Led Users Unite!

660nm420

660nm420

Active Member
I'm only looking at actual performance results with theses lights. My goal is to reduce the amount of energy I'm using so if I get the results I'm looking for with 144w instead of the 170w that they advertised, well that's better for me because my goal is to use less watts. I understand what people are saying and yeah 144w compared to 170 is roughly a 16% difference but 144w in terms of a kilowatt hours or 1000w hours is less than 3%. Now looking at the difference between 60 and 58 when referring to kilowatt hours the difference between 60 and 58w is less than 1% but closer to zero. That's exactly my point. If you take $1000 and look at the difference between $144 and $170 or between $60 and $58! What I'm trying to say is that it is not a problem limited to just LED units. The difference is that from what I see nobody on here is running through their house testing the watts on all their other electronic devices. An air conditioning unit can run between 750 and 1500w an electric heater is about the same but I assure you that as it runs and warms up it will begin to draw more wattage. All I'm saying is if you test other electronics you will see that this isn't unique to LED units. Kilowatt is a rating over time, hence kilowatt hours so you have to test it for longer durations to get an accurate reading. I could seriously careless about the actual draw. I'm looking at how much smoke I get for how much I spend on energy and already know that LED grows kick ass despite, false advertising and all this other stuff. If you get the results you are looking for with 144w instead of the 170w as advertised, what's bad about that?? I thought that was the point of LED grows.
 
660nm420

660nm420

Active Member
jdizzle22 said:
400w LED from a good company might grow as well as 600w HID because companies make rediculous claims about their LEDs being 300-400% better watt for watt than HID and thats crap (and that 3-4x ratio is done with that misleading higher wattage rating they usually give, so then they are really saying a 150w light can grow as well as 600w HID? BS!)
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This is where I strongly disagree. In veg 18/6 when wattage matters most I use a quarter of the power I previously did with HID lighting and that's not including cooling costs at all. In flower I use a third of the watts I used to with no difference in yield. My first LED grows I got 70% of my typical yield using a third of the watts. At the time with just those results, it was worth the switch for me and every since I made the switch I have made adjustments to get allot closer to the 100% of my HID yield. With this new round of purchases I am certain I will get to about 96% of the yield I would have on a HID system by using a third of the wattage. So if this is true and my wattage is lower than what is advertised that means I am getting close to the same results with leas than a third of the power? How is that not awesome for me?? There is no exact science to any of this and all control factors play a huge roll. If the LED units are not providing enough ambient heat than that's a problem and I would strongly recommend adding some CFLs or even a 150w HID. Depends on where you live. If I lived in the midwest I would use HID during my winter grows because of the ambient heat and then just filter it and pump the added heat through my house. I live in Cali and in the summer grows before I moved to LED I was using about the same in air conditioning as I was in HID. Now my air con is just used to cool the heat from outdoors which has saved me tons! I don't doubt that results vary but it isn't all lighting. I have to feed my plants much less which in my first LED grow at first I was still feeding them too much. Once users who are more familiar with HID lights make the adjustments needed to use LED they'll get closer to the results that the companies claim.
 
Cereall

Cereall

Well-Known Member
660nm420 said:
I have to feed my plants much less which in my first LED grow at first I was still feeding them too much. Once users who are more familiar with HID lights make the adjustments needed to use LED they'll get closer to the results that the companies claim.
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Do you grow in Soil or hydro medium?

I am noticing in my hydro set up... plants are craving more nutrients and drinking more water than they did in my HPS setup.. temps are slightly lower in the LED grow also
 
660nm420

660nm420

Active Member
Cereall said:
Do you grow in Soil or hydro medium?

I am noticing in my hydro set up... plants are craving more nutrients and drinking more water than they did in my HPS setup.. temps are slightly lower in the LED grow also
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Both but in the past mostly soil. I never grew hydro under HID so I don't have anything to compare it to. Are they the same strains?? I know my pineapple chunk has way more of an appetite than my friends cotton candy kush. Both are in identical deep water hydro setups constructed from tupperware totes. He's rocking a black star 240 and I have 2 kessils with a 126w panel. Both were set up at the same time but the pineapple chunk is larger than the cotton candy, but his cotton candy is larger than mine in soil and they were from the same tray of clones
 
Cereall

Cereall

Well-Known Member
yeah i still grow HID as well, i cant afford to replace everything with LED just yet

But yeah same exact clones and a few new strains also, all thirsty for the nutes and growing like crazy. BUT I do have c02 with the LEDs and not with HID as i cant run sealed room with those due to temps. So c02 might attribute to some of their thirst
 
B

budlover909

Active Member
660nm420 said:
A 60w read 58. A 54w read 52? I don't call that accurate. Are you plug and testing or testing over the course of a couple hours?? Seriously though how is a 60w reading 58 accurate?? I know it's a few points but when you are talking about different wattage testers and all these comparisons based on different wattage testers is far from scientific. Other than a few users on here this thread is getting more and more pointless. The point of LED is to get results from less watts so I could care less if my 170 w ISIS only tests at 144w since I'm trying to reduce my wattage. I tested my t.v. that says 55watts and it's a crappy little t.v. and at the time it said 47 watts so I guess I should make a big deal on some t.v. forum?? NO!! A couple watts is just that a couple watts so if you call a 60w device that tests 58w accurate what's wrong with me saying that a 170w rating is accurate enough for me even if the true wattage is 144w. Seriously!! What's the percent of difference in your rating vs. reading. Let me help out a little with the math. If you show a difference of 2 on a 60w device that's 3.4 % error.
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dad says its a tolerance deviation that is acceptable ten percent plus or minus is aight but anything more is not accepable according to ansi iec and many other standards organizations which work with the government to establish standards to follow seeing as the killawatt states the measurement will vary by about 2 percent reading slightly low seems pretty accurate to me and my dad
 
J

joe macclennan

Well-Known Member
budlover909 said:
and thats false advertising youre selling me a lower-powered panel and saying its double thats bullshit
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wtf? im not selling anything. just giving my OPINION and sharing my experiences. i do not know why ALL led mfg. use this strategy i wish they would list actual draw unfortunately they do not.if they would just say it pulls x watts it would be a-lot easier to explain it to every newbie.
 
