LED debate!

What is the best LED for flowering?

I was looking at one of those 90w red and blue UFOs and also trying to find a cheaper version of the Kessil H150 LED. What have you guys used with the most success?

Ive wanted to use them .
but ive heard even CFLs are better .

my suggestion would say to save your money .

but I know how it is to crave killer LED bud . lol . I just dont think it will work .
best of luck though !

i posted this in another thread just a few mins ago.

i have little hope for the LED, plants need more then one or 2 accute spectrums of light for ultimate terpiniod, and canabinoidal production. LED's, or light emitting diodes only produce one spectrum of light. Sure, 650nm has a very high photosynthetic response, but the plant is also responsive to lots of other light spectrums, the photosynthetic response range is believed to be between 350nm and 700nm, and the fact is, an hps light produces a much, much more wide spectrum, with a slight focus on the five to six hundred nanometre spectrum, meaning a more wide spread photosynthetic response. Sure, the LED will grow a plant, but the HPS will grow a much better, stronger, and potent plant.

This chart shows different points for optimal photosynthetic response

I realize LEDs (except for a few grows I've seen) cannot be used solely, I'm running with a 125w 6500k CFL and a 65w 2700k. I was thinking about adding a LED on the bottom/side to hit the leaves that don't get any light. Cause as you know with CFL's the number one problem is canopy penetration and my canopy is pretttty thick. You can't see anything below a few nodes if you look straight down here's some pics so you can see what I mean.



View attachment 1222251

Notice the giant leaves on top and the little ones on the bottom left. Also the only gap in my spectrum according to that graph is the most vital 600-700nm light or dark red light. Which is what CFL grows are missing, or lacking in; am I right? These are two different plants on the far right and left, one on left is 2x the size.

I'm looking into leds because of heat issues when I grew this summer I couldn't keep the inside of the tent under 100 and that's with the exhaust running in from the ac was having to leave my tents door open while the lights were on.

The most impressive grow thread I ever followed was a totally LED grow. Several years back, on a similar board that is now defunct, a member came into a tidy sum of money and decided to dump his HID lighting and switch to LED lighting. He researched to find the very best LED lights and he purchased a good number of different styles.

Above his plants he had two large LED panels. He built what I call portable posts, for the lack of a better term, 4 X 4 posts cut in sections that would stack on top of each other, with a flat piece of plywood attached to the bottom of each portable post set for balance. (If I were making them I would make them out of PVC piping.)

Each section of stackable post was long enough to hold an LED light bar. On some portable posts he attached LED light bars to one side and on others he attached LED light bars to all four sides. He ringed his plants with portable posts with an LED on one side and once the top LED light panels were raised high enough he added more portable posts with LED light bars on all four sides between his plants. Each time the top LED lighting was raised enough for another section of portable post with more LED light bars on them he would add another section.

His plants were the thickest most lush plants I have ever seen grown indoors. The colas were massive and the buds on the lowest portions of plants were as large or larger than most I see people get just under the bottom of their colas, meaning larger than most people’s very biggest buds other than their colas are.

The key to LED lighting is to purchase the highest grade LED lights available and to purchase them in sufficient numbers AND then use them in a way that they will be able to do the very most they can for the plants growing from their light.

If people did that they would throw rocks at CFLs and HID lighting and never use either ever again. In most cases people purchase low quality LEDs because of price, and purchase too few of them, again because of price, and then they tend to expect too much from them and use them incorrectly. The result is a bad rap against LED lighting when it should instead be on those who should never have spent their money on LED lighting in the first place considering how they did it.

So Brick, the one million dollar question...which LED is the "highest grade"? I wish I could answer that. Haight, Lumatek, Cree LEDs, 1 watt, 3 watt, 6 watt etc.

I have no prior experience to growing flora under artificial light of any kind let alone marijuana specifically, however I'll give my 2 cents based on what I know about the lighting systems (which is a bit since I did a research assignment on this a year and a half ago). I think LEDs have the greatest potential out of any lighting method of the market but like Brick said there has to be some research done prior to your investment. If all important wavelengths for growth of a plant are known LEDs will outperform any lighting method on the market as long as proper research is done and if I were a gambling man I'd put money on it. LED's are getting better and better every year and I believe that in about 5 - 10 years, if the world is still in a good economic position, everyone with their HID and MH lamps will find great benefit in investing in an LED array. In terms of cost, light/heat output, lumens/watt output and luminous efficiency.

I'm about a week away from switching my grow to 12/12 which will be done with a single Kessil H150 Magenta light.
At the moment I am trying to coax the plant into spacing the internodes a bit by using just CFLs - the Kessil makes the plant grow with very short internodes.
The Magenta H150 is specifically designed for flowering so compact internodes will be great during budding.

Grumpy Old Dreamer said:

I'm about a week away from switching my grow to 12/12 which will be done with a single Kessil H150 Magenta light.
At the moment I am trying to coax the plant into spacing the internodes a bit by using just CFLs - the Kessil makes the plant grow with very short internodes.
The Magenta H150 is specifically designed for flowering so compact internodes will be great during budding.

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You'll have to let me know how that goes. The kesseil magenta H150 is the one I'm leaning towards the most.

FlyingOrangeDutchman said:

You'll have to let me know how that goes. The kesseil magenta H150 is the one I'm leaning towards the most.

