TI-Smartlamp LED grow test (take 1)

[ledgrowtester]

After doing a fair bit of research and taking the plung I thougt I would share our results so far growing under LED.


First, we went with the TI-Smartbar from Theoreme Innovation. After looking into the various lights out there it seemed like they had the best technology and the most powerful lamps compared to all the others some of which looked like toys.

We thought about going with the Smartlamp 600 they have, but since we already use 1000 watts and since the Smartbars are water cooled, it seemed like the perfect heat control system since we do have to do a lot of air conditioning requirements.

The Smartbars are two bars sold as a kit with the pump, ballast and water hoses (you can see the hook-up in the photos). We had to get a water tub and get the electrical hooked up because the Smartbar uses 240 volt. The pump is submersed in the water and circulates the water through the lights and back. In the long run we will get a chiller and run all the smartbars in series through the chiller.

We grow under a medical permit using 1000 watt HPS for flowering phase. You can see our set-up from the attached photos.

This is our first test with these led lights, so we have made a few mistakes along the way that we will correct on our next test, but for this first test we want to use the same conditions as for our plants under HPS. Later we will try to figure out what nutrient changes might work better.

So a few words about conditions which are the same for both HPS and LED plants :

Room temperature is about 21C (70F) degrees
Humidity 55%
Pots are 12 inches
12 hour lighting for flowering
Nutrients:
Canna CoCo A ( 1-4-2 ) 500 ml
Canna CoCo B ( 4-0-1 ) 500 ml
Water 200 L
Cannazym 400 ml
BioBoost 200 ml
PPM 600 to 900

Problem one was that we got started under the LED 5 days later than under HPS due to a delay in hooking up the electrical for the Smartbars.

So the photos with the HPS are at 35 days and the LEDs at 30 days (or 48 days vs. 53 days for the second set of photos).

Second problem was that we didn’t pay much attention to the water reservoir for the first month and let the water get really low due to evaporation which is apparently a problem because the water temperature got really hot. Apparently this reduces the amount of light generated by the lights and reduces lifespan. We sure won’t make that mistake again!

On www.greenpinelane.com they put a fan next to their water tank so that would be a good idea to reduce water temp and increase the light output from the lights.

Results so far:

Day 30 (LED) average plant height = 17.4 inches, average width = 17.5 inches
Day 35 (HPS) average plant height = 18.4 inches, average width = 18.5 inches

HPS had received 16.7% more light (in days).but only had a 5.7% advantage in height and width.

Day 48 (LED) average plant height = 17.4 inches, average width = 17.5 inches, average flowering branches per plant = 8.5
Day 53 (HPS) average plant height = 18.4 inches, average width = 18.5 inches, average flowering branches per plant = 9

HPS had received 10.4% more light by this time (days) but only had a 5.1% advantage in width and height and a 5.9% advantage in number of flowering branches.

Temperature under the HPS is 26C (79F) and 21C (70F) under the LED. I am not sure if this will make a difference or not. I could adjust this once the room goes all LED cause we won’t need to run so much (any?) A/C in the room. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Generally watering under the HPS is every 5 to 6 days but every 7 to 8 days under the LED.

We also moved the plants under led closer together after the first month (to the way appear in the photos) since that gave us better light coverage on them without any heat issues or penetration problems.

So far given the 60% saving in power costs to run the lights and lower A/C costs, this is definitely looking like a much better bet than the HPS.

What will we be working on for the next run:

-not screwing-up with the water level in the water reservoir which theoretically should increase the light emission from the leds

-starting the test at the same time

Not sure what optimization to do on the nutrient level yet. Thoughts or experiences to share?

[ledgrowtester]

Here are the final results for test 1 and the start for test 2. We are really excited to see how we improve on our first results after correcting for our errors in the first go.

As you may remember Test 1 suffered a few screw-ups on our part :

- 60 hours less light for the LED test than the HPS test due to technical problems. One thing that wasn’t clear was that the 60 hours (5 days) was at the switchover to flowering so the impact may have been greater than just the 10% difference in amount of light between HPS and LED – we will see in this 2nd test.

- a month long dropping water level in the basin which raised the temperature of the water and according to Theoreme Innovation can reduce the amount of light output from the lights.

-placing the plants more spread out than we should have.

Plus, we may have had a difference due to a difference in the ambient temperature around the plants comparing the HPS to the LED. One of you found some info that indicated that this might affect final yield results.

So as you will see below, we hope to correct these errors in test 2.

So the final dry result from the LED was 0.75 lbs. For us this is a great first result. Our best guess (and hope) for test 2 will be one pound.

According to our calculations this yield works out like this :

HPS LED LED
Test 1 Test 1 Test 2
Power (12¢kWh) (hope)

Yield 1.4 lb 0.75 lb 1.0 lb
Electricity $94.75 $34.68 $34.68
AirCon $38.77 $13.80 $13.80
Bulb Cost $19.26 0.00 0.00
Ballast Cost $11.42 $25.47 $25.47
Total $164.20 $73.95 $73.95

Cost per lb : $117.29 $98.60 $73.95

Savings to HPS : 15.9% 37.0%

So this is a cool result so far with more refining to go.

