Ive ran hps, cmh burple and full specteum led and ive settled on full spectrum led for being the most efficient for me. On average in my set up 2 600 watt led cover my whole 10x 4 rows and i dont have to sacrifice quality or yield in fact some of my best yields have been from under led.
Discussion about factors affecting the purchase of a light
- Thread starter Mars Hydro Led
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Plants dont all grow the same though, so, there is that. People like to claim this stretch thing with hps. If you do a proper scrog with an aggressive trimming regime , you can make the plant do whatever you want, for the most part.
If we going to get the quality discussion on the table, better come with some real clear comparisons and results. Talk is cheap. I want to give LED a fair shot, Ive been watching its progression for years. In the end, there is only a few things that really matter. Bud density and THC production, overall quality is a direct result of how well those two items mature . Yield matters.
LED threads often talk about the “science”. I have seen industrial lighting come a long way myself. The new Drivers and the chips of today are significantly better. So great, so, they generate significant amounts of heat,We are sacrificing heat for raw power.less..but, it is still a loss.Those driver boards fail more often than you think. Can they penetrate the canopy as well as raw output power from a HiD? Commercial growers still use real lights not LED. Ive been inside some of the new legal ones in Canada. They are unreal in scale.
Maybe someday. But with CMH and DE bulbs now. Ill be sticking with that business model, at least in the short term.
If we going to get the quality discussion on the table, better come with some real clear comparisons and results. Talk is cheap. I want to give LED a fair shot, Ive been watching its progression for years. In the end, there is only a few things that really matter. Bud density and THC production, overall quality is a direct result of how well those two items mature . Yield matters.
LED threads often talk about the “science”. I have seen industrial lighting come a long way myself. The new Drivers and the chips of today are significantly better. So great, so, they generate significant amounts of heat,We are sacrificing heat for raw power.less..but, it is still a loss.Those driver boards fail more often than you think. Can they penetrate the canopy as well as raw output power from a HiD? Commercial growers still use real lights not LED. Ive been inside some of the new legal ones in Canada. They are unreal in scale.
Maybe someday. But with CMH and DE bulbs now. Ill be sticking with that business model, at least in the short term.
lol@real growers
If I need to take a bank loan to set up, then you might see lots of soil bags and sodiums. It's not a business like long term investment though. It's getting the most money made from the first crop, with the minimum outlay. If I had the money for LED, it would pay for itself in a similar amount of time. It's all about having that investment money. Once an operation is running, with LED you can often put another grow on top of the first. No further land cost. Many expand so far with their HID crop, they run out of electric so must use LED.
If it's bloody cold where you grow, and you can't afford to insulate and buy heat recovery equipment, then HID heaters have merit. Generally though, people have a lot of space to fill, but not the money. So the initial build is HID and bags of soil. People like to stick with what they know, and what they know they can get others doing.
Most pro-grows I know of are not expanding with HID. They are moving over to LED. HID remains as a legacy type product, but they no longer want it.
The worlds largest indoor grow is in Japan, and has been only LED for almost 10 years.
Biggest in Michigan is 80,000 pot plants, LED
40 acres was the biggest in 2020. Copperstate in Arizona. LED
I have picked the first three.
Time for a daft comment:
HID/Imperial
LED/Metric
umol/m2/sec is what our meters measure, and we move them around to get an average. That's what we are looking at when we see a tent floor divided up into squares, and the readings in each square giving us an average. Some manufacturers stray from this standard and state a different space, as there light is designed to light that space in confinement. In larger grows the value per meter, as given on our meters, is all that's of interest.
I tend to have my canopy at 650 and the leads above it might reach 900 as my lights are quite low. I tend to just look at the worst areas, the average height stuff. Concentrating on getting the worst areas to at least 600, without the tops getting too much to cope
skunk numba one
Member
Just trying to make it I think.
Since legalisition some proper lighting guys have stepped into cannabis farming. One to look at is Osram, who go under the Fluence branding here. They have guys tasked specifically with this. Going out to the new adopters of LED and helping them grow. Some of the trials get published.
Realistically, I swapped to LED, and the extra yield paid for the LEDs in one run. There was no need to look at power savings to relieve me of their cost. I simply got enough more bud to pay for them and still put more in my pocket afterwards.
