Investing in new lights LED or HID?

Ok so I have been saving like a good little boy and now I have about $400 to spend on new lights to replace the standard household 26 watt CFL's I have been growing with. The CFL's work, but as you might expect the yield is painfully low for the work put in to it. So I am going to buy either a 400w HPS or 130 watts of LED spotlights (thats 10 x 13 watt spotlight horticulture bulbs).

So I know the HPS light will work very well it is a tried and proven method. My only concern is the heat that it will cause in my 2.75' x 3.75' closet. The setup I am looking at is a cooltube and remote digital ballast that will stay outside the closet (I know the digital are very low heat, but I need the space in the closet). I will also get an inline cooling fan for the cooltube and exhaust the heat out the closet through a vent. All of that with a good grow bulb is looking to cost me about $420 (no pun intended lol).

For the LED I can get 13 watt red spectrum and blue spectrum or combo multispectrum bulbs for $49.95 each or 5 for $189.95. They also have a slightly cheaper multispectrum for $29.95 but I would likely buy the best so we are talking 5 red and 5 multispectrum for $380. The beauty of LED is no heat concerns and I already have the standard household sockets in the closet to screw in the bulbs. The down side is I am not sure of the results I may get. I have looked at allot of posts and some people do well some people don't do very well with LED. I am looking for massive yields and I know I can get that with an HPS hydro grow.

So now I am looking for opinions thanks for any help.

repoocbd said:

I am looking for massive yields and I know I can get that with an HPS hydro grow.

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I've never tried LED, but it looks like it can work well. Personally, I say "go with what you know" unless you can also afford/tolerate a learning curve with new technology.

I have to say I agree with Blckbird, LED's may well produce good results, but the HID is tried and true and will give the yeilds you are looking for. I noticed that those 300w LED units which are popular right now only output 11,500 lumens, which is piss poor next to a 400w HID, which puts out about 50,000 lumens. I know that the LED's output only the exact spectrums of light a plant needs, and that alot of the HID's light is wasted, but 38,000 lumens worth? I'm not sure yet! And those 300w light units are £650 in the uk, which puts me right off, and they will be half that price next year, so I'm sticking with HID for now! If your using a cooltube and extraction you will be fine!

I am glad you started this topic. I am in the same boat and considering the same options!
Cant wait to see the feedback you get!
I will tell you that 126W Penetrator LED Grow Light is what I have been leaning towards from http://www.hydrogrowled.com/.

seem to me LED is viable ,but they cost 3x as much with half the result, ive seen all the led vs hid threads .
id like to see plants grown under hid led and cfl for multi spectrum grow

dwarfganja said:

I am glad you started this topic. I am in the same boat and considering the same options!
Cant wait to see the feedback you get!
I will tell you that 126W Penetrator LED Grow Light is what I have been leaning towards from http://www.hydrogrowled.com/.

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I looked at those myself, but at $475 the 400w HPS setup with a digital ballast and exhaust fan was cheaper at this site http://www.htgsupply.com/ If the 126w Penetrator was 75 to 100 dollars cheaper I would probably try it. If I am going to invest in something new and possibly not as efficient, there has to be some sort of price incentive, but that is just my opinion. I have seen several posts that show the 126w penetrator in action and it looks like it does well, but I have yet to see the massive colas I see in HID grow rooms. So for now I will be going with an 400w HPS.

But a couple other nice things to consider with LED lights are the life span and energy savings. You get about 24,000 hours out of a 400w HPS bulb which is just under 3 years on contsant 24/7 use. With the LED you get 100,000 hours average life span and that is well over 10 years of constant 24/7 use add to it the energy savings of no ballast and nearly 1/4 the kilowatt hours and it is a very cost effective buy in the long run. However I need immediate cost savings not long run so its better for me to go with what I know and that is HPS gets results.

danimal7 said:

seem to me LED is viable ,but they cost 3x as much with half the result, ive seen all the led vs hid threads .
id like to see plants grown under hid led and cfl for multi spectrum grow

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Well I can accomidate part of that since I currently use CFL's and am upgrading to HPS. I can try to add some CFL's to the lighting mix in there, but I wont have any LEDS sorry. As far as the CFL's in the flowering closet, what do you think? Daylight 6500K (thats what I use for cloning and vegging), Soft White 2700k (thats what I am using for flowering) or a couple of both along side the HPS?

Hello all,

I hope this doesn't turn into an argument, I won't participate if it does. I can offer plenty of facts about light quantum physics showing why LEDs are inferior to HID, I already did so in THIS ICmag thread starting on page 8. I thought about copy/pasting the relevant info on light quantum physics, photosystems of higher plants and what nanometers ranges in PAR offer the most photosynthesis per photon; but it would seem disjointed so I will post URLs to my relevant posts in the ICmag thread "Grams-Per-Watt is an erroneous measure of productivity".

