All I can say is for the average home grower with limited space LED's can be more beneficial, because it doesn't have that extra heat that HID's put off. In commercial grows that equates to savings on power since your don't need as much a/c or power to run the lights, not to mention saving on bulbs and the time it takes to replace them. There's also plenty of commercial places that are getting better yields with LED's the DE HPS systems. A 300 watt LED 600 watt HID equivalent can deff get a harvest in 110 days, just depends on your grow style and how many plants you have in a space, it's up to us when we switch into flower and how long we veg for not he light. Also yea an led is going to be cheaper upfront, but it's in the long run where you start saving. Of course if your money's limited your going to get 8 HID lights over 2 LED's lol that just makes no sense. I mean if your looking into get 8 lights you probably have at least 8 4x4 spaces or big room and of course two led light aren't going to do the job so it more like I have $1200 and I need 8 lights and it's $1200 for 8 HID's over 8 $700 LED's. if you had the money which some people do then getting an 8 LED's isn't a big deal. Some people are limited and have to go with HID and most companies that start up go HID to save on start up costs. HID and LED's are just as good as each other and you'll get the same yeilds and both will be good quality. It's pretty much personal preference and what fits your needs. If your trying to save on electricity and a/c and don't care about spending the money then go with LED, if you need some extra heat and don't have the money to spend on an LED the go HID. Some people just don't like LED's and it's whatever people can have their opinionsand believe what they want. Like I said in my earlier post pretty much just stick with what works, and if your going to try something new take it easy and don't just switch everything at once, so you know what your doing is going to be beneficial.
A. Heat is sometimes needed. Having to run a heater is expensive. B. To replace a 600 HID with a pre built cob (notice Pre built unit not a diy) it going to be around a grand. Even in a best grow room situation its going to be grow specific. Say you have a sealed room, Co2 and AC, couple circulating fans. Now picking a light choice can go either way..You want warm temps to maximize the Co2 your spending money on. So is it going to be cheaper to run the AC for warmth or for cooling, what will have it running the least?...now thats going to depend on ya ambient temp.
I read this last evening when quite baked and had a hard time following the ramblings. This morning, clear-headed, I can only guess you were also baked when you wrote it. A couple things though that you seemed to not understand... I chose the 110 days example not because I doubted LEDs ability to grow a strain finishing in that amt. of time...but was wanting to know whether I could produce a lb with an LED in the same amount of time as I do with my HID. In other words, I could scrog for instance and with the topping etc I would probably be in veg a week or two longer than I am...but done right would yield more. Just want to know that if I replaced my 600W HID with a 300W LED, utilizing my same methods, would I get my lb in the same amount of time. Other than that, sure, you can have Richie Rich opening a grow business where money was no object but it does not make it necessarily a smart economic choice...because and again...if I can buy 4-5 HID system for every LED system and can thus outproduce the LED 4-5x...the bulbs I buy and the extra electricity I use get paid for easily by the increased production. But sure, if say given my same starting point above (2 LEDs vs 8 HIDs) the space I had to work with could support 100 lights...at the point both the LED co. and the HID co. reached that 100 lights limitation, the LED would be saving a shitload on electricity. However, the HID co. would have reached that 100 light limit exponentially faster...still leaving the LED co. behind for sometime to come after that limit was reached. In the mean time the HID co has bought a second bldg. Lol. Ok...now it is me doing the rambling. Ha. have a good one.
Always gotta stay baked lol! Yea I couldn't really say, I always try to 1000 watts. I'm doing 600 watt hps equivalent led right now though, but that's running at 400 watts full power not 300 watts. My friend got a pound with an led that was either or 400 or 600 watt HID equilivent. I don't know how long he had them in veg for, but I know it was a 56 day flower period. But there's also other factors to yields and how fast a plant grows besides just the light. Yea but, there's initial start up costs and how much it's cost each year after year to run it everything. If you have the money and go with LED's, you're going to make that back in the first run as a company, and then save money on a/c and power too, not the mention the labor in cost to change our light bulb and have to keep buying new bulbs. In a commercial grow your replacing the mm at least every 4-3 months. People that switch from HPS to CMH still save on a/c and power, so you might as well go with like a 630 CMH if your sticking to HID's. Most commercial places are reporting more of yield with their LED's anyway, and are slowly switching over, because it's expensive. When most of these places started LED's weren't an option, but now they are. HPS, CFL, and MH would be the last type of lighting I use, I rather go CMH if I'm going the HID route. Like I said if you only have the money to spend on HID's to fill a room that's what you have to do, but if you have the money and can go led then do it, or even a combo oof both. Like dude if youre a company with one big room starting off and have the money to fill it up with LED's it's worth it it might be more of an initial start up cost, but it's going to save you in the long run. if you don't have the money and need to get stuff going asap then go HID. You never start up with the question of 2 LED's or 8 HPS' that just make no sense, so are you trying to get 2 lights or 8 lights all together? Cause its need 2 or 8 lights and it's either going to be LED or HPS. Like I need 3 more lights for my setup not one LED or 3 HPS, because it cheaper, no I need 3 lights all together so say budgeted and I need light asap I'll then I'll go with cheaper lighting, but if I had the money for 3 LED's and not an issue then I would go with that, if I had the money for 3 LED's but didn't want to spend that much I would go with HPS or an HID setup then. Most people that get these expensive LED's don't mind the cost, because they're looking at how it's saving them money in the months and years to come, and they have the money to spend in the first place most likely.
