led thoughts.

I have been research the shit out of led lights this week spending hours and hours reading and watching videos . I do see they are give us some great yields and very good results, bad ass right, only problem is now I found the most efficient led there is on the market and best bang for your buck . the power is actually uses and produces , I have all the figured out , I run 8 lamps. so for me it would be best bang for the buck to buy .24 led grow lights. to get the total wattage I need . I have learned. running these led 12/12 it will take 2 full years to get my money back ! then there after I would be saving 100 a month on the bill. total electric . this is almost 100 % to the penny. I did not keep in mind the ac would not turn on as much , but then the dehumidifier would so about the same. sorry to say until I get better then ebay prices on leds they will not pay off for me. my luck they would break in those 2 years. I was ready to fork out 2500 bucks right now. but not any more.

I'm investing in LED because I'm a small-scale indoor grower in hot, dry SoCal. Its really hard to work with high-heat HID lights here. I like the new 5W chip LED models, they seem to be getting good yields and good canopy penetration. You can pick up a 400W LED (700W HID equivalent) for about $300 if you buy direct from China. Unfortunately I can't afford to fork over 1000+ for 600W lights by American companies.

You might want to think about other savings too, like bi-annual bulb changes ($200 a year, per lamp) and the loss of your hearing from having all your fans on high

I agree though, the LED technology still has a little ways to go until its worth it for large-scale growers to revamp their whole system.

I was going to start investing in LEDs for my closet grows but for now I'll just switch to CFLs to supplement my T-5s because the prices of the bulbs are dropping and the wattage reported is true wattage. The problem with LED lights is manufacturers report false wattage numbers for them. If a panel has 100 3 watt LED emitters that say it is a 300 watt panel. LIE! It has the capability of it but it actually only produces an average of 60% of the reported wattage due to throttling back the actual watts used to greatly extend the life of the emitters. Read carefully and check the real specs.

yes you are correct. bulbs are murder . about 60 bucks whole sale . I have 200 invested in per light. so hps hortilux 600 and ballast and hood. the led would cost 300 so if I look @ it that way it saves me 18 bucks a month so in 6 months that led paid for it self in the extra saveing in electric . and no bulb change in that 6 months so that another 60 saved. so if I was just starting up looking at it like that . yes led dooooo save money. ok when I expand the next lights will be led . thinking about buying 3 of these for 6 plants what are your thoughts ? http://www.ebay.com/itm/291040375240?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT or http://www.ebay.com/itm/290950075690?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT I thought 3 would be better to spread better . I have zero experience with led. I have all the room I want to spread out plants. in a sog

Those cheap Chinese lights don't last two years. Half of them fail during the first grow cycle if not right out of the box. A light failure doesn't just cost the price of the light, you lose your crop, too, because it takes so long to get replacements. If (big if) I went LED, i wouldn't get cheap ones.

3 of the smaller ones or 1 larger ?