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OK, I just personally invested in 2 of these boogers. 660nm Red, blue, and "warm" white LEDs... (I think the warm part is just a sales gimmick.) And I know these are the best because the salesman told me "Our LEDs are the most efficient ones on the market" <--lmao sarcasm. But he was really friendly, and he took the price I offered (that could be a bad thing lol) Either way I know that the LEDs are 1w CREE LEDs, and I will be using these in place of HPS for flowering.. Shut up HPS fanboys, i know, i know, HPS systems are better, BUT I HAVE NO CHOICE! I will keep the results posted for anyone who wants to know. I may even start a journal.

xesvuli420 said:

OK, I just personally invested in 2 of these boogers. 660nm Red, blue, and "warm" white LEDs... (I think the warm part is just a sales gimmick.) And I know these are the best because the salesman told me "Our LEDs are the most efficient ones on the market" <--lmao sarcasm. But he was really friendly, and he took the price I offered (that could be a bad thing lol) Either way I know that the LEDs are 1w CREE LEDs, and I will be using these in place of HPS for flowering.. Shut up HPS fanboys, i know, i know, HPS systems are better, BUT I HAVE NO CHOICE! I will keep the results posted for anyone who wants to know. I may even start a journal.

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What brand/wattage lights did you get? Also, how much were they, if you don't mind my asking?

I would be interested in your results, although I suspect they will be disappointing. If you want to be in with a better chance, throw a few CFLs in there too, and above all else, sort out some form of ventilation.

Good luck with your grow anyway.

Hey chuck norris,
I've been doing a lot of research on led lights and yes it would seem that they still have some developing to do. I think one of the main problems is that there are so many knockoff companies making a buck with cheap products and as a result the lights are getting a bad rep. Remember, these companies know what people want to hear. With cheaper prices these companies are also pushing more of their products into the market place, hence all the mixed results. I did much research before purchasing my led, 90w ufo from sunshine systems http://shop.sunshine-systems.com/product.sc?productId=8 . There prices are coming down, and you can also get a 10% discount by typing in the code "facebook10" at checkout. I would like to say that it works great but I have yet to finish a grow (just moved). My plants are roughly 3 feet and do not seem to get dense light on their bottom leaves. This is only due to the large fan leaves. I will be correcting this by adding a light mover. Hydrofarm makes some linear movers that can be found on ebay for about a 100 bucks. In my opinion a cheap way to supply even growth. I know its too late but you probably should have purchased yours from a reputable manufacturer, this one even has a 90 day guarantee, http://www.prosourceworldwide.com/Default.asp?Redirected=Y . Another positive of this company is that they are continually redeveloping their lights, notice 5 band spectrum on their ufo. Unfortunately I found this light after purchasing the one from sunshine systems. Hope this helps and I will keep you posted in the future with pics.

"you think GROWL makes anything? wrong. middle man. imports, whorehousing, and marketing.

Havn't you seen those same panels fro sale everywhere?

well guess what? they use a shit brand of shitty leds from china with unpublished white papers, meaning they;re piss poor and only for high volume industrial applications.

the leds that are useful, the 1 amp leds, yes 1 amp, are whats good. "

ummmm... With all due respect Treeth, I know I have seen you post on here allot and I know you are very much a part of this site, but you are wrong when it come to GROWL L.E.D.'s

From their own site...

"All LED's Made In USA"
"Power = 576x1W"
"Custom Orders"

Having personally spoken with this comany, I assure you they make their own product and they only use Bridgelux LED's in all their lights, the Bridgelux are made in the Silicon Vally dude, look it up before you post nonsense. or you could actually do real research and call and ask for Jason of Stephany at Growl if you don't believe me.

"Havn't you seen those same panels fro sale everywhere?"

I have seen re-sellers and e-bay auctions, however, the Growl company makes their own panels and they are trying to have resellers through out the US and beyond. Just like apple or another hardware manufacture out there would do. Can't you go to a million sites that re-sell Ipods?

