First grow with LEDs; tips for improving light coverage??

I love my new LEDs: Runs pretty cool, seems to be promoting growth well, and I mean.. They're pretty damn sweet to look at lol. However you can see pretty clearly that the light doesn't cover too much area, and my cheap little three way tool backs that up well. Once you get out from right under the light it drops off dramatically, much more so than with my old HPS. That being said I'm a big fan of the lower energy consumption and I feel like I'm growing pot for nasa with these LEDs so I want to stick with it. I was wondering what more experienced led users do to maximize coverage, short of buying more lights! I'm balling on a budget.

Looks like you need more power to me.

I'd drop the light a bit to start

Agree with snappy, you can drop those within 12-18" in veg. and 8-12" in flower with absolutely no heat/burn issues, I let mine go as close as possible and the limit has nothing to do with worrying about heat or burn, it's about the practical limit where I start to loose coverage, my box is about the same size as the one in the pic using a 400W LED panel/3 plants and they do very well in there, on my second grow and would never think of switching from LED, they rock... drop them down brother....

GroErr said:

Agree with snappy, you can drop those within 12-18" in veg. and 8-12" in flower with absolutely no heat/burn issues, I let mine go as close as possible and the limit has nothing to do with worrying about heat or burn, it's about the practical limit where I start to loose coverage, my box is about the same size as the one in the pic using a 400W LED panel/3 plants and they do very well in there, on my second grow and would never think of switching from LED, they rock... drop them down brother....

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But he will never gt enough coverage during flower and stretch... This is only a temporary fix.

I would build a little reflective box around what you are growing and try to reflect a little off beam light back into the canopy.

How many Watts, and what type of LED do you have there?

From the looks of it here.. that node spacing seems pretty tight

Yeah this panel is only 150watt and the reason I had it that high wasn't due to heat but how limited the coverage of light is but I'll see how close I can get them and still be practical. I don't want to switch from the LEDs but I can't afford to buy a whole other panel and already feel like I'm gonna have to hook the HPS back up for flower. I'm gonna go grab some Mylar and maybe even a track for the light, but I think the plan is gonna be using the led for veg and the HPS for flower.. unless I can think of something else before flowering comes around.

PICOGRAV said:

But he will never gt enough coverage during flower and stretch... This is only a temporary fix.

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I regress, went back to his grow journal and noticed it's only 150W, mine is 400W 7-band in essentially the same space (2'x4'x5'), my 400W is meant to cover 12 sq. ft., this is not enough light for the space...

GroErr said:

I regress, went back to his grow journal and noticed it's only 150W, mine is 400W 7-band in essentially the same space (2'x4'x5'), my 400W is meant to cover 12 sq. ft., this is not enough light for the space...

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The Mylar will help, but he wants to use the HPS for flower.

But the plants are growing nicely, and I topped and fimmed and lst'd them all in different ways experimenting around a bit.. But the node spacing has been good and I'm happy with the LEDs it's more the flowering stage that I'm worried about than the vegging I'm doing now.

Also I should mention they're not feminized seeds soo I probably won't end up with all three plants being girls, which I suppose would help the situation.. Although not quite how I would want to fix it lol

Visit captainmorgan's thread (or mine) to see how you can add some A19s. I would go with warm whites to help with stretch

DHizaay said:

Yeah this panel is only 150watt and the reason I had it that high wasn't due to heat but how limited the coverage of light is but I'll see how close I can get them and still be practical. I don't want to switch from the LEDs but I can't afford to buy a whole other panel and already feel like I'm gonna have to hook the HPS back up for flower. I'm gonna go grab some Mylar and maybe even a track for the light, but I think the plan is gonna be using the led for veg and the HPS for flower.. unless I can think of something else before flowering comes around.

Click to expand...

Will do, and I think I might just head out and get a light track but then I'd be losing some of the energy the led is supposed to gain me back lol

Was thinking of adding some T5 side lighting to help the undergrowth.......

Also I was wondering how much supplemental red/white lighting I would need if I decided to stick with the led through flowering.. The current panel is 150w in 3w bulbs, half white and half blue. My main concern is a lack of non-blue wave lengths and a lack of intensity in general for a good yield, I don't really want to hook the hps back up and I think I'd rather buy a couple lights to supplement my current panels downfalls..

why did you go for so much blue in the first place? there r suggested wavelengths all over the www.

Because, it used to be my aquarium light . Just tryin to make what I got work and if didn't like the heat my hps was putting off or the energy it used. And when I tested this led(which is for coral growth through water) the lumens were actually notably higher than the hps of the same wattage

I will probably end up hanging a couple small red/white lights on either side of the current panel. I have the plants growing to fill up a roughly 3x2 foot scrog, so it's not a huge space

I would like to see how the blue light works out, blue light can carry or give off more energy then longer band reds and far reds.