What's the Deal With LED lights Anyway

Why do LED lights suck so bad? And please don't reply "because they don't work" or some other bullshit general answer. Think about it, you can get a far greater amount of different wave lengths of light in a much smaller space than any other type of light. You can buy LEDs that put out just about any spectrum of light you desire, and you can control just about everything with an LED array. It seems that by doing a little research, one could make a grow light out of LEDs that far outpaces the best grow lights on the market. Also, the would be drastically less expensive to make and run. SOOOO, what is it about LEDs that just don't work? Obviously they don't. Maybe the light disapates to quickly? Does anybody know the actual science behind it

Dr. Green Brain said:

Why do LED lights suck so bad? And please don't reply "because they don't work" or some other bullshit general answer. Think about it, you can get a far greater amount of different wave lengths of light in a much smaller space than any other type of light. You can buy LEDs that put out just about any spectrum of light you desire, and you can control just about everything with an LED array. It seems that by doing a little research, one could make a grow light out of LEDs that far outpaces the best grow lights on the market. Also, the would be drastically less expensive to make and run. SOOOO, what is it about LEDs that just don't work? Obviously they don't. Maybe the light disapates to quickly? Does anybody know the actual science behind it

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For their amount of power output they are EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE! For the price of 50 watt LED array you can go and get a 600 Watt HPS and then some. Simple economics. They are much more efficient and CAN grow weed just fine if used correctly. They just cost way too much.

NoDrama said:

They just cost way too much.

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I know if you buy an LED array from a store, it can be expensive. But you can get hundreds of LEDs online for super cheap, buy a circuit board for $5 from radio shack, and make your own very inexpensively. Even people at the grow shop told me that it still wouldn't work.

The technology is not there yet.

LED lights just don't provide enough plant loving light. In order to get enough light for your plants you would need upwards of 1,000 LED slate. That would be HUGE!

They are just not High Output enough for full start to finish growing. And they are expensive!

Dr. Green Brain said:

I know if you buy an LED array from a store, it can be expensive. But you can get hundreds of LEDs online for super cheap, buy a circuit board for $5 from radio shack, and make your own very inexpensively. Even people at the grow shop told me that it still wouldn't work.

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the leds you would buy for horticulture are actually expensive

and buying those leds and building your own array is actually not as cheap as you think. people have gone down this road before.

holy crap, that would be huge. So high output LEDs are just not available yet I guess?

Dr. Green Brain said:

I know if you buy an LED array from a store, it can be expensive. But you can get hundreds of LEDs online for super cheap, buy a circuit board for $5 from radio shack, and make your own very inexpensively. Even people at the grow shop told me that it still wouldn't work.

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I think the reason is they only cast light in one direction. Notice when you look at an LED when its on that it only looks bright when you look straight at it? Now, look at an HPS or MH when they're on, or even a cfl, they radiate light, somewhat like the sun. I honestly think that a lot of the light LED's put out is wasted, because the LED only casts bright light onto a very small area on the plant. I know what you're thinking, "but there are a bunch of LED's in a small area." This is true, but the lights don't add up like cfls would. With cfls, even a bulb at the far left side of your growroom would cast some light all the way to the right side. With LED's, since they only cast such a narrow beam of light(think flashlight), would help the other side of the grow space very little. If they were to make a single, high wattage LED that casts light in multiple directions I'm sure it would work wonderfully.

its not brightness that counts the most.....its what color spectrum it produces

darkdestruction420 said:

its not brightness that counts the most.....its what color spectrum it produces

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Brightness doesn't count the most, you're right. Growing a happy plant counts the most.

But anyone with a brain will tell you that the brighter the light(whatever color spectrum) the happier the plant, and the denser the buds.

Basically I'm saying that I could grow better buds with a 65 watt 4100k cfl than I could with a 13 watt 2700k. Wouldn't even be a contest. That's the problem with LED's in my opinion: they only cast a narrow beam of light, and even if they are the right spectrum and wavelength, they gots no balls people, not even one.

With that said, as soon as they come out with a 100 watt red spectrum LED that emits light in every direction I will buy it right up.

Okay. Here's a metaphor.

Theoretically, you could survive on a single multivitamin a day. That multi vitamin gives you all the just right vitamins, nutrients and minerals to keep you healthy, right? No. In order to stay health and avoid malnourishment you have to eat X calories a day. Without that many, your body won't be able to produce energy to live life. On top of that, the multivitamin costs 5 times what the cost of eating normal food...

