Im offically a LED grower. Spectra Im here.

Well after reading all the journals and post on LED and trying the cheap little Chinese 14ws for myself, I was determine to convert into a LED GROWER. After researching most of the popular LED on the market I decided i go with SPECTRA by GLH. I just took a great huge leap and purchased 10 Spectra 100 140W draw LED lights. Hopefully they will be here sooner then later, so I can enjoy the pink light.
Just want to thank all the LED growers out there, for posting all the good info. SO us new comers to LED can make a sound decision on whats best for us. Reason Im switching from 600w HPS/MH to LED is first and foremost the electricity it uses compare to a ballast. It puts out barely any heat signatures, thats a good thing because helicopters fly over often. Lastly Im in love with LED and how that pink light can grow some of the frostiest bud imaginable.

So I do have time until the LED get here, and Im starting a whole new grow for my LED, to see how it matches with all the HPS/MH grows Ive done. Im starting in my personal Cab I had for years now. Using my tote ive been using forever. I want to see if LED can match how much I yield off my 600W HPS grow. I grow single cola plants, because from my experience this is how you get the most bud out of an area. Im use to getting 1-2 oz a plant. This tote can hold 20 plants. Im going to start from seed. My own personal seed, that can take nutes in the 2000ppm range. Grows like crazy, I call it my Platinum Og Coconut Kush (hehe). Mixed the best male and females to get this lovely seed. Clones like no other too, but thats going to be part of the journal, when I write one.

So here is the set-up, I will let the pictures do the talking. Then I will let the LED do the talking once they arrive.

I start off by, putting a bunch of seeds in a dvd case, then put it ontop of my dvr. I like to do 50 seeds. Get a even ratio of female/males. Just take straight tap water and cover them. Most pop in 24 hours. Usually I start from rooted clones, much faster and better for single cola grows. But, I want to see what these led can do.



I put the popped seeds in cubes in my humidity tray. I take the best looking 20 then put those in my hydro tote.



Mind you I leave the rest of the seeds in my humidity tray, I let those get big in there, then transfer those to bubble buckets, once they get to large. These are put there, so I can switch the females in the tote, when I find out there are males.



These plants are 3 days old. I transplant early, because plants grow fast in hydro. They are under a 400w MH for right now/ with side 42w and 24w cfl. 24hour light. Until my LEDs come.



This is my cab setup, I should be able to fit 4 spectra 100 draw 140w lights in here, im hopeing more. But we wil see when the time comes. I pull 1-2 oz a plant, 20 - 40oz for the tote. Thats under 600w hps. If I can get 4 spectra lights in here thats 560w led. SO we will see how much led ill yield me. I will keep this post going until I get my lights. Then I will start a grow journal. Thats more organized.

This looks very promising! subbed and thank you mucho for sharing swiftowl11 =D

subbed...i am in the market for an led trying to replace my 400 hps.

Thanks https://www.rollitup.org/members/psytranceorgy-329086.htmlPsytranceorgy, Its going to be a good grow. Np on sharing, Im hopeing my journal will be able to convert some LED doubters. I would of started from my clones, but I want to see how these Veg from seedlings.
Yeah fullmelt, Led is were the growing future is taking us. Ive already sold a couple of my electronic ballast on ebay. I kept 2 of them though, because I got to many bulbs and cool tube fixtures to not keep a couple.

DAY 4

Alrite its day 4 of my seedlings growth. They are growing nicely, still as happy as a little school girl, my led lights are coming. Like X-mas for a kid. Keep telling my wife how worth it the lights are, she just sees it as a waste, telling me I have lights. When they come and I finish a grow with them, she will understand. Once shes high as a kite on the frostiest bud she smoked.

Here are the beautys right here, right now the nute ppm is sitting at 300. I will gradually raise it daily. Get a nice 500ppm 1 week into growth. Speeds these babys right up.


These are my beautys in all their glory. The grow room stays around 84. Humidity with the dome is about 40.


Well off to work I go.

kickass now go to work

Why did you buy 10 if you only plan on using 4? What are you planning on doing with the other 6? Veg with a couple and do a second flower tent?

