HID Question

Capn-Crunch

Well-Known Member
Yeah weird, when i moved from hps to led i got shorter plants with leafy top colas but no longer had heavy rocks for nugs.

Which blurples were you using?
My led's give me super tight node spacing which is what I want in a plant. The tight node spacing combined with how I train gives me
a very wide, shorter plant structure with about 18 to 24 top colas.
The buds I get I would say are average, not huge, and are still pretty dense.
My led's are from Mars Hydro. 4 of the 600w (250 from the wall)
Each will easily veg and flower 2.5'x2.5' up to about 3'x3'.
 
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Thundercat

Well-Known Member
I will also add that choosing to try out HID lighting with 400w lights is kinda like a 4cylinderr sports car. Sure its a sports car and has alot of the benefits but its not the same as the 6 or 8 cyclinder version. Thats why I gave the suggestion to try getting the light closer to really use all the light the 400w is putting out. It takes a lot more to burn these plants with light then everyone thinks.

Also I'm glad the LED has been working out for you inspite of what others have said. For your environment its possible the LED will be what you like best. I try real hard not to get biased one way or the other when there are so many different and effective ways out there to grow.
 

waxman420

Well-Known Member
HID lights produce 0.5 grams to 1.0 grams per watt. LED lights produce 0.5 grams per watt.



BTW i work at a legal garbage producer here in Canada and we have done side by side grows, none of the LED lights outproduced HPS lights watt for watt.
We have a saying around these parts .
PICS OR IT NEVER HAPPENED . Plenty of 1000w cob builds that will absolutely destroy 1000w hps in yeild potency and a/c bill.

.5gpw your talking mars 1w led of the past .
 

coreywebster

Well-Known Member
Growing inside I've always used the "cheap blurples" that everyone loves to trash, so this round I bought 2 400w MH/HPS fixtures.
So far I'm not impressed. I kept the distance close and got fairly stretchy plants in veg compared to my cheap led's, and am not seeing better bud production in flower.
My question, could the brand of the bulbs I'm using be the cause of poor performance, or are most MH/HPS bulbs the same, such as color temp, etc?
Bulbs do differ in performance but ballast also vary on output which can seriously affect your grow.
Unfortunately I don't have a link for you but someone I know pointed me to some tests done on 600w ballasts.
Some used 630w, most of them were around that but there was one ballast which only consumed 520w, they should all be over 600w but that wasn't the case.
So chuck in a cheap bulb in a cheap ballast and you could be losing a lot of light in comparison to what you should be getting.
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
A friend of mine in Cali switched to COBs a few years back, and was getting the same or better results side by side with his HID lights. That's when I really started considering that the LED tech might have caught up to HID :). That was 5 years ago I think, and the tech is still only getting better, and the cost is finally coming down. I can't wait to see what the next couple years come up with. It seems like if the QBs had a broader spectrum they might be an almost perfect direction, but there is also some neat bar/strip tech out there that is working the spectrum.

@Rider101 as it happens these lights don't produce any g/w, they produce light. I've seen people maximize the usage of that light and pull over 2 g/w from HID in specialized dialed in grows. The environment and genetics have as much or more to do with G/W then the light. I've also seen LED grows where they easily get 1 g/w or more.
 

waxman420

Well-Known Member
My comment was more calling out Ryder for spewing nonsense. i wonder what l.p. set up a side by side grow off ?, don't they pay people for that. How would that work? Let you come to work and check out the stats on their r and d ? The newest lights weren't even c.e. listed. Just cant see them setting up 2 rooms or 2 closets and trying things out. All at a cost to shareholders . Just so Ryder can brag on interweb

Sorry I don't believe him whatsoever at all!
 

waxman420

Well-Known Member
My 8x cree 395020×××÷÷÷÷34612.jpg @550w on a 45w light rail with a 15w computer exhaust fan to get rid of the heat

Or
My 1000w hortilux and 150w?8 inch inline air cooled hood +6 inch high heat exhaust
20190119_012301.jpg
Oh shit forgot about the 1500w 8000 b.t.u. a.c. .




Plenty of cob bud shots all over.... the future is here
 

Rider101

Well-Known Member
My comment was more calling out Ryder for spewing nonsense. i wonder what l.p. set up a side by side grow off ?, don't they pay people for that. How would that work? Let you come to work and check out the stats on their r and d ? The newest lights weren't even c.e. listed. Just cant see them setting up 2 rooms or 2 closets and trying things out. All at a cost to shareholders . Just so Ryder can brag on interweb

Sorry I don't believe him whatsoever at all!

Don't believe me. Try it yourself.
 

