Led Vs. Hps - 70w Challenge

[blackone]

The possibility of being able to use only the ventilation needed to replenish the air is definitely exciting. For big places - please consider how much money and effort people with large sealed rooms are putting into ventilation. Ventilation can easily be more expensive than light.
This constant dissing of leds is exactly the same as the dissing of cfl lights 3 years ago. Of course I agree that cfl lights are less effective than hps and probably won't get much better than what they are. But leds are still evolving fast and probably will continue to for some time. Prices are also going to drop drastically within a few years as industry efforts are going into creating powerful and cheap lights for the consumer market.
Don't forget that a led grow has already pulled 1g/W.

 

[bounty29]

blackone you got a link to the 1g/w LED grow? I believe it, I just would like to check it out.

 

[LED_experiments]

my first test gows didn't go to 1g/w, but i was quite close. then there were some other tests with better (lamps) results and a friend of mine got 1g/w. i'm not sure if he has any pictures/growdiary of that grow. but there is a difference between his setup and the one that medved uses.
in first case there was 2 spectrum lamp (630+470) - only 1 type of clorophile.
in this case the lamp is 4 spectrum - both clorophile types (not optimal peaks, but quite close), the models that were used in previous test have been replaced with better, almost 100% brighter leds in this one. but there was no test grow with this led combination so i really don't know if it will be better or worse. that is why i'm allways in contact with medved to see how the growth is going, what problems does he have with plants, how do the plants respond to the combination used,...
for you this grow maybe is fun, but for me it is much more.

 

[Pimp Aurora]

Shouldn't it be LED + halogen vs hps?

I noticed atleast 1 halogen light on the side of the led area, why none in with the hps?

 

[bounty29]

Huh I didn't notice that. What's the halogen there for?

 

[PHB]

for you this grow maybe is fun, but for me it is much more.

LED_experiments - I know of several growers you have built LED setups for so I am curious as to what you mean by the above quote. In my mind you, knna, and a few others are the elders of the LED community so I am interested in what your ultimate goals are and what path you see yourself taking to get there. I'm more curious than anything...

Thanks,
PHB

 

[Truth]

please elaborate.

i really think you don't have any first hand experience growing weed under L.E.D.'s, judging from your posts, no offence intended.

no offence taken, but personal experience is not necessary to put together the facts about LED lighting.

LED lighting is most likely the future of growing, but I was promised flying cars 30 years ago and I still don't see them. For me to switch to them, the range of the light intensity doesn't have to rise, the cost of the current equipment has to drop dramatically. but a rise of light intensity/range wouldn't hurt.

LED_Experiments says that HID lighting is more expensive in the long run than LED lighting..lets test that theory..

---
HPS light 70w-250w: Under or around 100$ (average life: 24K hours)
Bulb replacement every 6 months (not too necessary, but I'll push it), say 20 or less bulbs over 10 years(at around 20-30$ per bulb): 400$. total 500$ max. Add some cooling, replacement ballast parts etc..maybe 100$ more maximum, but probably much less since a regular old box fan could cool even a 400w HPS in an open room. average yield per harvest ranging from .5g/w to 1g/w: (70w hps 45-70g) (250w: 125-250g)

HPS light 400w: around 120-200$ (average life around 20K hours) 20 replacement bulbs over 10 years(at 50$ per bulb): 500$. add some cooling, replacement parts, etc, maybe another 100-200$. total cost max: 900$. average yield per harvest ranging from .5g/w to 1g/w: 200-400g

LED light 70w: Over 700$ (average life: 100K hours) Average yield per harvest ranging from .5g/w to 1g/w: 45-70g.

LED light 400w: 4000$ (average life: 100k hours) Average yield per harvest ranging from .5g/w to 1g/w: 200-400g.

