convince me led is worth it.

Dr.Nick Riviera

Well-Known Member
The biggest reason to look hard at LED for growing is because you could end up sounding like DNR. No one really wants to look out of touch and clueless on any subject, so educate yourself, build a light or buy a quality pre made one. Notice no one goes from the high end diy LED builds BACK to HPS.
there is only 1 group that pushes COBS and that is you knuckleheads here on RIU, you all have been sold by the little riu clan, who fight among themselves, BTW. They started building lights in their garage and now they are the future of lighting, Gimme a effen break. suckers born every minute.
 

Budley Doright

Well-Known Member
If you're doing just fine with two 600s, you could replace them with two roughly 400w LED fixtures, and have about the same amount of light. If you replace your two 600s with 1200w of LED, you'll probably have about 30-40% more photons available to your plants. The question is, do you want/need that extra light?
So when the manufacturer states that a 800 watt covers 4x4 I can disregard that? That's why I get confused lol.
 

Budley Doright

Well-Known Member
You would be using the same wattage but delivering more light.

Replace 1 of the 600w HIDs with LED and do a run, see what you think. I'm an LED proponent but it's smart to test new tech out before replacing the old tech.
I probably will build one, just not sure what size to cover my area, I keep getting different info re coverage. I guess I'll need to do more reading lol
 
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im4satori

Well-Known Member
it was very easy to build and after you build one you can build 1000

positive to positive

negative to negative

youll need
wire strippers
4way screw driver
drill with a couple bits for metal
a soldering iron if you run the dimmer
hack saw to cut the metal and some screws to assemble it
18 gauge wire

that's it
 

Budley Doright

Well-Known Member
from what ive been told

25 watts for veg (in my experience possibly less)

35 to 50 watts for bloom (no experiences, just what ive read)

more cobs at lower watts Is more efficient than fewer cobs at higher wattage

I run the citi 1825 leds at 60 watts each and loving it
got them from @CobKits

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I assume your talking per square foot so if I used your 50 watts per foot it would be 1600 watts required for a 8x4 room :o
 

im4satori

Well-Known Member
I assume your talking per square foot so if I used your 50 watts per foot it would be 1600 watts required for a 8x4 room :o
yes per sq ft

but running 50 watts per sq ft of led would be close to running 75 watts hps per sq ft

running led @ 35 watts per sq ft would be close to 50 watts hps
 

Budies 101

Well-Known Member
there is only 1 group that pushes COBS and that is you knuckleheads here on RIU, you all have been sold by the little riu clan, who fight among themselves, BTW. They started building lights in their garage and now they are the future of lighting, Gimme a effen break. suckers born every minute.

Yup, we built samsung, cree, citizen, bridgelux in our garage... That or we bought the latest tech from the companies that still make old tech HPS light bulbs for the slow comers and we mounted them on heatsinks and powered them similar to what you do when you screw in a light bulb.

As I said, you make a bigger fool of yourself every desperate comment you make in hopes of trolling. I don't mind trolls because if properly responded to there is a lot of good information that can be provided to a greater community. Not to mention most people having questions on a given subject immediately recognize a troll. Trolls usually have a way of making their cause look foolish as you have done repeatedly in this thread. You don't appear to have grown with LED (high end) so it makes sense you would make drunken statements like I quoted above.
 

xX_BHMC_Xx

Well-Known Member
that 's exactly how swollen your heads have gotten, now you compare yourself to microsoft,lol Like i said, Highly invest in LED, pick up your douche card at checkout.
And still, you have yet to contribute even one single ounce of intelligent information or conversation to this thread. Have anything useful to say there, bud?
 

im4satori

Well-Known Member
for me the cost was difficult
I would look at the cost to build a 1000 watt led and run

but I began to look at it differently... the diy build allows me to take the hit in smaller bites

I build 240 watt bars and it cost me a littlle less than $400 to build 1
that's shipping and assembly parts from hardware store and a couple tools included

I build 1 fixture when I can afford the $400 and a month or two later I get another
now I have 4 and they pull a combined total of 960watts

building bars I can arrange them any way I want and theyre light weight and easy to carry

it doesn't cost anymore it actually cost less cuz the lower wattage drivers are more economical than the higher wattge drivers

I have a 240 watt driver/fixture and it drives 4 cobs @ 60watts each (MAX)

and I have 4 fixtures
 

xX_BHMC_Xx

Well-Known Member
So when the manufacturer states that a 800 watt covers 4x4 I can disregard that? That's why I get confused lol.
Yes. What you should look for is actual PPF numbers posted by the manufacturer. The increase in micromoles per joule seen in recent LED technology is the reason why some newer fixtures can actually back up the claims of "replacing a 1000w HPS." Companies like HLG, PLC, Fluence, Nextlight, hell even Timber posts PPF numbers for their fixtures. Comparing verified PPF is the best possible quantifiable way to compare grow lights of different types.

Gavita claims about 1150 PPF from their SE 600, shoot for a fixture that will produce that.
 

HydroRed

Well-Known Member
As a year round grower now, I still revert back to my HPS in the winter since I rely on the heat from them (like @Budley Doright mentions). In the summer....not so much, which is why I built COB lights. Utilizing both HPS and COB for what my needs are & to fulfill the needs of my rooms. Since building the COB lights almost 2 yrs ago and appropriating the HID's for cooler temps/winter growing, my costs have gone down significantly on my summer electric bills and quality and weight have not suffered. The initial investment stings a little compared to HPS, but after seeing the reduction in utility bills over the summer months due to less wattage/heat/hvac usage I feel 100% justified in my build and know that the ROI is there within a couple years time due to the huge savings in the summer months. Considering I should get 6+ years from my led build, it will pay for itself and then some before I even have to think about replacing any cobs or drivers. Its all about making it work for YOUR situation.
 

Budies 101

Well-Known Member
for me the cost was difficult
I would look at the cost to build a 1000 watt led and run

but I began to look at it differently... the diy build allows me to take the hit in smaller bites

I build 240 watt bars and it cost me a littlle less than $400 to build 1
that's shipping and assembly parts from hardware store and a couple tools included

I build 1 fixture when I can afford the $400 and a month or two later I get another
now I have 4 and they pull a combined total of 960watts

building bars I can arrange them any way I want and theyre light weight and easy to carry

it doesn't cost anymore it actually cost less cuz the lower wattage drivers are more economical than the higher wattge drivers

I have a 240 watt driver/fixture and it drives 4 cobs @ 60watts each (MAX)

and I have 4 fixtures

So I just built a 300watt PCB lm561c s6 chip light (7 total) for about 260$ a light... Why does yours cost so much? From my understanding the 561c not over driven is better than a 3590 cree.
 

Dr.Nick Riviera

Well-Known Member
And still, you have yet to contribute even one single ounce of intelligent information or conversation to this thread. Have anything useful to say there, bud?
I have gotten tons of info from this thread, I have identified several more Highly invested butthurt LED fanboys.:blsmoke:
 
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