J

joe macclennan

Well-Known Member
ColoradoLove said:
Tshirt - lets see some pics of this plant that put Nirvana's to shame

Guys you can veg with almost anything. Please quit saying your light is awesome because it vegs well. LEDS have ALWAYS vegged well. The flowering is what important and where we're seeing any improvement over the old lights. Please wait til you flower and have some evidence your light is good before you encourage others to go buy your Blackstar
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ahh, i have only ever encouraged ppl to buy the veg. model from blackstar as i have never flowered w/them yet. check my posts. and i feel it is money well spent for veg and this is why:
2 blackstar 280s=around 550$ or
one mh 400=bout 100$ (you can find them much cheaper if you know any electricians)
one hood bout 150$
one 400watt bulb bout 70buks
so for around 200$ more you can veg for half the watts used it just makes sense where i come from. it equals bout 30 buks a month savings on my e-bill but the biggest savings will be less need for a/c
 
ColoradoLove

ColoradoLove

Well-Known Member
kush groove said:
Are these cool???
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Very cool dude! How many watts of CFLs did you add with the Blackstar? That's a pretty impressive yield from the combo there. I've been looking at various LEDs but have been skeptical about the Blackstars. You're starting to sway me otherwise

joe macclennan said:
ahh, i have only ever encouraged ppl to buy the veg. model from blackstar as i have never flowered w/them yet. check my posts. and i feel it is money well spent for veg and this is why:
2 blackstar 280s=around 550$ or
one mh 400=bout 100$ (you can find them much cheaper if you know any electricians)
one hood bout 150$
one 400watt bulb bout 70buks
so for around 200$ more you can veg for half the watts used it just makes sense where i come from. it equals bout 30 buks a month savings on my e-bill but the biggest savings will be less need for a/c
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Yea I run a 600 now but am switching to LED for the summer heat. I wasn't knocking LEDs but rather suggesting that people don't say their panels are awesome before they've actually flowered with them. Blackstar got singled out because most of the users who haven't flowered yet have Blackstars. We know what Spectra, ISIS, and Magnums can do thanks to irishboy, ledbudguy, and dunit. I'm just looking for the evidence that the Blackstars are competitive. I'd love to take my $800 I'm gonna spend on 1 or two fancy LEDs and buy even more Blackstar panels you know?
 
J

joe macclennan

Well-Known Member
ColoradoLove said:
Very cool dude! How many watts of CFLs did you add with the Blackstar? That's a pretty impressive yield from the combo there. I've been looking at various LEDs but have been skeptical about the Blackstars. You're starting to sway me otherwise



Yea I run a 600 now but am switching to LED for the summer heat. I wasn't knocking LEDs but rather suggesting that people don't say their panels are awesome before they've actually flowered with them. Blackstar got singled out because most of the users who haven't flowered yet have Blackstars. We know what Spectra, ISIS, and Magnums can do thanks to irishboy, ledbudguy, and dunit. I'm just looking for the evidence that the Blackstars are competitive. I'd love to take my $800 I'm gonna spend on 1 or two fancy LEDs and buy even more Blackstar panels you know?
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ok sorry man, i'm just used to :wall: with backwards hid users who refuse to admit that there MIGHT be a better way.because they bought some cheap ass unit from china and it didn't work.or they read something somewhere and never had the ballz to try one. i admit the blackstars have a few things that could be improved on.but i cannot give advice on a product i have not tried. and as of now blackstars are the only thing i can comment on. --ledbudguy.com to lose the haters come on ppl.
:clap:
haters=permaban:clap::clap:
 
kush groove

kush groove

Active Member
ColoradoLove said:
Very cool dude! How many watts of CFLs did you add with the Blackstar? That's a pretty impressive yield from the combo there. I've been looking at various LEDs but have been skeptical about the Blackstars. You're starting to sway me otherwise
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after i got my hands on the led the cfl's had to go.....my temps were just too high
 
wyteberrywidow

wyteberrywidow

Global
Bad Karma said:
You're not going to find anything good for only $200, you'll need at least $300.
How big of an area or how many plants are you looking to cover?
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ALright 300 i have a 40inx40inxby 6 foot tent i already have a 400 watt hps but i want to try out the led especially if i can save money on the power consumption.
What kind of system will i be looking for 300
 
C

ChucklesD

Well-Known Member
wyteberrywidow said:
ALright 300 i have a 40inx40inxby 6 foot tent i already have a 400 watt hps but i want to try out the led especially if i can save money on the power consumption.
What kind of system will i be looking for 300
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Only thing you can really get under 300 is a blackstar 240w (which actually pulls around 135 with fans). They run around $260.
 
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