Led Users Unite!

^^^Beautiful

Thanks, that first pic turned out amazing. Too bad its popcorn. One of those 1 in 100 shots.

Okay I followed the thread a bit but 575 pages is a lot to read through and look at. Does the cost of the LED up front off set the cost of HIDs in energy costs? I am a first time grower of my own medical garden and as a newb I have the anxiety and dreams of creating huge high thc buds. Now I realize that a first time grower and grow is more likely to fail than succede but I still have my hopes. I am using HIDs right now and my plants look terrific thus far and are starting to flower. LEDs are a consideration of mine to try to lower my energy bill. What brand and model works best for a grow room that is say 7.5ft by 7.5 ft or just ove 2.5 meters for you non yanks? Thank you all for any input.

Not likely it's going to offset it in my opinion, and if it does it would be over the course of years of use. The reason to use LEDs is not cost -- I guess it could make up the cost sooner if you're in a place where electric's very high

cheguevara said:

High all! new to the forum so I wanted to say hello but I also have a few questions and it seems I found exactly what I wanted when I found this thread. I'm searching for LED's for an 8x4 tent hydroponic SOG used just for flowering purposes and just wanted some opinions from people like me not from people trying to just sell me a product. What would you guys choose? I was close to getting some fixtures from eshine systems - extreme flower series(someone recommended them on a different forum). I don't know if it's ok for me to post links here...that would be the easiest way to show you what I had in mind. Still not sure how many watts would cover that area and how many wavelengths the spectrum should have. I was gonna go for 3x300w(epistar and bridgelux 3wled's, power consumption of 248W)11 band wavelenghts(concentrating mostly on the 660nm led's). is it better to get 1,2 more powerful(600-800w)units or 3 moderate ones? You guys really seem to know what you're talking about and I would especially appreciate Perro Negro's opinion on this. Price is also an issue...the ones I was interested in would have been somewhere around 350$/piece...your help will be greatly appreciated!

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Hi cheguevara, I can definitely give you my opinion on this since you requested it but keep in mind I work for Black Dog LED. We would say let your footprint dictate what you buy. So depending on what company you are going with you would check to see what footprint their lights fit and go from there. I would make sure they will stand behind those footprints in an email, confirming that you can really expect to flower at the footprint they claim with no supplementary light. For our lights it would be two BD700-U which are good for 4' x 4' or you could go bigger with two Platinum XL-U but that is a little overkill for the 8' x 4' grow tent you are asking about. The two BD700-U would be equivalent to two 1000w HID in terms of yield and will have better quality.

$350 for for 248w actual draw light with a full 11 band seems a little on the cheap side. Do you know if they go from UV to IR in their spectrum?

I would check to see if you can test the lights and if they don't work as claimed you can return within 90 days for a nominal restocking fee. Keep in mind you can usually only do this with one light. I have seen plenty of lights that aren't worth the money, even when they are cheap.

Good luck in your search and please keep us posted in the forums.

Shamrok Sulli said:

Okay I followed the thread a bit but 575 pages is a lot to read through and look at. Does the cost of the LED up front off set the cost of HIDs in energy costs? I am a first time grower of my own medical garden and as a newb I have the anxiety and dreams of creating huge high thc buds. Now I realize that a first time grower and grow is more likely to fail than succede but I still have my hopes. I am using HIDs right now and my plants look terrific thus far and are starting to flower. LEDs are a consideration of mine to try to lower my energy bill. What brand and model works best for a grow room that is say 7.5ft by 7.5 ft or just ove 2.5 meters for you non yanks? Thank you all for any input.

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This is a good question but to give a proper answer you would have to add a bit to the question. I will do the math if you want to give a bit more information:
What would you use in terms of traditional HID for this 7.5' x 7.5' room? Would you treat it as 8' x 8' and go with four 1000w?
Or would you assume some space lost for working paths and go with four 600w fixtures?
How much do we assume you pay per fixture including bulb, ballast, reflector, ducting, fans for cooling of fixtures (not for the garden itself assuming you have sealed hoods)?
Ehat should be assume per kWh for the cost of electricity?
How frequently do you change your HID bulbs in flower?

If you answer those questions we can come up with an accurate answer based on your specific scenario.

Seems like this thread probably has a lot of good information...somewhere...too bad there's over 500 pages to look through. I'm trying to find general information on LED grow lights: the models that are available, the differences between them, what the most efficient single LED modules are, etc. Also trying to find a few perfectly executed grow journals using only LEDs in flowering and yielding at least 1.3 grams per watt, a few journals using only LEDs effectively in veg [almost zero stretching], and journals using combinations of HIDs and LEDs for at least 1.5 grams per watt. Can anyone help me?

Currently flowering a Northern Light Blue under a 135w Blackstar LED (3w diodes). I have noticed some considerable resin production in the few grows I have completed with this light. Definitely not one that I am going to stick with forever - already looking for a higher watt, fuller spectrum LED to go into a larger flowering tent - but it has yielded some great results from a personal grow standpoint (which is all I am into). Here are some photos from today - which is day 39 of 12/12 under the LED:

View attachment 2424340

We have been doing an experiment for a LED manufacturer for a year. We are using a 600 watt LED over some girls in flowering.