"Leds do have "ballasts" aka rectifiers"

Are you trying to say that an LED panel will require a ballast to plug into and than that ballast needs to be plugged in for power? If so, with the Growls, you plug into a standard 120, no ballasts at all, you are way wrong in that case.
With all due respect, that is.

its internal.

just cause its out of sight doesn't mean its in there... producing heat, running at probably between 60-70 % effeciency...

leds are strictly dc. most commonly on 12 v. think of them as... pieces of computer equipment.

so its there, you would only have to disassemble a unit, that bulk is there for a reason.

I apologize for dismissing Growl so quickly. Looking at the pics more closely, i can now tell that the leds are of surface mount persuasion... which generally means the can handle POWER. Still, the case... they buy the casing, i'll bet they also buy the power supply... from one of those same companies in shenzen.

oh yeah,

ask steph how they came to "300w led equals a 1000 watt hps" cause that, at least, is bullshit.

SHENZEN BABY YEAH

there you go. see, idk man... i doubt they do much custom work to an already finished product you know what i mean... there is no way the light they sell are made in the us. they probably perfom a couple low intensity assembly moves, and then advertise as made in the us, when you crack that baby open, its gonna be all shenzen. Growl, once again, is all adwords.

"its internal.

just cause its out of sight doesn't mean its in there... producing heat, running at probably between 60-70 % effeciency.."

but this is were your argument fails...
When an LED user says "hey, I don't need a ballast" He means, that, unlike the HID users who not only have to purchase and run a separate piece of equipment to power his lights, but he also has to worry that his lights won't fail, his ballast won't fail and the cicrut breaker wont trip. An LED user has to just plug in and hope the electricity is on and the unit works.

" there is no way the light they sell are made in the us. they probably perfom a couple low intensity assembly moves, and then advertise as made in the us, when you crack that baby open, its gonna be all shenzen. Growl, once again, is all adwords."

I get that but that is like saying an american made car like a ford that uses wires imported from mexico is not an american made car.

"ask steph how they came to "300w led equals a 1000 watt hps""

...not from GROWL but from another LED site....

The Yield.....This is pretty much what it's all about right? Well the output of our 700W SuperPro Series is equivalent to 2400W of HID Lights.....( Now we're not saying that the 700W SuperPro Series emits more Lumens output than 2400W of HID's, but to state that the 700W Pro Series emits the same amount of absorbable light as 2400W of HID's, and it is this ability to only emit key absorbable light that your plants are able to use that makes it possible to achieve the parity results with an HID at just a fraction of the wattage. Lumens output is not a key factor in determining plant growth, it is the ability of the plants to absorb and tranform the light energy into photosynthesis and which wavelengths are to be used to achieve those key abosrption points. Lumens are a common measure of output that is used to measure the intensity of HID Lighting, but really has no direct bearing on determining plant growth. Remember that over 85% of the light emitted from an HID Light is wasited in the form of non-absorbable light waves as well as heat energy.

We have very different points of perspective crimble, and your arguments are fine. But they're only a reproduction of the popular discourse surrounding led lights. I'm wide awake and its morning so I shall deconstruct.

About the "ballasts" - you are correct, that an led consumer does not have to purchase his own power supply, primarily because allowing the user access to the wiring isnt a fun contingency to deal with. But leds do not simply use the power coming out of the wall. There are two different types of current, alternating, and direct, leds are direct... and power over lines is alternating.

In a hid set up, they make you buy the ballast. Why? cause they have a short lifetime. They make you buy bulbs... why? short lifetime. the user is responsible for replacing these items... Well, leds are rated to mantain (commonly) 70% of thier luminous flux over 50,000 hours. a very long time. The leds will pretty much last forever, but the power supplies... will not last as long. So, to sell a unit with an internal supply, is cheating the consumer, cause its not gonna last much longer than 5 years maybe, but once it dies the whole unit is dead, when the important component, the leds, are still fine and dandy. SO, like the hids, you should be willing to think about an led light as seperate components, not a sealed body with one explicite function running magically out of pins in the wall.

I can't argue for your consumer awareness. I'll bet, and i hesitate, but do you use apple products? I really would like to know...

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As for the other bit, well ok first wattage equivelency considering yield. NOWHERE NOT HERE NOT ANYWHERE HAS ANYONE EVER SHOWN ANY KIND OF EQUIVELENCY. not for what we do. ever. I havn't even seen a 1 gram per watt grow using leds, which is standard yeild for a 600 watt hps.

