wow, so much negativity...
here is my stance:
i've grown from coast to coast for years... hid is old tech and not the most effecient thing ever, yet everyone acts like it is the second coming or something...
today i pulled down 8+ oz from two little tiny plants grown under off the shelf leds (growtech panels, i believe) plus one 100 watt cfl (mostly for side lighting)...
some of you boys and girls acting like you own stock in the hortilux corp need to wise up and do some math:
i can keep my lights 2 inches from the top of my flowers not two feet (those of you using 1k hids, you know what i mean)... i've NEVER had to worry about the tips or buds getting scorched by growing too close to the heat, i mean light and the auxiliary worry about it getting so hot under the lamp that something catches fire, or my ballast is wired wrong, or whatever... also at two inches the vast majority of my usable lumens are going where i want them to go, how much coverage are you getting from yours from 2 FEET away??? right, you can do math just like me, not much...
i also do not have to invest tons of money for cooling units and fans and such to keep the room under 90 degrees (which means i don't have to pay tons for my electric, as my leds just sip at the electricity: i am using 1/10th of the amount of electric monthly as i was even with just one 1k mh light)...
i also don't have to worry about my bulb shattering or releasing crazy toxic vapors near my little organically raised veggies and herbs...
similarly i don't have to replace my bulbs every cycle; i've still got 4 more years to go on my "if the unit or individual lights go out, we will replace the unit at our cost" warranty (they've been going on 12:12 for more than a year now, how many bulbs have you replaced in the past 12 months???)
i also don't have to have multiple fans running for input air, exhaust air, lamp cooling and the like... i only need for exhaust and scrubbing (one unit will suffice)...
my noise profile is low, i can sleep at night not worrying about that throbbing low pitched hum that is so prevalent in most indoor grows...
now i firmly believe that there is room enough for all of us in this thing... if you wanna grow by a campfire, go do it, but don't tell this guy he is all full of s--- when maybe he is not... don't piss on his ideas because you can't see past your own, when you can't open your eyes and see that there are other sources of info than the folks who take out adverts in high times...
hid ain't bad, but there are other ways too! if you want to grow with plasma: do it, cfl? awesome!
my girls are organically grown and raised, dripping with trichs by two weeks into flower, shiny and "cover of a magazine" pretty by harvest, they yield big because i've got a dialed in system and nothing more... don't like it? then stop reading this thread! trolling has been on the rise on this site, and it is pretty amateur, kids...
to my man ben: tell you what, you put together and sell your system? if so, show it off, be proud... you start making them, let me know size shape design, and if it works i'll buy one... if you do custom, i've got some needs that i need filled and i love the idea of custom made gear, especially if it will help with the only true issue i know of from leds (which i admit is kind of a large one: PENETRATION)... pm me size shape and cost and we will get your idea off the ground, ok?
peace out!