Generic "LED T5" bar, 13w, FWIW

Bought these bad boys back in the day, now I got way too many lamps with cfls, PLL and these "LED T5s", HPS and MH. Better make use of these, they never got to do anything yet.

A 60x60 tent is all I got for flowering though so can't fully do what I want to with them for now.


Decent price for the fact that they even existed. Any equivalent ghetto solution around here is 30% more expensive and 30% less light output.

If these work for veg that is a win, but I'm curious what they CAN do with their shittyness.

1000/1050 lumen (3000/4000 kelvin) @ 13w
~13200 lumen @ 169 watts, plus the sidestrips with about 4000 lumens.

I'm sure there exists a configuration where this is useful even with the spread out LEDS now that I got them already.

Will be bushing out some plants during veg to begin with.

They will work for such a small place. For a good flowering I'd add a little more, but it is up to you. Test them and make your own conclusions.



Cheers

Carraxe said:

They will work for such a small place. For a good flowering I'd add a little more, but it is up to you. Test them and make your own conclusions.



Cheers

Click to expand...

Hopefully they will work for vegging for now. Will be used in flowering as side lightning, if I can, that way I can tell if they do anything at all.

I wouldn't want to flower with them just like this but a good SCROGGER can easily get 50 grams out of that I'm sure (169w total so, maybe up to 120 grams if lucky??). Scrogging probably won't be my way of life though.


This run should go:
2x55w PLL for seedlings
169 watts china LED for "preveg"

put the LEDs in the tent

250w MH vegging into flower with LED sidelightning
250w hps last few weeks with LED sidelightning.

Should I let it grow tall to accomodeta the side lightning, or make bushy dwarves and focus on the mh/hps for production or not...... 60x60 tent standard height 180cm

With only 0.5 watts per LED, the stuff is now growing, though the plant with 2x55w PLL is growing a bit faster.

The PLL plant was absolutely bombarded from close range and has better reflective walls.

But I think the ghetto LED fixture can be up to par or even beat it once the leaf gets enough coverage where a 2x55W PLL is just too small.

Where I'm getting with this I don't know, will have to make a grow journal and sort it out.

You didn't give a price when you said they beat other ghetto lights.

1000 lumens is a 75w equivalent led lamp. Generally they consume about 10w, so your 30% is in the wrong direction. Cost.. a couple of dollars.

Is your light really better than that?

The PLL setup was like 100 dollars for reflector and tubes (= about seven of these strips, plus shipping) PLL and grow stuff overall is hard to come by and expensive, that one is not even mine to begin with.....

Now these LEDs can't beat PLL intensity in flowering, but I'm saying they might beat them in power efficiency and maintenance for veg if you like your spread out plants, but this might be with more spacing between the strips, which in turn might not be space efficient for some.

BUT the question is, how close do they have to be, and are 0.5w diodes even enough for veg? People have their doubts and I do too, but I also got my strips.

When I got these, there were no T8 led conversions and not the best LED bulbs, this was a cost efficient and simple way of getting some grow lights that can also be use in my future castle.


My entire setup is a waste of power right now, but there will be efforts to narrow down efficiency with e27 led bulbs instead of these strips (7,7w 1050 lumen).

Then in flower, I'll try to flower with everything at once and see whatr happens.


Wow, any way, time will tell, and I got so many lamps and nothing to do anyway...

250w hps
250w mh
125w 6500k CFL
200w 2700K CFL
2x55w PLL
13x13 watt LED strip
6x9 watt LED strip

And I definitely need a bunch of efficient LED-bulbs for an extremely efficient and simple DIY vegging shelf.


Then maybe the bulbs can grow individual plants and the led-strips might grow a row of microgreens from just that... I'll find a use...



Disclaimer, I don't recommend buying these particular lights. If they work somewhat with these puny 0.5w diodes then anything is possible after that. This is pure curiosity.

