I dunno. My buds look way better now then back then. That’s for sure. But the experience I have now definitely plays a bigger roll in that than lights. lol.
LED vs HID
- Thread starter Canuck3
- Start date
zzyx
Well-Known Member
You do you.
watsongreenthumb
Active Member
I am currently finishing my first run using any led's and I have noticed some really interesting things, however like I said my led experience is pretty limited (but I like some of what I have seen so far) The led I am running is a medicgrow ez-8, pulls 960ish watts from the wall, so only saves about 100 watts vs my 1000w hps lights.
My hps lights are in large magnum DE reflectors with remote ballasts and do a great job spreading the light, important because my ceilings are only 7'6", but the medicgrow led does an even better job and the plant under it is unbelievably loaded with bud, I had to use a 20 pack of yo yo's on that plant alone to hold colas up, and there are still tons hanging down. Led's or at least this led have nowhere to attach yoyo's so if you rely on them for late flower your going to want to either make a seperate attachment point for them on the ceiling or something, or move to like a triple layer trellis (probably what I will do next time). the colas under the led seem denser also than what I am used to under hps, so I think I will yield more off that plant than any of my hps plants, and that makes sense because the ez8 puts out more light than a 1000w de hps (2700 vs 2100 umols)
The led does get hot but I do think it is putting out less heat than hps, although in my case that was not a good thing because since my ac was not running as hard as usual it didnt remove as much water as usual, and I had trouble keeping my humidity in check. the additional humidity could also be from my plants being larger than usual because they got some extra veg time while I was doing some work in the room. another KEY thing I noticed under the led is that plant seems to be taking longer to finish, it has seemed to be about a week behind in all major milestones compared to others of the same strain in the same room under hps, since the start of flower. I have done a LOT of research into the possible causes for this and the only thing I can figure is it must be due to the lack of far red light from this particular led, as hps lights have lots of far red and far red is said to initiate and speed up flowering.
There is also a SIGNIFICANT difference in water use with led's, the led plant used much less water (less transpiration) and I had to use lower gph drippers on it to keep the runoff ec in my desired range compared to my hps plants. Because of these differences I would probably recommend picking one or the other type of lighting and dialing the environment to suit it. Let me know if you have any other questions, I took tons of notes and whatnot this go and there is probably tons of little differences I am forgetting but if you really want to know about them I will check my notes
My hps lights are in large magnum DE reflectors with remote ballasts and do a great job spreading the light, important because my ceilings are only 7'6", but the medicgrow led does an even better job and the plant under it is unbelievably loaded with bud, I had to use a 20 pack of yo yo's on that plant alone to hold colas up, and there are still tons hanging down. Led's or at least this led have nowhere to attach yoyo's so if you rely on them for late flower your going to want to either make a seperate attachment point for them on the ceiling or something, or move to like a triple layer trellis (probably what I will do next time). the colas under the led seem denser also than what I am used to under hps, so I think I will yield more off that plant than any of my hps plants, and that makes sense because the ez8 puts out more light than a 1000w de hps (2700 vs 2100 umols)
The led does get hot but I do think it is putting out less heat than hps, although in my case that was not a good thing because since my ac was not running as hard as usual it didnt remove as much water as usual, and I had trouble keeping my humidity in check. the additional humidity could also be from my plants being larger than usual because they got some extra veg time while I was doing some work in the room. another KEY thing I noticed under the led is that plant seems to be taking longer to finish, it has seemed to be about a week behind in all major milestones compared to others of the same strain in the same room under hps, since the start of flower. I have done a LOT of research into the possible causes for this and the only thing I can figure is it must be due to the lack of far red light from this particular led, as hps lights have lots of far red and far red is said to initiate and speed up flowering.
There is also a SIGNIFICANT difference in water use with led's, the led plant used much less water (less transpiration) and I had to use lower gph drippers on it to keep the runoff ec in my desired range compared to my hps plants. Because of these differences I would probably recommend picking one or the other type of lighting and dialing the environment to suit it. Let me know if you have any other questions, I took tons of notes and whatnot this go and there is probably tons of little differences I am forgetting but if you really want to know about them I will check my notes
PadawanWarrior
Well-Known Member
More like Honda vs Hyundia.
watsongreenthumb
Active Member
My Results were similar in the way I replaced an hps with an led of similar wattage (1000w hps pulls about 1060 at the wall and the medicgrow ez8 pulls 960 but still pretty close) AND that I now have dense buds all the way down, front to back and back to front -> to the point than there are just SOO many lower branches that cant support themselves, but being lower branches they are awkward to try to support with a yo yo. I think I am going to use 3 layers of trellis next time, hopefully that will give those lower branches some support. I think this Is because of the better canopy penetration that comes from the bar style led, there is a nice amount of light coming at all sorts of angles from thousands of led chips vs just one bulb. under hps I get an effect on the colas up near the wall where they are well developed and whatnot on the side facing the light but super light green on the side right by the wall, that dosent happen under led's either, even stuff close to the wall is getting light on both sides.