---

now say you harvested every 6 months with each setup, at the maximum 1g/w for 10 years:

70-250w HPS 500$ equipment: 1400g-5000g(3-11 lbs)
400w HPS 900$ equipment: 8000g (17.6 lbs)
70w LED 700$ equipment: 1400g (3 lbs)

---
at only a little more the cost of equipment with the 400w over the 70w LED, you get over a 400% increase in yield. say you save money from having to get your medicine on the streets. even at 5$/g your 400w harvests are worth a savings of more than the 70w LED Harvest, which tremendously over shadows any costs of the equipment.

with a par rating of 100% vs 30%, you would think that since you can get 1g/w with hid, you could get much more easily with led. but that doesn't seem to be the case thus far. I think if I could squeeze 7-15 more pounds out of my lighting over 20 harvests each light it would be worth having to deal with cooling, and worth having a bigger light. who makes 70grams (at 1g/w 70w LED) last 4-6 months? (althought I can) not a great number of people do. you don't see a return on your initial investment as quickly with LED as you do with HID either.

---

roughly estimated electric costs 10 years per light (24/0):

70w LED: 700$ (350$ if blinks 120 times/second)
400w HID: 3600$
400w LED: 3600$ (1800 if blinks 120 times/second)
70w-250w HID: 700$-2224$

total final roughly estimated cost per system over a 10 year period, electric and equipment(24/0):

70w LED: 1400 (1050 if blinks 120 times/second)
70w-250w HID: 1100-2724
400w HID: 4500
400w LED: 7600 (5800 if blinks 120 times/second)


estimated savings for cannabis minus equipment and electric costs at 5$/g and 1g/w for 20 harvests:

70w LED: 5,600$
70w-250w HID: 5,900$-22,300$
400w HID: 35,500$
400w LED: 32,400$


and at a savings of 10$/g, it would be double this, which is more towards reality.


also imagine the work it will take to train and keep these plants at a proper height for optimal lighting, vs HID.

the LED still comes up short even in equal wattage of HID, and what makes it come up short is the cost of the systems. not to mention that these are home built costs for the LED, not including labor if it were a commercially bought product, it would be a bit more. the only cost I haven't added was the cost of electricity to cool the lights, which would be of no great significance.

oh and his electrical savings would have been as much as 50% or like running a 35w if there had been a module installed to make it blink 120 times per second(thats why I asked if it strobed), basically only on half the time, but the appearance of being on all the time. the strobing doesn't noticeably affect the growth of the plants in a bad way, it just saves power. there has been studies that even show plant photosynthesis responds very well to peaks and lows in lighting.

anyways, hoped you enjoyed the read, let me know if I got anything wrong.

after the xperiment is done, I suggest you combine both lights, with the hps on the top, and the led on the sides.

 

[LED_experiments]

Shouldn't it be LED + halogen vs hps?

I noticed atleast 1 halogen light on the side of the led area, why none in with the hps?

hehe, so you noticed that halogen bulb. let me explain what is it doing there. i'm not sure if all of you know the plant reactions to each wavelenght illumination. for better understanding you have to know about 'emerson effect'. i found a good explaination here http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes...weringPlant/Photoperiodism/Photoperiodism.htm
the point of that emerson is that you have some receptors that convert itself from one form to another. we discovered that studies with other 'led guys' and found it important for our tecnology. i don't know how to explain in short way, but:
when using 660nm, all the Pr convert to Pfr. this eliminates unwanted stretching but it also causes that the plant doens't go to sleep immediately after the lights go off. the Pfr ratio has to drop under the certain value before the plant feels the dark. it can last quite a long time, even an hour or even more. in that case if using 12/12, the plant would more likely feel 13/11 or even worse.
if adding a light source of 735nm (halogen has quite a good fr:r ratio, so we used that) it causes Pfr to turn back to Pr and the ratio of the Pr parts dropps quicker. we still don't know how long does it take. if you know david zap's led grow, you maybe noticed that he uses that lamp too. we suggested him to use it because he had some problems when flowering with his previous grow.
the halogen bulb is adviced to be turned on for 15-30 minutes after the main led lamp goes off (in flowering time). i think medved will use 15. so it will be 11.75 hours of led and 0.25 hours of halogen (97.9% led + 2.1% halogen if looking for timing ratio). should be called a hybrid then? maybe it should, maybe not. if you take another similar example: your car uses gasoline. it also uses air to mix the gasoline with before it gets to the cylinders. is it called hybrid because it uses gasoline and air? even if the percentage is much higher than 2%, it is not called hybrid. but ok, you can call this system hybrid if you want.