The whole PAR range (400-700 nm) is important, as is UV-a and also UV-b and UV-c. The latter two enable cannabis to produce peak levels of secondary metabolites like THC-A, CBD-A, etc. I hope everyone can see the problem with using LEDs as (at least) two fold: 1) LEDs do not emit enough PPFD (ideal for cannabis is 1,300-1,500) at distances from which they are hung, high power LEDs would need to be within inches of leaf surface to produce optimum levels of PPFD, most LEDs can not reach ideal PPFD even inches from the canopy; 2) and LED setups do not offer enough wavelengths within PAR range and UV-a/UV-b/UV-c, i.e., most LEDs are single or only a few wavelengths in blue (400-500 nm) and red (600-700 nm) PAR ranges....and that's lame, adding green light by around 25% offers better plant growth. Also worth noting is recent studies (e.g., Terashima, et at., 2009) have found strong evidence that green PAR range (500-600 nm) drives photosynthesis greater than the red PAR range (600-700 nm) under bright white light, e.g., HIDs.

NASA has it all wrong if one is growing plant where energy is not a limiting factor, i.e., NASA attempts to limit energy used to grow plants, not grow the best plants. Horticultural LED technology is based off of NASA's work. I hope that ends the hype, misunderstandings and fad of LEDs...

Relevant posts of mine which offer physics of light and what nanometers/wavelengths are important for growing higher plants (i.e., C3 like cannabis), how to measure rate of photosynthesis, how to measure/count photons in PAR, etc, etc. IMO they worth reading:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=3151905&postcount=167

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=3152297&postcount=180

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=3152501&postcount=183

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=3152563&postcount=184

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=3154735&postcount=195


Reference:


“EVALUATION OF LETTUCE GROWTH USING SUPPLEMENTAL GREEN LIGHT WITH RED AND BLUE LIGHT-EMITTING DIODES IN A CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT - A REVIEW OF RESEARCH AT KENNEDY SPACE CENTER,”
http://www.actahort.org/members/show...nrarnr=711_11C


"Green Light Drives Leaf Photosynthesis More Efficiently than Red Light in Strong White Light: Revisit the Enigmatic Question of why Leaves are Green" Plant Cell Physiol. 2009 Apr;50(4):684-97. Epub 2009 Feb 25.
http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/50/4/684


“Photosynthetic response of Cannabis sativa L. to variations in photosynthetic photon flux densities, temperature and CO2 conditions,”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/a3527u6018823x43/


“Thidiazuron-induced high-frequency direct shoot organogenesis of Cannabis sativa L.,”
http://springerlink.com/content/3028210397611640/




HTH

LED's are a joke. Not seen one truly impressive grow done with them anywhere.

They make leafy buds compared to HPS. Every time i see a picture of an LED cola I'm like "wow look at all that leaf matter" regardless of the size.

All that PAR talk and blah blah blah is theory to me until I see an LED make a big proper bud.

Then you consider that they cost like 4 times as much? As the light that actually makes proper bud? LOL

Think the most impressive one i've seen is Verdant Green or whatever, and his HPS buds make the LED buds look like like trash.

Re: HPS lamps:

Get a Hortilux Super HPS for the win!

HPS, you simply cannot compete with the prices. Tried and true light sources.

Mr. Bongjangles said:

All that PAR talk and blah blah blah is theory to me until I see an LED make a big proper bud.

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A common misunderstanding by most lamp makers who report irridiance by PAR (solar irridance as umol/m^2) and by people in cannabis world, and by most all grow shops and cannabis gurus that define PAR as a measure of irridiance driving photosynthesis, and it's not, it's a identification ("qualification") of photons which drive photosynthesis, or it's used for solar irridiance. What they should use suing is PPFD, that is a measurement ("quantitation") of the irridiance of photons (umol) within a predefined area at the canopy within PAR range (400-700 nm) per second; basically counting how many photons within PAR range strike the canopy in a sq meter per second. That is the light measure to use for plants when deciding upon a lamp or or high to hang the lamp from the caonpy, NOT lumens, lux, Kelvin, footcandles, etc. To get more exact the PPFD per nanometer (not the total PPFD) needs to be weighed with the relative amount of photosynthesis provided from each photon in each nanometers, i.e., "Quantum Yield " curve (QY) using Quantum Flux Density (QFD).