LEDs are like the multivitamin. Lumens are like the calories. Your plants need X amount of light. The only way to get enough light is to use a lot of them. The only "successful" LED grow I've seen, the guy used somethin like 1800 watts in a 2'x3 closet, which ended up coming to about $2,500+.

But multivitamins are good on top of normal meals. For a small box or cabinent setup, a DIY LED array is good supplement to some CFLs...

beginningbotanist420 said:

Okay. Here's a metaphor.

Theoretically, you could survive on a single multivitamin a day. That multi vitamin gives you all the just right vitamins, nutrients and minerals to keep you healthy, right? No. In order to stay health and avoid malnourishment you have to eat X calories a day. Without that many, your body won't be able to produce energy to live life. On top of that, the multivitamin costs 5 times what the cost of eating normal food...

LEDs are like the multivitamin. Lumens are like the calories. Your plants need X amount of light. The only way to get enough light is to use a lot of them. The only "successful" LED grow I've seen, the guy used somethin like 1800 watts in a 2'x3 closet, which ended up coming to about $2,500+.

But multivitamins are good on top of normal meals. For a small box or cabinent setup, a DIY LED array is good supplement to some CFLs...

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Wow, I wish I could plus rep you twice for such a damned good explanation. Bravo my man, you said everything I was trying to, except you did it in a single post using a single analogy. I'll say it again, bravo, that was the best explanation as to why LED's don't work that I've heard yet.

the problem is that you donkeys dont know how to use LEDS.

If you try to use them as a primary light you are going to get shitty results.

As i understand it, LED work best as secondary lights. So a closet grower could put a 400 watt HPS and three 90 watt leds and he would have plenty(400 + 400+ 400+400) of light in there. and only use about 700 wats of power, not to mention no heat. capish?

Dr. Green Brain said:

Why do LED lights suck so bad?

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The answer is they do not suck and they are in fact the very best source of lighting for growing plants of any type IF you pick HIGH QUALITY LED’s and IF you purchase ENOUGH of them and IF you know how to use them.

NASA has had fantastic success using LED lighting to grow plants, not pot, in space and here on earth. LED’s put out 100% PAR light and they put off a VERY low amount of heat and use EXTREMELY little electricity doing it.

The three problems with LED’s are they are cost prohibitive for most to use in an adequate to optimal way and in adequate to optimal numbers, many companies produce cheap low quality LED’s and most people do not know how to use them and expect to much from them and when they do not get the results they hoped for they inaccurately claim that LED’s suck and that they are unproven and that other forms of lighting is far better.

If the pricing for high quality LED lighting dropped much like the pricing for plasma screen TV’s have they would put every other type of grow lighting out of business once people learned how to use them and could afford enough of them.

IamPilgrim said:

the problem is that you donkeys dont know how to use LEDS.

If you try to use them as a primary light you are going to get shitty results.

As i understand it, LED work best as secondary lights. So a closet grower could put a 400 watt HPS and three 90 watt leds and he would have plenty(400 + 400+ 400+400) of light in there. and only use about 700 wats of power, not to mention no heat. capish?

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You are obviously the donkey here sir. You just re-stated the conclusion that everyone else already came to: LED's aren't powerful enough to use as a primary light source, but can be used effectively as supplemental light. That is exactly what was explained in the multivitamin analogy, fucking duh.

Not to mention what you said doesn't even make sense. There would be a TON of heat in a closet with 3 LED panels and a 400w hps. There also wouldn't be anywhere near the amount of light produced by 4X400 watt hps bulbs. Lets see, 4X400 watt hps = 200,000 lumens, and 400hps+3XLED UFO's = 55900 lumens, its not even close. Check yourself man, or you'll just end up getting powerfully owned...

Brick Top said:

The answer is they do not suck and they are in fact the very best source of lighting for growing plants of any type IF you pick HIGH QUALITY LED’s and IF you purchase ENOUGH of them and IF you know how to use them.

NASA has had fantastic success using LED lighting to grow plants, not pot, in space and here on earth. LED’s put out 100% PAR light and they put off a VERY low amount of heat and use EXTREMELY little electricity doing it.

The three problems with LED’s are they are cost prohibitive for most to use in an adequate to optimal way and in adequate to optimal numbers, many companies produce cheap low quality LED’s and most people do not know how to use them and expect to much from them and when they do not get the results they hoped for they inaccurately claim that LED’s suck and that they are unproven and that other forms of lighting is far better.

