New to LED questions

Jackrolls1

Active Member
Im designing a new room in my garage and I'm debating on to go with LED or stick with HID.

First, anyone have a link to a guide or something i can learn about growing with leds and what should i look for?

Im thinking of doing this kind of set up with big plants. Would LED lighting be enough for this?
Picture shows 8 LED panels on a frame attached to a light mover.
What wattage would i need for this to work?
W5xEp.jpg
 

bioWheel

Well-Known Member
LED can do anything HID can do if you are willing to spend enough. I think you should stick with HID though for that amount of area. GL :bigjoint:
 

Jackrolls1

Active Member
money is not really an issue. I can get any type of LED panel. Im just confused what to look for.
Sense they are going to be used only for flower they only need mostly red lights?
 

PSUAGRO.

Well-Known Member

jcmjrt

Well-Known Member
Whats the difference?
Basically quality of materials and workmanship. Good LED lights are rather expensive up front. I do think that the light movers are a good idea.

IF you get into high quality LED lights, then they talk about the manufacturer of the LED and if really high quality, the bin of the LEDs used. LEDs are most definitely not created equal and even top manufacturers such as Cree and Philips have a great variety in the quality of LEDs manufactured and thus they are binned (separated) so you can buy different qualities of the "same" color. The lesser bins will give out significantly less light and may vary greatly in wavelengths as well. That's just the LEDs themselves...then there's the drivers...heatsink (ha! for the cheap LED lights), (noisy) fans and quality of housing. LEDs which are run too hot will perform poorly for light output, wavelength stability and will burn out quickly.

Things to watch for: Most LED sellers will list the "theoretical" wattage of the LED light even when everything about the unit is incapable of reaching that theoretical level. You want to know actual wattage drawn.

I'm using Kessil H350s with a spinner but I'm building some home made units as well so I can tailor my spectrum for the time of the grow (far blue in veg, deep red in late flower, etc) and for side lighting to possibly fill in some spectrum. I'm looking forward to all the pieces arriving as I've seen some nice results from what people have posted with their diy lights. If you are diy, you might want to look at ledgroupbuy.com stevesleds.com modularled.com

Of course, if you just want to get up and growing...Psuagro gave you some decent recommendations.
 
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