You are right about lumens being a useless measurement for the photosynthetically active spectrums, PAR. Lumens are for humans. PAR is for plants, unfortunately, lumens is the industry standard for "effeciency" in light sources and isn't likely to change, as led manufactures don't give a shit about one particualr market like that to have the engineers go run the tests and stuff.

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When you talk about color... that is all advertising hype. you read that on product web pages. not on here. not real people talking, but someone trying to sell you something, and you beleive it. Do you use apple products?

85% of a hid is largely useless, but its still not, its just less effeciently used by the plant.

It is nm range that is important, but then why do hps grow so damn good?

because they are fucking intense. 20000 lumens is a lot of light. a little fucking sun.

what matters is, on the biochemical level,

is a photon and the energy that it is being captured by a chloroplast. it does, and it doesnt have to give a fuck about wavelenght, the process is just more effecient in certain ranges.

What is more important, is bombarding the plant with as much light as possible. getting as much reception of photons as possible. FLOWER, POWER.

again,

they're trying to sell you lower watts, and claiming the color to be a substitute for power, heat and size, which is not the correct way to approach increasing yield.

you're going to be dissapointed operating under your current assumptions. you wanna put down 20watts per square foot, be my guest. That simply isn't enough PHOTOMETRIC FLUX, umols of photons, to produce heavy fruits. It is not enough energy.

nobody can refute this go find other led grows everyone realizes that they spent 400 dollars for only 90 watts of power and that they got ripped.

Compare your light in dollars per watts first. that is the only metric you can really trust as a consumer. everything else is variables that you know nothing about.

i apologize for being so forcefull. fighting popular discourse is a passion of mine.

jay510 said:

hahaha back at you i got money to play with hater and i also have 2 1000w hps and 2 600w hps setup hater i seen your fuckups with L.E.D ur dont know what the fuck your doing with L.E.D grow get ur weight up then holla at me

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whooo nelly. looks like you got a stick stuck somewhere. i never even said your results or plants where bad or anything. just pointed out the simple fact that your running 530 watts in there and still not doing anything better than hps. you dont got to come on here and lash back with talking shit on my grows. youve got 3 times the wattage i use and probably have had much more time/experience growing than i do. for some reason i think you missed the point im not a hater.

could ya use LED lights in the middle of the plant to stimulate middle/lower growth. in conjuction with either HPS or MH. prob sumthing along the lines of lights in a small ball, or perhaps a small strand.

certainly.

and stop hating little grower.

I've though about strips and balls too, and really want to try it. You can put leds anywhere you can put aluminum fins,
on top, below, on the side or even inside the plant pretty much.

Here is one thing i've noticed, and i thinks its reasonable...
When growing with an HPS, you grow plants with huge fuckin' fan leaves. big mother fuckers... that, I think, is the plant trying to catch as much of the short red as it can that's coming off of the HPS.
What happens then with leds is... the plant , if you have enough watts and enough coverage,
gets all the red it needs. So, i think there is plenty of room to supplement red in a room with a hps.

my first led light design was a light spider... eight "legs" of single file leds, that was supposed to fit over a plant like a helmet, and then draping down to the sides...

but yeah having them underneath the canopy of a well groomed plant would be cool;
grow one or two plants that are absolutely bathed in led light, from every direction... thats a sweet closet grow.

Treeth I actually agree with you more than you think. I do agree that if the LED unit draws 600 watts of power, it is a 600 watt unit, NO WAY EQUAL TO A 2000 watt HPS, no way. I posted the last article to site how they come about thinking a 600 = 2000, but I do not agree. And I get the point that HPS, while maybe not having the EXACT wavelength the plant uses, in a way force feeds the wave length it does produce onto the plant. If money is not a problem, I would say you would have to buy 3 of the GROWL Mastiff models to equal that of a 1800 watt HPS garden. I don't agree on the ballasts, you are reaching on that one.

Now, as far as Apple... How Dare You Sir? Steve gets $0 from me.

hahaha yeah good crimble.

I know dude, i'm thinking and operating outside the current marketplace. But out of what is offered, especially now that hidhut is down, i think Growl is perhaps the best US distributor for these things. So you're not wrong in wanting to critique their product lineup.

