rookiekid9901
Active Member
Sure hold on a sec
vegging under led
- Thread starter big bud 56
- Start date
rookiekid9901
Active Member
Mines are growing great leaves are perking up and loving the light. I have them in cups because i have one other strain i want to grow first so i dont want these to exploded and start growing bigger. All green
big bud 56
Active Member
Those look very nice.
you grew those with a 180w led?
They look very healthy.
you grew those with a 180w led?
They look very healthy.
rookiekid9901
Active Member
Yes and they can grow bigger but i have them in a cup.
hooked.on.ponics
Well-Known Member
A few things:
First up, you might want to be more realistic in your expectations for response time. You fire off three additional posts in the span of just a few hours expressing impatience and disbelief that no one has replied to your original post. Give it several hours at least before you add the first reply (and if you want to avoid looking impatient, wait a day). I don't consider a post to have failed to get attention until a day after it's posted with no replies.
Second, I definitely understand the defensiveness when you buy something relatively expensive and have people suggest it may not actually be worth what was paid. But turning that against the other people on the forum doesn't help. Odds are they're not taking any joy in delivering bad news, and it would be less nice of them to just play along and tell you everything is great.
Now, regarding the LED lights in question and lights in general: LEDs are not all the same. Go get yourself one of those 9 LED flashlights that costs a buck at a checkout counter and then get yourself a nice one that looks almost exactly the same except it's a single CREE LED, runs off a 3.7v battery, and costs $60+. Those two things aren't even the same kind of animal. One is a decent light for getting around the house in the dark without stubbing your toes, the other is a handheld tube of illuminating kickass. Hit someone with that beam who's been sneaking around in the dark and you may as well have hit them in the face with a 2x4. The quality of the physical LEDs makes a massive difference in the amount and quality of light put out.
The LED drivers can similarly have a major effect. Say you're an unscrupulous manufacturer in a foreign country where you know that you don't have to worry about customer complaints because let's face it, they're thousands of miles across the ocean and can't really do anything about it if you produce crappy knock-off electronics. Do you shell out for the best LEDs and lose profit, or do you buy cheaper LEDs and then build drivers that pump too much current into them to overdrive them into brighter outputs (and much shorter lifespans)? Or maybe you just build things that last long, put out lower light levels, and don't sweat whether anyone thinks they're cheap crap. People are buying them based on pictures on the Internet and won't know for sure what they're getting until you've got their money in your pocket.
Don't pay too much attention to watts. It's a measurement of electrical work, not light. If the design isn't efficient, it will suck down wattage for not as much results. The burner on an electric stove uses 1200 to 2500+ watts. They put out terrible light. (Plenty of heat, obviously) Compare CFL wattage to incandescents... a 26w CFL is the equivalent of a 100w regular bulb because it's efficient. Going back to flashlights, I have a Surefire and a Chinese knock-off "Ultrafire" that use the exact same battery. The Surefire puts out significantly more light AND lasts longer on the same battery. How? It's built with better quality components, runs more efficiently, and doesn't get hot enough to take the skin off your fingers after a few minutes. The Ultrafire actually uses more power, and gets less results... unless your goal is to heat a meal with the body of a flashlight.
Anyway, my point is that if you got electronics on eBay at well below the retail price for the "same" thing elsewhere you most likely bought a Chinese knockoff. That doesn't mean it's crap, it simply means you bought something very similar to the name-brand product for a lot less money and most likely got what you paid for. It's not crap, but it's not the same thing as the name-brand either. I actually carry my Ultrafire flashlight rather than the Surefire because it cost a tenth as much so if it gets lost, stolen, or broken I'm not out as much money. And it doubles as a pretty decent handwarmer in a pinch. It's also about half as bright as the Surefire. You get what you pay for. Double the quality costs way more than double the price.
So I can't tell you what your LED light will or won't do - it will work for growing plants, but it probably won't work as well as you're hoping it will. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say you "got taken" or wasted your money or anything like that. You didn't buy a name-brand light and you didn't pay the name-brand price either. You almost certainly got a comparable product considering the price difference. A cheap light you can afford is always gonna be better than a great light you can't afford. Personally, I think the name-brand guys overstate the square footage their lights cover by a little.
The trick is to find the point in the cost vs. quality curve where you, personally, find the price and quality to be balanced. Everyone sees it a little different. Some people would rather save a few bucks. Others want the best and don't care about the price. And no one's entirely right or wrong because it's personal preference. What you need to keep in mind going forward is that if your LED light doesn't perform as well as you want it to it's not the fault of LED lights as a category, it simply means that you need a better quality light to get the results you want. If that happens to be something you feel is worth the extra money, great. If not you're like me in that I'm waiting for the price of LEDs to come down because I personally feel I get more bang for the buck from HPS for now.
