Are leds bad?

[Properbodydotcom]

A guy at a grow shop, said he doesn’t like them as much as others. I have a t5 and 600 hps at the moment but was considering having something else other than the t5 when my plants are bigger. So I can have two powerful lights because I have two tents set up. What do you recommend, if leds are fine i was thinking Vivi sun 600 watt or 1200 watt maybe. Or 400 to 600 water mh/hps

 

[bulla]

I just bought the phlizon 2000 and I was floored when I plugged it in the light was bright , now this is my 1st cob/led so I don't know how good they work but I do know they are bright and don't have hardly any heat compared to the hps/mh bulbs plus I guess they are a lot better on the electric bill I have done a lot of research on grows they say u get a little more in the end from a mh/hps but that's ok with me ...if they grow as good as I've seen on the videos im getting outta hps/mh all together

 

[xtsho]

Don't buy a VivoSun LED light. Their HID setups are fine but their LED's are just cheap LEDs like most of what you find on Amazon. Those cheap lights make ridiculous claims. A 1200 watt is actually 300 watts etc... Best bang for your buck is to do a DIY LED setup. There's an entire section on LEDs. Go check it out. Lots of good information. If you buy one of the cheap LEDs that claim to replace a 1000 watt HPS you'll be disappointed and stuck with a crappy light.

LED and other Lighting

Growing with LEDs / Inductive / Plasma etc.

www.rollitup.org

 

[fragileassassin]

Good LEDs are amazing and among the best lighting available now.
Cheap LEDs suck and wont be much better than your T5.
If you dont have a sizable lighting budget or the handy skills to diy your own, you're likely better off sticking with hps/mh. There are only a few specific fixtures available on amazon that would be worth the time and most of those are beat out by diy pricing.

 

[coreywebster]

Yeah unfortunately HPS ranges from average to great but LED ranges from shite to awesome.

Its hard to go wrong with a HPS, you buy one and if its on the poor end you might be losing 15% lumens over a higher end one.

But with LED you can be easily fooled into thinking your buying enough light when your not and that's were the disappointment comes in.

If you do your research and learn about LEDs you will find there are some amazing lights available but even doing research is difficult since every "best LED 2020" website is just an amazon traffic generating website or an advert in disguise. A high percentage of youtubers are just salesmen living on free shit too.

Best place to learn is forums like this and from people who use them and know what's what.

A very simplistic thing you can do is avoid any light that is called 1200w or 3000w , stay away from things that sound unrealistic, claims like " 3000w but only consumes 230w and replaces a 800w hps" are just lies.

In answer to your question. Yes LEDs are very good, but not all LEDs are equal.

If you have enough of (almost) any light you will grow good plants, its knowing what is enough that can be tricky.

 

[xtsho]

A guy at a grow shop, said he doesn’t like them as much as others. I have a t5 and 600 hps at the moment but was considering having something else other than the t5 when my plants are bigger. So I can have two powerful lights because I have two tents set up. What do you recommend, if leds are fine i was thinking Vivi sun 600 watt or 1200 watt maybe. Or 400 to 600 water mh/hps

Growing cannabis 101:

Don't listen to the guy at the grow shop.

 

[Richard Drysift]

A guy at a grow shop, said he doesn’t like them as much as others. I have a t5 and 600 hps at the moment but was considering having something else other than the t5 when my plants are bigger. So I can have two powerful lights because I have two tents set up. What do you recommend, if leds are fine i was thinking Vivi sun 600 watt or 1200 watt maybe. Or 400 to 600 water mh/hps

Honestly you cannot go wrong with a 400w for veg and 600 for blooming. But you'll need to change out the bulbs once per year or they lose output. Wattage makes big buds but also ups your power bill.
The grow store guy is probably talking about what he sells. Low end panel style leds don't penetrate a deep canopy but are good for side lighting or vegging small plants. If I was looking for an led to replace my 600w hps I would check out the COB style leds like timber grow lights. Have also been impressed to see with what growers around here are pulling off with quantum boards.

 

[LinguaPeel]

Type in "lm301b" on Amazon and pick one of those.

 

[greg nr]

Here's what you need to know about grow shop advice on lights.....

When you buy LED's, you spend a lot of your budget on lights initially, and they have really small markups on them because they are available online and they can't charge a 30% margin on a big ticket item.

So a big portion of your spend goes to a low margin item, which leaves much less profit for them when you buy your initial gear.

