I said this in another thread and I stand by it, it is just too long to reiterate:
"Next issue: why I mix LED and HID: Cuz its better. Why the hell would I settle for low weight pulls just to say I got 1 gram per watt when I am only using a couple hundred watts of electricity. Shit, I am still a novice by all definitions, this is a hobby, not a career for me, and I burned the hell out of my plants last grow, barely kept them alive after that, and still pulled more than dunit out of 10 plants. (16.2 zips - BONE DRY AND CURED 16% RH in the jars).
Dunit has done this for a long time, he knows more than I do, and he will kick the shit out of me when it comes to g/watt. However, anyone who is buying my weed just cares about the weight, not the electrical efficiency. The bump up in weight you get by mixing LED and HID far outweighs the electrical difference in cost. Let alone the horrible difference in price between the blackstars and magnums.
If anyone looked into all the threads I started, (as clearly I am being checked up upon) you will see I had a LED and HID side by side grow. THe temps for the HID were 80 degrees, the temps for the LED were 61. Needless to say the HID kicked the shit out of the LED just based on the difference in the plants metabolism.
Lets put things in perspective, most growers are doing this as a hobby and don't have the need or want to purchase multiple 700 dollars LED units as most of the "Featured Grows" have had. Also most people don't have elaborate hydro setups or CO2 monitors. Most people don't have the interest in throwing thousands of dollars into a grow setup. Especially when throwing a couple of hundred will get a bitching HID setup that will dollar for dollar (not watt for watt) kick the shit out of LEDs.
Lets look into this further: If ledbudguy used 6 (or what ever number of ISIS units he had) 400W units instead of the 170W LED's he would have walked away with several pounds. Dude had CO2, great nutes, and an entire attic, and 24 plants. What did he say he had 26 zips? That probably dried a ways below that in curing, but I'll take him at his word. Still, lets assume he got a good deal on the ISIS units (especially as I suspect he has a certain relationship with the company) and he got them for 300 each. Thats 1800 bucks. 200 bucks gets a real nice HID, so the lights would have cost 1200 instead. Right there he saves 600 bucks. (yeah I know, replacement bulbs ect. ect. ect...Im just looking at start up costs) He would be using 2.4KwH using roughly (assuming at 30 day veg (1296 Kw) and a 60 day flower (1728 Kw)) 3024 Kw total lighting for the grow with HID. Lets add 200 KW for ventilation (which is generous). 3224Kw total electrical consumption. At 15 cents a Kwh that works out to: $483.60 electrical cost for the grow. It would be horrible if he didn't pull at least 2 pounds from the grow, especially with the CO2 going on. 2 pounds, assuming he is letting go in zips or QP (at 100 a zip - (low for some high or some) = 3200 bucks. 3200 less 1200 for the lights, less 484 for the electric (all other costs are identical between the two grows), that leaves 1516 after covering all mentioned start up costs.
For LED, like we said, he probably spent 1800 on the lights, the 170's draw 120 (as stated from the company in an email I sent to them) Veg = 388 Kw, Flower = 518 Kw = 906 total KW's for the grow. At .15 per KwH that comes out to: 136.02. So lets look at the math: 26 zips at 100 a zip = 2600 less 1800, less 136.02 for the electrical. = 664 left over.
Hrmm, amazing he pulled .9 g/watt but who gives a shit? Those fancy dancy panels don't pull a damn breath over HID if they wanted too. Even the best grower, under the best set up (Light movers, CO2, Hydroponic with monitors, ect...) wouldn't be able to compete with the identical set up with HID's.
Let's not mistake ourselves however: LED's offer the abundance of UV that HPS doesn't (especially if there is protective glass in the hood), It has fantastic spectrum targets, and is very very efficient. Hence why I mixed both HID and LED. I needed more lights, did some research, bought LED's, apparently I didn't plan well enough to account for temp differences, tried growing with just the LED's, went fine but slow due to temp, mixed the two and boom, great quality weed at pretty great newbie numbers coming in.
LED's allowed me to supplement my HID's perfectly. They are the perfect supplement. They work just fine for stand alone as well, but you loose grams/grow room and trade that for grams/watt.
Blackstars work fine, there are plenty of grow journals on this forum that I read, and many others on other forums. When I was buying LED's, I noticed that there were hardly ANY LED grow journals from any company went to completion. I saw a couple of blackstar grows and they were just as fine as any other of the journals. Boom, bought some blackstars when I went back east for thanksgiving.
If the search funtion on this forum was a bit more pointed I'd be able to pull out more of them. Im not anyones secretary, search yourself. Heres a good idea however:
If a product sucks on this site, it tends to get shit on by users of that product. Find me a journal by a Blackstar user that isn't satisfied.
In regards to Nickyp....He doesn't have a huge grow op (thats fine, neither do I), he doesn't have a shit load of fancy equipment, I have no idea how experienced he is, but I am willing to wager that he is not on the level of Dunit, Ledbudguy, and dude from Ireland. (again many people aren't). He's looking for another light, dollar per dollar no one is cheaper than blackstar (both on advertised wattage and actual draw) and all the right spectra are there along with the intensity.
Tell me why a grower who only stands to gain a limited amount per grow should go out and spend hundreds of bucks on a "premium" LED grow panel. Honestly I should have told him to cop a 250W HID and an extra fan and he would be really set up by mixing both lighting sources. Fantastic bud at fantastic weights.
Again, I am sorry I don't just use LED, and I don't pass the purity test, however I am trying to grow weed, not a reputation, that means growing weight, not raw efficiency. The day I can go up to some one and convince them to pay me 50% more for weed cuz I used less electricity then I will go all LED, until then, the day I get 26 ounces from 24 plants is the day I quit growing. CFL grows can get more than 1 zip per plant for christ sake. Shit my first grow was 2 zips per plant. Fuck, at that rate Ledbudguy would be looking at 48 zips.
I just hate seeing people compare everything to 3 growers, and not looking at the grows in full context.
First off, I don't even follow the Irish dude, he is totally on a different level than most growers, myself included.
Secondly, Dunit is probably the most tolerant person I have seen in the trench warfare of LED arguments and I have to apologize to him if anything I am saying is reflecting upon him
Thirdly, everyone uses LEDbudguy as a yardstick for the industry. His grows are atypical and his weigh ins are great from the lens of electrical efficiency, however in the lens of cost efficiency, hes horrible (as proven above). His entire argument can be broken down to: "I save money on electricity by growing less pot". Well, myself, I make money off of mine, and I keep some. I assume most people are in the same boat in this field. Either medicinally or otherwise.
Again, please prove me wrong about any of my points. Thats enough typing on this thread, this has been an abomination for Nickyp and I have been the core of it. If anyone want to continue this back and forth, please post on the thread in my sig, I'll gladly host this debate."
End quote
You got 98.8 grams from two 240 Blackstars on your last grow right?
