HPS vs LED/COB

[CaptainDankness]

I've been using HID lighting for years haven't seen too much promising come out of LED's yet, but with all the talk about the COB LED's sounds a little promising.

Pretty much just wondering if they have actually surpassed the good old HPS for yield and quality. Personally I can't see the quality being beaten and seems the big boys are still going with HPS some the DE HPS I haven't tried that yet but does seem to have bested the traditional HPS.

But wondering what y'all have to say on the matter.

 

[Easy7]

How big do you grow?

Ready made COB's are over priced in my opinion. Ceramic metal halide is a good all around system. DE is excellent for flowering, but the MH DE are dangerous...so that scratches veg.

Depends on how you grow as well. Some people veg just fine with DE HPS but not me.

 

[CaptainDankness]

Yeah, the price of LED's are pretty much the reason I have never tried them now if the quality and yield per watt was at least double it might be worth it. Of course I have heard of 2 grams per watt but I have seen a little more with a vertical SOG with a 600w HPS by Heath Robbinson have also seen some nice trees done vertical from the same guy.

I do grow decent size plants since over 99 plants could get you a life sentence in the USA. I use 5 gallon pots the size really depends on the strain since I love Indica and sativa and them Sativa girls get pretty big.

I have heard LED's don't have the penetration. I have been thinking about going vertical as well which won't really work for LED lights just not sure how it would work with soil seen some decent grows in a vertical SCROG the guy used a CMH not sure how much he was yielding though.

Just really interested in the COB LED's so much talk about them but are they really any better than a good old HPS?

 

[Easy7]

Looking at a cob myself, for males.

They simply don't have the performance I desire for flowering large bushes. 4 square foot plants. They seem to work well for sog, but with plant counts and the effort in many small plants

Led seems good for sog and scrog, neither I do anymore.

 

[mushroombrew]

It really depends of electrical costs in your area. Commercial power where I live is 5.5c/kwh.

It costs me $37 to run a 1000W bulb for a 8 week cycle.

Spending $1500 on LED would get the electrical cost down to $20 per cycle.

So saving $17 per cycle. 1500/17 =88 cycles to pay for LED!!

So it makes no sense to me at all.

My buddy has the only med grow on Kauai, HI. It's 55c/kwh there. He needs LED's badly...

 

[Easy7]

Be careful with the math figuring when going by the stated power companies electric costs. It's actually double once all the fee's are considered and equated. Take the bill total and divide by the kwh. It's about $.08 a kwh here and it's more like $.16 once the bill it totaled.

 

[positivity]

It really depends of electrical costs in your area. Commercial power where I live is 5.5c/kwh.

It costs me $37 to run a 1000W bulb for a 8 week cycle.

Spending $1500 on LED would get the electrical cost down to $20 per cycle.

So saving $17 per cycle. 1500/17 =88 cycles to pay for LED!!

So it makes no sense to me at all.

My buddy has the only med grow on Kauai, HI. It's 55c/kwh there. He needs LED's badly...

There's probably 1000s of med grows on Kauai. Maybe one dispensary, don't know, don't keep track of things that are near a hundred thousand just to apply

Plant health and dank weed is number one in Hawaii. old news right!? If you need to cut back on electric you invest in solar. Change the work lighting to led but the garden bulbs, you use what works best

Personally,I have gave leds every chance in the world to do the job. In the end, the plants really enjoy whatever is happening with the gases in the hid lamps. Here you learn heat isn't necessarily a bad thing

CMH has a great spectrum and is efficient enough for damn near everyone. If you need to pinch pennies because your trying to meet supply demands then that sounds like a big company problem

 

[mushroombrew]

Wether it's 1 light or 100 its the same. Very high initial cost for LED.
If you plan on growing with it for 10 years it is probably worth while. But with the amount of used equipment always for sale I expect few growers really use lights for 10 years.

The best thing I have seen recently isn't COB's. It's surexi chips.Those things rip!

I veg a little with LED. But I am switching to all vert with bare HID bulbs. Hard to beat that for efficiency. 360 lighting from one bulb. Great results so far.

 

[positivity]

The surexis still around? Haven't looked at them in a long time. Some of these led companies have been working on their spectrums for years
I'm good with the ceramic. I look for a variety of things when working inside. I don't want to mess with plant heights or funny symptoms. Feed, water, done. Some may argue its no different with led, fine, that's not my experience thus far
I may mess with the de hps if I want to see if I can plump things up, or mh if I want to blow up a veg, max out resin
I'll wait till one led chip puts out a full spectrum, not 20 mixed together. Then I'll build it myself.

 

[mushroombrew]

I love LEC. Pleasing colors. And plants do really well. I hope to own some soon.