Cannabis has ideal-maximum rate of photosynthesis (Pn) with irridiance of 1,300-1,500 PPFD. Much over 1,500 PPFD and "photoinhibition" will lower Pn and Pnnet.

HTH

well im a newcomer to LED's - and i only have a 63 watt unit, but im pretty impressed by the quality of the little buds it is growing. not as big as under my 250 hps but then at only a quarter the wattage who would expect them to be.
check my diary if you are interested
secondtry i would be interested to your opinions on the Hydro Grow LEDS that are sold on the forum - check down the fromt page - they claim to have a targeted spectrum



V.

Hey V,


Looks yummy! I want to clarify: I am not claiming LEDs don't/can't grow good cannabis, just that they are no HID. I will look at what you asked of me soon, gotta go now tho.

Here is a great source of papers on this topic (albeit dated as they are), all about ASP (Action Spectra of Photosynthesis), UV ranges, etc. I have been in contact with a few of the authors, nice people. IMO it's worth your time to get real high and read, all PDF are in HTML format so it all webpages.

T.W. Tibbitts. 1994

Personally I'd go with a 400w Ceramic Metal Halide in a ss2 hood since 400$ is your budget. As long as you have the space and can cool a 400w hid. After seeing a 400w hps vs cmh and a 400w mh vs cmh, I couldn't imagine not running a cmh for veg or flower. A hps might get you slightly higher yields but the quality doesn't compare.

If your budget was a little higher I'd say go for the 126w led panel from hydrogrow (I have 2x 63w'ers on the way).

VerdantGreen said:

secondtry i would be interested to your opinions on the Hydro Grow LEDS that are sold on the forum - check down the fromt page - they claim to have a targeted spectrum
V.

Click to expand...

One quick point is the "targeted spectrum" is not the most important part of the equation to picking an ideal light source. A more important question is if the LEDs can delver enough PPFD at a reasonable distance from canopy (while still offering a decent irridiance footprint); and in all cases I have seen the answer is no.

There are a few reasons for this, one of surprise to most people is the ability of plants to adapt to the spectrums they are given, i.e., "photoadaption". There is little research in this field (which I have found thus far) but in the works I have fround it seems photoadaption can happen pretty quickly, in days or weeks. See the NASA link above for a paper on this topic, if you can't find it I will let you know which one it is, the paper title doesn't imply it is about photoadaption.

Also, it has been found that LEDs (Red and blue) offer lower rate of photosynthesis than bright white light (e.g., HID) at 1,600 PPFD. See this thread for more info, note that I made a few typos and wrote a few confusing sentences but the info I provide is correct and accurate (as is that of "avenger"):

"LED's make Less Heat. Do plants Yield more in Higher Heat?"
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=158746

A Guy Who Owns a Chain of Growshops Told Me...

A Guy Who Owns a Chain of Growshops Told Me...

...recently that LED isn't quite ready for prime-time yet. This isn't what the producers of LED growlamps are saying, of course. This guy had quite a few LED setups running and on display in his shops too, so he has done the work.

Prices are too high, and results don't justify the extra cost.

If you do choose to go LED somebody turned me on to this site:

http://www.ledwholesalers.com/store/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=65

The prices seem lower than most I have seen. Don't pay too much for technology that isn't up to par.

repoocbd said:

Ok so I have been saving like a good little boy and now I have about $400 to spend on new lights to replace the standard household 26 watt CFL's I have been growing with. The CFL's work, but as you might expect the yield is painfully low for the work put in to it. So I am going to buy either a 400w HPS or 130 watts of LED spotlights (thats 10 x 13 watt spotlight horticulture bulbs).

So I know the HPS light will work very well it is a tried and proven method. My only concern is the heat that it will cause in my 2.75' x 3.75' closet. The setup I am looking at is a cooltube and remote digital ballast that will stay outside the closet (I know the digital are very low heat, but I need the space in the closet). I will also get an inline cooling fan for the cooltube and exhaust the heat out the closet through a vent. All of that with a good grow bulb is looking to cost me about $420 (no pun intended lol).

For the LED I can get 13 watt red spectrum and blue spectrum or combo multispectrum bulbs for $49.95 each or 5 for $189.95. They also have a slightly cheaper multispectrum for $29.95 but I would likely buy the best so we are talking 5 red and 5 multispectrum for $380. The beauty of LED is no heat concerns and I already have the standard household sockets in the closet to screw in the bulbs. The down side is I am not sure of the results I may get. I have looked at allot of posts and some people do well some people don't do very well with LED. I am looking for massive yields and I know I can get that with an HPS hydro grow.

So now I am looking for opinions thanks for any help.

Click to expand...

Buy the HPS.

JG

HPS rules the growing world. Hands down!