Experience with LED's

So I made a switch from HO flourescents to two LED ufo's in the middle of the grow, about 4 weeks into flowering. Problem is, they didnt seem to develop much beyond the 4 weeks of flowering, besides the trichome count increasing. Everything else was kept the same, the plants were about 8-10inches away, but I was very dissappointed with their apparent performance. Was this just because I made the switch in the middle of the flowering which might have confused/stressed them, or was the light too close and therefore too intense? DOes any one else have any experience with LED's, I know they work good, I grew out some seedlings that were shooting up at an amazing pace, but I put those outside and never got to go through a whole cycle with them, and have been hesitant to flower under them because of my past experience.

My help will not be a good prediction of what other people have to say. Everyone on here hates LEDs, I don't

LEDs work well for veg, but they lack in flowering. If you are planning on flowering, stick with CFLs or t5's.

better yet HPS....

yeah I'd recommend HPS over flouros.... here's a few pix of my first and second grow..... I ended up switching to a 400w HPS at the end of my first grow.

huge difference in plant and bud size.

Sorry, I thought that was a given. I havn't met anyone that claims that CFLs or t5's are better than HPS. I just assumed that you had heat or space issues.

they say LED's a great for veging i dont know. here is a web site from the nov 08 issue of high times where goerge says that it this show in spain he me a guy that makes led's specifically for your set up and they are suppose to be the best LED's yet. i dont know but if you want to try them you can. www.ledsgrow.es

Wait! LEDs aren't preforming as good as floros? It *can't* be so!

(I can see the HIDs shaking in their boots)

The very first plant I flowered was in a clothes closet. I had about 550 watts of CFLs in the end and it was budding away fine. Had a carbon filter and an intake fan and for all intents and purposes things were great. Until that is....an HPS crazy mate of mine convinced me that even though the bud was outstanding on my affy, if I switched to an HPS they would be bigger than the moon.

So silly me I did.

End results are as follows:

- Cooked fan leaves
- Burnt bud
- Doors warped on closet

Now I can hear all you HPS people saying, "he shoulda used a 250watt instead of the 400", well why should have I? I was already using 390 watts of CFLs across the top (3 x 130 watt 2700k) packed in from top and as many 42 watt compacts as I could down the sides and around the bottom, not one single part of the plant was missing light. Bud was popping out everywhere.

Surely going to a 250 watt HPS just because of heat, is going down the scale in terms of lumens and of course, coverage.

Moral of the story is, its not always just a straight choice between CFLs and HPSs. The size of your grow space will determine whether CFLs are more of an advantage than HIDs are.

Now concerning the UFO. Let me say this from having a little experience with the various LEDs available, through to making my own. Out of the entire range of 60 watt and greater LED grow lights, the UFO is by far the greatest rippoff of them all. Matched only by the bullshit information put out there by its retailers.

Even as a vegging light it is crap. If you wanted to keep up with CFLs you would need one UFO per 2 week vegged plant.

It has done more, than any other light, to retard the development of LEDs as vegging lights.

But as a vegging light, LEDs are great especially during those hot summer days. Today its 23c degrees in my house. Its 25 degrees in the veg closet with just the one large computer extraction fan in there. Why, because LEDs put out very little heat. If I were to use CFLs I would have to come up with another way of keeping temps down. Thats where LEDs have their own little speciality vs CFLs or HIDs....already been there with the HIDs in that closet, never again.

Jonus said:

End results are as follows:

- Cooked fan leaves
- Burnt bud
- Doors warped on closet

Now I can hear all you HPS people saying, "he shoulda used a 250watt instead of the 400", well why should have I? I was already using 390 watts of CFLs across the top (3 x 130 watt 2700k) packed in from top and as many 42 watt compacts as I could down the sides and around the bottom, not one single part of the plant was missing light. Bud was popping out everywhere.

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I'm not willing to argue with you, because I'm not an electrical engineer. It's also been quite a few years since I took thermodynamics, so I'm a bit rusty on it. But it says in the Grow FAQ's that HID lights do not run hotter than any other light source, watt for watt, just that the HID's have all of their heat running out of one point, where with CFL's and t5's you can spread the heat out over a much larger area. That being said, I don't understand how your Doors got warped when you switched from 550 watts of CFL's to 400 watts of HPS, unless the light was 0.5" away from the warped door, and at that point it's no wonder. I also don't really understand how your buds got fried and your leaves burned, unless your plants were way too close to the light. At that point, it's hardly the bulb's fault you put the plants so close to the bulb. But like I said, I'm not willing to argue with you, I don't doubt you got the results you said you got, I just don't understand how. HID's are very manageable under the right circumstances.

