LED vs HID

nvhak49 said:

can you use the cup at panels in flowering too, is 300w enough during flowering for two plants?

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Well each of those VIPAR 300s actually use about 180W, so you'd be a little under 400W with two so should be great. I'm using 190W area 51 light on 6 plants right now, seems fine. That grow is on this page in this section. But Again this is my first time using this light and I'll see what the actual outcome is in the end. I never veg plants long, never longer than 2 weeks usually around 10 days. I just don't believe in it for smaller grows. So like for me the spot I had was 2x4 but then I split it into 2x3 and 1x2. I made a 1x2 frame covered in radiant foam board for the clones and moms, again I keep moms very small. Do more of a bonsai type thing on low light, reduces need for energy, you can feed every other time even in coco, and thus save on not only over all volume of nutrients used but water consumption and every thing else.

If you go with the 250w HPS, you will not be dissappointed. You can let us spend your money for you but it's your money. Let's say we agree LEDs are the future. Well the future, today, is expensive as fuck. To get those HPS ass-kicking LEDs you're gonna spend 2-3 times as much money up front. Not really possible if your pockets are tight. You could scrounge around but you'd be robbing Peter to pay Paul. No matter what light source you choose you need good ventilation. It's not just about getting heat out. No matter how great the light is in your tent your plant(s) need CO2 and the more plants you have the more CO2 they need. I moved up to HPS from CFL and the growth rate is just not comparable. I'm looking at Cree LEDs for my veg box but that's as far as I see me going with LED. Maybe I'll get one of those nifty 300w deals later down the road after the future has passed and LEDs are old news.

And I'll say it again skip on the 250W HPS. If you decide to go HPS pend the extra $20-50 on a 400W.

And Spanky I just checked your grow man. You pulled 103g wet off a 250W HPS and less than oz dry? I'll be surprised if I pull less than 4oz off my 190W led when it's all said and done. My 400W HPS never shyed less than 6oz each cycle with ~10day veg under CFLs. You don't even want to know about 600s and 1ks. LOL 250s are wasteful. They are bright heaters basically.

Do you have a segregated space for your cab? I am in the same scenario with the same temp swings,

You can do LED, its not that they dont produce heat- just nothing like HID.

Lower Temps are better problems to have than Higher Temps.. small space heaters at walmart are <10 bucks, but the reason I ask about the separate area- CERAMIC heaters, are more efficient at keeping a surrounding space to the set temp, digital panels/heaters draw the same on an off/on switch, new age ceramics will adjust their draw accordingly... I halved my bill from last month and that is the ONLY thing I can think of it being. (all lights/spaces/fans running..)

Anyways

A room inside of a room inside of a room....


Cheaper LEDs will heat up better but come summer you will be kicking yourself, my garage grow space hits 90s with 1000 continuous w's of AC, almost worth shutting down for the season... O wait

Scotch089 said:

Do you have a segregated space for your cab? I am in the same scenario with the same temp swings,

You can do LED, its not that they dont produce heat- just nothing like HID.

Lower Temps are better problems to have than Higher Temps.. small space heaters at walmart are <10 bucks, but the reason I ask about the separate area- CERAMIC heaters, are more efficient at keeping a surrounding space to the set temp, digital panels/heaters draw the same on an off/on switch, new age ceramics will adjust their draw accordingly... I halved my bill from last month and that is the ONLY thing I can think of it being. (all lights/spaces/fans running..)

Anyways

A room inside of a room inside of a room....


Cheaper LEDs will heat up better but come summer you will be kicking yourself, my garage grow space hits 90s with 1000 continuous w's of AC, almost worth shutting down for the season... O wait

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no I don't I'll be gettin my grow tent In on Friday and it's a 4x2x4 and I'll be only having one plant in there at the moment till I get my blue mystic AF germinated and going. So don't guys honestly think the led route is not worth it unless I spend a pretty penny? Should I go the HPS route. Is the power consumption bad on those. Sorry for all the questions I'm just new at this?

nvhak49 said:

no I don't I'll be gettin my grow tent In on Friday and it's a 4x2x4 and I'll be only having one plant in there at the moment till I get my blue mystic AF germinated and going. So don't guys honestly think the led route is not worth it unless I spend a pretty penny? Should I go the HPS route. Is the power consumption bad on those. Sorry for all the questions I'm just new at this?

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Well that all depends on how you are planning on exhausting this tent and where to. You don't want to be just dumping the air from the tent into the same room the tent is in, if you can avoid it. Especially with HPS. You want to have your exhaust going to a completely separate area from where your intake air is coming from. A 250W HPS uses around 300W and a 400W uses around 480W. So look at what your electricity rate is and you can figure out about how much it would cost you to go either way. Now remember though you will want to use actual wattages, like 480 instead of 400. On the LEDs you would have to look at a specific one and determine that, but for the vipars like I mentioned that are on the cheap side 300W units run at 180W.

