Led Users Unite!

budlover909 said:

fromwikipedia Phytochrome is a photoreceptor, a pigment that plants use to detect light. It is sensitive to light in the red and far-red region of the visible spectrum. led already covers that bro

Click to expand...

Well that's kinda the kicker...does it? LED's tend to have a very narrow spectrum and the two versions of Phytochrome count on the balance between red and far-red. The far-red dips into the UV spectrum which is why some panels include UV to stop stretch in flowering. If an LED panel only had red but not high enough to hit the low end of UV it wouldn't actually stop stretch. I've seen lots of LED grows where the plants look really leggy and I suspect that could have something to do with it. I ran Procyons years ago and they vegged awesome but in flower got unreal stretch and they didn't have far-red/UV spectrum.

Yeah I know it's getting a bit technical but I spent probably close to a hundred hours researching LED's before I bought and it's those little things that I think make the difference between a panel that grows some bud and a panel that grows LOTS of bud

CoryTrevor said:

Hi guys.

I've never done a grow before. I'm a total newbie and I have been cramming like I'm back in college to get as much information as possible on growing good green. I also want to keep power consumption down and not have to worry about venting heat - so I'm really interested in going the LED route.

I have a couple of questions.

First, I plan to grow in the basement. It can get as cold as 60F down there. I am planning on growing in some enclosure of some type - a grow tent or cabinet - but I'm still a newbie and I don't know a lot about them.

What I want to know is, if I plan to grow in some sort of enclosure in the basement, will the lighting I place in them generate enough heat to make my plants happy and warm?

Second, I am legally only allowed to grow 12 plants at a time. I plan to have a vegetative enclosure and a flowering enclosure. I also may be a caregiver at some point and potentially could grow 24 plants at a time. What size of enclosures for each do you think I should get?

Click to expand...

LEDs do put out heat. For example I have my 395w (thats how much it really pulls from the house) LED light in my 2.5ft x 2.5ft x 6ft tent with a 160-190 CFM Fan/filter combo. Below my light the temps are the same as outside of my tent, and above the light temps get about 7-8 degrees higher than outside of my tent (tent vents into bedroom). I can keep my door/window/heat vent closed and my tent doesn't go over 80 and my bedroom not over 72 (much better than with my 400w HPS which put the whole tent like 15 above room and would heat my room intos 90s without the window open significantly. So watt for watt, LED puts out WAY less heat (I would guess about 75-80% less heat)

dunit said:

Well that's kinda the kicker...does it? LED's tend to have a very narrow spectrum and the two versions of Phytochrome count on the balance between red and far-red. The far-red dips into the UV spectrum which is why some panels include UV to stop stretch in flowering. If an LED panel only had red but not high enough to hit the low end of UV it wouldn't actually stop stretch. I've seen lots of LED grows where the plants look really leggy and I suspect that could have something to do with it. I ran Procyons years ago and they vegged awesome but in flower got unreal stretch and they didn't have far-red/UV spectrum.

Yeah I know it's getting a bit technical but I spent probably close to a hundred hours researching LED's before I bought and it's those little things that I think make the difference between a panel that grows some bud and a panel that grows LOTS of bud

Click to expand...

umm ir is in the red uv is in the blue ir cant possibly dip into the uv range only one version pf phytochrome according to wiki and it says that it uses ir and red back and forth red triggers the cycle to using ir then ir triggers the cycle back to using red cmon anyone can read for themselfes and see what you said was not right at all see her http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EM_Spectrum_Properties_edit.svg im not smart but i can understand what i read

budlover909 said:

umm ir is in the red uv is in the blue ir cant possibly dip into the uv range only one version pf phytochrome according to wiki and it says that it uses ir and red back and forth red triggers the cycle to using ir then ir triggers the cycle back to using red cmon anyone can read for themselfes and see what you said was not right at all see her http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EM_Spectrum_Properties_edit.svg im not smart but i can understand what i read

Click to expand...

Yup my bad. Apparently I can't think straight today and said UV when I was meaning to talk about IR. IR...infra red...as in further than red. Not sure how I can't keep that straight but oh well...lol

ChucklesD said:

Only thing you can really get under 300 is a blackstar 240w (which actually pulls around 135 with fans). They run around $260.

Click to expand...

Or a lame ass Kessil that will do nothing toward reaching your goals. Latest update (1) ISIS-fx1 purchased for $399 still wasting three kessils purchased for $700 total. Both are flowering nicely but based on what I've seen now( in week 2 on12/12) I will not be purchasing any more Kessils.

