LED Mythbusting, KILL A WATT proof

[burnbradburn]

Blackdog is really starting to step their game up. It's really nice to see. That 750 watt panel on the Growershouse channel looked awesome.

That's the panel I have. Definitely nothing to complain about so far.

 

[GP73LPC]

oneshot bought a new heliospectra 600W array that pulls 608W...

 

[oneshot]

RADIANT LED (HelioSpectra) Growth Systems L4A Series 10

Advertised 600W

607-609watts at the wall

 

[medmaker420]

a true 600 watt led, that is SWEET to say the least

excited to see how it grows for you brother!

on the low end I am thinking 600 grams and if that is the low end for anyone running 600 REAL watts then how could anyone be bummed with the results?

600 grams = 21+ ounces for those who hate math

imagine hitting 21+ zippers with 600 watts on the low end

woohoo, now if only I could afford that panel to see how it does in my garden LOL do you know if they have layaway?

 

[PetFlora]

I'm as curious as anyone to see 500 quality watts in action. I would hope it covers > 4 X 8 area

I am growing 2 plants (2 mo old today) under 50w until last Monday, when I added a ufo 90 with 3 yo+ Brigelux 455-470 + 630-660. The ufo is probably 70w, the rest are screw bulbs from Lowes/HD = ~ 120w

Main stalks are extremely robust, one already has light bark near the root

Pics taken this morning

View attachment 211394 View attachment 211395

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Shortly after taking pics I decided to swap one 6.5w WW with 6.5w NW. even the largest primary leafs are now horizontal most are beginning to reach towards the lights

 

[GP73LPC]

petflora,
you've got me looking at the home depot led bulbs every time i'm in the store now

 

[medmaker420]

petflora,
you've got me looking at the home depot led bulbs every time i'm in the store now

not a bad idea, I bet there are some sweet deals and if anything happens to them you can easily exchange them.

 

[PetFlora]

Yep, my thoughts exactly. The chinabuye leds were cheap, but too many failures.

Also, the quality (L/W, CRI, etc) is increasing/improving too fast for me to 'invest' in most current production fixtures + most are too big- multiple smaller panels are easier to adjust. I moved toward NW +WW as the primary led ~ 2 years ago

 

[Zer0Ry0k0]

Love it all.
I was just working on sourcing a driver that will do a 720hz frequency and 50% duty cycle and I started thinking about your kill-a-watt results... they could vary widely based on the light being constantly driven or on a lighter duty...

People are currently marketing constantly driven LED arrays as "grow lights" assuming that the plant will have access to more light which will make it grow more or faster or whatever.

While it is true the lamp will deliver more light to the plant, is the plant actually using any or all of it??

http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/39/2/375.full.pdf
http://www.geocities.ws/sash_elias/files/thesis1.pdf


When a plant cell receives a photon, it begins a whole cascade of events. The cell is not ready to receive a new photon until a good portion of that work is done (something like half way through from what I understand). Based on the results from what I linked, 720hz @ 50% duty is fast enough that the plant does not ever wait to receive a new photon. They showed that as low as 180hz @ 50% duty is still fine for the plant... at this frequency it is favoring the electrical cost side, at 720 it favors the plant growth.

Just thought I would throw that out there...
Thanks again!

 

[hempfield]

Do you think that all plats cells works in sync with the same chemical speed ?

Anyway, I am working on a led light module with PWM control so it will be interesting to see how the frequency and duty factor influence the plant grow.

 

[Zer0Ry0k0]

Hempfield, I love the work you have been doing. I am glad to hear you will soon be in a position to test it for yourself.

From the testing that I linked, they were able to go as low as 180hz before it started to effect plant growth. So I agree with you that there could be different speeds of cellular action, but also there should be a maximum that feeds all actions and still has electrical savings. Just like how our eyes accept anything over 60hz as constant light.

When I start the grow I will start a new journal.

 

[cateros]

Lots of these units have thermostatically controlled fans, right? So in any given picture, the lamp could potentially pull more watts than is being shown.

Which just points to the difficulty of doing LED comparisons: watts used are not all even generating light.

I cant speak for all units but I do know the hydrogrow led's fan speed is directly related to the watts you are driving into them as the new penetrator extreme x2 models have a .5w 1w and 3w power setting and even without a killawatt you can hear the rps of the fans go up as the wattage increase to the diodes is applied. I did borrow my buddies killawatt and although I didnt take pics I can say the 336x pro draws 545w at 3w setting and the 189x pro draws 320w at the 3 w ratting. So a little math and I can tell you the 336x pro has 336 3w diodes running at approximatley 55% of full wattage same with the 189x.

