Im deciding on lighting, I understand the differences between High Pressure Sodium and Metal Halide. But whats are the advantages disadvamtages of LEDs?
Go with HID, its fail-safe.
The guys who sell arrays and LED bulbs are out of their minds. You can build your own array for a fraction of the price.
But if you are going for a larger op, like over 20 plants, I dont think you will want to sit there and solder over 4000 leds.
Leds are about $0.07 USD average each. Thats about $280 for all of em, but for 4000, you can definitely get a bulk package for less then that.
If you wanna quick setup, and dont care about energy costs, go with HID. If you have some time to dick around, try some LEDs.
Oh yeah, LEDs produce a fraction of the heat that CFLs do. The power supply might get warm to the the touch, but it can never burn you.
No worries Rob. Just be aware of cheap knock offs. Look at the UFO and enhanced spectrum version at HID Hut and look at the spectrum they cover. It's good blue is like 400nm - 460nm and red 620nm to 730nm. I looked at a knock off that is on ebay they claimed regular price $499-$599 and they sell for $169. They even used one picture of the actual UFO from HID hut in there other pictures you can see it's not the real thing. And they say it is adjustable later they said that model was not adjustable and their spectrum was 450nm to 460nm and 640nm to 680nm. There is a reason you pay more money.Defcon thanks for the hut tip, you saved me hours of googleing.