 3 maybe 4 500w LED fixtures. Lets say 3 to be conservative. That's 1500w vs 1k with an HPS. Lets say they make as much heat as a 1k so you gotta cool it...well you gotta cool it anyway with 1k watts right? Only its 1500w...and if its done right, you're hitting close to 1 gpw like the grows that were shown.

That's an extra lb from each 1k HPS area...you do the math...

 

[GP73LPC]

LED fixtures can be bought for about a dollar a watt if you look hard enough. A 600w digi ballast, a magnum xxl hood, 6in HO can fan and a 600w horti bulb runs about the same price...

I am HID all the way...but I still got and LED 240w fixture to test it out. The one thing that HPS lights don't have that these LEDs do have is UV. Buds will always be frostier under UV lights(mH are UV as well). After doing some light readings, LEDs blow CFLs outta the water. A 500w LED unit put out way more than 792w of CFLs. We haven't tested HIDs yet but I'm sure it will be close.

The best part about LEDs is no noise. I don't have to worry about big extraction fans making a bunch of noise and possibly alerting people to the fact that something is going on inside my house, making curiosity peak enough to break in and steal my stuff(its already happened). If a lb is 2000 bucks then why not just invest into LEDs and see your return come back on not getting robbed and not paying as much in power to cool your grow.

Now lets talk about space. Where I can fit 1 1k HPS, I can also fit 3 maybe 4 500w LED fixtures. Lets say 3 to be conservative. That's 1500w vs 1k with an HPS. Lets say they make as much heat as a 1k so you gotta cool it...well you gotta cool it anyway with 1k watts right? Only its 1500w...and if its done right, you're hitting close to 1 gpw like the grows that were shown.

That's an extra lb from each 1k HPS area...you do the math...

they don't, there is no IR heat from LED's like there is HID lighting..

huge difference...

 

[CalcioErba2004]

they don't, there is no IR heat from LED's like there is HID lighting..

huge difference...

I am learning this.


I was just saying that to show the difference. I had 3200w in a 10x10, ideally I woulda put 4k in there. With the 500w LED fixtures I could put 6k watts and by what you are saying and by what I am learning is that I wouldn't have to cool it like I would 4k watts of HPS. Cool, thanks.

 

[GP73LPC]

cooling is built into each LED array.

no external cooling apparatus is required...

 

[alkalien]

That's not correct, you got to get the heat from the LEDs out. They do heat the grow space a lot. And everything that has a temperature emits infrared light. Hold your hand close to the LEDs panel, you will notice the infrared light.

But you would never hold your hand that close to a hps, it would get burned.

The best LEDs you can get today will waste 50% of the energy on heat, which of course is way less than a hps, but it still is a lot! The benefit is, this heat is on the upper side of the light and the infrared part of it is not going to warm the plants because they are too far away.

 

[GP73LPC]

LEDS are also not going to heat a room up like HID would.

Sure they have a little heat but nothing like HPS. And it depends on the density of the LEDS and the LEDS themselves when holding your hand up.

I can touch my dust cover on my array and keep my hand there.

my point is you need nothing special for cooling lights or dissipating IR heat fro HID...

 

[alkalien]

LEDS are also not going to heat a room up like HID would.

Sure they have a little heat but nothing like HPS. And it depends on the density of the LEDS and the LEDS themselves when holding your hand up.

I can touch my dust cover on my array and keep my hand there.

my point is you need nothing special for cooling lights or dissipating IR heat fro HID...

Yes you are right, not as much as HID would, but almost as much! HIDs are almost as efficient as LEDs, they are probably even more efficient than cheap LEDs! And if you don't exchange the air in your growspace you will be running too hot.

The huge difference is are the heat density and the spactrum. The heat density is lower and the heat difference between the light and the surrounding air is way lower. The heat difference is the key to heat transportation, in the formula for heat transportation is a quadratic equation of the temperature difference. That's why the heat won't be transported by direct radiation but by convection of hot air. If you suck out the hot air above the lamps all the heat is taken care of. But you sure need to suck the air off your growspace.

Air is a poor heat transmitter but stores heat pretty good, the air moves arround your growspace even if you don't have a fan installed. If you limited the exchange of air by insulating your growroom will get warmer almost as fast as it would using a comparable HID system.

What leads to your impression of not having to cool is, that the IR light the HIDs emmit will heat up everything the light reaches pretty fast. For cooling it down again, the grower has to cool everything in the space by creating a steady stream of air everywhere. That's why you need way more air movement for HID grows.

The big advantage of LEDs over HIDs is the better balance of the spectrum. You "loose" a lot of emmited energy of the HID on green light which plant's can hardly use for photosynthesis. That's where you get the better efficiency of LEDs from. The efficiency of the whole system, meaning Energy of radiation / Energy consumed is not that far apart. BTW: CFLs do have a even better overall efficiency than LEDs but the worse spectrum and the fact that their angle of radiation is way worse than the LED's makes them worse for growing.