How did we figure this out :

-we pay 12¢kWh. HPS total to light 789.6 kWH. LED to power 288.96 kWh. You can calculate with your own power rate to see how your figure would be different.
-AirCon : at the time of this test we had air con running. Whether we would need air con at all with a full LED set-up is unclear, but these lamps are really cool so may no. Basically my aircon guy says about 33% of the cost to light would be used in aircon here. Down south I guess this would be a lot higher. The cost of air con was calculated by a friend who knows about air conditioning.
-Bulb costs : ours cost us $129 per an we change them every year so every 4500 hours to pick a round figure.
-Ballast cost for the Smartbar is $1895 divided by 50 000 lifespan x 672 hours for this test. HPS is $850 for a full set-up of reflector, ballast etc lasting the same time as the Smartbar of 50 000. Maybe using 50 000 for the ballast is not realistic ???

Test 2 Set-up
You can see the new set-up for test 2 in the photos.

What is different?

• We put a fan on the water basin like on www.greenpinelane.com. Our basin water is running about 44oC more or less which is what the manufacturer says is what it should be at most. The fan should take it down a fair bit according to what is on greenpinelane. Hopefully that will give a good kick of extra light.

• To eliminate any light contamination cross-over effect for sure, we build a little cabinet around the Led which you can see. We don’t grow this way normally so a little concerned about CO2 penetration into the cabinet. We will raise the bottom of the cabinet walls below the pot level.

• Now I am proud of this one : for the heat around the plant, we have run a coil system from the water coming out of the light around the plants. The idea being to raise-up the plant temperature to the same as the HPS so we can eliminate this as a potential difference.

What isn’t changing :

We aren’t changing our nutrient levels. They stay the same as for the HPS. Provided we master the changes above to give us a good baseline test, we will start playing with nutrients in test 3. We have had lot’s of good suggestions for test 3 nutrient changes. Thanks everyone.

We’ll post some photos once the plants are in the set-up this week.

[ledgrowtester]

Just a quick update to let you know we aren't dead ; we are waiting for our new medical grow permit so we can start test 2.

We'll post an update as soon as we are able to start the new grow.

[Gizmoe]

im interested looks like with some fine tuning you can get close if not the same possible yield....will be tuned in

[sculptor]

It looks like there are HID and LED lights in the same room. for a realistic result they need to be in diferent rooms. are you growing short plants on purpose?? how many ounces per plant? looks like about .25?? how many years till you recover your investment??

[SmknVTEC]

Nice grow.

[ledgrowtester]

You are right about separate rooms.

We have built a special purpose chamber for the LED grow for the second test. We are also looking at running the water tubes from the Smartbar system around the plant base since we have heard that doing that increases yield by about 15% in commercial crops like tomatoes and such.

We do try to keep the plants short.

Grow results were about 0.22 lbs per plant under the HPS and half that under the LED per plant.

As we showed in the test, we had a lot of problems which were our fault which reduced LED yield under the led, and we can hardly wait to start the next test once we get our damn renewed permit.

For our second test, we figure we should get up to a good pound per LED light which is pretty amazing for only second test.

Even with our screwed-up test we figure it cost us close to 10% to produce a crop with the leds than with the HPS. At 1 lb per light, it should be costing us about 30% less to grow with the leds than HPS once you add in the new bulbs and the electricity. If we get the grow up to 1.5 lbs per led set-up that is like 55% less expensive to grow with the leds.

Originally Posted by sculptor

It looks like there are HID and LED lights in the same room. for a realistic result they need to be in diferent rooms. are you growing short plants on purpose?? how many ounces per plant? looks like about .25?? how many years till you recover your investment??

[Hypeshot]

Awesome awesome awesome test!. That's pretty efficient if you ask me , did you notice any difference in node distance? I was always under the assumption that a LED's do not penetrate the canopy as well as HPS.

Also, your cool tube glass is cutting off at least 8-9 percent of light if not more, unlike a free hanging hps. But seeing as how your trying to keep temps down , I would'nt suggest removeing them. It's just not a great comparison.

>we will start playing with nutrients in test 3. We have had lot’s of good suggestions for test 3 nutrient changes

It would be alot easier for testing purposes if you used less bottles and less additives. Maybe try something simple and proven like lucas formula, solution being just Floranova Bloom at 8ml/g target tds of 1300 @.7 conversion (e.c 2.0) As long as it's full strength , under high strength lights.

https://cannabis-world.org/cw/archiv...php/t-892.html

K+ nice to meet you subscribed.

[Version 2]

I don't really see how you can say the LED setup produced bud cheaper at all when the LED lights you are using cost 2K$ a kit.

So if you produced a .lb of bud under LED for 98.60$
and a .lb of bud under HPS for 117.29$
The difference is 18.69$

1895$ (cost of lamp) / 18.69$ (savings over HPS) = 102 Harvests till those savings actually cover the cost of the lamp.

Let's put your projected savings for test 2 into this equation:

117.29 - 73.95 = 43.34
1895 / 43.34 = 44 harvests until light is paid off and you actually start saving money.

Still, that's assuming that all harvests produce a pound of bud. Your first test did not even produce a pound, where as the HPS produced 1.4 lbs.

I'm looking forward to your next test, I truly think that LED technology is interesting. But where the tech stands now, the only place LEDs might have a place is in big commercial gardens like you have. The small closet grower is just not going to get the results from LED that have been advertised, and even from the looks of your grow, it seems that HPS is still the way to go.