Jonus said:

Now concerning the UFO. Let me say this from having a little experience with the various LEDs available, through to making my own. Out of the entire range of 60 watt and greater LED grow lights, the UFO is by far the greatest rippoff of them all. Matched only by the bullshit information put out there by its retailers.

Even as a vegging light it is crap. If you wanted to keep up with CFLs you would need one UFO per 2 week vegged plant.

It has done more, than any other light, to retard the development of LEDs as vegging lights.

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I don't have all together too much experience with LED's, but I have been using the UFO for almost six months now, and I can tell you that it is outperforming anything else I have seen on any other website, or any other grow report using any other type of LED light. I used another different type of LED light before the UFO, and the UFO kicked the shit out of it.

You claim in order to keep up with CFLs you would need one UFO per 2 week plant. Seriously? Where do you get this claim from?

If you are talking about flowering, I probably wouldn't argue with you, if you were talking about using one UFO and comparing it to an array of 8-10 CFLs. But if you are talking about Vegging, I'm just straight up going to have to disagree with you. My UFO is used to veg anywhere from 8-20 plants, and it works just fine.

specialkayme said:

I'm not willing to argue with you, because I'm not an electrical engineer. It's also been quite a few years since I took thermodynamics, so I'm a bit rusty on it. But it says in the Grow FAQ's that HID lights do not run hotter than any other light source, watt for watt, just that the HID's have all of their heat running out of one point, where with CFL's and t5's you can spread the heat out over a much larger area. That being said, I don't understand how your Doors got warped when you switched from 550 watts of CFL's to 400 watts of HPS, unless the light was 0.5" away from the warped door, and at that point it's no wonder. I also don't really understand how your buds got fried and your leaves burned, unless your plants were way too close to the light. At that point, it's hardly the bulb's fault you put the plants so close to the bulb. But like I said, I'm not willing to argue with you, I don't doubt you got the results you said you got, I just don't understand how. HID's are very manageable under the right circumstances.

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I'm gonna toss my 2 pence in. I look at watts as volume. A CFL may be 100W and a HID also at 100W. But if the bulb temp of the CFL is 90F but the HID is 200F, which will heat the room to a higher temp?

If the bulb temps are the same, but wattage higher on one, the higher wattage will heat the room to that bulb temp faster.

Now this is all with a room dissipating temps at the same level.

Remember watts is power. Think cars. Torque is the work it can do, but Horse Power is how fast it can do it.

BigBudBalls said:

I'm gonna toss my 2 pence in. I look at watts as volume. A CFL may be 100W and a HID also at 100W. But if the bulb temp of the CFL is 90F but the HID is 200F, which will heat the room to a higher temp?

If the bulb temps are the same, but wattage higher on one, the higher wattage will heat the room to that bulb temp faster.

Now this is all with a room dissipating temps at the same level.

Remember watts is power. Think cars. Torque is the work it can do, but Horse Power is how fast it can do it.

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That makes sense, and I'm sure that you know more about it than I do. It makes sense to me that a 400 watt HPS would heat up a room faster than 400 watts of CFLs, but I was just oging by what the FAQ's said. They claimed that the overall heat distribution of any type of light, watt for watt, was the same, only that the HIDs have all of their heat coming out of one focal point (the bulb) while the CFLs have the same amount of heat coming out of 10-20 different focal points (depending on how many bulbs used, obviously), and people confuse this for lower heat, when in actuality it's just spread out more evenly.

Again, I don't know much, just trying to reiterate information that is already out there.

My UFO is used to veg anywhere from 8-20 plants, and it works just fine

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Lets take 8 plants at a foot high as an example. For fairness sake, lets assume the hype that the red and blue light make up 30% of white light, therefore whatever the lumens per square foot are, that factor should be taken into consideration - so say an LED light emitting 3000 lumens per square foot could be theoretically compared to say an HID outputting 9,000...lumens per square foot.

Now, what is the lumens per square foot of the UFO light at the canopy of your plants if you raise it high enough to spread across 8 x 1 foot high plants?

