LED lights

I am aquiring a 6oow led board. anyone have any luck with leds? have not heard much feed back on them yet.

Most people are sticking with HPS because the current LED technology isn't quite where it needs to be yet. The money it costs to put together a LED system that rivals an HPS is astronomical. The promise of using less power isn't all that appealing when you take into account how much you have to lay out up front. Plus, from what I understand, LED systems don't have the same penetrating ability that an HPS has. I've never used a LED system so I personally don't have an opinion as to how well they work. I've seen pics of some LED grows, but they have not impressed me. There are a few people here that use LEDs and most of them seem to be rather cult-ish in their praise of them. That only makes me more suspicious.

Im just starting a new grow and intend to use some LED's. Just out of curiosity really. I've got 3 100w fluro's in there currently and im going to add the LED's as soon as I can be arsed to solder the rest onto the boards. It is alot of hassle but as for expense, its not pricey at all if u know what your doing and can work out how to power them, how many resistors...etc. It takes a bit of trial and error. I think i've got 6 boards, 600 LED's overall. 400 red, 200 blue. got another red board to add for flowering. It cost around £30 for the boards and the bulbs (from China...I got the super bright ones). The wires and resistors I had lying round and the power supply came from an old virgin media box I found so I dont know how much i would cost with all that. It's alot of work but worth the experiment I think...well, we'll see.

oneeyedjedi: If you can, get a light meter and measure the lumens per square foot of youre LED light. If its less than 10,000 lumens per square foot then it probably wont give you enough grunt to pump out big bud. But at least if its 3000 or more lumens per square foot then it will veg fine.

I exclusely use LEDs in my veg room, 7 x 16watt boards wired together to make one light (total of 1904 LEDs at 112 watts) and am still in the process of wiring up what was going to be a 14 board light but has now grown into an 18 board light (4896 LEDs) which is designed to cover the area of my 2 meter grow veg tent. But I still use the HPSs in the flowering room.

Im curious about the 600 watt LED. What are the dimensions and specs of the LEDs of the lamp ur aquiring.

oneeyejedi said:

I am aquiring a 6oow led board. anyone have any luck with leds? have not heard much feed back on them yet.

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I have been using LED lights for vegging and they are great for that... I also use them in the flower phase but only as a supplemental light for a 400 HPS ((or 2,depending on how many girls I have))... it works well for me...
I'm looking forward to switching over to 100% LED's one day

In terms of power saving, because I run my veg room light shedule 24 hours, there is a marked saving in power considering I would usually run an MH 400 watt in there but am getting adequate results from the 112 watt LED lamp which is covering around about the same area as the MH would (but of course not as good as an MH would).

Veg time is still the same though, but as I said in other threads, and is mentioned above, the limitation is light penetration. Once they hit 1 foot, I switch them to flower since the LED doesn't do very well with vegging any taller than that.

While the savings may not be spectacular, the power bill is 200 or so kilowatts less per month than if I was running a MH 400 24/7.



This is my current LED setup.



An affy in veg mode.

arijunam11 said:

Im just starting a new grow and intend to use some LED's. Just out of curiosity really. I've got 3 100w fluro's in there currently and im going to add the LED's as soon as I can be arsed to solder the rest onto the boards. It is alot of hassle but as for expense, its not pricey at all if u know what your doing and can work out how to power them, how many resistors...etc. It takes a bit of trial and error. I think i've got 6 boards, 600 LED's overall. 400 red, 200 blue. got another red board to add for flowering. It cost around £30 for the boards and the bulbs (from China...I got the super bright ones). The wires and resistors I had lying round and the power supply came from an old virgin media box I found so I dont know how much i would cost with all that. It's alot of work but worth the experiment I think...well, we'll see.

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that sounds innovative,,good on you for experimenting with it... my friend made this LED light for me,,its one of 2 connected to a power supply... its great for supplementing the Hps in my flower room

Sure, and after playing with the light meter I realised too that the lights dont have to be that close to still get the same lumens per square foot onto the leaves. Basically the lumens per square foot didnt change for the first foot of light, they stayed at 4000 lumens (per square foot), but thats what I want from top to bottom so that the nodes are tight, the leaves are broad and bushy and there is very minimal stretch and reach.

