Does LEDs really yield the same as their "HPS equivalent"

[gladysvjubb]

The Mother Malowi. It continues to grow and produce under the NEW deformable LED. So far I am sold. Got my cloning down.
ibb.co/3FYzPZshttps

 

[DARKSIDER]

He does, the rock board, I may be setting 8 of them up like the sunbar

Should be far superior the the spread of HLG


Nice what light do you have, how responsive is the apogee to it etc
How do you like it

Thanks TPFTFW using a few of these boards at the moment.

The apogee is responsive enough for me to understand but ive only been using it for the past 2 months but its helped me a lot with how high my lights should be and what i can give or take lightwise to the plants adding or dimming where before i was just guessing doing ok i guess, but should do better from here onwards at this moment my plants are recieving around the 900ppfd range bumped it up this week from 600ppfd any higher and they show me and yes i can honestly say im glad i bought it worth it to me.

 

[Horselover Fat]

Thanks TPFTFW using a few of these boards at the moment.

View Image

The apogee is responsive enough for me to understand but ive only been using it for the past 2 months but its helped me a lot with how high my lights should be and what i can give or take lightwise to the plants adding or dimming where before i was just guessing doing ok i guess, but should do better from here onwards at this moment my plants are recieving around the 900ppfd range bumped it up this week from 600ppfd any higher and they show me and yes i can honestly say im glad i bought it worth it to me.

With a meter you can also raise the leds to achieve proper canopy light level. You will have more penetration compared to running leds dimmed and close to tops. Try a few heights and power levels to see which suits your growing style.

How big is the board?

 

[DARKSIDER]

With a meter you can also raise the leds to achieve proper canopy light level. You will have more penetration compared to running leds dimmed and close to tops. Try a few heights and power levels to see which suits your growing style.

How big is the board?

Hello Horselover Fat.

The board in my photo is the one which i have above my mother plants,, never been on full power yet if i remember correctly it is a 120 watt board,, same as the ones in my flower room but have 12 of those, running six on each Atami Wilma System, covering, a 4x4 space on each system and the plants are happy enough, yes i hear you on the dimmer and the heights as well as the penetration got them where the plants need them now.. But the dimmer comes in handy when it gets too hot outside or when the wife has the heating on so a win win for me and thanks for the advice always appreciated and welcomed

 

[Horselover Fat]

^ it was mostly me thinking out loud. I don't even have a light meter. Sure would want one though

 

[Biologist]

I think the Jungleboys test results are in.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEVjI6XJ6I9/

luxxlighting
Grams per watt Numbers
LED- 35 lights 78 LBS 1.5 grams per watt
HPS-63 lights 200 LBS 1.42 grams per watt

Grams per square foot numbers
LED- 35 lights = 78 LB 5x5 per light = 875 SQFT 875/ total grams = 40 grams per square foot
HPS- 63 lights = 200 LB 5x5 per light = 1575/ total grams = 57 grams per square foot

HPS yields 30% more then LED on this run, per square, but LED did 6% better on grams per watt. Maybe once the LED rooms get dialed. It’s Grams per square foot. Factoring expenses, building, employee’s, etc.. as a business Grams per square.

And I think Jungleboys posted later and said it wasn't just 78 lbs for the LED it was 78 lbs of top shelf and 8 lbs of smaller buds.

So it seems LED is best gpw and HPS is way best grams per square foot. Choose which is more important to your grow.

 

[Koondense]

1.5 g/W for leds is quite average or just above average. Can get around 2g/W with little more canopy management so in all aspects the (good)leds are winners over hps.

Cheers

 

[roybart]

What about the cost of air management for HPS Hoods , deflectors fans etc .?
Bulb degradation?
Heating and cooling

We have not had LED around to see long term performance related to degradation. However I have read here many have been using them for 3 - 4 years with no problems.
If you are doing cost calculations,all cost need to be considered.
In both examples the HPS units are nearly double the LED. It would not be unreasonable that the cost of the HPS in this example would be double.