If the pricing for high quality LED lighting dropped much like the pricing for plasma screen TV’s have they would put every other type of grow lighting out of business once people learned how to use them and could afford enough of them.

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I disagree with a lot of what you say here. Even the best LED's available will not even come close to a 1000w hps, no matter how much money you spend. Plus, they may be more *energy efficient*, but what matters is whether or not they are *cost effective*. Who cares how little power they consume if they produce fluff buds? That's where the effective comes from in cost effective, great results must be achieved for a light source to even be considered. Just look at any LED vs. HPS side by side grow, HPS wins every time. LED's simply do not produce intense enough light to effectively grow mary jane. I refer you to the above analogy, the one with the multivitamins, it explains everything beautifully.

"]You are obviously the donkey here sir. You just re-stated the conclusion that everyone else already came to: LED's aren't powerful enough to use as a primary light source, but can be used effectively as supplemental light. That is exactly what was explained in the multivitamin analogy, fucking duh.

Not to mention what you said doesn't even make sense. There would be a TON of heat in a closet with 3 LED panels and a 400w hps. There also wouldn't be anywhere near the amount of light produced by 4X400 watt hps bulbs. Lets see, 4X400 watt hps = 200,000 lumens, and 400hps+3XLED UFO's = 55900 lumens, its not even close. Check yourself man, or you'll just end up getting powerfully owned...[/quote]"

Mr Donkey.

When i said you were a donkey i was correct because i was responding to the claim that the LEDs suck. not that they are an excellent primary light. If you ever take the SAT or the GED or what not they have a verbal section on there, a part of that section is reading comprehension, thats where you read a passage and try to explain what you just read or what the authors main point is. catching my drift? probably not so i will explain again.

I argued that LED do not suck but should not be used as a primary light. (as for your vitamin analogies i made no comment on them one way or another)

Lumens are largely irrelevant when comparing HID and LED because that misses the entire idea behind the lED technology. The goal is not to Make a lot of lumens(light) but rather only produce obsorbable light. Understand now mr donkey?

As for heat. the only heat you would have is the heat produced by the HPS. LEDs run virtually cool(minimal heat).

Now write something stupid back.

owned

lol no one mentioned the different kinds of led lights...
like the cree lights that are more powerful then the 5 or 8mm
but i agree useful for supplementing. like if you are only using florescent lighting.

Plant-specific LEDs work to grow plants just fine. They're not typically rated in lumen output because it's not a very useful measure.

If I were to show many people pure colors, and have them tell me how bright they seem, the averages would be:
White 100%
Yellow(red+green) 97%
Cyan(green+blue) 89%
Green 86%
Magenta(red+blue) 56%
Red 51%
Blue 28%
Black 0%

And then I handed them a mirror and they got a confused look upon their face. Anyway....

This is because humans see yellow-green light the best. Lumens is a measure of how humans see light and not a direct measure of photons emitted(photons=calories, not lumens as beginningbotanist420 put it).

It probably also explains why they have more red than blue LEDs in most fixtures.

IamPilgrim said:

the problem is that you donkeys dont know how to use LEDS.

If you try to use them as a primary light you are going to get shitty results.

As i understand it, LED work best as secondary lights.

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This is exactly what I was responding to when I said...

TheDankness said:

You are obviously the donkey here sir. You just re-stated the conclusion that everyone else already came to: LED's aren't powerful enough to use as a primary light source, but can be used effectively as supplemental light. That is exactly what was explained in the multivitamin analogy, fucking duh.

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Read it, remember that reading comprehension thing that you were talking about? Funny thing is you were drawing a conclusion that had already been made. That's why YOU are the donkey, and that's why I called you one.

You are a donkey, because you don't realize that you called everyone else donkeys for believing the same thing as you. Make sense yet? You'll get it eventually.

Even if you were responding to the opinion that LED's suck, you are still wrong, because LED's do suck. Relative to other forms of grow lights they are terribly cost in-effective, so they suck. All relative to your definition of "suck", of course.

As for lumens being irrelevant, do you honestly believe that in an argument about the effectiveness of a light source to grow pot that light intensity is irrelevant? You are an idiot.

I took the ACT, and my english and reading comprehension scores were 30 and 31, respectively. Both are very high scores, some of the higher scores in those categories in our school actually.

I'll accept an apology whenever you're ready to give it.