It's chilly still, took them a while to get started these things. The plant in PLL def grew faster but that's no wonder, more intensity + higher temperature is the definite explanation to that.

And the leds can't do their job until there is enough green.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79685&pictureid=1930099

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79685&pictureid=1930098

06 march, transplant https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79685&pictureid=1930097

15 march https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79685&pictureid=1930101


https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79685&pictureid=1930102

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79685&pictureid=1930100

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79685&pictureid=1930104

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79685&pictureid=1930103

maraudeur said:

It's chilly still, took them a while to get started these things. The plant in PLL def grew faster but that's no wonder, more intensity + higher temperature is the definite explanation to that.

And the leds can't do their job until there is enough green.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79685&pictureid=1930099

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79685&pictureid=1930098

06 march, transplant

15 march

Click to expand...

No edits, touché. and only five images per post. Double touché

*sighs*

f-e said:

You didn't give a price when you said they beat other ghetto lights.

1000 lumens is a 75w equivalent led lamp. Generally they consume about 10w, so your 30% is in the wrong direction. Cost.. a couple of dollars.

Is your light really better than that?

Click to expand...

Leds are around 105 lm/watt, it has serious potential for higher efficiency than PLL - at least for large area vegs.

Most higher power led lights would beat this - where they exist.


The diodes are driven low and a normal E27 bulb diffuser filters 15-30% of the light, I have reason to believe these LEDs are 100-110 lumen/watt with the diffuser off so it's about the same as their standard cheap bulbs.

You must also remember, none of my economic calculations apply to american hardware and prices/availability. Your value packs and prices are ridiculous. I also cannot import cheaply or easily.

3 dollars for a 9watt 800lm bulb is about the cheapest you can go here.. and those will break. I'm going to take the plunge on a bunch of those 7.7 watt E27 bulbs at 7 dollars a piece though, but only for their 134 lm/watt WITH diffuser (~160 without).

Those will be so much better than these strips of course, but they didn't exist five years ago when I bought all this.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79727&pictureid=1930982

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79727&pictureid=1930981

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79727&pictureid=1930980

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=79727&pictureid=1930978


It's impossible to decide a winner here just yet (not factoring price). after all there could've been many more of these plants under the LEDS.

The warmer and comparably much weaker LEDs seem to build damn nice and straight up plant.

Now the intensity of PLL 110w is way overkill from that distance, but I'm not sure I like that development better than that ghetto LED panel.

For sure some stronger diodes would've incurred more growth, small plants just can't be efficiently soaking up such timid lighting strips.

I expected the 6500k flourescent would give the shorter nodes as well as the usual wide leaves, I've vegged in CFL 125 watt. Which proved to me that even CFL bulbs are still much useful in that 6500k range.

I tried 200+250w bloom with 2700k, can't ever recommend that combination. it's a waste of electricity.


What can be said though is that LED bulbs are perfect for this stage of growing, can't wait to get going with the next set of seeds.

maraudeur said:

Click to expand...

You know what. I used to be a forum master, made HTML websites in notepad as a little shit, now I can't even link a JPEG properly any more.

Moved one of them into the tent and the MH bulb, still in veg.

PLL 110w 11'000 lm 50x50
MH 250W 20'000? lm 60x60
Led 223w 18-22k lm 80x50

Approximate numbers.

Will MH250 significantly beat the PLL on such a small plant? Let's find out what happens.

Always so slow in veg, this guy.

But some results are in:

PLL 6500k 110w: Very wide plant, decent nodes.

Ghetto LED 4000/3000K: Tightest nodes and by far lowest intensity of light. So tight nodes Í could increased night by an hour or so and saved further electricity!

Maybe there is a hidden benefit with LED if you factor in everything:

lumen/w + 4000K LED Nodes + LED intensity = Full freedom with node spacing and/or power saving)



MH250w, very good looking, wider than LED/slightly faster grow than PLL and LED, wrankly, waste of energy at this point.