What I see with the LEDs vs the 400 watt HiDs if you let them go over 1 foot in height is the lower branches not getting adequate light because there just isnt the leaf penetration (i.e. the light punching right through the leaves as it does with the metal halides), either stretching out to find light and becoming spindly, or just not growing at all and the plant becomes top bushy and tall, rather than short, stocky and bushy with tight nodes.

The other thing is a foot is enough for me to switch to flower anyways so after that its off to the flowering tent which has 2 x 400 watt HPSs cranking away 12/12.

Afterthought: the other issue with having them so close is of course heat. The LEDs do emit a little heat and the closer the tops are to the LEDs the less chance the canopy leaves will want to go searching for heat.

Do these work??? And how much does it cost to run the hild lights

hahaha conky!!

Rick McNasty said:

Do these work???

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With enough watts of LEDs covering the needed area they will veg fine as long as youre not trying to grow big bushy trees. My experience shows me that they do not have the lumens per square foot output yet for big bud that you can get with the HPS lights.

For me it was experimental and I was fortunate enough to make a light big enough to handle the vegging without much loss in leaf and stem development.

A lot of people have tried to bud with LEDs and most results have been poor in my opinion. Firstly because people believe the hype that you can grow with 60 watts of LEDs which are supposed to replace a 400 or 600 watt HPS....

My current 112 watt doesnt replace a 400 HPS so a 60 watt isnt going to come close.

As Ive explained a few times already, in order to get light coverage over your canopy as well as light penetration, and some heat as well, you need to move the LED setup fairly close to the tops, I have mine about 2 inches off the tops, just enough for the blue and red LED lights to mix. This means that you wont get the same area of coverage as you would if you had them a foot or more above the canopy of your plants, so you need more lights to get coverage.

LED light is pretty direction, most being 10-15 degrees spread, so the closer you have them the less area they will cover. Mine covers around 80cm x 60cm and I use it to veg a constant 4 plants, two large and two small, along with the clones as well. Once the two large are ready they go into the flowering tent, then the next two clones are potted etc.

I veg for around 2 and a half weeks from clones, that gets them to about a foot high and nice and bushy and tight.

In that the LED light does fine and saves me a couple of hundred kilowatts a month in power. In terms of cost, it will take a while to recoup that money, but then again, having a not so large power bill does help in ways that cannot have a $ sign put on it...if you know what I mean.

It wont be long before LEDs or something similar in low power usage will come out pumping out more than 10,000 lumens per square foot. I'll have another experiment with budding then, until then its the HPSs and/or CFLs for budding.

Thanks do you have instructions on how to wire them?

I suppose that would depend on which kitset you buy. Some come made up already and you just have to wire them together, others come in parts, and you have to solder them up yourself. Those ones will have the instructions with them.

Warning: If you dont have literally hours upon hours of free time laying around, wiring them up is extremely time consuming. Plus the neck strain, arm cramps, the smell of solder through everything....you get the picture.

If you know a bit about printing your own circuit boards I suppose 'theoretically' you could just buy the one kitset and then make as many copies as you wanted of the design yourself....still gotta source them LEDs though.

Mine are 272 x 5mm LEDs per board and Im still playing around with the layout for the optimum light dispersion.

If youre buying your own LEDs, then you will want blue and red spectrum LEDs. The blue are around 455nm-485nm and the red ones are between 615nm and 655nm. The higher the MCD (megacandela) rating on the LEDs the better.

There are also the cree range of LEDs which are used in an LED grow light called the Procyon 100. Theyre much more expensive and also require a sort of start circuit to go with each LED. The Procyon 100, while being expensive, has according to the seller, 56 such LEDs in it. Im guessing at its 100 watt rating it would make an excellent vegging light.

But I dont know about the bang for your buck with that one. $600 doesn't get you much coverage area if you are wanting to maintain the optimum lumens per square foot using the Procyon 100.

www.thegrowlights.com let me know i have no experiance with led. i have a 2000w growzilla setup 1 bulb is 1000w hps and the other is 1000w mh. i am soposed to trade a system and info but if its not da shit i wont. thanks!!!!!

p.s. i like my hid setup and have had good results. it takes alot to teach an old dog new tricks but if it means i can use my solar panel energy somewere else that would be great!

Solar panel??? Elaborate please!