There is no reason to use HID unless you are skint or need the heat. A couple of years ago some adopters were finding their old ways didn't work with them, and switching back to HID instead of adapting. Understandable if you don't have any room on your schedule for going back to school. These days, we just hear stories of people that won't go back. Even the people having difficulties, are still sticking with them.
The Philips site also publishes trials, but I'm not sure if any are pot. Both Philips and Osram will get the customers money, regardless of LED or HID investment. They don't need to steer people towards any particular technology. They are also big enough to be taken to court for damages, if they lie.
The huge legal cannabis growers here in BC spend millions on electricity so are always looking and testing for the most cost effective lighting methods. Yet most of them still use HID lights.
BTW Most LED light owners don't know that led lights dim over time and by 50000 hour will have lost over 30% of its output and need to be replaced note at 10000 to 20000 hour mark led will have lost more then 10 % of thier light output and should be replaced. A thousand watt led will run you at least a $1000. A 1000 watt hid bulb is $50 and will need to be replaced at the 10% light loss or at the 12000 hour mark but will last 25000 before losing 30% of its light output.
LEDs, follow a different method for measuring life expectancy called lumen maintenance.
"Rated lumen-maintenance life is measured in hours with associated percentage of light output, noted as Lp. In other words, L70 of 30,000 hours means that the tested LEDs produce 70% of the initial light output at 30,000 hours. If an LED has L50 of 30,000 hours, its lumen output decays faster than one with L70 of 30,000 hours."
BTW Most LED light owners don't know that led lights dim over time and by 50000 hour will have lost over 30% of its output and need to be replaced note at 10000 to 20000 hour mark led will have lost more then 10 % of thier light output and should be replaced. A thousand watt led will run you at least a $1000. A 1000 watt hid bulb is $50 and will need to be replaced at the 10% light loss or at the 12000 hour mark but will last 25000 before losing 30% of its light output.
LEDs, follow a different method for measuring life expectancy called lumen maintenance.
What is lumen maintenance?
Lumen maintenance is an approach of measuring the light output (lumens) of a brand new light source and comparing that with its light output after a certain period of time. L70 and L50 are examples of lumen maintenance – benchmarks for when 70 or 50 percent of a lamp or fixture's total light output remains."Rated lumen-maintenance life is measured in hours with associated percentage of light output, noted as Lp. In other words, L70 of 30,000 hours means that the tested LEDs produce 70% of the initial light output at 30,000 hours. If an LED has L50 of 30,000 hours, its lumen output decays faster than one with L70 of 30,000 hours."
Understanding LED lifespan: How long do LED lamps and fixtures actually last?
Discover what's behind LED lifespan. Here's the difference between LED life ratings and those of traditional lighting sources.
insights.regencylighting.com
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im still unsure of the penetration of led's... as to cost, yep a 1000hid bulb is cheap to replace, on the other hand led's use lots less electric... so its prob not a win-win for either..
where i am, elect is 24cents per kwh, and when i'm plugged in (2x315 cmh's) , i get nausea watching the meter spin...
where i am, elect is 24cents per kwh, and when i'm plugged in (2x315 cmh's) , i get nausea watching the meter spin...
I grow at 400 watts per square meter and if you look at the LED growers most grow between 350 and 500 watts per square meter. So where is the power savings? BTW here in BC its cost me 31.00 cnd per months to run 800 watts. We get charged on a rolling scale at 0.0939 /kWh to 0.1408/kWh so its a lot cheaper and greener, all of BC power comes from hydroelectric plants a huge benefit to living in the mountains.
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400w of LED is about 600w of HID, so there is a third right away. That 200w the HID took just makes heat. You may need to remove that heat. 200w of heat needs about 70w of electric to shift it with a typical aircon plant. So the 600w light might be 270w more than it needs to be.
LEDs cost more, but aircon kit isn't cheap either. If you need it.
Electric use isn't just about money. If it were free, there is still a limit to how much you can get. Also the environmental impact. Your power might be solar, but somebody could use your solar instead of their coal. It's one big grid.
LEDs cost more, but aircon kit isn't cheap either. If you need it.
Electric use isn't just about money. If it were free, there is still a limit to how much you can get. Also the environmental impact. Your power might be solar, but somebody could use your solar instead of their coal. It's one big grid.
both above guys are correct... hydro power costs are so f,,,ing cheap.... and on the otherhand no matter how cheap, if u can save power , u r helping out the planet...
all these decisions.... i gotta smoke a dubb....
all these decisions.... i gotta smoke a dubb....
