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Are you serious? So now LED has walked in and taken over and I gotta learn i!?!

inc0gnit0

Active member
..... From the ground up. Well shit. So Im moving out to one of the legal states as soon as my slip/fall case settles where I shattered my thigh in 5 pieces. Been waiting 5 years on this and I've grown altogether a bit over 15 years. In and outdoors. Always organic though. I'm no hippie. It's just my thing and you can't sell me on better tasting herb. I just don't care. So sick of these street thugs.. "Yo , got that dro dog! This shit be banging and nothing as good as this!" And then throws some made up name on it. Yeah it's good bud. It's kist the latest kind bud. But who gives a rats ass if it's hydro. Just shaved a CPL weeks off your harvest if you did it right but it didn't make it any more potent... Or special?!

I wanna get back to growing my bud so I know what I got and for once itd be nice if I could grow 12 or so plants legally. And I've designed on paper my supply list. 1000wt mh, 1000w hps. 8" cooling tubes dedicated to push cool air from an a/c cooled room makes the tubes so cool you can hold em in your hand... And the ventilation is separate. A 1000wt hps will kick out some bud. Idc if you wanna super crop 1or two plants. Or stack em in 3gal bags untopped sided by side. Pushing that cool air through the ligjts and into the attic makes it where you can get pretty close.... And then run normal ventilation with a scrubber. You know the deal.

I posted all this on another forumn. Was thinking about doing a two bedroom veg, flower set up cloning in the bathroom with the mothers under flouresents. And man I got eaten alive about these HIDs

Seems it's all LED now. Did some research and found a company, PLC.. their led that equals a 1000wt hps is $800. Damn. I mean yeah forget the ducting, the a/c, the 8"$80 fan. And I'm still $400 over.

Ok, ok, I am gonna do my research... But I learned pretty much how to grow and heal sick plants on icmag. So this feels like home. I can't seem to find but one thread I put up of mine. but I know there were many more. Images too. I'm getting off track.

So what do y'all think. Is it that much better to do away with the multilamp ballasts, and start learning to build boards with strips. Cause I'll be damned if I'm paying $800 for what I can do with a 1000wt hps. Electric will go down. But currently I'm only gonna run 2 or maybe 4 400 watt depending on the grow area.
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Do what you do best, set up a test grow for the rest, no? :) I'm still HID, though I've put some LED's in the veg area and am using them for a feminization/pollination run in a corner. Eventually they'll be "the shit" with a decent price on them, for now I'm leaving them for the front runners to test out. :)


Careful, I've had quite a few people mistake my indoor hydro for "the tastiest and most flavorful organic they've ever had." ;) I don't grow like most though. :D

Welcome to ICMag!! :tiphat:
 

troutman

Seed Whore
LED's don't rule the World just yet. I've never used one. I'm all T-5 and MH.

Even got some old T-12's for starting seeds.

Don't fall for the hype of new stuff unless you like spending too much $$$ for nothing.
 

inc0gnit0

Active member
Yeah.... Side by side comparison,. I've been reading some interesting stuff lately. 600 w sys that covers 9x9 for 1000. I think there may be something there. It I'm not blowing the wad on shit I know nothing about. I was thinking of the veg thing like you said... Don't get me wrong. I don't knock the hydro friend. It's just the way they portray it round here . I'd love a sample 😉,
 

inc0gnit0

Active member
LED's don't rule the World just yet. I've never used one. I'm all T-5 and MH.

Even got some old T-12's for starting seeds.

Don't fall for the hype of new stuff unless you like spending too much $$$ for nothing.

Exactly what I was thinking. Especially since I've worked so hard to get an HID cool enough to be inches from the canopy. Just don't run them in the day and it's easier to keep the intake cooling air at 75. But night running ought to be common sense by now especially in this heat.
 

Hashishh

Member
I've briefly looked into LED but considering the price, I went HID. But I'm really wishing I went with CMH. In looking at building a small veg area and I'll probably go with t5.

