Im offically a LED grower. Spectra Im here.

Shwagbag

Well-Known Member
HAHA, so true, I jumped the gun a little bit. HOPEFULLY lower wattage fixed the issue. Only time will tell. But, I think mike learned from his mistakes, ( through other people expenses ) and made these lights work plug and play almost like the 1st gen. I mean he tried to make right on v2 & v3 with the power supply. But, I know I would probably think the same way as him, throw more wattage at it, and it will produce more bud. Crazy how it doesn't work like that for LED. Yeah I got caught with the red and blue 14 watt chinese led. I mean they work to veg my mother plants without using any power. They are like 1 inch away from the mother top though. But other then that they are useless.
Yeah the cab probably only needs like 2 LEDs in it. But, I wanted to get as close to 600w, like all my other hps 600w grows, so I have something to compare the led grow too.
Word man, Mike definitely has had some expense there too, he's worked at making it right for some people. Are you running two of those tents? Where are you using the other panels?
 

BlueB

Active Member
Shwagbag, every time I see your ass avatar picture I laugh my nuts off. The only thing that would make it funnier is if there was an image of the Mr. Clean bald guy in the reflection on her butt cheek.
 

Swiftowl11

Active Member
DAY 9

Alrite plants are moving along nicely, roots are growing great. They are just getting ready for there huge growth very soon. Nutes are at 500ppm. Temps staying around 76 at night. Humidity is at 26. I keep ph around 5.8. I put ph down to 5.5 and let it drift up.



Some more bubble buckets I have going. THey have my jamaican kush seeds in there.



I decided to start some nirvana ak-48 5 reg seeds. Going to make some more ak seeds with these plants, me and the wife are moving in the months coming so I need to stock up on my seeds.



Here is my lady looking nice and pretty, alot of them are getting their purple tinge



Looking good so far, only thing is I had the fan up to high so some of the middle plants were curling down. So had to lower the fan.
 

Redoctober

Well-Known Member
Great looking setup Swiftowl! I have 2 Spectra 180W 2010 lights and I think they are great. I'm actually in the market for a new panel or two. It's amazing how far the LED market has come in just a year or two. So many viable options now. I will be following your grow! If you say Mike has corrected the issues with the new model Spectras, I might go for another one of those. I was also considering the new 357 Magnum Plus, or the Advanced Diamond Series. Heard good things about those two as well. They are all comparably priced. I'm glad you are happy with your Spectras, Mike is terrific when it comes to customer service as well. Can't wait to see this grow!
 

fuuze72

Member
I'm an LED grower , currently running 5 auto's will set up a post if you like ? shoud see my royal dwarf flowering, its going crazy !
 

dmj1369

Member
I have been viewing this Thread and i am about to start using LED lighting in my grow, have been using like 40 24w cfl and a 150w Hps up to this point. looking forward to the new age and spending my money wisely,been saven up for for the right lighting system. im enjoying your progress and will soon be joining with progress of my own, thank you sharing all the details its very insightful. :)
 

PSUAGRO.

Well-Known Member
I have been viewing this Thread and i am about to start using LED lighting in my grow, have been using like 40 24w cfl and a 150w Hps up to this point. looking forward to the new age and spending my money wisely,been saven up for for the right lighting system. im enjoying your progress and will soon be joining with progress of my own, thank you sharing all the details its very insightful. :)
Yeah same here.....I've been lurking these led grows for a year, and still haven't bit...
I can't seem to shake my CMH bulbs..love them/hate them...ha
When I find an led that produces like the advance(diamond) series without the fans....i'm gonna bite..
 

Swiftowl11

Active Member
Yeah red october the led market has certainly progressed at a very fast rate the last year, no more gimmicks and selling trying to match 1k hps. Just quality products. Im glad you still liking your 2010 lights, Im looking to use these lights, as long as I used my magnetic ballast. Yeah mike did apply a fix to repair the issue that the v2 and v3 were having. Like shwagbag said its not proven to fix the issue yet. But we will see. But irish had great grows with those lights. I would add pro-grow to the list of led to check out. I think all the led really preform the same, maybe 8ths within one another under the same exact conditions. I would go for the best deal you can get. Yeah nothing can be said bad about Mike, great guy. Hard to get in contact, but great dude once you got em.
 

Swiftowl11

Active Member
I'm an LED grower , currently running 5 auto's will set up a post if you like ? shoud see my royal dwarf flowering, its going crazy !
Cant wait to see your post. I love LED grows. Cant wait to see your auto doing its thing.

I have been viewing this Thread and i am about to start using LED lighting in my grow, have been using like 40 24w cfl and a 150w Hps up to this point. looking forward to the new age and spending my money wisely,been saven up for for the right lighting system. im enjoying your progress and will soon be joining with progress of my own, thank you sharing all the details its very insightful. :)
CFL grows some great bud Ive seen some amazing Cab cfl grows. I got couple of my buddies into CFL growing. Gave them a bunch of seeds, told them to buy a pack of lights and they are doing there thing. Growing some good 1 plant grows. I cant even imaging what your grow is looking like with 40 cfl, that has to be nice and not to much of a hit on the electric bill. Those 150 hps are nice, can put pretty close with not that much heat.
Cant wait to cya growing with some LED.
 

