Led lights or hps lights? which is better?

[So high my address cloud9]

Led lights or hps lights? which is better?

i've heard that led lights produce more of the color spectrum that plants use for chlorophyll production. is this true?

 

[potpimp]

You can get beat up in here for mentioning "LEDs", LOL. Every serious grower uses HPS - period.

 

[d7b]

I once ditched all my analogue music gear and started producing music only with software. Everybody laughed and said digital would never replace analogue (i.e. older technology would always be better).

Now, all those stupid shit eaters produce on software as well and are about ten years behind me. congratulations.

Anyway! don't rule out LED technology in its early phases. less heat / more lumens per watt ...efficiency.. .

In my trade as an engineer, change occurs through a shift from something less efficient to something more efficient. I cant wait till the technology improves was was going to try 4 UFO LED lights instead of my HID in the near future. stay tuned!

Oh hail our LED overlords!

 

[bluetick]

HPS dude without question.

 

[bowlfullofbliss]

You can get beat up in here for mentioning "LEDs", LOL. Every serious grower uses HPS - period.

No, REAL growers use dual arch 1000's (600 HPS, and 400 MH in one bulb), and laugh out loud at LED fags!!! Sorry, couldn't help myself.

LED....what are you doing, setting up christmas lights LOL.

 

[WvMade]

LED= Less Every Day HPS= High Powered Sun j/k just made that up super stoned =D

i would go with HPS anyday

 

[Bonzi Lighthouse]

It's kinda like asking which is better, a chevy volt or or a Tahoe.

Do some research and figure out what works YOU.

 

[Hudsonvalley82]

I don't know what all these guys here are talking about. Serious growers grow outside first of all, HPS is good for weight, not great for quality. Metal Halide is better for Quality and worse for weight (although I don't entirely accept the weight argument with that). Both use a shit load of electricity and produce a troublesome amount of heat.

I own both HPS and MH. I love them both. But I want better quality from my bud, and that means UV radiation. HPS SUCKS at emitting UV, especially thorugh the glass protective panel. UV = Trichromes, trichromes = THC. Metal Halides, with thier smaller wavelengths have a considerable UV output, but lack the longer red wavelengths that HPS offers. Those longer wavelengths make for better bud production and allegedly "denser" buds.

LED lights are something completely different. Each individual diode has a specific wavelength, some blue, some red, (if you get a serious panel) some UV, some IR. The lights sip electricity, most actually consume less than what they are advertised at. The heat they produce is negligable at best, the max surface temp on my heatsink as well as the surface of the LEDs is 95 degrees. You can imagine that (unless your growing in a small air tight space) heat is not an issue.

Now I come to why I use both. I bought a nice LED panel, 500W (280W actual draw). The thing is so bright. I started my grow in my basement, and things were going real slow. Im about 2 days I figured it out. My ambient temp in my basement is 60 degrees. In my grow room with my HID's on it gets to 82 degrees, which is perfect. However, with my super cool LED's the temps never really tilted past 62 degrees. Obviously, with the temp gauging the plants metabolism, things were growing really slow. Seeing as how electric heaters pull about 1500W, I figured I would just keep my HID on and toss my LED with it.

Best idea of my life IMHO. I get the Weight of the HPS and the quality of the LED. Link in the sig.

LED's work great, especially if you have a tight space to grow in. There are some reasonable prices out there too. I use blackstar LED's (cheapest quality lights I could find). Where you win out on LED is on g/watt.

In my eyes, LED lighting is REALLY overpriced. REALLY. I spent 750$ on 740W (actual pull = 385W) of LED lighting. There are light out there that are 240 bucks for 35 watts.

Good read on LED lighting -> https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/240615-led-users-unite-228.html#post5311703

 

[jdizzle22]

Led lights or hps lights? which is better?

i've heard that led lights produce more of the color spectrum that plants use for chlorophyll production. is this true?

There are good LED lights out there now that grow more and higher quality marijuana than HID of similar wattage, but they are much more expensive per running watt than HID (a 400w HPS system might cost as much as $400 while a good 400w LED system might cost $1200). That said, unless you have a lot of money to spend you might as well go HID because LEDs are pretty expensive and more difficult to vent their heat (you can't as easily slap venting and a can fan to pull air through them, so you must be sure your exhaust fan/filter is good enough). Don't believe anyone who tells you LED can't grow as well as HID because they just don't know and think their way is still best.

HID and LED have their own pros and cons, here are some

LED
PRO- Less heat over all CON- Can't easily vent that air like you can with HID reflector hoods with glass
PRO- Less power wasted as heat, more usable light given to plants CON- May need heaters in winter, harder to take pics of (with a red or blue or purple light compared to HPS)

HID
PRO- less costly upfront CON- Can be more costly in the long run (using more electricity for ballast, ducting fans, less efficient power to light ratios)
PRO- hard to go wrong with parts you choose (the difference between HID systems is much less than between good and bad LED systems)

PS: Also most LED companies mislead about the wattage of their lights. Ex: an LED light with 100 3w LEDs is almost always rated as a 300w LED panel. In reality its only a 150 -175w panel because most 3w LEDs can only run on 1.5w because of integrity and heat issues when running them too close to 3w (fans use a few watts as well). So if you decide to go LED make sure you know the actual wattage of your light so you buy as much as you should.