Firstly lets search Google to see what the retailers say is the lumens per square foot rated output of the UFO is...
http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&q=+"lumens+per+square+foot"++UFO++LED&meta=

Oh dear, not one retailer of the UFO talking lumens per square foot, yet lumens per square foot and access to CO2 are the two primary components in photosythesis. In fact, without blowing my trumpet here, it seems from that Google search that the only person on the net thus far talking about lumens per square foot and the UFO and LED lights, is moi on RIU.

Ok so heres a heads up. The UFO outputs about 2500 lumens per square foot of light within the first foot of light. In other words if you perched it one foot above your grow area you're getting a constant 2500 lumens per square foot from the light itself, all the way to the canopy one foot below it. Sounds strange but that is the way LED light emits, its foot candle rating is constant for the first foot, then drops like a stone beyond that.

Now, going along with the retailer spin, LED blue/red light being 30% of white light so 2500 x 3.33 = 8325 lumens per square foot of white light (in comparisson).

Sound good?

The only problem with that equation is that the argument put forward by LED retailers is just theory, in practical it doesn't work. Plants absorb lumens, apart from which part of the spectrum they absorb and whic parts they reflect, they don't give a rats ass what spectrum the lumens are in. Its light pressure.

White light is a mammal eye phenomena. A plant looks green because that is the light it is reflecting the most. If our eyes could pick up the entire spectrum of light, plants that look green to us would look mostly red.

So to the plant, lumens is lumens.

I have no doubts you could veg 8 one foot plants with one UFO without suffering too much stretch, even 20 clones. The point of using the CFLs and Metal Halides in vegging is speed of veg and taller plants without the stretch.

Plants react to lumens per square foot, the ability of the light to penetrate the leaf surface, penetrate several layers of leaves running the processing of photosythesis into a frenzy.

Not only that, the plant begins to prepare its defenses against the intensity of lumens so by the time it flowers its defense mechanisms are ready and gearing to go, and one of those defenses is the production of resin as a layered defense against the intense light (and also UVb light if theres any around).

Hope Im making sense.

As for the heat issue, BigBudBalls pretty much covered it. The heat coming off of 3 x 130 watt CFLs is nothing compared to 1 x 400 HPS. You can put the CFLs about an inch from the leaves, try doing that with an HPS.

specialkayme said:

That makes sense, and I'm sure that you know more about it than I do. It makes sense to me that a 400 watt HPS would heat up a room faster than 400 watts of CFLs, but I was just oging by what the FAQ's said. They claimed that the overall heat distribution of any type of light, watt for watt, was the same, only that the HIDs have all of their heat coming out of one focal point (the bulb) while the CFLs have the same amount of heat coming out of 10-20 different focal points (depending on how many bulbs used, obviously), and people confuse this for lower heat, when in actuality it's just spread out more evenly.

Again, I don't know much, just trying to reiterate information that is already out there.

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Now thinking of it backwards (I like doing that sort of thing)
Ponder your HVAC system. You come home and turn the dial to 60F (its 80F) But you want 70F. Putting it to 60F won't get it to 70F any faster the putting it to 70F. The system only has x amount of BTUs (which can be converted to watts)

The distribution aspect is the room's heat dissipation factored in.

So hows that insteon working for ya? I'm about to order up a bunch of stuff.

Jonus said:

Firstly lets search Google to see what the retailers say is the lumens per square foot rated output of the UFO is...
http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&q=+"lumens+per+square+foot"++UFO++LED&meta=

Oh dear, not one retailer of the UFO talking lumens per square foot, yet lumens per square foot and access to CO2 are the two primary components in photosythesis. In fact, without blowing my trumpet here, it seems from that Google search that the only person on the net thus far talking about lumens per square foot and the UFO and LED lights, is moi on RIU.

....

As for the heat issue, BigBudBalls pretty much covered it. The heat coming off of 3 x 130 watt CFLs is nothing compared to 1 x 400 HPS. You can put the CFLs about an inch from the leaves, try doing that with an HPS.

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First off, I would like to start by saying that I am in total agreement with you Jonus. Nothing you said in that post did I disagree with in the slightest.

That being said, it really frustrates me when people use google as their form of scholarly research (not saying you were claiming it to be scholarly), or people that google a topic and think they know everything about it (again, not saying you claimed that). ON top of that, the one thing I hate even more than that is people that quote Wikipedia. God I hate that. But I should probably stop ranting and raving about little to nothing to do with this thread.