I dont know what your situation is like, but your just going to have the tent sitting in the garage? Does it have windows? do you park your car in there?

GK made a very good point on actually moving the air OUT, you will heat your enitre garage with the right bulb. lol. Which is a whole other thing you need to think about- are you ABLE to port your exhaust?

Even if you are, are you growing medically? IR readings are not enough for a warrant, but in hand with something as small as trash- it can be. if it exhausts out of the residents, it is "public"

Weigh out the pro's and con's of each for your situation.... then build your environment accordingly... but remember is easier MUCH easier to add heat.

Don't forget to add insulation too. Most garages are not insulated. So during winter or summer. The plants will be hating life if not insulated. You can insulate a tent with astro-foil.

captainmorgan said:

I'm really thinking this will be my next LED purchase.

http://www.onyxgrow.com/bloom.html

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That looks like a nicer unit than the area 51 light. Very interesting.

gk skunky said:

And I'll say it again skip on the 250W HPS. If you decide to go HPS pend the extra $20-50 on a 400W.

And Spanky I just checked your grow man. You pulled 103g wet off a 250W HPS and less than oz dry? I'll be surprised if I pull less than 4oz off my 190W led when it's all said and done. My 400W HPS never shyed less than 6oz each cycle with ~10day veg under CFLs. You don't even want to know about 600s and 1ks. LOL 250s are wasteful. They are bright heaters basically.

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That last grow spent 2 weeks under the HPS. Nice try but you just failed hard. Guess you didin't bother reading my first Cab thread.

Spanky's Monkey said:

That last grow spent 2 weeks under the HPS. Nice try but you just failed hard. Guess you didin't bother reading my first Cab thread.

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LOL No I did not and I just browsed through. Hence the ? LOL Guess you "fail hard" at reading comprehension... LOL Just messing with ya but anyways.... So how long you be growing, how many grows under your belt? No offense you just come off as very novice. Been at this for a while and been growing with HID for over a 12 years now. I'll say it one more time and I'll digress 250W HPS are hot garbage. For the price, efficiency, and performance 400>250 all day long. Unless it's a micro grow. And I wouldn't consider a 4x2 exactly micro, small but big enough to get the most out of it with a 400.

And here for the hell of it and as example. Here are a couple different plants grown in the ghetto cab, like I said 1.5x3x5. Most shitty reflector ever, nothing fancy, nothing nice, just something thrown together that I knew would work for the space I was going to use. Two plants, dabney blue and KKSC.

At what point did I claim to be a master grower? You made an attempt to insult my grow because I think the op would be happy with an upgrade. Hey I could care less what you think you know. We have no right telling someone else, anyone else how they should spend their money. By the way where did the micro grow bit come from? I got a great cab for my needs and expectations. I don't grow to smoke with you and I sure as shit don't grow to impress you.

Spanky's Monkey said:

At what point did I claim to be a master grower? You made an attempt to insult my grow because I think the op would be happy with an upgrade. Hey I could care less what you think you know. We have no right telling someone else, anyone else how they should spend their money. By the way where did the micro grow bit come from? I got a great cab for my needs and expectations. I don't grow to smoke with you and I sure as shit don't grow to impress you.

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Insult your grow? LOL No I did not. First I'll say the guy was asking questions about lights and you come in and recommend a 250. I just said they are the crap of the HID world. Nothing about you. I saw you had a grow log link so I clicked it just to see. Yes I brought up yield, it was a question. Like I said in my other response I just browsed through. That grabbed my attention then I asked. Followed by telling you what I'm seeing so far and expecting with a 190W LED and then giving an example of average pulls with a 4. I I looked at some of your pics man. You can grow. You aren't crap. Your light is. You could be doing soo much more if you had a better setup. The micro grow bit came in by me simply saying that is all I see a 250 being of any use where a 4 just simply couldn't be used. And where did I say anyone had to buy a certain thing? Never not once. I only said a 400 would be a better buy over a 250.

I used a 400 watt in a 2x4x8 closet and was great for the space. I did have to deal with heat in summer. I just replaced it with the Area 51 sgs 160. Def runs cooler and I love the light so far. I typically run 2-4 plants depending and utilize a 2x3 area for the most part. Is there a reason you went with a tent 4' tall? Vertical space always helps with heat. With the led you may need to add a couple cfl for heat but as stated above it's easier to add heat then remove it.