why there is no halogen in hps box? the reason for that is:
hps has full spectrum so it also includes a bit of 735 source. it is present for all the time when light is turned on (that is why there is more stretching). when the lamp turnes off, it still glows for some time. all that time there is a lot of IR spectrum (heat) that also includes 735nm. there is another fact about the Pr and Pfr ratio. because the 735 is present for all the time, the percentage of Pfr parts is not as high as in led box because they convert back to Pr when hit by 735. so they are changing their form all the time because they have both light type sources avaiable.
so in conclusion: there is really no need to add halogens into that box. if we put the halogen into hps box, there would be much more unwanted stretching and i think we don't need that.

PHB: there was a debate about what our goal is with other 'elders of the LED community' as you called us. the main goal is to get the most perfect ratio of the light spectrum for best results (higher g/w ratio). it's kind a complicated because the led technology develops quickly. every time we use better models with higher output, so it is quite hard to compare results with previous grow. but we can compare plant reactions from each experiment. in my previous the stretching was minimal and it looked like the plant is growing very slowly. also the colour of plant was very dark green (i think because only 1 type clorophile got the peak values). minimal stretching means that there was enough light (plant starts to stretch when it doesn't get enought light). now we'll see how the plant is growing under different spectrum combination (stretching, colour, nutrient uptake, final product, quality of stuff,...). david also had some nutrient problems in his grow. was that because of leds, genetics, his mixing mistakes? not sure. he had hps and led at the same time but problems always occured in led box. coincidence? who knows.
the main goal is to get as much the most quality stuff as possible. but that is not the goal only for us. i believe everybody has that goal.

truth: there allready were some combination grows. led+hps, led+energy saving, led+coolwhite, led+cfl,... and i think there will be more of them in the future. there always were some problems or worse results. david said that he will try led+cfl next time. we'll see what medved decides to do next. maybe we'll make new a combination and he'll test another led lamp. who knows.

 

[Pimp Aurora]

Silly me, I am aware of the emmersion effect but I didn't know that HPS covered it, thanks for clearing that up.

Well I hope you two don't mind me grabbing a seat for the ride here, i'm really interested in trying a combination grow sometime maybe next year, no rush, so best of luck you guys, i'm pretty sure this is going to end up almost an encyclopedia for led's!

 

[PHB]

Thanks LED_experiments, I always read your posts with interest. I look forward to seeing how medveds grow goes.

PHB

 

[blakhash]

wow we get an led grow and a lesson on LED's great day.

 

[Mr.Bongowsky]

This is great experiment, it must was a lot of work to do this LED panel.

Good luck with this!

 

[pumpkin2006]

I think anyone debating which system will do better, should just shut the bleep up. Its pointless, why would you debate about something that doesn't exist? I mean would you honestly debate that Jesus is better than Mohammad;nobody's even meet either one of them. So when the results are in, there in; they will speak for themselves. Now you can say, man I think those LED's are gonna do better, but you shouldn't be talking as if you know their going to be better.

 

[Medved]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kbs-J7v1MM


some update, for now is HPS in lead. But only yesterday I installed halogens inside 4 x 35 W, but it's on only for 30 min, at the end of the day. And I use a dimmer to get them to half of their strengh (too warm).

 

[Truth]

I can't help but to think this whole 'experiment' is skewed towards WANTING LED to win, which creates a bias. the HPS plants look horrible, they look like they have nutrient burn, or lock out...they have dying curled leafs and are scraggily like they haven't been cared for properly. It has less to do with the light and more to do with the care. You've also got an extra halogen in there, which may not run for long, but will surely make a difference in the long run. Also, the LED most likely has more spectrums...a full spectrum hps bulb would have been suitable.


first row HPS, on the far right...looks like it is about to die, and is stunted. But even though the HPS plants are slowed from improper care, they still outshine the LED's, in that they already are bushing out with secondary branches, while the LED's are barely sprouting branches. why is this? I believe it is because of the lack of canopy penetration by the low light intensities, and limited range of the LED's.