Here to watch and learn, good luck.

Sweet! I'm using a spectra 120, 180w draw. It's an older model, but has been working great thus far. Check out my journals for the lowdown.

I have seen that Some of the new spectras have intensity issues, being that they put out too high of intensity and actually hinder plant growth. I know mike is aware of this issue and i believe to have resolved the problem, but it might be worth emailing him to be sure your units are covered. The fix was to hang the lights at excessively high levels. My own spectra has been great and i believe now I am within about 10 inches from the light with no poor effects.

karr said:

Sweet! I'm using a spectra 120, 180w draw. It's an older model, but has been working great thus far. Check out my journals for the lowdown.

I have seen that Some of the new spectras have intensity issues, being that they put out too high of intensity and actually hinder plant growth. I know mike is aware of this issue and i believe to have resolved the problem, but it might be worth emailing him to be sure your units are covered. The fix was to hang the lights at excessively high levels. My own spectra has been great and i believe now I am within about 10 inches from the light with no poor effects.

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I own and use the 180 models without power modifications. Mike has sent me the mods but I have yet to install them, most likely this weekend. They have issues. IMO the problem is light intensity @ 660-670 nm where Chloro A is most available in flower, the PAR value is through the roof. Hanging the lights high may work, but its not a fix. The problem with that ideology is that hanging the lights higher reduces other spectrums as well, that are also important through flowering for chloro B and other elements.

Red is too strong, Blue is too weak, raising the roof to adjust just weakens the blue even more.

How high above the canopy do you keep the Spectras?

I keep my lights (non-Spectra) 20"-24" above, anything less there is a lot of bleaching.

A friend of mine has a Spectra, and he keeps it about 20", and his is smaller than yours. 120 watts at the plug, and it's a 2010 model.

Shwagbag said:

I own and use the 180 models without power modifications. Mike has sent me the mods but I have yet to install them, most likely this weekend. They have issues. IMO the problem is light intensity @ 660-670 nm where Chloro A is most available in flower, the PAR value is through the roof. Hanging the lights high may work, but its not a fix. The problem with that ideology is that hanging the lights higher reduces other spectrums as well, that are also important through flowering for chloro B and other elements.

Red is too strong, Blue is too weak, raising the roof to adjust just weakens the blue even more.

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Eraserhead said:

How high above the canopy do you keep the Spectras?

I keep my lights (non-Spectra) 20"-24" above, anything less there is a lot of bleaching.

A friend of mine has a Spectra, and he keeps it about 20", and his is smaller than yours. 120 watts at the plug, and it's a 2010 model.

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I will just say not high enough. lol

I am amazed at the learning curve involved with LED. I've gone through a couple 0.15 gram per watt harvests of airy buds trying to figure it out before getting good results.

Hydro, such as DWC, + good LEDs, + scrog, + good yielding genetics, = good harvest. Then there is the placement of the LED. And the height would depend on the intensity of the light, and the lens angle. 120 degree lenses, you can go 12" or lower if the light is medium to low powered. But anything bigger than 150 watts, and with 60 degree lenses, 12" will fry most plants directly under the light, while the plants on the outer edge of the grow area gets almost no light. 90 degree is a good balance, and 20"-24" works well, at least for me. My word isn't definitive though, please continue to research.

Shwagbag said:

I will just say not high enough. lol

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Eraserhead said:

I am amazed at the learning curve involved with LED. I've gone through a couple 0.15 gram per watt harvests of airy buds trying to figure it out before getting good results.

Hydro, such as DWC, + good LEDs, + scrog, + good yielding genetics, = good harvest. Then there is the placement of the LED. And the height would depend on the intensity of the light, and the lens angle. 120 degree lenses, you can go 12" or lower if the light is medium to low powered. But anything bigger than 150 watts, and with 60 degree lenses, 12" will fry most plants directly under the light, while the plants on the outer edge of the grow area gets almost no light. 90 degree is a good balance, and 20"-24" works well, at least for me. My word isn't definitive though, please continue to research.