Redoctober

Well-Known Member
Yeah red october the led market has certainly progressed at a very fast rate the last year, no more gimmicks and selling trying to match 1k hps. Just quality products. Im glad you still liking your 2010 lights, Im looking to use these lights, as long as I used my magnetic ballast. Yeah mike did apply a fix to repair the issue that the v2 and v3 were having. Like shwagbag said its not proven to fix the issue yet. But we will see. But irish had great grows with those lights. I would add pro-grow to the list of led to check out. I think all the led really preform the same, maybe 8ths within one another under the same exact conditions. I would go for the best deal you can get. Yeah nothing can be said bad about Mike, great guy. Hard to get in contact, but great dude once you got em.
Yeah, I was looking at the Pro-Grows. They are priced pretty well. I was also eying the Solar Flare from California Lightworks: it's a 5W diode, really strong. It's the only one like that on the market as far as I know. I haven't really found many journals with the Solar Flare but I've read some reviews where people cooked their plants because they kept the light closer than 20 inches. It gets really good penetration though apparently.

Irishboy is the whole reason I got the Spectra. His grows were really trailblazing. Of course he had 600W Spectras which are significantly more powerful than mine. I believe at the time, the 600W model was like $2100 or something which is out of my price range, but I think prices for the most part have come down a little bit and will probably continue to do so, slowly.
 

Swiftowl11

Active Member
Yeah I would probably, go with the pro grows, or diamond series, if I didnt go with the spectras. But the price was unbeatable. Yeah I went to solar flare website and looked at their forum. Even on their they got like 3 completed grows, and alot of people journals arent put together properly. I think that light needs to prove it self more. Even the people on there were saying there hps grow yielded more then there solar flare. Check out the forum.
YEah irishboy is the man at LED growing. HE really brought these spectras by GLH to light.

DAY 11

Here are my babys all together growing nice and looking good.



Here they are grouped up.



My single baby by itself.



Grow is going good, I do like these LED, the heat does not exist. I was use to 89 with my hps with the fan on high. Summer time I had to run my inline. Im down to 78 during this time with the fan on its lowest setting. Helicopters stay flying over head and that relief I get, is beyond worth it. Copters cant see these lights. A grow got busted about 4 months ago, 7 houses down, and I know they got them through the helicopter. LED gets a A+ so far.
 

Redoctober

Well-Known Member
blackdog and HSS also have 5-6W diodes
Of the Blackdog models, only the Platinum XL has the 5W diodes, the rest have 3W. Not that you really need 5W diodes, in fact, it may come to pass that they are are actually too powerful and do more harm than good. That Platinum is also one mega powerful light, 740W actual draw with all 5W diodes, IR and UV. I think it might be overkill. But the smaller Blackdogs look pretty nice, like the 450. It has 15 spectrum's (which may not be necessary) and also has IR and UV which a lot of lights don't have. I believe the Spectras do have UV, not sure about IR which helps trigger flowering. The Haight's look interesting too in that they are solid state and have no fans. I'm not sure how they dissipate heat, or if they even generate heat. I haven't seen any HSS or Blackdog grows so I need to go hunt for some.

Sorry to get sidetracked on your grow Swiftowl, the sprouts look great and really seem to be enjoying the Spectra. I hope you get really tight nodes with it! You may want to drill out a little hole for that air tube because it looks like you have a light leak with the top lid slightly askew where the tube enters the tub.
 

PSUAGRO.

Well-Known Member
^^^^^good call on the light leak Red....
Swift....keep the pics coming...everything looks healthy....great job.
 

dmj1369

Member
Im still trying all i follow this thread and others, to figure out exactly which LEDs to go with,lol. i swear you hear good things an bad things about many of them, its so hard to just pcik one for me. i can wait to see teh final results of this grow it may help. am really interested how long it takes from the start of flowering to finsh with theses.
 

BlueB

Active Member
I've never seen truly healthy growth with any LED. The plants always look a little strange. As long as they produce it really doesn't matter, but plants still prefer a balanced full spectrum light over just a few key wavelengths. No plant uses only 1 wavelength within a certain color. It (the sun) is always an infinite mixture of wavelengths (a range). It's like cooking with only salt and pepper, the food will still taste good, but not nearly as good as with all the other spices thrown in to it. Although a plant will grow with only the 420, 460, 630, and 660nm red wavelength, it would still prefer that it had everything in between as well. For this reason, I don't think that LEDs will ever fully "take over" the industry. The type of light that is really going to make a difference in the industry is one that uses little power "like LEDs", low heat, BUT ALSO PRODUCES A FULL RANGE SPECTRUM, with all the key wavelengths in between them.
 

BlueB

Active Member
I've heard quite a bit of talk about plasma lighting being the next best thing, but until they can emit the important RED wavelengths that plants really use a lot, they just won't be quite there.
 

BlueB

Active Member
Yeah, I was looking at the Pro-Grows. They are priced pretty well. I was also eying the Solar Flare from California Lightworks: it's a 5W diode, really strong. It's the only one like that on the market as far as I know. I haven't really found many journals with the Solar Flare but I've read some reviews where people cooked their plants because they kept the light closer than 20 inches. It gets really good penetration though apparently.

Irishboy is the whole reason I got the Spectra. His grows were really trailblazing. Of course he had 600W Spectras which are significantly more powerful than mine. I believe at the time, the 600W model was like $2100 or something which is out of my price range, but I think prices for the most part have come down a little bit and will probably continue to do so, slowly.
Here are journals being done with the California Light Works lights.
http://www.ledgrowlightforum.com/testing-california-lightworks-solarstorm-w-5gal-dwc-setup-t43.html
http://www.ledgrowlightforum.com/test-grow-solar-storm-800w-island-sweet-skunk-ww-in-autopot-t42.html
http://www.ledgrowlightforum.com/solarstorm-t24.html
 
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