I can tell you already that Kessils are not worth the $ even when functioning correctly. I have three kessils $720 total over 4 lovely ladies and an ISIS-fx1 $399 over 2 in the same 3 x 4.5 tent. It's week 2 of 12/12 and the two under the ISIS are just going off. The kessil magentas are working and look like they will do some good but the bud sites under the ISIS are about 2x the size. On a side note I used my blue bulbs in a seed start clone drawer on tomato and cucumbers and in the 7-10 days the package says until germination I have two inch starts on the tomatoes and 1 inch starts on the cucumbers with multiple leaves. So next I put the 2 blue bulbs on one side of the drawer and (2) 25w t5s on the opposite side. All the sprouts are leaning toward the blue lights which tells me they favor the blue light. I'll be testing the same thing on a tray of clones soon. Did you get your $ back?? If not what do you want for them??

Has anyone heard of using these green LED work lights to work during their dark cycle?? http://www.hydrofarm.com/search.php?zoom_query=green+LED&zoom_and=1&zoom_sort=0&zoom_per_page=10

I know it's something I wouldn't want to have to do, but if it's true it could really come in handy for any emergency situations. The logic behind it is that green and I mean true green 560 nm provides nothing for plants and can be used without influencing florigen production. My brother went as far as saying that if you aim true green at red it turns black. He believes that enough green light will actually cancel out all red light and heavily absorb the blue nanometers meaning that they cancel out and act as if it's night even if your lights are on. I don't know if I would go that far but if this is true then you could use green LED in the dark cycle to insure no light leakage as extra night.

660nm420 said:

Has anyone heard of using these green LED work lights to work during their dark cycle?? http://www.hydrofarm.com/search.php?zoom_query=green+LED&zoom_and=1&zoom_sort=0&zoom_per_page=10

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've heard people talk about this. As long as it's green it won't "wake" the plants up. I'm not too sure how good a green light would be when your are looking for plant problems and deficiencies.

660nm420 said:

Or a lame ass Kessil that will do nothing toward reaching your goals. Latest update (1) ISIS-fx1 purchased for $399 still wasting three kessils purchased for $700 total. Both are flowering nicely but based on what I've seen now( in week 2 on12/12) I will not be purchasing any more Kessils.

Click to expand...

interesting

660nm420 said:

Or a lame ass Kessil that will do nothing toward reaching your goals. Latest update (1) ISIS-fx1 purchased for $399 still wasting three kessils purchased for $700 total. Both are flowering nicely but based on what I've seen now( in week 2 on12/12) I will not be purchasing any more Kessils.

Click to expand...

One day I might try an ISIS or Spectra. I'm kind of turned off on ISIS since their website sucks on info, they don't respond to emails, and I think their Customer Feedback is bogus. I remember seeing comment that was the same plant type and amount that ledbudguy was doing but it was an fx series when I believe ledbudguy was using regular series. I can't find the comment anymore......

budlover909 said:

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

Click to expand...

Different wattage testers vary on readings. Wattage testers are useful devices to test where your wattage is going so you have an idea about a units hunger but I doubt you can go out and buy a cheap wattage tester and get an accurate reading on any electronic. They are useful to get an idea of what your device draws but wattage is a measurement over time. LED units are more subject to impedance than t5s. I just don't think that using a cheap wattage tester is in anyway a scientific analysis as each model is subject to variation. The better way would be an ammeter or to pull out the light in question while your ladies are sleeping through a dark period. Go through the house unplug everything. Once that's done and you are using NO kWh go out to your meter. Write down your starting wattage. Plug in the light you have a question about on a one hour timer and wallah. After the timer goes off go out to the meter and see how many kWh it used by subtracting the start measure from your end measure. I guarantee that your power company will accurately count your wattage used. I am positive that if you do this and actually do it over the course of 5-6 hours and you will get much closer to the wattage rating. I could care less. The last two HPS users I know are now talking about phasing them out because of what I've shown them LED can do. That's based on the total of wattage I calculated from the falsely advertised wattage claims. So I am telling the people who I've convinced to switch to LED a wattage total that's higher than what I am actually using?? WOW!! RIGHT ON!! that's so sic. That means I'm saving even more money than I thought I was.

