Gearing up, design/LED help

Hello everyone, been poking around a few forums trying to find a new home. Been in the dark for years and found planet skunk went down.
I’ve got my old HPS get ups, but I’ll be damned it looks like LED’s have come a long way. Have a new blank space, legal state, trying to work out the new digs.

I’ll run two rooms, mom/veg & flower. I think I want/have to go LED? They’re hands down better with todays tech, right? Need help with sizing. I’m looking at SpiderFarmer gear, maybe just because they advertise the most but the equipment seems legit at a notable value. But these are my questions, I’m here for recommendations and input.

lights will be wired into a 240v circuit so need to be compatible. I’m liking the looks of the bar LED lights versus the panels, what I’m reading they do sound superior but why are there panels on the market, am I missing something or is it a older design being phased out? What’s the realistic basic metric on yield per watt with these lights? I had a funny op in the past but 14 ounces with a 600w HPS was average.

With the old air cooled HPS reflector hoods tighter space with Mylar walls to “use all the light” was my theory. With new LED’s pointing straight down(?) how much light loss is there in oversized spaces? I’d like to build a larger space to be able to move around, and not have tent restrictions. If difference in yield will be drastic I’ll plan on movable gloss white or Mylar partitions.

veg room will have 4-6 plants in various stages. 1 light, ~rectangular 2x4 or 3x5ish. Thinking SF3000 or SE2000? What’re the advantages between these two LED styles? Flower room will be 4-6 plants, 1 or 2 lights. I like LST for a spread out even canopy so I think 4-6 plants will put me into a 4x8 size canopy. Thinking two SF5000 480w for flower.

Thanks for your input!

Sargent hps are still great!!!! It's harder to get laid with led. Anyways good luck on your venture.

a mongo frog said:

Sargent hps are still great!!!! It's harder to get laid with led. Anyways good luck on your venture.

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I bloody love your humour. Tickles me everytime

So sarge , the panels were mostly popularised by Horticultural lighting group, before that COBs were where it was at, mostly its come from the growers and DIY community trying to make the most efficient light possible which then turned into several folks from various communities setting up light manufacturing companies. Obviously then it becomes about balancing price with efficiency.

Then the Chinese start to copy the board designs , some identical , some cheaper versions of.
Then with better options for cost and DIY capabilities, thanks to the forum communities and the likes of growmau5 (a pioneer and innovator with COB builds) and led gardener came further evolution with strip builds , which has its benefits on light spread and light distance from plants. So that became the new popular.

Basically the LED companies made leaps in tech and the LED grow community used that to their advantage and the light manufacturers followed the trend and now we find our selves in a situation where light companies the likes of Mars hydro ect who all gave LED a bad name have followed suit and managed to make highly efficient lights because they had to to remain in business and they are very competitive price wise.


As for lighting choices I would ask in the LED subsection of indoor growing section.
Most of the guys there dint venture into growroom design section. You will get more up to date opinions than I can offer.

All I can say Is you want 30w per square foot minimum and some would match watt for watt because they want to beast those plants.

I've pulled over 2lb from less than 600w of LED many times .
But I also still like to veg with CMH or MH due to my environment.
LEDs we like to grow in the 80f 's rather than 70s and your environment can influence what's best for you, obviously that can be controlled, but all things, costs ect need to be considered.

Take yourself on a little trip to the LED section sarge!

Good luck with your new set up.

HPS is still great. CMH is awesome for veg with the UV spectrum. LED is where things get tricky. There are some amazing LEDs and many terrible ones. Spider farmer is decent. Mars hydro is another in the same price range. I would go Mars over spider. HLG is is what I’m running. I was able to find mine second hand And they were only 9months old. These LEDs typically have very long running hours. Be careful of LED’s with UV spectrum added because they do not last long compared to the normal red/spectrum diodes. I bought a UV light bar that you attach to the hlg board. This allows me to replace the UV bar if it starts to go out before the rest of the board.

there is a lot of high end LED’s nowadays. There is also a lot of mid tier LEDs which perform great. Then there is knock offs. This is where it’s hard to give advice. You may get a awesome knock off that you swear is identical to a legit brand.Or you may get one that is way inferior.

Bar style is the direction the industry is going. Very even light distribution. I use the 550v2 rspec HLG which is a quantum board style made for a 4x4 flower space. This light is powerful so I hang it 24” above the canopy in flower which provides a pretty even light distribution. But there is definitely a hot spot in the center which hits 200 more PAR. For the price, I could not justify the price of the newer bar style.