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That's what I'm doing, but if I could go back in time..... Well I told you what I would be doing. Best of luck in this grow Swift, keep a close eye.

I'd do things differently too if I could go back in time and start over. I wasted a lot of money on too-good-to-be-true LEDs, mainly from HTG. The ones they have now are a little better, but I wouldn't buy one. So many better options out there.

Shwagbag said:

That's what I'm doing, but if I could go back in time..... Well I told you what I would be doing. Best of luck in this grow Swift, keep a close eye.

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I am kinda curious what Mike's new lights can do, his earlier Spectras we're sometimes good, sometimes bad, the 2011 ones were over powered and he had to replace many power supplies. One of the things to look for when buying an LED is the working current of the LEDs, if they're 3 watt diodes, 550mA-650mA is ideal. Anything more than that and they will be over powered and there will be issues.

I'm subbed to this thread to see how the lights do.

My older 120 (i believe to be 2010 specs) does great up close. ATM they are under 10in from the glass and i have seen no ill effects. I also had it supplementing a larger tree and the side i had the led on (at about 10 in to a foot) and the specific branches that were close were kinda stunted. I think having a led from the get go on a plant can influence its reaction to it. Just a theory.

Psytranceorgy said:

kickass now go to work

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Yep, I go to work medicated, and just deal with computer issues. Im a computer technician, which means I do nothing all day. haha

Shwagbag said:

Here to watch and learn, good luck.

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Thanks for the good luck wishes, i've been growing for a while. First time with powerful LED. SO Im going to be watching my plants extra close. Welcome to the show.

puffenuff said:

Why did you buy 10 if you only plan on using 4? What are you planning on doing with the other 6? Veg with a couple and do a second flower tent?

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Well I got 10 because I got an amazing deal on the lights. Im planning 4 in my cab, then I have 1-2 for vegging mothers. Then I run bubble buckets 5 single cola plants to each bucket. I usually have those in the flower closet, but I might expand and use the whole room I have my grow in. SO I got 10 thinking about my future plans of growing. I grow for personal use me and the wife, so I never needed alot of plants going. But, it might be fun just to get the experience in.

karr said:

Sweet! I'm using a spectra 120, 180w draw. It's an older model, but has been working great thus far. Check out my journals for the lowdown.

I have seen that Some of the new spectras have intensity issues, being that they put out too high of intensity and actually hinder plant growth. I know mike is aware of this issue and i believe to have resolved the problem, but it might be worth emailing him to be sure your units are covered. The fix was to hang the lights at excessively high levels. My own spectra has been great and i believe now I am within about 10 inches from the light with no poor effects.

Click to expand...

Yeah Ive read your journal start to last post. Your plant is looking real good, nice and healthy under that light, I cant believe how powerful that 120 is looking in your pictures. Yeah Ive been reading everyone problem with the 2011 models of the spectra. But, then I see other people with the same version of that 2011 spectra with it low on the plant 12 inches low. So what im thinking, and this is just a observation, is the light is doing such a good job on the plant, that the plant is eating up all of a particular part of food, then it shows signs of stress. This is the case with grows ive seen that are soil. Since they water feed, water feed. In a hydro setup there is always food in the reservoir, its up to the plant when it wants to feed. We will see what happens with my strain, and there being 2000ppm of nutes in the tote.

Sounds like a plan.

I have read that there are perhaps 3 generations of the 2011 model, and the gen 1 was the most problematic, while 3 was better. Gen 2 was apparently a sweet spot that used 3diode chips as opposed to the gen 3 1 diode chips. I am not sure if there is a gen 4 yet.

All the above is just second hand, and I might be fuzzy. But it would be worth an email or call to mike to see just what he's sending you. He usually is good at getting back to you. Let us know what he says, im curious about the newest generation and how things are acting these days.


Soon we will see how the lower branches fill out to kinda see what the penetration is like.

Tomorrow when the light goes on I'm going to close my cabinet with the video camera below the canopy to see how much light is passing through.

Love the setup, looking great!