Setting up my small SOG hybrid LED/HID tent

[Desert Hydro]

ive got a spare 2x4 tent i wanna set up for a couple reasons. i have genetics to test and i dont wanna take up valuable floor space on untested plants. secondly i wanna try out some LED lighting. im easing myself into it with 2 90w LED lights. i think they are 90w actual usage because they are 45 3w bridgelux chips. i was just gonna run the 2 LED lights but i am gonna run a few AK SOG bushes in there too and i wanna make sure im giving them enough light so im gonna run a 300w hps in the center and the two LED's on the sides. i think that will be plenty of light to kill it in there. they should all be high yielding strains for the most part. there's pot of gold, chemmy jones, AK and jackberry. i know the AK is legit. its my third run with her. they are all topped multiple times, super cropped and defoliated. i want NO lower buds at all since im using low wattage with low penetration(no laughing)

right now they are in my main flowering area under a 600w digilux. as soon as my LED's show up on tuesday i will put up the tent and set everything up and get some pics up. they are getting moved out to make room for my ebb and grow system for the big girls. ive got 12 supercropped tsi fly clones waiting to go into their new homes. they are my main focus. the 2x4 is a bonus

i really wanna hit 1 GPW with this setup. i know the AK are capable ladies. the other are untested so im not so sure if i will make it. The nutes are Veg + Bloom and drip clean. thats it. the hydro system is a DIY drip system currently being run DTW. i dont have a timer so i just plug in the pump and flood them for a minute or so then unplug. still easier than hand watering lol. The AK's are hand watered in coco/hydroton using the same nutes.

anyways here are the bitches basking in the 600. the light is a bit high but its on a hanger that i cant really lower at the moment since theyre all connected lol. damn my planning haha.

the second pic is why i cant lower the light ATM lol. my shoddy attempt at a vscrog without a vertical bare bulb hahaha. still working pretty good though. i bet i get close to a lb off my 600 and 4 plants

i just had a random thought.... why the F do i need a tent? i flower in the open in my room and veg in a tent. i could just stick these girls in the corner where they will get a little bit of light from the big lights and i dont have to worry about temps. makes sense right?? now i have something to think about lol.

if any of you have any advice or exp to share let me know. new to LED but been doing this for years on a hobby level. trying to advance to the majors

 

[Desert Hydro]

ebay said my lights were supposed to get here today and then i checked and UPS says tomorrow. im a little pissed off about that but whatever. really looking for ward to setting up some purple glow in my room. got my tent all set up already. if its too hot with the 300w and the two LED i will get a 3rd LED and go all LED on this run. i figure a 300$ investment to test the legitimacy of LED's is a fair risk, but then again from what ive seen it doesnt seem like too much of a risk at all. i think small scale LED grows are killin it GPW wise

 

[FunkBomb]

I'm looking forward to your hybrid grow show. I've been following a lot of LED threads and I am impressed.

-Funk

 

[Desert Hydro]

so i got my LED's today and i was all excited until i plugged them into a wattage meter lol. they are advertised as 45 3W chips and USE 90w. i thought that seemed about right. i thought one compant was actually going legit and posting real specs about wattage and actual usage of the unit. the unit hit 38.4 with all three fans running. IM PISSED. plus they took 10 days to get here so im extra pissed. gonna return them for a refund and go elsewhere. until then i will continue them flowering under the 600's. they will be nice and big by the time my replacement lights gets here lol. i think for now im just gonna put my spare digital ballast in there. i need those plants moved out of my flowering spot ASAP. my clones are ready and i need to set up my new hydro system NOW!!!! lol

 

[Desert Hydro]

roound 2 lol. sent those crap fixtures back and spent the dough and got some legit units. ordered 2 300w units to rock the 2x4 tent. gonna run em under 400-600 hps while i wait on the new lights. should be like 2 weeks or so. lets hope round 2 is a bit more awesome haha.
i will get some pics up with the 400 later tonight.

