Vert with LEDs?

[flat9]

Benny -- as for all your other comments, I agree completely, especially bashing HGL. They're pretty much ripping you off.

Thanks for the link btw. One thing I don't quite understand is why the penetration of LEDs isn't quite as good as that of HIDs. Do you have any insights?

 

[Bennyweed1]

Benny -- as for all your other comments, I agree completely, especially bashing HGL. They're pretty much ripping you off.

Thanks for the link btw. One thing I don't quite understand is why the penetration of LEDs isn't quite as good as that of HIDs. Do you have any insights?

Mainly because HID is a single filament with all the power going to the filament. LEDs are spread out, using either 1w or 3w LEDs which diffuses the intensity.

The thing I do not think a lot of people fully understand is the function of the heatsink. Heat sinks do not make heat disappear, rather they transfer the heat. LEDs would burn out faster then you know with out a proper heat sink.

So basically your taking X amount of watts, spreading it across a board, and attaching heat sinks to it. The heat output is the same, just dispersed over a larger area. The potential energy remains the same watt for watt.

275w in a bathroom really wouldnt need much ventilation if is a normal size bath room. You have a large space for the heat to dissipate into, you would see the same temperature results with a 250w HID.

 

[mcfly420]

Wouldn't the heatsinks not allow the heat to enter the growing area though? Like a horizontal panel w/ the same dimensions as the cab and the exhaust going through/between the lights. Or with a vertical one, heatsinks would be placed in the center and the exhaust could be connected to a duct at the top?

 

[OvergrowDaWorld]

I think 4 LED panels hung vert like a 4 sided box, would be kinda neat, in a big tent or a 8' x 8' room.

 

[Bennyweed1]

Wouldn't the heatsinks not allow the heat to enter the growing area though? Like a horizontal panel w/ the same dimensions as the cab and the exhaust going through/between the lights. Or with a vertical one, heatsinks would be placed in the center and the exhaust could be connected to a duct at the top?

Bottom line is the heat has to go somewhere, it can never just disappear. Heat sinks can only transferring heat, the same way an A/C unit or heat pump works. That type of ventilation setup will dictate the temps you see in the room. Similarly like running HID with a cool tube to transfer the heat out of the room.

 

[flat9]

I agree Benny about the heat having I go somewhere. But what I was saying is that if you're going vert and not using cool tunes, a lot of the air that is blown is wasted power in that in never touches the bulb or gets close, whereas the fans used in cooling LEDs are much more efficient in terms of CFMs serving their intended purpose.

 

[flat9]

Was supposed to say cool tubes. Android autocorrected.

 

[Bennyweed1]

I agree Benny about the heat having I go somewhere. But what I was saying is that if you're going vert and not using cool tunes, a lot of the air that is blown is wasted power in that in never touches the bulb or gets close, whereas the fans used in cooling LEDs are much more efficient in terms of CFMs serving their intended purpose.

If the room is sealed such as a bath room with out ventilation, it doesnt matter how many CFMs you have. The heat will build and build, even if you have the best super dooper heat sinks and LEDs, 1 watt of energy discharges the same amount of heat as anything else using power.

LEDs run cooler because they are simply transferring their heat more efficiently into their static environment via heat sinks and heat distribution. None the less, as the heat builds, the temp will rise and rise in the same fashion as any other heat source until some from of heat transfer is introduced into the room.

If you take a 4'x4'x7' tent and install 400w of HID or LED without any form of transferring the heat out of the tent, the overall temperature will level out and be the same. The heat sinks on the LEDs simply transfer the heat into the tent until the tent reaches the same temp as the heat discharged off the filament off an equivalent HID.

IMHO heat transfer efficiency can only be measured by how much mechanical energy is required to transfer that heat into the atmosphere. If you are using heat sinks to transfer heat into a sealed room, then you are simply covering no ground.

 

[flat9]

You're omitting the heat created by the fans to cool the HIDs (probably twenty-five to a hundred watts), whereas LEDs already taken their (maybe 10) watts into account. I agree you have to extract the heat, but the frequency with which you'll have to extract it necessarily will be lower with five hundred watts of LED than with five hundred watts of HID in that you've already taken it into account in the LED case, no?

 

[thrillspan]

LED's rock, Hydrogrow delivered exactly what I expected at the price I accepted and was good at taking care of a shipping problem in a quick manner.

The dollar per watt is outrageous but the results are good, idk why but 3000 watts of LED were much easier to humidify than 3000w of HID.....

 

[flat9]

Ahh that's another good point. Did you actively control the humidity in your grow thrillspan? Sorry haven't read the entire thread....