So back on point, Led's don't cover the area that they claim to. I think the UFO claims to cover 5 square feet, but I wouldn't push it past 2.5 at the most. It doesn't have much penetration, but it has much more penetration and light coverage than anything else I have seen. That being said I havn't seen the Procryon (or however you spell it) work, but would love to.

Jonus said:

As for the heat issue, BigBudBalls pretty much covered it. The heat coming off of 3 x 130 watt CFLs is nothing compared to 1 x 400 HPS. You can put the CFLs about an inch from the leaves, try doing that with an HPS.

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I still don't really understand this point, but maybe it's just over my head.

And yes, you can obviously put 3 x 130 watt CFLs closer to a plant than you can with 1 x 400 watt HPS because yet again, the HPS is disipating it's heat in one place, while the CFLs would be disipating their heat in three different locations, automatically producing less 'burn power', if you will, to the plant. If you were able to fuck with physics and get all three CFLs to exist in the same time/space location, then they would be producing more heat than the HPS. Just because you are spreading the heat out doesn't mean that less is being produced.

BigBudBalls said:

So hows that insteon working for ya? I'm about to order up a bunch of stuff.

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I love that stuff. Works great. My only issue is I could never get my VCN program to actually work. I have two laptops, and when they are in the same room the VCN works like it should. When I get an hour away and try to use it, it can't ever connect. I don't understand it, but whatever, the insteon products work great. What are you ordering? Basic home automation supplies, or working on a big product? I would buy everything from their website if I had the cash.

BigBudBalls said:

Ponder your HVAC system. You come home and turn the dial to 60F (its 80F) But you want 70F. Putting it to 60F won't get it to 70F any faster the putting it to 70F. The system only has x amount of BTUs (which can be converted to watts)

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totally ot here...My electric bill would be a whole lot cheaper if I could get my wife to understand that point.

sorry for the hijack.
/rant off

So back on point, Led's don't cover the area that they claim to. I think the UFO claims to cover 5 square feet, but I wouldn't push it past 2.5 at the most. It doesn't have much penetration, but it has much more penetration and light coverage than anything else I have seen. That being said I havn't seen the Procryon (or however you spell it) work, but would love to.

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I better point out I am not trying to have a crack out you mate, my main angst is at the retailers of the UFO who consistently overstate its abilities and thereby give LED lamps a bad name.

In terms of production LED lamps the Procyon would probably be up at the top of lamps sold in the US, but so is the price...If I was to spend $600 on an LED grow light I suppose the Procyon would be my choice above any other one. For one thing its more watts, more lumens per watt, and covers a wider area, but still suffers from the same set backs all LED lamps suffer from.

But in terms of the hype surrounding it, it does not match a 400 HPS as some retailers maintain. Even some saying a 600 watt HPS. No LED lamp on the market today is outputting anywhere near 10,000 lumens per square foot, so there is no comparison to the 600 watt HPS systems in the LED world.

To reiterate my earlier remarks, I dont have a prob with the UFO apart from its price and the bullshit being touted by its retailers. These guys here for example at http://www.hydroponicsfarming.com/product-612.html
say the UFO, "just slightly underperforms 600W Lights". Well if you compare the 10,000 lumens per square foot to 2500 lumens per square foot of the UFO, I would harldy describe that as a, "slight underperformance", by any stretch of the baked imagination.

And yes, you can obviously put 3 x 130 watt CFLs closer to a plant than you can with 1 x 400 watt HPS because yet again..........mean that less is being produced.

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The point being, 600 watts worth of CFLs in a grow closet emits less heat than a 400 HPS does, therefore needs less cooling. 600 watts of CFLs can be spread out around your plants in a way you cannot with one 400 watt HPS, although with mylar growers try to get the same result of spreading the light to the lower parts of the plant.

Because of this heat factor, if you are growing in a confined space, the CFLs will be a better choice than the HPS since you can deliver more lumens per square foot to your plants due to the less heat therefore more watts can be used.

The reason the doors warped on my closet is the way the heat is concentrated and reflected from the HID light shade. All the light in one place, at the top, and therefore the heat is all in one place too, so the top section of the doors heated up while the cooler bottom part of the doors did not...therefore waaarrrrrpp factor nine.

Jonus said:

I better point out I am not trying to have a crack out you mate, my main angst is at the retailers of the UFO who consistently overstate its abilities and thereby give LED lamps a bad name.