Next, they never see you again for anything lighting related. No bulb sales. No ducting. No fans. If you aren't an idiot and don't put them right on top of your plants, they can't sell you any overpriced bottles to save your grow.

So yeah, they hate led's.

I'm NOT saying HID is bad. It works. But, its more money to the grow shops.

 

[steve870]

i started with leds and switched to hps/mh. More power in a more compact space and much cheaper too. a good led is very expensive it depends on what you want to do. I prefer vegging smal plants with a led then switching to MH

 

[xtsho]

Type in "lm301b" on Amazon and pick one of those.

I love the description of this one.

"only consume 100w, but has same yield as fake 1000W 1200W Blurple led growing lights." Too funny

Amazon.com: SPIDER FARMER LED Grow Light Dimmable SF-1000 Grow Lights Compatible with Samsung LM301B Diodes & MeanWell Driver Grow Light Full Spectrum for Indoor Plants Veg Flower Growing Lamps: Home Improvement

Buy SPIDER FARMER LED Grow Light Dimmable SF-1000 Grow Lights Compatible with Samsung LM301B Diodes & MeanWell Driver Grow Light Full Spectrum for Indoor Plants Veg Flower Growing Lamps: Growing Lamps - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

I'd still rather flower with my 600 watt HPS.

With all the competition in the LED market those high end $1000 LEDs are going to be down to $250 in a couple years. That will be about the time I'll start using LEDs for some of my lighting needs. The money I save by waiting will more than make up for what I might save on electricity if I went out and paid top dollar to be the first on the block to have the latest and greatest LED light. I would only save maybe $100 a year if I switched to decent LEDs right now so it makes no sense to get bent over a barrel when the cost will be a fraction of what it is now. The argument that LEDs would save me money in the long run if I switched to them now is false. I'll save more money in the end if I keep spending a little more in electricity until the prices on the LEDs come down and they will. There's going to be a lot of people looking at ads for the same lights they paid over $1000 being sold for a few hundred dollars in the next couple of years.

 

[OldMedUser]

Honestly you cannot go wrong with a 400w for veg and 600 for blooming. But you'll need to change out the bulbs once per year or they lose output.

Honestly you don't have to change bulbs out that often. After 12,000 hours most HPS bulbs are still putting out 85% and that's 3 years of daily 12/12 use. I figure I'm probably giving my plants 50% more light than they actually need most of the time so even at 85% output they are still getting more than they can actually use. I'm not worried about hitting production targets so why waste good bulbs for little or no reward.

Like @xtsho said above. Initial outlay is too high and decent LEDs will be a lot cheaper in a few years with more good used ones on the market too. I've never been an early adopter and have too many HID lights with lots of life left in them yet.

 

[Richard Drysift]

Honestly you don't have to change bulbs out that often. After 12,000 hours most HPS bulbs are still putting out 85% and that's 3 years of daily 12/12 use. I figure I'm probably giving my plants 50% more light than they actually need most of the time so even at 85% output they are still getting more than they can actually use. I'm not worried about hitting production targets so why waste good bulbs for little or no reward.

Like @xtsho said above. Initial outlay is too high and decent LEDs will be a lot cheaper in a few years with more good used ones on the market too. I've never been an early adopter and have too many HID lights with lots of life left in them yet.

Fairly certain the info I read was from hortiluxe or a sales proxy. Of course they want you to buy more bulbs more often but if I can tell the difference in brightness so can the plants. I admit I've been using the same 400w for years. Only change those when they burn out. You are right they don't always use/need as much light as we put on them especially in early to mid veg.
I have a lot of small cheapo leds for supplemental but nothing makes buds like the HPS. The leds I have are only good for expanding the footprint of the 600w but I'd love to replace it all with the one bloom light to rule them all. So far COB leds like timber seem like the best choice but at this rate it will take me several truckloads of the beer cans I'm saving to afford one. I better get back to drinking....

 

[a mongo frog]

A guy at a grow shop, said he doesn’t like them as much as others. I have a t5 and 600 hps at the moment but was considering having something else other than the t5 when my plants are bigger. So I can have two powerful lights because I have two tents set up. What do you recommend, if leds are fine i was thinking Vivi sun 600 watt or 1200 watt maybe. Or 400 to 600 water mh/hps

The LED's talked about at the end in post #13 will make you wish you never owned a T-5.