Plants take two to three weeks longer. They are smaller plants with nice production but nothing like the HID 1000 watt.

It has broken twice in the last year. As a professional grower I would say it is not worth it.

For a home grower that doesn't need to produce large plants, and wants to reduce the electric bill - they are fine. I don't think the light spectrum does anything special that I have noticed over the last year.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Dancing Gardener said:

We have been doing an experiment for a LED manufacturer for a year. We are using a 600 watt LED over some girls in flowering.

Plants take two to three weeks longer. They are smaller plants with nice production but nothing like the HID 1000 watt.

It has broken twice in the last year. As a professional grower I would say it is not worth it.

For a home grower that doesn't need to produce large plants, and wants to reduce the electric bill - they are fine. I don't think the light spectrum does anything special that I have noticed over the last year.

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What Kind of LED are you using? which brand from where? we could use some specifics does it have 1w 2w 3w or 5w leds? how many spectrums are covered? before you dismiss leds all together some info on your grow would be nice. thou i think the holy grail led that can really compete with a 1000w hps is yet to be found thou i don't have experience with big hitters like the 357+ magnum or blackdog leds larger sizes

I am in the middle of my first grow. Started mid oct. Room is 3 by 4 and 7 feet tall, in garage, no heating, coming on to winter. I started out with LED's. My wife was on my back about power usage and my son had an led unit from college that he used, but it wasn't strong enough and he gave up... so I thought I would get another one and maybe two would do the job. I bought one from Amazon, Blackstar or Blackstone, something like that. (I know there are better ones, but even $250 was hard to justify. It was rated at 11800 lumens. I think it was $250. It was stronger than my sons. Put them both in the space on rope ratchet hangers and put in six different clones in soil (this is a legal grow, allowed six mature plants) I found the plants could grow within an inch of the light with no harmful effects. The plants were healthy and growing but it was obvious to me (novice grower so what do i know) that my plans for 12 square feet of scrog wasn't going to happen. I couldn't see how I would fill the space...Just not enough light for the space, particularly when I went into 12/12 . So I had two four foot florescent two bulb lamps so I added them to the mix. That helped, but i still felt I needed more light. Also, temps were pretty low, which is good, except my garage gets down in the 40's and the led's run cool, so I added a small space heater, a mylar lining to the poly, and used one of my home brewing thermostats to have heat come on at 60.

So, I decided to add a 400watt hps/mh. Nice product, variable wattage, i just used the hps bulb. Wow what a difference. 55,000 lumens. It also warms up the room nicely which also helps a bit on humidity. I've had the hot lamp as close as 4 inches from the plants to no ill effect. I haven't finished this grow, and heat generation is not a problem, and my wife won't see the PG&E bill so....if I had to do it all over again I would purchase two 400watt hps/mh for my situation. For my twelve square feet I now have two four foot florescents, two led panels, and one hps for a total of 83,000 lumens. I think that is finally enuf light.
I like the led's and they are holding their own, but cost wise I guess I would go hps. This has been my experience, albeit novice. I'll see if I can upload a pic. This photo is 1 week into 12/12, started to stretch, just put in some additional support for them to grow thru. Uneven growth is more about different clones than lighting.

Ya, the one thing the HPS is good for is to warm my room in the winter. In the summer not so much.......
Summer time is where the leds really shine.

yep, regarding summer. I should have stated that I know I wouldn't be able to grow in my garage in the summer with the hps. I could probably halve the space and use the leds. Since it is legal as medicinal pot, I plan to move the next crop outside after veg and see how tall I can get them. I don't sell or even use cannibis, just exercising my civil rights and cultivating a fascinating plant, so the number of crops per year isn't an issue.

Hi, I'm new to this. Not ready to grow yet, but doing my preliminary research. I'm very interested in the efficiency of LED grow lights. But, as has already been mentioned here, there is just so much conflicting info out there that it's been difficult so far getting the actual facts. I figured the best way to learn about what works and what doesn't work is to talk with some other growers who have firsthand experience using LED's. So here I am.

View attachment 2425975all led

buds are hard like a permanent marker is on the inside. they don't squeeze down when pinched.

mjames.mmj said:

Hi, I'm new to this. Not ready to grow yet, but doing my preliminary research. I'm very interested in the efficiency of LED grow lights. But, as has already been mentioned here, there is just so much conflicting info out there that it's been difficult so far getting the actual facts. I figured the best way to learn about what works and what doesn't work is to talk with some other growers who have firsthand experience using LED's. So here I am.

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Here ya go,
https://www.rollitup.org/led-other-lighting/563118-astir-grow-led-panel-project.html

The best led is the one you make yourself.

As far as buying pre-made fixtures.....BUYER BEWARE!!

Google "KNNA led"
That should give you the evolution of where the above is coming from.

Thank you.

unless you really know what your doing i wouldn't suggest building a light yourself, if you don't know what your really doing with electronics you could just waste $ and ruin your equipment. there are a few good led builders/sellers out there just don't buy from someone you can't talk to first make sure they have a phone number and call them up with your questions if you don't like the sound of the seller or buyer walk away and try someone different. i can say first hand vic at gotham hydro is the go to for Blackstar, and george at california lightworks is a stand up guy as well, either will steer you in the right direction and both will handle any issues that come up