But in terms of the hype surrounding it, it does not match a 400 HPS as some retailers maintain. Even some saying a 600 watt HPS. No LED lamp on the market today is outputting anywhere near 10,000 lumens per square foot, so there is no comparison to the 600 watt HPS systems in the LED world.

To reiterate my earlier remarks, I dont have a prob with the UFO apart from its price and the bullshit being touted by its retailers. These guys here for example at http://www.hydroponicsfarming.com/product-612.html
say the UFO, "just slightly underperforms 600W Lights". Well if you compare the 10,000 lumens per square foot to 2500 lumens per square foot of the UFO, I would harldy describe that as a, "slight underperformance", by any stretch of the baked imagination.

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I know you wern't taking a crack at me. No hard feelings. Sorry if it sounded like I was being defensive, it wasn't my intention.

Totally agree with you there. Manufacturers hype up their stuff, but it's why I come on these forums to find out what really works. AN is notorious for their bullshit as well.

And while the UFO no where near matches a 400 or a 600 watt hps, I would argue that it holds it's own against a 250 watt HPS or MH, at least in veg. Others would argue not, and that's fine. But if I'm getting comparable results from 90 watts of LEDs instead of using 250 watts of MH, I'll toy with it a bit to save on energy.

And yes, it's way overpriced, that's why I wouldn't suggest getting it anywhere other than eBay, haha. I got mine for like $160 (hard to do, but if you watch it, you can occasionally find someone who is not selling it as a 'grow light' but as an 'industrial LED lamp', or something similar). I would be hard pressed to find a 250 watt MH kit (ballast, bulb, reflector, and exhaust fan) for under $160, so it works well for me.

Jonus said:

The point being, 600 watts worth of CFLs in a grow closet emits less heat than a 400 HPS does, therefore needs less cooling. 600 watts of CFLs can be spread out around your plants in a way you cannot with one 400 watt HPS, although with mylar growers try to get the same result of spreading the light to the lower parts of the plant.

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I don't think we are really arguing a different point anymore. All I'm saying is that factually speaking, 600 watts of CFLs actually produce MORE heat than a 400 watt HPS, but you are able to spread that heat out over a wider area, so it actually SEEMS like there is less heat. But I realize what you are saying, and I'm not arguing with you. If you spread out the bulbs you get less burning, and need less cooling. As long as we are not arguing whether 600 watts produces more physical heat than a 400 watt HPS, then I don't have an issue with any of that.

Jonus said:

Because of this heat factor, if you are growing in a confined space, the CFLs will be a better choice than the HPS since you can deliver more lumens per square foot to your plants due to the less heat therefore more watts can be used.

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I'm not sure that I agree with you here. I'm too tired to do the math, so excuse me if it's wrong, but I'm just going off memory here.

Assuming that you are using home depot bought CFLs, which I think is what most people on here use and not grow shop CFLs, then you are getting approximately anywhere from 60-70 lumens per watt, according to this http://www.efi.org/factoids/lumens.html. Last time I read about it, you received about 107 lumens per watt of HPS (approximately). So, at least theoretically an 400 watt HPS provides 42,800 lumens, while 400 watts of CFLs provide between 24,000 and 28,400 lumens. If you were to up it to the 600 watts of CFLs, you still only get 36,000-42,600 lumens. So to even come close to beating the HPS in lumens alone you would need 50% more watts.

Now I do understand what you are trying to say, that since lumens disipate over distance, that since there is one HPS bulb, the corners get a substantially less amount of light than the center does. And with CFLs you are able to spread this foot candle light out more evenly. But I think this has alot more to do with a person's grow area, and not how you design the layout of bulbs. If you put a 400 watt HPS bulb in your grow room so far away from your plants that it disipates down to 20,000 lumens, then you obviously either need more light or you need to get the light closer to the plants, or you need to stop growing in such a wide open space.

When I first started growing, i did it in an old home made cabinet. The thing was tiny. I tried CFLs, but after about 4 the heat got to be an issue, so I put a fan in there, then at about 6 or 7 I had more heat. I said fuck this, and went to home depot, got a security lamp, took it apart and got a 70 watt hps out of it. I had less heat issues with the 70 watt hps than I had with the 7 x 23 watts of CFLs.