Click to expand...

Subscribe to the thread in my sig and you will see it as it happens.

I am so impressed at this early stage that I have bought a second magenta H150 to allow me to have two staggered grows approximately 6 weeks apart.

I have a LED grow in my sig, From prosource

Brick Top said:

The most impressive grow thread I ever followed was a totally LED grow. Several years back, on a similar board that is now defunct, a member came into a tidy sum of money and decided to dump his HID lighting and switch to LED lighting. He researched to find the very best LED lights and he purchased a good number of different styles.

Above his plants he had two large LED panels. He built what I call portable posts, for the lack of a better term, 4 X 4 posts cut in sections that would stack on top of each other, with a flat piece of plywood attached to the bottom of each portable post set for balance. (If I were making them I would make them out of PVC piping.)

Each section of stackable post was long enough to hold an LED light bar. On some portable posts he attached LED light bars to one side and on others he attached LED light bars to all four sides. He ringed his plants with portable posts with an LED on one side and once the top LED light panels were raised high enough he added more portable posts with LED light bars on all four sides between his plants. Each time the top LED lighting was raised enough for another section of portable post with more LED light bars on them he would add another section.

His plants were the thickest most lush plants I have ever seen grown indoors. The colas were massive and the buds on the lowest portions of plants were as large or larger than most I see people get just under the bottom of their colas, meaning larger than most people’s very biggest buds other than their colas are.

The key to LED lighting is to purchase the highest grade LED lights available and to purchase them in sufficient numbers AND then use them in a way that they will be able to do the very most they can for the plants growing from their light.

If people did that they would throw rocks at CFLs and HID lighting and never use either ever again. In most cases people purchase low quality LEDs because of price, and purchase too few of them, again because of price, and then they tend to expect too much from them and use them incorrectly. The result is a bad rap against LED lighting when it should instead be on those who should never have spent their money on LED lighting in the first place considering how they did it.

Click to expand...

Do you know what brand or type of LED is best to use when compiling your own LED panel? I was researching this and read in a few similar websites and lighting threads that LED's start loosing luminosity/watt after they hit the 1watt mark; kind of like how CFLs start loosing efficiency after 24w. Can anyone verify this?

I have 4 of the 345 watt penetrators from HydroGrowLED.com. I love them. Take the time to read through the site and you can really see that Cami (the owner) knows her stuff. I've talked to her and she was very helpful in answering all my questions. Thus far her lights are perfoming amazingly. My girls are 3 weeks into flower and has great sized buds. I'm doing a ScOG and so it's really think between the plants but the buds are still amazing even down in the bottom below the dense canopy. I can't wait till they're done.
These bad boys aren't cheap but they're worth it. I have a kill-a-watt to measure my electricity being used and the four of them draw about less than 1000 watts! yet they each perfrom as well as a 600 HPS thus far. The best part is I can put them wicked close to my girls and not worry about burning them. The put a small amount of heat but very managable. I just use my home HVAC in the ceiling, run a duct into the area I have surrounded by mylar and it keeps the temp at 65-85 easily. The links here will are worth looking at. Product knowledge is the biggest seller in my book. People want a reason to buy a good product and she has done homework.
http://www.hydrogrowled.com/LED-Grow-Light-Technology-C17.aspx
http://www.hydrogrowled.com/Comparing-LEDs-C36.aspx

I'm using (4) quad-band 90 watt UFOs in the corners of my 4' x 4' tent for suplimental lighting and a 600 Watt HPS overhead about 3 feet from the top of my plants. The branches close to the LEDs are HUGE and sometimes bigger than the cola! Given that I could just use a 1000 Watt overhead and get similar results, but there is far less heat.

As far as for vegging, the light from the 1 Watt LED bulbs are very intense compared to fluorescent. And one of my favorite things is that LEDs are non-toxic.

FlyingOrangeDutchman said:

Do you know what brand or type of LED is best to use when compiling your own LED panel? I was researching this and read in a few similar websites and lighting threads that LED's start loosing luminosity/watt after they hit the 1watt mark; kind of like how CFLs start loosing efficiency after 24w. Can anyone verify this?

Click to expand...

Cree are good bridgelux are good and im pretty that the 2w are the most efficient, hope that helps

old thread my bad

hearc said:

I'm looking into leds because of heat issues when I grew this summer I couldn't keep the inside of the tent under 100 and that's with the exhaust running in from the ac adapter was having to leave my tents door open while the lights were on.

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I didn't know that. It's really weird that they didn't mention this as an
option when I called on the tech support line, don't you think?

The best tech is Kessil's, but people freak out when they see the low wattage. Go to Kessil.com and read their new breed of LED page. Their technology is superior, but if it's sheer wattage you want (and that's deceptive) go elsewhere. I'm using a Kessill H150 magenta in a small grow, and it is performing well.

Maybe after a grow or two i can look into em but right now im too invested into my wattage heh. i have seen alot of ppl talking about those kessils but when i saw they were 36w for like 250 i was like damn. IDK my thinking is even if its the best light spectrum period you still need the wattage to put out more light for more plants and at 250 a pop for a small amount of coverage i just wonder. My lights are doing me pretty good right now but i wish i would have known about em before spending what i did as i would have given em a fair lookn at.