A ballast is a device which transforms power no?
Do you understand the difference between AC and DC?

i'm thinking of doing a scrog grow with LEDs and CFLs, 4 plants in a growbox.

one of the big problems with leds seems to be the penetration to the lower levels of the plants, so they could work better with a scrog?

mindphuk said:

Look into the tri-band lighting systems and ones that use the 5 watt Cree diodes. It's all about intensity and those .5w and 1w LEDs just don't pump out enough photons/sec. Remember to increase photosynthesis, increase the number of photons that fall on the leaves. A lot of low power LEDs is just spreading the area that the light will fall upon. To increase the intensity, you need to increase the power to the diodes.

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In regards to your questions regarding the grow lights from www.eloofaimports.com - I actually met the dude as he's based out of LA, and purchased 8 units from him about 5 months ago. I see that he's selling them for $249, which isn't too bad, but he hooked up 8 for me for around $200, since I came and picked them up locally. I had a pair of Sunshine system previously, but I gotta say eLoofa's is working superb for me... The guy emphasized the 660nm, which I obviously get, but I jus felt dumb for having bought the Sunshines for over $350 jus a few months before... and for 630nm too..

I'm only using to grow clones.. Had 8 lights in one section of my bedroom, but pretty much ended up purchasing 8 more to cover up the entire room. Went with the dual, and added flouresent lights instead of going with the tri-band... Personally, I like to just add my own whites instead of sacrificing the Red LED's.

Be sure to know who you getting it from... I was hesitant about buying these online, cuz you see some cheap ones on eBay... However, I've seen a few of them inside and out, and their quality's no good... People are selling sellin 45W and claiming 90 on them..

Anyways, just wanted to let you know, bought some of them eLoofa grow lights, and they workin great for me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh9oGroryoc

Check this link out !! LED vs HPS

Things that make you go hmmm ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peace

JAPPY said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh9oGroryoc

Check this link out !! LED vs HPS

Things that make you go hmmm ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peace

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Looks good. When they can grow decent weed with that kind of efficiency, they might be worth the money.

For security reasons I do not post much, but 20 Years and 50k on equipment plus degree’s in physics as well as horticulture.

I just want to smack people tell they get it sometimes. Any remember the Edge forums?

Good source of information with honest experienced growers. So far I have trolled this forum out of boredom and I have yet reviewed one comment from anyone that has not had a bunch of misinformation.

On lights… In layman’s term it’s a matter of coverage not just lumen output.

So as I see it many of you are playing a game of telephone regurgitating somebody else’s supposed experience. This is where I challenge you all to do as I have over the years and take the Pepsi challenge. Try it yourself. You may find you have wasted a lot of time and money on gear that is more then you need or complete garbage.

My opinion

L.E.D.’s, wait ten years Unless you have the cheddar to drop on some Chinese street lights.

Hps. Great, but not as much as you think. If you use to much you’re going to weaken your harvest. The truth of the matter is Hps matches a key spectrum that is vital but only needs to be supplemented.

M.H. Healthiest for the plant and can be use alone throughout a grow aslong as you supplement warm spectrums.

C.F.L.’s Well these are exiting time indeed with the right Bulbs *and coverage*
You will have greater results then both mh and hps systems. The *Key is coverage* and though forget the idea of output wattage and consider only the running wattage as in 10 105watts for every 1000watt hid.

Pepsi challenge people. You’re going to flame me because that’s your nature, But know this I am retired and quite well to do. You could be too if you just get over the myth

artthug said:

For security reasons I do not post much, but 20 Years and 50k on equipment plus degree’s in physics as well as horticulture.

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Great! What area of physics?

Personnal so far I have been happy with my LED My plants look healthly and bushy !! In flower stage right now with some nice hairs beginning to appear all over I have been doing lots of research on LED and plan on testing vs HPS before Christmas. Although many may find it a waste of time I plan on getting an additional 3 UFO LED Gen 6th for a total of 4 vs the 400W HPS. I have toyed with the idea for some time now and believe I would not be unhappy with the results.

Hope I didn't put a target on my back now .. lol

Peace everyone