First up, you might want to be more realistic in your expectations for response time. You fire off three additional posts in the span of just a few hours expressing impatience and disbelief that no one has replied to your original post. Give it several hours at least before you add the first reply (and if you want to avoid looking impatient, wait a day). I don't consider a post to have failed to get attention until a day after it's posted with no replies.
Second, I definitely understand the defensiveness when you buy something relatively expensive and have people suggest it may not actually be worth what was paid. But turning that against the other people on the forum doesn't help. Odds are they're not taking any joy in delivering bad news, and it would be less nice of them to just play along and tell you everything is great.
Now, regarding the LED lights in question and lights in general: LEDs are not all the same. Go get yourself one of those 9 LED flashlights that costs a buck at a checkout counter and then get yourself a nice one that looks almost exactly the same except it's a single CREE LED, runs off a 3.7v battery, and costs $60+. Those two things aren't even the same kind of animal. One is a decent light for getting around the house in the dark without stubbing your toes, the other is a handheld tube of illuminating kickass. Hit someone with that beam who's been sneaking around in the dark and you may as well have hit them in the face with a 2x4. The quality of the physical LEDs makes a massive difference in the amount and quality of light put out.
The LED drivers can similarly have a major effect. Say you're an unscrupulous manufacturer in a foreign country where you know that you don't have to worry about customer complaints because let's face it, they're thousands of miles across the ocean and can't really do anything about it if you produce crappy knock-off electronics. Do you shell out for the best LEDs and lose profit, or do you buy cheaper LEDs and then build drivers that pump too much current into them to overdrive them into brighter outputs (and much shorter lifespans)? Or maybe you just build things that last long, put out lower light levels, and don't sweat whether anyone thinks they're cheap crap. People are buying them based on pictures on the Internet and won't know for sure what they're getting until you've got their money in your pocket.
Don't pay too much attention to watts. It's a measurement of electrical work, not light. If the design isn't efficient, it will suck down wattage for not as much results. The burner on an electric stove uses 1200 to 2500+ watts. They put out terrible light. (Plenty of heat, obviously) Compare CFL wattage to incandescents... a 26w CFL is the equivalent of a 100w regular bulb because it's efficient. Going back to flashlights, I have a Surefire and a Chinese knock-off "Ultrafire" that use the exact same battery. The Surefire puts out significantly more light AND lasts longer on the same battery. How? It's built with better quality components, runs more efficiently, and doesn't get hot enough to take the skin off your fingers after a few minutes. The Ultrafire actually uses more power, and gets less results... unless your goal is to heat a meal with the body of a flashlight.
Anyway, my point is that if you got electronics on eBay at well below the retail price for the "same" thing elsewhere you most likely bought a Chinese knockoff. That doesn't mean it's crap, it simply means you bought something very similar to the name-brand product for a lot less money and most likely got what you paid for. It's not crap, but it's not the same thing as the name-brand either. I actually carry my Ultrafire flashlight rather than the Surefire because it cost a tenth as much so if it gets lost, stolen, or broken I'm not out as much money. And it doubles as a pretty decent handwarmer in a pinch. It's also about half as bright as the Surefire. You get what you pay for. Double the quality costs way more than double the price.
So I can't tell you what your LED light will or won't do - it will work for growing plants, but it probably won't work as well as you're hoping it will. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say you "got taken" or wasted your money or anything like that. You didn't buy a name-brand light and you didn't pay the name-brand price either. You almost certainly got a comparable product considering the price difference. A cheap light you can afford is always gonna be better than a great light you can't afford. Personally, I think the name-brand guys overstate the square footage their lights cover by a little.
The trick is to find the point in the cost vs. quality curve where you, personally, find the price and quality to be balanced. Everyone sees it a little different. Some people would rather save a few bucks. Others want the best and don't care about the price. And no one's entirely right or wrong because it's personal preference. What you need to keep in mind going forward is that if your LED light doesn't perform as well as you want it to it's not the fault of LED lights as a category, it simply means that you need a better quality light to get the results you want. If that happens to be something you feel is worth the extra money, great. If not you're like me in that I'm waiting for the price of LEDs to come down because I personally feel I get more bang for the buck from HPS for now.
dannyboy602
Well-Known Member
could you be more specific^^^^^LOL