 

[medmaker420]

roound 2 lol. sent those crap fixtures back and spent the dough and got some legit units. ordered 2 300w units to rock the 2x4 tent. gonna run em under 400-600 hps while i wait on the new lights. should be like 2 weeks or so. lets hope round 2 is a bit more awesome haha.
i will get some pics up with the 400 later tonight.

now you know those 300 watters will odds are pull 50% to 75% of the listed wattage though right? Now some do list the running wattage versus the led wattage x amount of diodes though so not sure which you bought from.

90 watt led panels will run around 35 to 50 watts depending on how they are driving them whether over under etc.

 

[Desert Hydro]

yeah i was told to expect 180-190w from the 300's which sounds about right. i dont mind spending the money on nice equipment. they will have a 3 year warranty as well. i wish i could pick up a couple lumigrows but i cant see myself spending $1400 on a 600w LED, though the new pro series look amazing! i figure by the time ive set enough aside to switch over(if i decide to switch) the advancements in LED tech will be substantial

my problem with my 90w ones was that they said they were 45 3w chips and USE 90w. they only pulled 38w. shady in my book. i bet they were 1w chips lol. they werent even that bright.

 

[oneshot]

yeah i was told to expect 180-190w from the 300's which sounds about right. i dont mind spending the money on nice equipment. they will have a 3 year warranty as well. i wish i could pick up a couple lumigrows but i cant see myself spending $1400 on a 600w LED, though the new pro series look amazing! i figure by the time ive set enough aside to switch over(if i decide to switch) the advancements in LED tech will be substantial

my problem with my 90w ones was that they said they were 45 3w chips and USE 90w. they only pulled 38w. shady in my book. i bet they were 1w chips lol. they werent even that bright.

Have you looked at California Lightworks? You can get in their growing program for $599 for the 400W lights. Especially if you are on icmag. They are legit lights too that run close to their stated watts. They might even do another discount on 2. Brandon is super easy to talk to on the phone if you have any questions.

I love my Lumigrow but I totally understand the cost issue. Unfortunately Lumigrow doesn't

 

[Bongstar420]

Im looking at a cheapo 300w ($0.72/w) with stated actual 180w usage. I havent seen it do the whole job yet, but it appears to be pushing 1.5g/actual watt for the system (light+flowering room support) or 2g/w for just counting the light. I should be able to make the final observation some time relatively soon and I may post results somewhere around these forums. I think I could observe something like this from HID's now though Ive not seen better than about .7-1g/w for just counting the light at bulb rating and have mostly seen around .3g/w. This is a little hard for me to believe

 

[Desert Hydro]

here is the tent as of tonight. all have been defoliated and clones taken of the new strains. they are under 300w of hps bare bulb until the two LED units show up. trying to decide if im gonna scrog or not. i think i will scrog the one side since its so uneven. the AK clones are bushy as hell and look like they should do extremely well

 

[Desert Hydro]

here were my shit ones i sent back. not near as bright as they look in the pics lol.

 

[Desert Hydro]

some small updates while we wait on the lights. my freebee i really wanted to be fem is a probable male i may keep him around until im dead sure and then move him to a spare bathroom until he busts his load. i want to collect some pollen to play with. he is killingfields X katsu kush. i was really looking forward to it.

the rest look AMAZING. super healthy and lush. doing good in their temporary setups. im trippin out waiting on these LED's lol. i want them to get here already lol. that extra HPS isnt ducted in so its blowing hot air into the room a really warming things up.

The AK are looking great. i think they are the prime candidate for LED growing. short and stocky so not much penetration is needed with proper defoliation. my next grow will be a SOG in the 2X4 tent with 18-24 in there and the 2 300w LED's. that will be the true test of the GPW. i will factor each light separately since one side is a monocropped clone run and the other is a seed run with untested strains. that way i will have a fair GPW estimate for the AK's. im super excited. the new camera will get here soon and then i will post up some nice shots.

the chemmy jones has stretched like crazy. the POG's are stretching but not quite as fast and they are both about dead even. one jackberry is big and the other is short and squat.