That's enough of a reason for me to go out and buy some more of my favorite LEDs! SWEET! I'll have to make a note to tell the last HPS users I know one who is using (3) 600w HPS, "by the way, I am saving more money than I thought I was. My flower chamber is using about 100w less than I thought it was and my veg about 50-60w less." There response will be something like, "Oh yeah?" I doubt they will be calculating how badly they are getting ripped off by false advertising. Instead they will be calculating what 100w decreased for a 12 hour cycle adds up to in wattage saved or what the decrease of 50-60w in savings adds up to in an 18 hour day. I'm personally glad to find out that these units are actually even lower. It's just how you frame it and what it means to different people. I'm glad I know this, now that I found that out I figure I can add another 100w to my flower and another 50-60 in my veg. That's another 2-3 square feet depending on which unit I decide. So thanks for the heads up. I just happen to see it as a good thing not a bad thing.

ChucklesD said:

Yeah, I've heard people talk about this. As long as it's green it won't "wake" the plants up. I'm not too sure how good a green light would be when your are looking for plant problems and deficiencies.

Click to expand...

If anything, i have realized that "simple" LED GROW lights are terrible for looking for deficiencies. There is no green produced by the grow light, so looking at the plant, it just looks purple. No green bounces back into your eye off the leaves.

I like using a light that has a little green in it to look' at my plants growing' under leds. To be blunt, i hold a 23 watt daylight cfl like a flashlight', when examining for deficiencies. It might not be the green in that light that helps me see the leaves better, but i'm point is i'm not sure. What i'm sure about is that for me, it is hard as hell to look at the purple plants and tell whats wrong with them.

im glad to see this thread pick back up

I'm interested in the 40x microscope with green lights for inspecting. More than anything I'm wondering if they actually provide a shield of green light that blocks out other light. If so that would be so sic for green house medical grows to cancel out moonlight and other light pollution. My eventual goal is a green house with LED units running in the early morning/ late evenings and on cloudy days to keep a strong18/6 and 12/12 but the problematic part of a hybrid indoor greenhouse setup would be the florigen dark cycle. My thought is if the green lights actually cancels out other light that would solve that issue.

"Wattage testers are useful devices to test where your wattage is going so you have an idea about a units hunger but I doubt you can go out and buy a cheap wattage tester and get an accurate reading on any electronic."

thats why you use a bunch of different devices with stated draws on them to know how accurate the meter is bro controls and variables just like any experiment i got a heat gun dual temp 1200w on high 600w on low meter reads that just fine within like a percent, incandescent bulb stated 60w pullin 58w t5s that have been warmed up rated 48w combined pulling 44w the meter is fine man aint nothing wrong with it and kill-a-watt is a reputable brand on top of that

The website does suck and they don't have much answers on the phone. Also I had to wait like 2+ weeks so in that respect they are NO different than Kessil but atleast I didn't have to replace it once it did arrive like Kessil. I have my first blackstar now over my hydro set up and curious to see how it stacks up against ISIS for a 100 less. Still a few more weeks till 12/12. When I received the defective full cycle kessils that started purple and then turn red. I thought about how cool it would be if I could just use the reds or blues and ISIS does that nicely. Soon I'll be switching it to solid red and when I take out the blue, boy is it red. I'm into results and so far the ISIS stacks up against my old HSS ppf- 800 that I paid more for.

What I am saying is that there is no systematic attempt by all the LED manufacturers to deceive consumers. If anything they know that these units are purchased to keep wattage usage down so if there is error and variability in wattage they see the lower side as the safer side to error on. Why? Because if I am in fact using 26 less wattage per 170 LED unit and I've already achieved my goals of cutting wattage and am happy with current production levels why would I get all bent out of shape about having used even less watts. That's why I've justified spending so much and still don't understand how using lower wattage for the results I was looking for is not a good thing. It's good to know and I ran out and picked up a wattage tester to when I first read about it on this thread. The only thing I use it for now is to see how much wattage other stuff uses if you leave them plugged in or idling. 1.5-3w on some phone chargers. When my stereo is on standby it draws like 7w. I'm now more concerned about that and stuff like AA battery chargers, computers and other sorts of stuff that have vampire power. Based on my calculations with computer on sleep, stereo on stand by, AA charger plugged in even though I haven't charged batteries for weeks 3 phone chargers I was using enough wattage to cover the 24w less that I was shorted on my ISIS. LED is still the only way to go even if there is a conspiracy to get us to use even less wattage. It's interesting but not enough for me to go back to using 1800-2400w in HID + 750-1500w air con cooling system. I have some digital switchable ballasts and enhanced spectrum HPS(both blue and red) No false advertising there. 600w hortilux and MH Agrosun gold halides (great for flowering) only 2 of the hortilux 1 blue one 1 red are used I have 2 of each that are brand new. ALL FOR SALE if you are not fond of LED I would let them go if you want them. I've stored them just in case.