Having several plants under it wouldn't be enough light sources to win me over either, it's warm and everything feels like a fire hazard for no benefit.


So far seems like 4000k LED is a god damn safe bet if you don't know where to start, when even these relatively inefficient things get things looking so good.


I've added 17.5w 13 and 9w LED E27 bulbs for another project so more LEDs incoming now.

Forgot photo of MH plant but here is the other two:

LED plant looks like it's made for rough weather haha. That's a win to me...


Slow growth could be from low intensity LEDs. Or just unnecessary amount of light hours with efficient spectrum and light source?

It doesn't look underdeveloped compared to the PLL plant, and that one got some serious intensity going under them tubes.







I would definitely expect the LED lady to be retarded by now with all the flaws of it setup, but give it more time.

Inspected MH plant today, it's had a shock from sloppy dosage of Gold label roots juice and will be stunted for a while. It will be flowered anyway, MH trial is over! But it's juuust slightly more developed than both PLL 110w and LED low intensity 169 watts. Not enough to warrant all that power consumption.

Verdict: MH 250 watts is overkill for anything but late veg/early flower transition. Any full spectrum led bulb today would beat MH.

If you only need 250 watts of MH/HPS, for veg especially, any 4000k LED will be the better choice BY FAR, unless you have particular practical circumstances. You will be able to slash power consumption at least 25% and still end up better off.

I would seriously only consider investing in HPS with 600 watts, unless you're starting out and need it now, ready to switch tech in a few yields time. But other than that I'd not get comfortable with it at this point.


I'll wear this MH bulb out and never buy one again. If I'm to be using ballasts and bulbs with limited life, It's going to be HPS + LED combo and nothing else for the foreseeable future. CMH maybe but I'm not paying extra, neither do I want to replace bulbs a lot.

Not to mention, when do I even discard of this bulb? It gradually turns into a radiator and then it can melt or explode or something. Great.



Trying out different bulbs for a legal herb garden thus far

The different types of bulbs, all are what I suppose is cheap garbage, but not even my cheapest bulb is cheap for an american. 8.8 watt an 900 lumen still goes for $6-7 a 2 pack. Low efficiency LEDs. Still must be heaps better than fluoros.

One of the new bulbs has 9.5 or 13 watts?? classified at 1055 lumen, but if this is 13 watts it should be at least 1521. If it's 9.5 watts@ 1055lm I paid oh too much for it.

1x 13 watt small bulb 1521+ lm

1x 13 watt Big Bulb 1055lm (some data mixup. I suspect 13 watts and at least 1521 or 9.5@1055

1x 17.5w 1950lm Big Bulb

1x 8.8w 900 lumen small bulb



What interests me foremost is which bulb dies first, this is where my money counts when the selection is this bad. Seems like the 13 watt big bulb has a great intensity going for it fewer leds and all. But the 17 watt has got to be among the better bulbs available with spread and everything in one package. The increased size gives better heat dispersion which is welcome for high power bulbs.

I can just tell this thread will be incoherent Lack of medication and money I tells ya...

One of them is now flowering. Or those are some very aggressive preflowers.

Now my vegging plant is flowering and my flower plant is instead vegging.

Check out the development:


https://imgur.com/a/5tXAjEP

To the right is the PLL plant, it's now recieving LED love. Those PLL doesn't give nearly as thick branches and tight nodes.

https://www.amazon.com/Nilight-Lights-Driving-Lighting-Warranty/dp/B00WE47FVM

Does this qualify ?

$27, 120 watt-ish.

St. Phatty said:

https://www.amazon.com/Nilight-Lights-Driving-Lighting-Warranty/dp/B00WE47FVM

Does this qualify ?

$27, 120 watt-ish.

Click to expand...

42x3 watts and directed beam.. I think that would kill my plants in veg.

My diodes are only 0.57 watts each and still bleached one of my seedlings.


For sure with the price and if you have a good PSU I'd def try that