Numbers are like people, the more you punish them the more they will tell you.

 

[roybart]

1.5 g/W for leds is quite average or just above average. Can get around 2g/W with little more canopy management so in all aspects the (good)leds are winners over hps.

Cheers

Canopy management is great point and I believe many are using non LED lighting canopy experience with LED.
To me this is using big block gas guzzling experience to fine tune a Tesla Model S P100D


Non LED are omnidirectional lights produce light in 360 degrees, thus the need for reflectors ( and cleaning etc )

LED are directional 120 degrees.
Why are all LED lights on a flat surface?
Can the LED be placed at different angle to get more dispersed light??

 

[TPFTFW]

Does anyone have any info on LEDstar 303H chips?

 

[Biologist]

1.5 g/W for leds is quite average or just above average. Can get around 2g/W with little more canopy management so in all aspects the (good)leds are winners over hps.

Cheers

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDKU4okJrRb/?igshid=woc8hnu7a55i

Canopy seems pretty well managed.

 

[Koondense]

Lol that's a spectacular canopy! Very well done.
Still i must say the gpw can get better with leds, but still 1,5gpw is a good result after all. I hit 1,8gpw once with zero environment control, sativa dom variety.



Cheers

 

[bucketgirl]

Just wanting to chime in since I have tried both....as others have mentioned, I have found quality of QB LEDs to be adequate (less dense but also less larf in lower buds) to HPS but ~30% less yield. For reference this is comparing HLG 600s to 1000w SE HPS lamps.

Sure GPW is higher, but with the value of our cultivar, the money you save on electricity is peanuts compared to the value of the yield you sacrifice. If you are Captain Planet, perhaps GPW would be more meaningful.

I went back to HPS for flowering. The QBs did look (and run) very cool, though. Now they are veg lights and perform well enough at that task.

 

[TakenByTheSky]

Just wanting to chime in since I have tried both....as others have mentioned, I have found quality of QB LEDs to be adequate (less dense but also less larf in lower buds) to HPS but ~30% less yield. For reference this is comparing HLG 600s to 1000w SE HPS lamps.

Sure GPW is higher, but with the value of our cultivar, the money you save on electricity is peanuts compared to the value of the yield you sacrifice. If you are Captain Planet, perhaps GPW would be more meaningful.

I went back to HPS for flowering. The QBs did look (and run) very cool, though. Now they are veg lights and perform well enough at that task.

Thanks for your insight..

I recently bought into some HLG QBs personally I see some of the arguments with HPS vs LED to be skewed.

For instance they're less hot, well yes they will always be less hot since wattage creates btu's. Less watts is naturally less heat.

I've also heard conflicting information on yields.

GPS has a long standing proven history of producing .5 to 1 gram per watt on average and even higher than that is possible.

To yield the same LED would have to always produce 1.5 to 2 grams per watt as many are 60% of their how counter part.

I don't see how 300w led how can yield the same as 600w how.

I do see if going and equally matching watt per watt things being equal to or greater with the led vs HPS but if going watt for watt it erases any savings.

I also feel like not all LED lights are created equal and in some cases I've seen 250w led being sold as 600w HPS replacement I just don't buy it.

 

[bucketgirl]

Yeah, there's a lot of marketing and technical mumbo jumbo about how the LED's spectrum is so much better and the penetration bla bla bla. I pulled the trigger just like you did. I'm no expert on lighting but the results (for me) showed a clear winner and it was the tried and true HPS. She ain't pretty but she gets the job done best. Maybe in micro setups where heat is a big issue the LEDS might make more sense, however even in that regard I have found that I had to keep my canopy at least 24" away from the LEDs or they would burn the shit out of my plants. Not sure if the issue was bleaching from too much light or the radiant heat. Maybe that's more of a problem with the bigger LEDs. I only tried the HLG 600s so I can't comment on any others.

As for the GPW, it's used as a selling point for LEDS but it's such a subjective variable. My opinion is GPW is only useful when comparing apples to apples in your own setup, for testing purposes.