"I think anyone debating which system will do better, should just shut the bleep up. Its pointless, why would you debate about something that doesn't exist? I mean would you honestly debate that Jesus is better than Mohammad;nobody's even meet either one of them. So when the results are in, there in; they will speak for themselves. Now you can say, man I think those LED's are gonna do better, but you shouldn't be talking as if you know their going to be better."

not really pointless to debate. especially since growing is a science. it is all in the math. To compare people is completely different even by principal. You don't need to see an LCD TV to know it displays video do you? This isn't the first LED grow ever, there has been quite a few. You can use math to make very accurate assumptions based on facts, and from what you've seen. basically people are saying that if you never ever grew with LED's, you can't possibly know anything about them or comment on them. well that is not the case. I do like LED lights, but they aren't too practical at all right now. When someone says 'LEDs are cheaper in the long run' and I know that isn't true by fact, then I will point that out.

I would guess that hydroponics would better suit LED lights. why? because you are running fine tuned lights, that boast a better adjustable spectrum, with a better PAR rating. in soil, plants grow slower because the lack of air in the root medium, and all the other benefits hydro has but soil doesn't. essentially, light is being wasted, because it isn't able to be used. The quicker the plants can process the light and nutrients, the more they use, and the faster they grow. just plain and simple science, no ghandi or jesus here. thats just my opinion.

 

[pumpkin2006]

a full spectrum hps bulb would have been suitable.

Man I wanna find that 70w full spectrum bulb... haven't seen it yet.



And yes on the talk of science, thats fine, but you shouldn't be making assumptions because you don't have any empirical evidence as to what is going to happen. I really haven't seen any studies on the net about a 70w hps vs 70w of LED's; have you? If so, link it please.

Yes, a plant can only grow as fast as its limiting factor, most of the time light is not the limiting factor, its almost always Co2.

 

[stretchpup]

I do like LED lights, but they aren't too practical at all right now.

Jeez dude... if you weren't here longer I'd call you a troll. All your posts could have been summed up by the line above... let the man get on with his damn grow!

Good luck, Medved! Don't be pee'in on your HPS plants just so the LEDs win and take over the forums!!

 

[Dr Dog]

Truth, dude you must like typing.
I am interested in how this turns out. I think your led area looks like it should have been in Blade Runner

 

[LED_experiments]

Man I wanna find that 70w full spectrum bulb... haven't seen it yet.



And yes on the talk of science, thats fine, but you shouldn't be making assumptions because you don't have any empirical evidence as to what is going to happen. I really haven't seen any studies on the net about a 70w hps vs 70w of LED's; have you? If so, link it please.

Yes, a plant can only grow as fast as its limiting factor, most of the time light is not the limiting factor, its almost always Co2.

i also searched for that bulb without results. truth, any links?

about CO2, i thik the consumption of co2 depends on light intensity. so if you don't have enough light intensity pumping co2 into your growbox makes no big results. i debated with medved about co2. he was asking if it would make sense to put a co2 setup into this grow. i don't know how he decides. but it would be interesting to see how it works with each setup. but then we loose our information about light itself. we can't know exactly if the production is better because of the lighting or because of co2.

 

[pumpkin2006]

Now, this is hard to say with LED's but a good rule of thumb for HID lighting and co2 is: You should have at least 75-100w per sq/ft of HID lighting, 60-70% RH, 85F or 29.4C and a nutrients program that can keep up with that as well. Then there is a point to having a constant ppm of 1500-1600ppm.

With LED's... I honestly don't know the lighting requirements because the spectrum's and intensities vary so much. Until there is uniformity in the growing industry with them, well just have to keep guessing.

I agree that co2 would negate the experiment at hand.