I love my cmh 400, but am seeing some stellar led grow's as of late. If one like's to grow tree's I would stick with hid, but in a small cab led imho is the way of the future. My only concern for the OP is keeping the temp's high enough with led, but as already posted small ceramic heaters do the job nicely. NV I think you have plenty of great information here to make an educated decision, you just have to make up your mind as to what you want and.....do...eeeeeet. Good luck to ya bro....J

This question be pretty easy answered yeah? The outputs of these bulbs aren't state secrets - it should be trivially easy to price a comparable led.

It's probably cheaper than you expect. And once you've used a low-heat led you'll appreciate how easy they are to use in a cabinet. No cool-hood - which also steals light, and no need for reflector to steer half the photons back towards the canopy.

I've yet to see a led grow outrageous sized colas though - but there are a Growing number of hid users adopting the chips, which attests to something.

please post any new led bud porn to the relevant thread guys - would love to see something truly awe inspiring in there

I know people are saying led is not quiet caught up but check out the new 50w and 100w full spectrum diodes. serious light penetration with them and not hard to control heat. just a nice heat sink

rwbrock said:

I used a 400 watt in a 2x4x8 closet and was great for the space. I did have to deal with heat in summer. I just replaced it with the Area 51 sgs 160. Def runs cooler and I love the light so far. I typically run 2-4 plants depending and utilize a 2x3 area for the most part. Is there a reason you went with a tent 4' tall? Vertical space always helps with heat. With the led you may need to add a couple cfl for heat but as stated above it's easier to add heat then remove it.

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How much did your temps drop? What are your day/night ambient temps right now?

gk skunky said:

Insult your grow? LOL No I did not. First I'll say the guy was asking questions about lights and you come in and recommend a 250. I just said they are the crap of the HID world. Nothing about you. I saw you had a grow log link so I clicked it just to see. Yes I brought up yield, it was a question. Like I said in my other response I just browsed through. That grabbed my attention then I asked. Followed by telling you what I'm seeing so far and expecting with a 190W LED and then giving an example of average pulls with a 4. I I looked at some of your pics man. You can grow. You aren't crap. Your light is. You could be doing soo much more if you had a better setup. The micro grow bit came in by me simply saying that is all I see a 250 being of any use where a 4 just simply couldn't be used. And where did I say anyone had to buy a certain thing? Never not once. I only said a 400 would be a better buy over a 250.

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Well, then I am totally sorry I misunderstood your comments. I am pretty happy with the 250w I must say and it's a step up from my 300w of CFL. Ultimately it was the coverage that sold me. For what I paid for my 250w HPS/MH with both bulbs hood and ballast 400w systems couldn't come close in price. Not to mention my in box temps are much cooler with the HPS.

So I am in SoCal and our temps are mild for the most part....it if get to 50 degrees outside it is cold here! lol Today the temps will get up to about 75. But in summer we get hit with a few months of 85-90 degrees. Ambient temps are pretty much going to dictate the temps in the box as you know. Right now It is about 72 in the room where my closet is. My grow area under my LED is around 75 plus or minus. My previous setup with my HID it would have ran about 78. Now that may not seem like a big difference but keep in mind with my 400 those temps are with my inline fan running 3/4 to full speed. With the LED I am 1/4 to 1/2 speed with my inline fan. For me that helped a lot as I like a more stealthy and quite setup. I adjust my setup and fan lower at night when temps drop and my closet will get down to about 72...that is still with lights on. I am veg at 20/4 now. So back when I bought my 400 I want to say I paid a couple hundred dollars for light with hood, glass, etc. The light bulbs run 60/80 and depending on how many runs you do may need to be replaced every year. The electricity is more than double with the HD going. So yes the upfront costs are more, I basically paid 500 out the door for my light. I prob save $20 month on electricity. I won't have to spend the money any replacement bulbs for a vary long time. So if you find the cost is double of what your looking at with a HID think about long term cost and you will make it all up year 1. I know not everyone has the cash in pocket but it is funny to see such a controversy about the light costs when your talking $250 vs $500. Now for the yield....well you sound like your like me and just want a modest setup for a couple plants and not looking to break any records for the largest colas in the world. I have yet to flower under this light but will be comparing it to my last grow. I had my HID pretty dialed in and got 7 oz from two plants last run. I am hoping for not much of a drop off with my AREA 51? Another thing to consider is the grower, a newbie might have a couple runs and then not be into it....maybe not have success or for whatever reason stop growing. Happens ALL the time....if that is case maybe it makes more sense not to invest more money upfront until you know this is something you enjoy and will keep at. If you do decide to go HID look into the CMH, they run a little cooler and have a better spectrum but I would try and keep to 400w and not go lower.

Also something to consider with LED is a lot of the lights actually need to sit a little higher above the canopy than I hid! Depends on lens angles but def look into that with your limited height. My light recommends 20" veg / 18" flower plus or minus.