Led grow lights

[DJ blue dog]

Hey everyone,

Just setting up a new grow room and am keen on using led grow lights.

Have heaps of space so figure led will be cheaper for electricity and run the room cooler.

I can get the spectrum King 450 I think it is, and also the kind led k5 xl 1000.

Has anyone had experience with these lights or could recommend another light readily available in oz.

[DJ blue dog]

Anybody with any experience growing with these lights?

[PainMan]

No not yet.

 

Anybody with any experience growing with these lights?

 I'm too disabled to do anything these days, though I sure could use the help with pain (my wife more so). However I have been keeping up on the science. LEDs just kept getting better and the science aims the light spectrum at PAR (for plant growth) instead of LUMINS (for human eyes) or LUX (which is a weird & deceptive measurement).

There are a lot of sites out there where people post pics of their grow progress (including LEDs) and over time they have become dramatically better. Do some searching. The plants are usually (from my reading and the images I've seen) a bit smaller, but they have a lot more flower density and resin. You also don't waste roughly 80% of more of your electricity making light that plants (especially cannabis) can't use - which you are with HPS (even spectrum adjusted).

Most of the light from an HPS setup is yellow spectrum with a touch of green, and a lot of IR (heat). Due to that old devil "The Inverse Square Law" you lose photons (the flux density) fast as you move away for the plant - and you must do so due to the heat, unless you buy expensive light fixtures (with heat removal built into the fixtures). So you ended up not being able to have your plants closer than about 40 to 45 cm from the light. By then you have lost a lot of POWER (about half of it) that could go into the plants and make them grow.
 

Yellow and Green spectrum are just not very good for plant growth. Green mostly bounces off (which is why the plants look green) and yellow is mostly for terpine production in the end of flowering. That's why the images all look hot pink from the LEDs.

If possible I will (if I get better enough to do anything other that be in bed and drag myself to the toilet)... be doing this too. However I will not be getting LEDs that are high wattages. There is no purpose to a 5 wat LED on a grow light, using current LED tech. They make too much heat.

In the old HPS days, the wattage of your single light translated pretty well into actual light - into how much Lumins/Lux you got out (and also PAR depending on how much you paid for your bulbs). But these LED fixtures use a *lot* of lights not just the one. Every "light" you see is made of a cluster (usually 3) of tiny LEDs. The thing is they are only efficient at making light when they are below about 60% of their maximum wattage tolerance. After that they just wear out a lot faster and make a lot of heat burning themselves out.  Also the higher the wattage of the LEDs (1 vs 3 vs 5) the more heat the fixture produces overall.  This means (again) staying further from the plants, which we do not want. This is why LEDs rated for 5 watts are usually only run at 3 watts, and LEDs rated for 3 watts are run at 1 1/2 to 2. They really are better off sticking to about 60% of the max wattage becasue after that the PAR output per watt goes down very fast.

I do know that people manage success with the cheap Chinese fixtures, but get better results from the more expensive ones.  So it depends on your budget. Some fixtures just have stupidy high prices.

Edited May 6, 2016 by PainMan

[DJ blue dog]

Hi painman,

Thanks for your response mate.

After doing quite a bit of research I am not going to go with either of these lights mentioned.

I currently have a black dog led that I need to give a test run.

After I feel a bit more comfortable with indoor growing I will do a DIY led build and see how that goes.

When I crank it up I will do a grow diary.

Thanks

[ruthless]

Youtube has some good hps vs LED  tests with same clone.

 

They like the LED better because less heat, especially australia or if your grow area gets big temp changes from the climate then I would go LED. 

 

From memory the LED one was tested for more THC generated the HPS 

[Samjana]

hi ive been using LED for over a year, I got a 70w from local supplier, unbranded-prob Chinese

hey it works for me for a small pursie gro, runs well, cab a lot smaller and I get 1 oz per plant, perpetual so more than enough for me. end up 1 oz per month

 

no where near my 250 or 400w hps but they were overkill for pursie. cab is 600x600x900, no sound,smell and stealthy . LED I would recommend for small scale personal use.

[Adeloudsmoker]

I have heard the kind LEDs are quite good and have seen good results from lush lighting. Still yet to try led myself.

[noodles.au]

Hi, I have seen a few videos online about LED grow lights and the ones that actually work are very very expensive. I guess they would pay for themselves after a few grows considering the amount of electricity you would save, cooling also would be a lot easier in the northern states. 

[slayertat]

both the kind and the spectrum king are awesome led lights, you get what you pay for with LEd

[flamstaa]

I've just jumped in with a pair of SpydrX Plus LEDs in a 2.9 x 1.45 sq tent.

 

Early days atm, another week or 2 till flip but man, they are bright! They consume 685 watts each and make a 600hps look like a candle by comparison.

 

Why I decided on these lights is the light spread over a 44 inch square which I believe is a far more effective way of delivering light to all sides of the plant and they hang closer to the plant meaning less height issues in the tent.

 

I'll blog the next grow here