 

[Desert Hydro]

lights are a few more days out but the plants are looking fantastic! they are gonna do work under the 600w of LED. i think its about 360 actual usage of watts between the two panels. each one only has to cover about a 2 ft square so it will be plenty of intense light for the kids

 

[medmaker420]

looking great

can't wait to see the next set of updates

 

[Desert Hydro]

sorry in advance if this is posted anywhere that i didnt see...

i know the average rule of thumb is about 40-50W per sq ft of LED, but is that measured in actual usage in watts or watts of the chipset?

for example the 300w i have on the way are 100 3W chips but only pull 180-190w on average. am i going by this number or the chipset wattage of 300?

either way i am gonna be way over the 50w per sq ft, but i want to know what to go buy because if i like LED as much as i hope i will i eventually want to fully convert. i have no illusions of a 300w LED replacing my 600's lol but i think i can save about 30% in watts and more than that in my temps and cooling costs here in the desert.

i have been doing real bad on my GPW with hps mostly due to multiple seed runs instead of clones but now im all set on genetics so it should be smooth sailing from here on out. as long as i can control my canopy and lollipop/ scrog accordingly i know i can easily make the 1 GPW goal with LED.

i also want to test out some vertical LED and see if us LED guys can crush the GPW barrier even more. i have been looking in to the apollo series light bars that are long and skinny and thinking about ordering enough to hang vert from the ceiling and do circular scrog around it. i think about 4-6 hanging would do great. this is all a mere fantasy at the moment lol but if i like the lights and they are breaking the GPW goal i will be more than happy to take one for the team and experiment pretty soon here lol.

 

[DamnUglyDogE]

yeah i was told to expect 180-190w from the 300's which sounds about right. i dont mind spending the money on nice equipment. they will have a 3 year warranty as well. i wish i could pick up a couple lumigrows but i cant see myself spending $1400 on a 600w LED, though the new pro series look amazing! i figure by the time ive set enough aside to switch over(if i decide to switch) the advancements in LED tech will be substantial

my problem with my 90w ones was that they said they were 45 3w chips and USE 90w. they only pulled 38w. shady in my book. i bet they were 1w chips lol. they werent even that bright.

Sup.. Good read... Did u say u picked up the 300s on Ebay ? If so.. would ya mind saying which brand ? I just picked up a 300 there and tested the wattage tonight. Tested at 288w solid.

Wonder if ya got the same one....

Keep er green...

 

[hempfield]

I don't want to be rude, but I saw something on the lights from the medicinal-lighting.com that makes me thinking that they are not energy savers, as every LED has it's own resistor which limit the current flowing through. This means that an important part of the total power consumption is converted directly into heat, without any use for growing.

Is just my opinion.

I don't find the pictures for the moment, but I will update this post when find it.

L.E. This is the post I was refering to https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=5512124&postcount=182 , and this is the image showing the resistors :

 

[Desert Hydro]

no worries. i am here to test and give an unbiased opinion of these lights and how they work. this will be my first LED grow so im not too sure what to expect anyways. i know they are said to draw about 180-190w out of a 300w chipset so that seems right on target to me. whatever the case may be expect a fair opinion based OME with the product.

the test is a little off anyways because they were started under 300w of HPS while i wait for the LED units to show up. my AK's are at about week 3 and the seeds are week 1. my seed plants seem to have stopped stretching thanks goodness lol. the pot of gold did about 1.5X-2x stretch, the chemmy jones did about 2x-2.5x and the jackberry did about 2x on one and the male i removed stretched about an inch lol.

they are all healthy and beautiful so i expect wonderful things out of my new lights!! haha especially from the POG. that is supposed to be a massive yielder so lets see what these LED's can do! theyve got one more defoliation due and then they will be left alone.

 

[Desert Hydro]

ladies waiting for their new lights

 

[Big Sky]

Garden looks great DH!!
I'm subbed!