Rider101

Well-Known Member
My 8x cree 3



Plenty of cob bud shots all over.... the future is here
SAJLMFAO I bought a UFO LED light in 2000 ..... 19 years later people are spouting the same crap. Like i said i work for a legal producer who spends millions on lighting we tested every system out there LED lights still produce less bud then HID lights. FYI you should not believe everything you read on the internet.

Its one thing to grow weed for a hobby its another to grow it commercially.

Good luck buddy.
 

1212ham

Well-Known Member
HID lights produce 0.5 grams to 1.0 grams per watt. LED lights produce 0.5 grams per watt.

BTW i work at a legal cannabis producer here in Canada and we have done side by side grows, none of the LED lights outproduced HPS lights watt for watt.
Bullshit. What LEDs were tested?
 
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DesertPlants

Well-Known Member
SAJLMFAO I bought a UFO LED light in 2000 ..... 19 years later people are spouting the same crap. Like i said i work for a legal producer who spends millions on lighting we tested every system out there LED lights still produce less bud then HID lights. FYI you should not believe everything you read on the internet.

Its one thing to grow weed for a hobby its another to grow it commercially.

Good luck buddy.
19 years ago most LEDs were epistar style diodes getting 25-50 lumens per watt. Modern ones produce 180-205 lumens per watt. It’s not the same comparison.
 

GoBrah

Active Member
I never actually addressed your question about bulbs. Like others have said though hortilux makes the best spectrum HID bulbs. However when I've tested other bulb companies I have never seen the major difference others claim.

Personally I think 12-14 inches is to high for a 400 watt. How much space where you trying I cover with it? A 400w is only gonna really cover a 2x2 area with good light.

I run my air cooled 1kw about 12-14 inches from my canopy. In all the years I've been growing I've only had one plant get bleached from getting to close and it was because I was gone a few days.

I don't actually care about the spectrum as much as some people talk about it. I'm not satin it doesn't matter. My 400 was a mh with a cheap HTG bulb and it grew bad ass rock hard buds. It did that because I kept it nice and close to the plant it was growing.

The hood being air cooled meant I could have the plant almost touching the glass for the light. My bulb was probably never more then 8 inches from the top of the plant it was over.

I haven't used LED yet, but from all my reading and watching others grow with it I think the biggest reason it gets a bad rap is because people try to use science to act like they don't need to pull as much wattage. If/when I switch my 1k hps room to LED it will be with as close to 1k actual wall draw watts as possible. If I switch it won't be for more "efficiency" like so many LED guys talk about. It's gonna be for more even light coverage. If I can use the same wattage but cover my whole area more evenly with high intensity light I'm certain yields will increase.

Indeed, the cheapest HPS could perform the same spectrum as the top notch one, but good bulbs have better PPF and its efficiency last longer.
There isnt much can do to change HPS spectrum, but CMH.
What brands have you tested?
 

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
SAJLMFAO I bought a UFO LED light in 2000 ..... 19 years later people are spouting the same crap. Like i said i work for a legal producer who spends millions on lighting we tested every system out there LED lights still produce less bud then HID lights. FYI you should not believe everything you read on the internet.

Its one thing to grow weed for a hobby its another to grow it commercially.

Good luck buddy.
We tested it and led out grew hps. Tighter buds, better product. But it took much more changes than just drop in a new light. We went from trying to get cooler to try to get warmer. Nutes had to be tweaked. Also we built our own lights which meant spread of light was much more even.

We outyielded the hps but not the cmh. Yet.

On the assumption that you actually tried some good led lights that at least matched the hps light levels photon per photon:
Youre going to have to ask yourself why you grow less bud with more light. Is there an inherent problem with the light and all these documented grows which outgrow hps is just a very elaborate conspiracy or could there be a user error?


Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Quantum board.
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
Indeed, the cheapest HPS could perform the same spectrum as the top notch one, but good bulbs have better PPF and its efficiency last longer.
There isnt much can do to change HPS spectrum, but CMH.
What brands have you tested?
First let me say that by "tested" I mean I used them in my grow for a couple of cycles. They weren't scientifically tested, I didn't have a lux meter or a way to test the specific spectrums. I've used lumitec or whatever they are called, I've also used a no-name bulb I got from HTG at one point, and I can't remember the one that wouldn't even turn on when I tried it(but as soon as I put in a hortilux it fired right up). I haven't done any major comparison between a bunch of lights but I've been happiest with the hortilux so far.
 

GoBrah

Active Member
First let me say that by "tested" I mean I used them in my grow for a couple of cycles. They weren't scientifically tested, I didn't have a lux meter or a way to test the specific spectrums. I've used lumitec or whatever they are called, I've also used a no-name bulb I got from HTG at one point, and I can't remember the one that wouldn't even turn on when I tried it(but as soon as I put in a hortilux it fired right up). I haven't done any major comparison between a bunch of lights but I've been happiest with the hortilux so far.
what ballast do you run with?
 
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