I don't think your problem was with an HPS, I think it was with you trying to jam a square peg in a round hole (no offense). If the door warped from the heat of the HPS, I don't think it's the lamps fault, I think that you should have had either more ventilation, or tried to put less watts of HPS in such a small enclosed space.

Right now I have a 400 watt HPS running in a 22" x 22" x 6' area with no problems. If I did though, it would be because I needed a 250 in there instead of a 400, or because I needed more ventilation.

ok i went to the site that i posted about the led's the www.ledsgrow.es and sent the guy an email asking about the lumens that his products put out and this is the email he sent back.

I´m sorry , I can´t give you a lumen measure, cause it´s wrong one. This measure It´s only good if the light source is the same. You must understand that your 1000w hid gives you more lumens than a LG-300 but almost 80-90% of white light is wasted, cause doesn´t cause any effect on plants. On our lights, the spectrum wavelengh it´s exactly the one the plants need cause leds can emitte in very specifical wavelengh peaks , so you aren´t wasting light, 100% of the emitted lumens are used by plants. That´s the great secret that allows you to obtain a great performance with less power waste.
In our case, we use RADIOMETRIC POWER (mW) measure in each diferent wavelengh.
Also, it´s important to complain that every color has a different radiometric power so for example, 1 watt of blue 450nm has much more radiometric power than red 630, that means that with the same power you will obtain more lumens on red, but blue lumens will be more effective than red.
There are very complex measures, hope you have complain it. Otherwais I give you a standard lumen measure betwen hid and Leds(white ones):


1 watt of Hps = 40 lum
1 watt of white Led = 100 lum

i dont understand all this shit just trying to help some people out. all i know is my 1000w hps grows great buds.

so i guess led's are more hype then reality. Those marketers are good at what they do. so the consensus is good 4 veg bad 4 bud, if only i could find out why... well i guess if it sounds too good to be true it prolly is. thanks 4 the input, i just hope hightimes doesnt feature a product on two of its covers all the while feeding ppl bogus info, and neither nico or jorge would consider using it when asked in subsequent issues. i have been officially suckered

But I think this has alot more to do with a person's grow area, and not how you design the layout of bulbs.

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Exactly my point when I stated,

if you are growing in a confined space

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and earlier stated:

Moral of the story is, its not always just a straight choice between CFLs and HPSs. The size of your grow space will determine whether CFLs are more of an advantage than HIDs are.

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Again, in reference to growing in confined space....the fact that the 400 HPS has to be about a foot above the top of your plant (assuming youre in flower with at least 2 foot plant) in order to avoid the direct concentrated heat from the bulb and reflective hood, means the HPS will be about 2 to 3 feet above the lowest branches greatly diminishing lumens per square foot, assuming light is even penetrating that deep. Whereas in that same confined space the CFLs can be tucked in all around the plant with only an inch gap.

I don't think your problem was with an HPS, I think it was with you trying to jam a square peg in a round hole (no offense). If the door warped from the heat of the HPS, I don't think it's the lamps fault, I think that you should have had either more ventilation, or tried to put less watts of HPS in such a small enclosed space.

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Possibly, but the fact is that the direct heat that is present around the bulb and reflector presented a disproportion of heat at the top than at the bottom. The 400 watt HPS fitted nicely into the closet, but was just too hot at the top and warped the doors.

My main point in this whole discussion of course is to point out that the differences between using LEDs, CFLs and HIDs is not so much determined by foot candle but by the design and environment of your grow area. Each has their specialty, each has their advantages and disadvantages.

While HIDs and CFLs will outperform LED lamps in budding, the LED lamp beats them all hands down in efficiency in grow environments that are already at or just below the optimum growing temporatures, like yesterday where the temperatures in my house were 23-24c, the grow closet was 25c with the LED lamp, just the one extraction fan was needed.

When it comes to budding in a confined space you can get more lumens per square foot all over your plants by using CFLs with less energy having to be spent dissipating the direct heat from the HIDs.

Finally for any other grow, grow tents, grow rooms, warehouses....nothing currently touches the HIDs.

In my opinion to make comparitive arguments as I see a lot of online between the three types of grow systems is a bit like trying to say that sportscars go faster than tractors therefore makes them somehow better, vs, tractors can pull more shit so they are better.

While sportscars can outrun a tractor hands down, try plowing a fiend with one... Meanwhile tractors have more pulling power handsdown, no competition there, but, you wouldnt want to take your date out on the town on one, you could, but getting through traffic would be a real bastard.