 

[GP73LPC]

i'm not saying growers don't need air exchange in their rooms, cabs, etc...

what i am saying is the radiated IR heat difference is huge IMHO... As someone who has grown with 2 150 HPS's in the same cab, i can tell you the IR heat compared to me LED array is huge.

now granted my LED has never been enclosed in a cabinet, but if it was the effort to cool the cab would be minimal as compared to HID.

this is my experience... i don't have a super powered LED so that could be a big difference as well.

With that said, my two Welthink WEX-C150's are way cooler than my two 150 HPS bulbs...

 

[rives]

GP, I think part of the reason for the big swing in what you saw from your 150 HPS's vs your Welthink 150's is that your WEX-C150's actually draw about 25% less power according to your charts. I had to increase the size of my exhaust fan last summer when I was using a Lumigrow ES-330 and (2) 55w PL-L lamps over when I had been using the same total wattage (440w) of all PL-L lamps. My filter was also several months older, so I may have picked up some resistance there.

I know that they push the ES-330 pretty hard and the airflow coming off of it is a little more difficult to get directed the way that you want, but I was actually pretty surprised at how much heat it did put out. I would agree that it is no where near as intense as an HID, but it is substantial.

 

[alkalien]

i'm not saying growers don't need air exchange in their rooms, cabs, etc...

what i am saying is the radiated IR heat difference is huge IMHO... As someone who has grown with 2 150 HPS's in the same cab, i can tell you the IR heat compared to me LED array is huge.

now granted my LED has never been enclosed in a cabinet, but if it was the effort to cool the cab would be minimal as compared to HID.

this is my experience... i don't have a super powered LED so that could be a big difference as well.

With that said, my two Welthink WEX-C150's are way cooler than my two 150 HPS bulbs...

I'm not saying you are wrong, not telling the truth or anythin like that or even worse. I know what you mean by saying what you say. The problem is that it can be misunderstood and that is what I want to prevent.

There is so much misleading information about LEDs arround, I want people searching for information on LEDs to find clear statements what LEDs can do and what they can not. LEDs are great for growing, as you know, I love them. But there are things you need to know when you plan on running them, if you plan to run them in a closet without venting they will warm the closet fast and will run way too hot.

As said above, you are right the venting can be way smaller and way less noisy, you can grow with LEDs in spaces that are warmer than you can with hps. This of course means the infrared emmissions from the growspace are lower and harder to detect by flir cams.

 

[Herborizer]

I am glad this thread is here, I have contributed to the poll and thread, and do follow it. Though,the original question seems a little silly to me. Also, in my opinion it throws everything off when making lighting choices.

First of all, just about any light out there can produce a pound or more per harvest. Given enough space, plants, and quantity of lights. If I had enough flashlights and batteries I could grow a pound with them.

I believe the fundamental debate is more in the features. For example:

*Temperature management. Some people are trying to reduce the heat while others need to increase.
*Power efficientcy.
*depth and width of grow space. We know led is good for smll spaces, but how about a 4x4 table in a 5x5 tent?
*height. Distance from light to growing tops.
*quality of buds.
*quantity of buds.
*cost of power.
*maintenance costs. Bulb replacement, unit replacement.
*purchase price.
*Security. Sound pollution, flir, etc.

For example, I believe that two Lumigrow es330 's would work great in my 5x5 tent over my 4x4 table with 6 plants scrogged. I think it would take two es330's to cover the footprint and to produce the roughly 600g I harvest with my 600w Mh and 600w with magnum xxxl hood. (single electric ballist with two different bulbs). Though, this setup would cost more power in maintenance, and the upfront costs are about 5x as much. The exhaust needs would most likely be the same and noise and flir are not a concern for me.

 

[GP73LPC]

GP, I think part of the reason for the big swing in what you saw from your 150 HPS's vs your Welthink 150's is that your WEX-C150's actually draw about 25% less power according to your charts. I had to increase the size of my exhaust fan last summer when I was using a Lumigrow ES-330 and (2) 55w PL-L lamps over when I had been using the same total wattage (440w) of all PL-L lamps. My filter was also several months older, so I may have picked up some resistance there.

I know that they push the ES-330 pretty hard and the airflow coming off of it is a little more difficult to get directed the way that you want, but I was actually pretty surprised at how much heat it did put out. I would agree that it is no where near as intense as an HID, but it is substantial.

and thus my saying my LEDS are not as high powered. my LEDS are also not spaced as tightly as some others.

how much IR are your PL-L lights putting out as compared to HID???

I'm not saying you are wrong, not telling the truth or anythin like that or even worse. I know what you mean by saying what you say. The problem is that it can be misunderstood and that is what I want to prevent.

There is so much misleading information about LEDs arround, I want people searching for information on LEDs to find clear statements what LEDs can do and what they can not. LEDs are great for growing, as you know, I love them. But there are things you need to know when you plan on running them, if you plan to run them in a closet without venting they will warm the closet fast and will run way too hot.

As said above, you are right the venting can be way smaller and way less noisy, you can grow with LEDs in spaces that are warmer than you can with hps. This of course means the infrared emmissions from the growspace are lower and harder to detect by flir cams.

i agree and want the truth available to new LED growers too...

and yes, i agree if closed in a closet it will get to warm. that goes for all lighting pretty much...

