Very nice thread Blaze! You did such a great job on this test! It's nice to see that these lights can work but I see what you are saying about the LED's being efficiant on a smaller scale. I would personally like to see the test done with a HPS but that's just me. In my personal experience, I've found it difficult to get 1 GPW with a 400 HPS but I've put a lot more focus on 1000's instead of 400's and I found it a lot easier to get over 1 GPW with 1000's as opposed to 400's. Verdant stated that his 400 watt uses 500 watts of power which would be 25% more power being used which is pretty high. I don't know if that is true but if it is, it shows that small HID's are less efficiant than 1000 watt HID's. My 1000 Watt HPS only uses 1050 watts so it is using 5% more power. Here are the pictures to show that:
If I had a micro grow, I would be using LED's to maximize my yields for the price but anything over 600 watts, I would use HID's because of how efficiant they can be and for how much space they can use to fill canopies. You have shown that LED's can compete with HID's but to me it seems pretty similar. It has been said in the past that the 205W LED will yield the same as a 400 HID but we can all see that it wasn't true, at least in this test. It's nice to see that you can get a GPW with LED's though, so I'm sure people will be happy about that.
After reading your thread, I see that you are using 30" x 30" for each space. That would be 6.25 square feet of growing space per light. In my opinion, there were too many watts used for the HID space because you used 64 watts per square foot and that is a little much for me. Personally, I don't like to go over 50 Watts per square foot of HID's cause it doesn't translate into more bud weight and it's just throwing extra electricity out the window. I'm sure some of you know what I mean. To have to spend $2,700 for 1000 watts of LED to get 1000 grams is just crazy. It was a great test though!
Actually 30x30 was the intended canopy space, However I ended up over vegging them a little and used the full space, Which was 32"x40"
I done the math early on, The led side was recieving like 26wpsf and the hid side was getting 47wpsf...
I completely agree that LEDS work and work well, I disagree that this 205w lights comparable to a 400w HID. So my findings is LEDS do work and work well, However the stated ratings that a 205w led is comparable to a 400w HID is off base and incorrect....
As it stands LEDS best value and use is for micro setups and smaller headstash grows, Right now the tech is still to expensive to be running any significant rooms with 100% led...