Just my 2c is to look into CMH. Much lower overhead and similar results but I'm no pro on the subject. I'll stick with my HID until prices and reliability come into the same range my HID is.
 

inc0gnit0

Active member
I use a 600W Digital Ballast that can run both MH and HPS with a 50%, 75% and 100% power setting. :)

I use htg supply have 4 of their multilamp ballasts I've relied on for years. All 1000wt. Haven't fired em up in a while. Magnetic. No power settings. But they've never let me down. I used a single 8 tube reflector with 8"ducting. 2 veg, 2 flower. Using the adjacent closet as my "cool" room to push the air through to the 2 lights and out the attic. Total separate from the ventilator. They were always cool to the touch. I was planning on making them my work horses when I move. But I may only need one each depending on the amount I can grow and what I have to work with. $200 for a perfectly working light kit that runs either bulb is a deal. But I think the LEDers are trying to say you get that same bang with much less power. And a light that lasts a lot longer. Thing is I'm not selling any of it so I won't recoupe. And if all works well it'll be legal the electric will just be a bit higher. Hell. I don't recall it being that bad running 4.
 

inc0gnit0

Active member
I've briefly looked into LED but considering the price, I went HID. But I'm really wishing I went with CMH. In looking at building a small veg area and I'll probably go with t5.

Just my 2c is to look into CMH. Much lower overhead and similar results but I'm no pro on the subject. I'll stick with my HID until prices and reliability come into the same range my HID is.

CMH... That's kinda new right?
 

Lester Beans

Frequent Flyer
Veteran
LED is great for veg or cabinets but there is no replacement for displacement. Nothing preforms better than hid lighting. I've tried CMH, LED, flouros, etc.

Hortilux eye bulbs and a 1k adjustable lumitec, Galaxy, or similar electronic ballast. That's the cats ass right there.

Good luck with your move and grow.
 

inc0gnit0

Active member
Thanks Beans

Thanks Beans

I must love the HID too. And thanks for the kind words. Nice to back to a forum where everyone isn't chopping me down and telling me to get with the program. Lol. I'll start with what I still have. And we'll see how it goes. Bottom line, I just want to grow again. It's been too long.
 

heatherlonglee

Active member
The old stuff from back in the day is still the best for quality and weight. HPS/MH is still the best and cheapest! Eye Hortilux still the king. CMH is nothing worth even trying. LED is getting stupid powerful and cheaper but sadly it's behind the times on where the future of weed growing is going. To get the most weight and best quality you need multiple spectrums, and I'm not talking about mixing spectrums at the same time. I'm talking about different spectrums for different days in the flowering cycle. Veg lights can be T-anything, CMH, LED, CFL's, HPS, MH they'll all work; I prefer CFL's and fluorescents for baby veg. Begin flowering with CMH if possible. After that flower with HPS then last 20 days finish with MH Blue and that's the future of weed growing. Use the HPS/MH Blue (last 20 days flowering) you'll have more weight and slightly better quality than any other light source available at this time.

I've been on other forums and not just weed forums. It's human nature to say whatever a certain person is using personally is the best. I've seen it here with HID/LED/CMH debates; seen it on BMX forums, on car stereo forums, at the skate parks, in my own neighborhood my entire life. I have all the lights HPS/LED/CMH/Blurples/MH/CFL's and I'm here to say HPS/MH Blue still rules this garden.

Not the first time I've said this here but it's flowering cycle days 1-11 CMH or equivalent, HPS day 12 till 20 days left in flowering cycle then use the MH Blue for last 20 days of flowering.
 

xet

Active member
Get the Alibaba app and contact a Chinese supplier to go directly to the source for the namebrand items before it's rebranded. Very high quality items there with due diligence
 

Goldy

Member
Don't bother with bullshit from Alibaba. Buy proper Cree, Vero, Samsung etc. Make your own panel and they're not even that dear, just grab the drivers and Cobs and you're away
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Get the Alibaba app and contact a Chinese supplier to go directly to the source for the namebrand items before it's rebranded. Very high quality items there with due diligence
It's the due diligence which costs you the most. Assembly line workers are well aware of how a "name brand" product often gets vastly different parts put in it, vs. the cheaper parts for the non-name brand devices.

Same manufacturing equipment, same workers, same looking end result, vastly different interior parts and reliability than the unit they slap a name brand on.



Name brands come with extra pricing due to advertising, quality differences and other costs, which is why you recognize the brand in the first place. :tiphat:
 

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