 

[GP73LPC]

I am glad this thread is here, I have contributed to the poll and thread, and do follow it. Though,the original question seems a little silly to me. Also, in my opinion it throws everything off when making lighting choices.

First of all, just about any light out there can produce a pound or more per harvest. Given enough space, plants, and quantity of lights. If I had enough flashlights and batteries I could grow a pound with them.

I believe the fundamental debate is more in the features. For example:

*Temperature management. Some people are trying to reduce the heat while others need to increase.
*Power efficientcy.
*depth and width of grow space. We know led is good for smll spaces, but how about a 4x4 table in a 5x5 tent?
*height. Distance from light to growing tops.
*quality of buds.
*quantity of buds.
*cost of power.
*maintenance costs. Bulb replacement, unit replacement.
*purchase price.
*Security. Sound pollution, flir, etc.

For example, I believe that two Lumigrow es330 's would work great in my 5x5 tent over my 4x4 table with 6 plants scrogged. I think it would take two es330's to cover the footprint and to produce the roughly 600g I harvest with my 600w Mh and 600w with magnum xxxl hood. (single electric ballist with two different bulbs). Though, this setup would cost more power in maintenance, and the upfront costs are about 5x as much. The exhaust needs would most likely be the same and noise and flir are not a concern for me.

thanks...

the original question was for nothing more than proving the naysayers wrong... i knew the answer when i posted the thread, obviously...


let me know when you start your flashlight thread

 

[Herborizer]

Typo. I use a 600w ballist and xxxl hood, with one 600w Mh bulb for veg, and one 600w hps bulb for flower.

 

[uptosumpn]

Typo. I use a 600w ballast and xxxl hood, with one 600w Mh bulb for veg, and one 600w hps bulb for flower.

Well again....I use pretty much the same thing, BUT havent purchased that magnum xxxl 6 YET! <<But if and when I do I was also going to get the thermal hood cover for it..by hydro innovations...<anything to keep it cool in there as well as help defeat FLIR! <which is my MAIN concern!!! My grow space is a 4 x 4. and I am so ready to go LED, BUT I'm gonna ask again, for that space....WAIT!! let me tell you guys what i'm doing....I grow AUTOS, via SOG, so I will have 32-40 2gal pots in that 4x4 space..with my 600hps I can get, on avg, 1oz per plant dry....remember, FLIR is my biggest concern, (as I grow perpetual/stagger crops) SO,.. what size,(wattage) & how many LED panels would be suffeicent as my 600hps to @ least get those same or BETTER numbers????

{{BTW, I have 2 windtunnel 6 inline fans, 409cfm ea....1 of them is attached to active-air filter with enough suction that the sides of the tent sucks in...<<passive intake. Or/And I can use the other fan,(that wouldv'e been used for reflector) for active intake....Will I need more than that for LED's, depending on the amount of panels you guys recommend?}}

 

[blueberrydrumz]

very interesting thread.. ill be doin a test grow for a dutch LED Company very soon... they sent me 2 * 240W Units... looking forward to it

 

[GP73LPC]

what brand?

please PM the link if you do a grow thread...

 

[lbezphil2005]

Well again....I use pretty much the same thing, BUT havent purchased that magnum xxxl 6 YET! <<But if and when I do I was also going to get the thermal hood cover for it..by hydro innovations...<anything to keep it cool in there as well as help defeat FLIR! <which is my MAIN concern!!! My grow space is a 4 x 4. and I am so ready to go LED, BUT I'm gonna ask again, for that space....WAIT!! let me tell you guys what i'm doing....I grow AUTOS, via SOG, so I will have 32-40 2gal pots in that 4x4 space..with my 600hps I can get, on avg, 1oz per plant dry....remember, FLIR is my biggest concern, (as I grow perpetual/stagger crops) SO,.. what size,(wattage) & how many LED panels would be suffeicent as my 600hps to @ least get those same or BETTER numbers????

{{BTW, I have 2 windtunnel 6 inline fans, 409cfm ea....1 of them is attached to active-air filter with enough suction that the sides of the tent sucks in...<<passive intake. Or/And I can use the other fan,(that wouldv'e been used for reflector) for active intake....Will I need more than that for LED's, depending on the amount of panels you guys recommend?}}

one black dog led bd 700 will do the trick - if you really want to see your numbers jump, go with his big dog, a 1300 watt behemoth you'd have to run it's own circuit to, but it will blow 1k's out of the water like an atomic bomb, bro. black dog led's are the best on the market, hands down. your foot print is perfect for this light, it will blow them babies up like no tomorrow - get the flower model and you'll never regret it, bro!

 

[GP73LPC]

one black dog led bd 700 will do the trick - if you really want to see your numbers jump, go with his big dog, a 1300 watt behemoth you'd have to run it's own circuit to, but it will blow 1k's out of the water like an atomic bomb, bro. black dog led's are the best on the market, hands down. your foot print is perfect for this light, it will blow them babies up like no tomorrow - get the flower model and you'll never regret it, bro!

a lot of people are gonna disagree with you about this...

Black Dog leds only put out HALF of their listed wattage...

check out the LED Retailers thread in my sig