 

[Bennyweed1]

You're omitting the heat created by the fans to cool the HIDs (probably twenty-five to a hundred watts), whereas LEDs already taken their (maybe 10) watts into account. I agree you have to extract the heat, but the frequency with which you'll have to extract it necessarily will be lower with five hundred watts of LED than with five hundred watts of HID in that you've already taken it into account in the LED case, no?

500w of LED will use more then 10w of built in fans to cool the heat sinks. I bet my life on it....that is if it is a true 500w power consumption.

I am running 450w or so of LED right now...actual power draw, killawatt tested. The cooling fans take 3-5 seconds to click on once the lights fire up. This allows me to get a reading before the fans fire up. The three panels I have, use 9 fans total, each fan is about 6w. I have an accounted 50-55w of power draw for those 9 fans.

Now, in a 4x4x7' tent I have used (for a very ling time) a 600w HPS, a cooltube, and a standard 6" inline duct booster you can by at any home improvement store. The 6" booster draws about 58-60w.

So this brings me back to my original principle, watt for watt, roughly the same amount of heat will be generated.

Regardless of the 6" duct booster, or the 9 individual cooling fans attached to the LED heats sinks, other means of air movement are absolutely necessary to cool the overall volumetric space.

In my larger grow, I use 1600w bare bulb HID (3 bulbs total), I have a fan under each bulb facing up. Each fan draws 23w for a total of 69w but we can call it 70w to make it things simpler.

Now if I had the equivalent 1600w of LED power draw....using the same panels I current have which draw about 150w each with three fans a piece, I would need at least 10 panels to match 1600w

10 panels at 3 fans each is 30 fans total....30 fans at 5-6w each is about 150-180w total.

The difference between 150w LED cooling (modest number) and 70w (simpler number) HID cooling is 80w.

In my 1600w HID bloom room, I also run a 6" squirrel fan rated at 550CFM consuming .7a or roughly 84w.

The amount of power needed to cool the lights and room is nearly the same. Still one will need circulation fans for air movement and whatever else, it is all relative.

Again watt for watt, you will still need roughly the same cooling capacity, there just simply is no way around it.

I am not physicist but it all comes down to thermodynamics.

 

[flat9]

Okay I see what you're saying Benny, but just to clarify, I was basing my wattage assumptions off of this fan:

http://www.silenx.com/quiet.fans.asp?sku=efx-12-15

1.32 watts for a high cfm and they're actually silent. Anyway, my unit has 4 somewhat shittier fans (at least in terms of noise level) and I figured they draw about the same power. 4 of these is about 6 watts. So there should be maybe 12 watts to cool twice the power.

Anyway, thanks for all of your input! Still I'm excited to see what LEDs can do vertically, but as I said I'll have to get a grow or two under my belt before I can give them a whirl. Even at discounted China prices, I cannot afford it right now when I can get a 600 watt HPS system for 150 bucks shipped to my door.

 

[thrillspan]

flat9, yes humidity was controlled (with limitations) I had five other similar rooms within that same envelope. Wouldn't set it up that way again, and indeed I did not.

 

[SirStynkalot]

I'm kinda confused why this is really a question at all in here.

Is it theoretically possible? Sure. But the point of vert growing usually is to maximize profits and minimize investments. If you're working with a micro cab and growing a few personal 7 gram plants, LEDs are just fine. But for cash cropping you won't find a LED panel in use longer than 1-2 crops as testers. I Promise. Especially not in vertical where the goal is to drop the light wattage to plant canopy sq/ft ratio.

LEDs don't scale, they cost too much, and the returns are way lower. Dropping them into a setup that's only difference is it's more difficult to dial and has resultant higher theoretical returns (through increased canopy footage) isn't going to make a difference, because available canopy isn't going to be your limiting variable. Heck, you can't even use boost effectively with those one directional panels.

Kind of a stoner rant, but does that make sense to anyone?

 

[flat9]

flat9, yes humidity was controlled (with limitations) I had five other similar rooms within that same envelope. Wouldn't set it up that way again, and indeed I did not.

Cool. Speaking of which, how do people go about adding humidity? I feel like keeping the humidity low is very very easy in my environment, but raising it not so much. Was thinking of doing a pond fogger in a five gallon bucket that is controlled by a hygrometer...

 

[thrillspan]

i use one or more centrifugal humidifiers spinning out ro water.

 

[thrillspan]

Sir Stinky, I grow vert to limit plant count, surrounding one plant with 4 or 6 big LED panels would be ok in my book. 10 grand to light a plant is the only reason I haven't.....

I think watt for watt LED win. Now, cost per watt is a whole different thing...

 

[flat9]

Like I said, if you order from China you'll make the $ back in electricity costs in a few o
runs presuming the PAR numbers are to be believed.