 

[Azeotrope]

LEDs are a waste of money! Not to mention that comparing them to HPS which suck anyway is already setting a low bar.

 

[indagroove]

Thanks for your insight..

I recently bought into some HLG QBs personally I see some of the arguments with HPS vs LED to be skewed.

For instance they're less hot, well yes they will always be less hot since wattage creates btu's. Less watts is naturally less heat.

I've also heard conflicting information on yields.

GPS has a long standing proven history of producing .5 to 1 gram per watt on average and even higher than that is possible.

To yield the same LED would have to always produce 1.5 to 2 grams per watt as many are 60% of their how counter part.

I don't see how 300w led how can yield the same as 600w how.

I do see if going and equally matching watt per watt things being equal to or greater with the led vs HPS but if going watt for watt it erases any savings.

I also feel like not all LED lights are created equal and in some cases I've seen 250w led being sold as 600w HPS replacement I just don't buy it.

Yes, not all LEDs are equal, and anyone selling a 250w LED fixture to equal a 600w HPS is a liar. I'd stay away from any company with such claims. LED to HPS wattage equivalency is closer to 75% IMO, so you'd be looking at a 450w quality LED fixture being roughly equal to a 600w HPS. If you use 75% as the math, you would see that the ".5 to 1 gram per watt on average" you posted for HPS would equal around .67 to 1.33 g/w for LED.

LEDs are a waste of money! Not to mention that comparing them to HPS which suck anyway is already setting a low bar.

HPS was the standard for decades, and many big grow ops still use them very successfully. That said, yes LED is the way of the future. If you are smart you can put together a high quality LED rig with parts warrantied for 7 years for around $0.80/watt. Those QB's will not need to be replaced for at least 5 years, and then the replacement cost for the boards is only around $0.50 /watt. You don't need to buy any bulbs during that time at all, so you save a bunch there. As far as cost savings you will save 54 KwH (12/12 flowering, even more in veg) per month for every 600w HPS that is converted to a 450w LED fixture (in my case, a savings of around $100 a year per fixture). So, if you follow the math, you'll already save more than you spent to build the fixture in power over 5 years, plus no bulb cost. It's like free energy.

 

[TakenByTheSky]

Yes, not all LEDs are equal, and anyone selling a 250w LED fixture to equal a 600w HPS is a liar. I'd stay away from any company with such claims. LED to HPS wattage equivalency is closer to 75% IMO, so you'd be looking at a 450w quality LED fixture being roughly equal to a 600w HPS. If you use 75% as the math, you would see that the ".5 to 1 gram per watt on average" you posted for HPS would equal around .67 to 1.33 g/w for LED.



HPS was the standard for decades, and many big grow ops still use them very successfully. That said, yes LED is the way of the future. If you are smart you can put together a high quality LED rig with parts warrantied for 7 years for around $0.80/watt. Those QB's will not need to be replaced for at least 5 years, and then the replacement cost for the boards is only around $0.50 /watt. You don't need to buy any bulbs during that time at all, so you save a bunch there. As far as cost savings you will save 54 KwH per month for every 600w HPS that is converted to a 450w LED fixture (in my case, a savings of around $100 a year per fixture). So, if you follow the math, so already save more than you spent to build the fixture in power over 5 years, plus no bulb cost. It's like free energy.

Good points, the issue I found when shopping around was that most LED light manufacturers are selling fixtures that are about 50-65% HPS wattage and not making lights 70-80% HPS wattage which is probably more the sweet spot. It leaves the consumer having to buy more than one light to hit that 70-80% range so like a 400-450w as a 600w HPS equivalent.

 

[roybart]

Also the cost in.labor to clean reflectors,higher capitol cost cost or air flow ducting,cooling costs. Yes I understand cooling can be offset by heating but not everyone needs heating.
In the end dinosaurs did become extinct.

Also there are so many variables that impact final crop weight just picking one variable makes it junk science.

 

[Horselover Fat]

So HPS has magic photons that are sooo much better than LED photons?