660nm420 said:

What I am saying is that there is no systematic attempt by all the LED manufacturers to deceive consumers. If anything they know that these units are purchased to keep wattage usage down so if there is error and variability in wattage they see the lower side as the safer side to error on. Why? Because if I am in fact using 26 less wattage per 170 LED unit and I've already achieved my goals of cutting wattage and am happy with current production levels why would I get all bent out of shape about having used even less watts. That's why I've justified spending so much and still don't understand how using lower wattage for the results I was looking for is not a good thing. It's good to know and I ran out and picked up a wattage tester to when I first read about it on this thread. The only thing I use it for now is to see how much wattage other stuff uses if you leave them plugged in or idling. 1.5-3w on some phone chargers. When my stereo is on standby it draws like 7w. I'm now more concerned about that and stuff like AA battery chargers, computers and other sorts of stuff that have vampire power. Based on my calculations with computer on sleep, stereo on stand by, AA charger plugged in even though I haven't charged batteries for weeks 3 phone chargers I was using enough wattage to cover the 24w less that I was shorted on my ISIS. LED is still the only way to go even if there is a conspiracy to get us to use even less wattage. It's interesting but not enough for me to go back to using 1800-2400w in HID + 750-1500w air con cooling system. I have some digital switchable ballasts and enhanced spectrum HPS(both blue and red) No false advertising there. 600w hortilux and MH Agrosun gold halides (great for flowering) only 2 of the hortilux 1 blue one 1 red are used I have 2 of each that are brand new. ALL FOR SALE if you are not fond of LED I would let them go if you want them. I've stored them just in case.

Click to expand...

Very well put. I do think that there is a marketing factor in every business and it's necessary to attract general consumers but often pisses off the informed consumers. LED is certainly proving to be no different. I am really impressed with my lights but do hate some of the claims on the manufacturers website, just glad I did my homework and still bought them. I just had a different manufactuer rip me because I paid more for my lights and they pull only half the wattage of his but I'm producing the same results. Same results....half the power....I fail to see how I screwed up....lol

660nm420 said:

Has anyone heard of using these green LED work lights to work during their dark cycle?? http://www.hydrofarm.com/search.php?zoom_query=green+LED&zoom_and=1&zoom_sort=0&zoom_per_page=10

I know it's something I wouldn't want to have to do, but if it's true it could really come in handy for any emergency situations. The logic behind it is that green and I mean true green 560 nm provides nothing for plants and can be used without influencing florigen production. My brother went as far as saying that if you aim true green at red it turns black. He believes that enough green light will actually cancel out all red light and heavily absorb the blue nanometers meaning that they cancel out and act as if it's night even if your lights are on. I don't know if I would go that far but if this is true then you could use green LED in the dark cycle to insure no light leakage as extra night.

Click to expand...

People have used green incandescents in hid gardens for years, so don't see an issue with green led's either.

660nm420 said:

I can tell you already that Kessils are not worth the $ even when functioning correctly. I have three kessils $720 total over 4 lovely ladies and an ISIS-fx1 $399 over 2 in the same 3 x 4.5 tent. It's week 2 of 12/12 and the two under the ISIS are just going off. The kessil magentas are working and look like they will do some good but the bud sites under the ISIS are about 2x the size. On a side note I used my blue bulbs in a seed start clone drawer on tomato and cucumbers and in the 7-10 days the package says until germination I have two inch starts on the tomatoes and 1 inch starts on the cucumbers with multiple leaves. So next I put the 2 blue bulbs on one side of the drawer and (2) 25w t5s on the opposite side. All the sprouts are leaning toward the blue lights which tells me they favor the blue light. I'll be testing the same thing on a tray of clones soon. Did you get your $ back?? If not what do you want for them??

Click to expand...

Well that's cool to hear. I run ISIS 170 for veg and it's proved unbelievable and I'm considering getting a couple for the first part of flower and just have a continuous cycle and keep my Magnums for late flower. The guy who got banned on here had awesome results running ISIS all the way through so I'm pretty sure they'll perform well for flower.