Also I decided to do my searching on led reviews and comparison outside of the growing world and instead did some research on led's for salt water aquariums and it from everything I have found it appears the top 2 lights for salt water aquarium are the hfl aquarius and the bysen helios. Also I did some chceking into purchasing one the bysen 336x which is supposed to be identical to hgl , after talking to there sales rep who told me they normally sell only in lots of 5 or more I got him to see about 2 of the lights the prices quoted was $879 not including shipping, canadian taxes and duty. After going to canada custom calculator and entering in all the infor it turns out the landed price of a single bysen 336x here in canada bought direct from china will cost me 1400$ and I have to handle all my warranty problems with an over seas company , on the other hand the one 336 I purchased from hgl landed in canada cost me 2200$ duty taxes etc but delivery took 3 days from order , the unit came with a couple fans with broken support brackets , called the company replacements were sent out and arrived in 3 days . So while bysen does make a great unit in essence it is just the hgl but if anyone does chose to purchase from bysen make sure you have a back up light to work with as well as it could take 8-14 days to handle warranty issues. i know there is some ugly talk about hgl in the cannabis community but the funny thing is when I looked at there products and opinions of them in a non grey area of use and there is no bad opinion of hgl's led's when used in aquariums.

 

[cateros]

Need some guidance here.

I'm thinking about having some 400w LED units made for me.

Basically they would look nearly identical to the Advanced LED units.

Stock out of the box they come with 180x3W 660nm Red & 20x3W 455 Blue.

However, I can customize.

UV 370-380nm & IR 730-740 cost $3 extra per led.

All other spectra are no extra charge.

Following is whats available:
Option of Spectra:

IR850/940nm
IR730-740m
red650-660nm
red620-630nm
orange 610-615nm
yellow 585-595nm
green 510-530nm
blue 460-470nm
blue450-460nm
blue 440-450nm
Voilet 420-430nm
Voilet400-410nm
UV 370-380nm
White 2700-20000K

So, if I wanted these for Bloom only, what would be a good mix for spectra? Using 200x 3w Epistar & Bridgelux (actually I know those are the red/blue brands of 660/455, not sure on the other spectra brands).

Unfortunately I lost the conversation I had but the actual draw seemed good. I kinda want to say it was about 1.9-2w per led avg, but not positive.

beam is 90 degree angle.

Any help in this would be awesome as I just dont quite understand this part and I tend to think those advertising 15 spectrums are probably f.o.s. and are just getting a lot of cheaper led to make up space, claiming how great all these spectrums are.

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

I cant quote on all the spectra but I do know that although green has long been though to be useless I have recently read some info on 525nm green light , ill just paraphrase. The gist is once you plant is saturated with red 740 660 620, blue around 450 and 470 the green 525nm diodes will increase a plants ability to bind co2 to the stomata of the leves which will make co2 even more effective. Also while only 15% of 525nm green light is able to penetrate the cells , studies show that the green light photons spend 5 times longer in the cells, and i was actually informed by a few led growers to be prepeared for the extra stretchi will see with 525nm green in a co2 supplemented enviroment . One thing though is every talks about par which is as we all know photosynthetically active radiation, but the fact is leds should be desigend using the PUR scale which is Photosynthetically useable radiation. Pur being the actuall light radiation each species of plant uses most effectively. There is a journal going right now cant remember it name here but I do remember its led panel having a value of 7400$ as its spectrum is completely controllable by a computer interface. From what i saw of that unit it looks like the PAR output can be modified to match the PUR of any particular plant

 

[oneshot]

GrowBlu 120x3w Full Spectrum light:

253-258Watts (fan difference)

Sorry for the crappy image, it's actually a screenshot taken from a video I shot lol

 

[GP73LPC]

GrowBlu 120x3w Full Spectrum light:

253-258Watts (fan difference)

View Image

Sorry for the crappy image, it's actually a screenshot taken from a video I shot lol

thanks man, i had it in my PDFs at 249, i will bump it up to 257

 

[GP73LPC]

I cant speak for all units but I do know the hydrogrow led's fan speed is directly related to the watts you are driving into them as the new penetrator extreme x2 models have a .5w 1w and 3w power setting and even without a killawatt you can hear the rps of the fans go up as the wattage increase to the diodes is applied. I did borrow my buddies killawatt and although I didnt take pics I can say the 336x pro draws 545w at 3w setting and the 189x pro draws 320w at the 3 w ratting. So a little math and I can tell you the 336x pro has 336 3w diodes running at approximatley 55% of full wattage same with the 189x.

[snip]

thanks for info on the 189x. i am adding that to my LED Retailer Real Watts PDF.

also, i have the 336x listed in my PDF at 462 watts.

icmag membe[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]r phaeton reported [/FONT]462 with no fans.

phaeton confirmed an HGL 336 Penetrator Pro @ 462 watts (lights, includes no fans)...

The lights, 5 each HGL 336X-PRO growlights, 500 watts at the plug, arrived yesterday.

[snip]

i can't find his post that claims the 462 watts now, but it's probably in his LED thread.

i am gonna change it to 500 watts (no fans). better representation of just the lights.

 

[Alien_Dawg]

Sup bro... Thought ya might like ta know what a Uvonair 5000 pulls..

Watts/Amps...

View image in gallery​

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[GP73LPC]

thanks for the headsup

 

[GP73LPC]

i have misured the killawatt and is 209w

this is for the phytoled 200w.

 

[Small time]

Something isn't making sense. I built a 15 x 10w LED light and with the power supply and lights on, I read a total of only 24.6 watts. The LED's are bright. I can adjust the output up and down, and it's pretty bright. Shouldn't I be reading over 100w at least?