Personally heat can be used on an advantage. You can always just say fuck it and run co2 and have a timed air exchange. As far as leds being more expensive they run 1/3 more expensive than a good 1000w xl reflector and a 6 inch exhaust fan. The down side is that if your led board goes out you better have spent twice as much to back it up. Me i just change the light bulb. As far as yeild ill put my 1000w against the so called equivilent led and call bullshit on em all day. Id even say a cmh bulb will out yeild an equivilent led..Leds are just a trend in my eyes to get a decent yeild without the energy bill or equipment cost to run a cooling setup. As far a convenience leds definitely got it i wish setup was as easy as plugging in a light and turning some passive fans on instead of all the ducts and pain in the ass worm ear clamps and crawling under the house with the spiders to run dedicated breakers. But hey giant lightbulbs ftw.
I didn't think you could outdo your rambling from your last post. I have no idea what you are trying to say above but, good for you and your friend. Of course there are, but we are in a thread titled "HID vs. LED". You don't know that. You mentioned early that you worked for a company running HIDs and that you tried to get them to try LEDs but they were too stupid to listen to their bulb changer. Math is hard. It now has been suggested that an LED equivilent to my $150, 600W costs $1000. So that leaves me $850 to spend on bulbs and the doofus hired to change that one bulb every 3-4 months. Thank goodness we have people like yourself with their hands on the pulse of the weed industry...and not on the pulse of someone just wheeled into the ER. You don't realize how much it hurts to be accused of not making sense by you. Oh my goodness. I am now dizzy. You obviously did not understand anything about the scenerio I painted and I am starting to think that you didn't quit your job at Rocky Mountain High and that possibly they are not that stupid. Just giving you a hard time, friend. But please, let's be done with this sidebar.
I can put together a $200 fixture with 5 3k qb120 boards that can match a 1000 watt hps in output and have much better spread/coverage. That's actually cheaper than most knock off 1000 watt hps kits for top end led performance. Where's the price arguments now? boards. QB120 Quantum Board driver. www.amazon.com/uxcell-Switching-Supply-Computer-Project/dp/B00GN7558Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505449258&sr=8-1&keywords=24v+300watt+driver No heatsink needed. Wire in parallel. That's about $175 actually. Maybe 200 with shipping.
The same board is sold powered for $99 each board. HLG 65 This is not your average diy. It's easy mode. There's no heatsink, no lenses, no thermal paste. Only four things needed. Boards, driver, a little wire, and hangers. Hang the boards, they have push in molex connectors. The driver has screw terminals. You can mount the driver on the wall or on a shelf outside the grow space and run wires to the lights.
I don't know what I was thinking though It wouldn't be equal to 1000 watt. More like a 600. It would take two four board fixtures or 8 boards total running near 500 watts to match 1000 watt hps. That's only 3 more boards.
If the LED board goes out it's most likely covered by a warranty so your not going to be really be spending anything. You'll probably pay more in bulbs before an led board goes out, unless you bought a cheap ass LED. The Spyder BML by fluence is pulling down better weights then 1000 watt de HPS, coming from the company I used work for in meeting with one of the owners. Have you ever even grown with a 1000 watt equivalent LED, or are you just saying that from other people that say that? LED's are not a trend at all more people make the switch everyday. If you rather go HID then do you, but if you've never even grown with an LED you shouldn't be talking about yields.
So how many grows have you done with this setup? Your LED numbers breakdown is greek to me, sorry What is the real wattage? When you say better coverage are you saying you are expanding on 4x4 or...? How much time does it take to put it together? Could you train your mother to do it? (Sorry just spent a weekend helping my mom with her new phone...only bourbon helps with shit like that...but I am serious about the question) Bottom line is I have seen your construction and it does look pretty easy but...there are still only a small number of people who want to build them. That in mind...what would you think would be a fair price to be charged for putting one together. How much would you charge? In any case, yeah, ya can't really throw out the price snark when you are giving us the price of apples when the comparison is between apple pies.
It's more like getting all the ingredients for an apple pie from a farmers co op and making it yourself compared to ordering one from a fancy restaurant. That's what DIY leds are like compared to commercially available fixtures. I have one grow with a qb260 and I've been vegging with the qb120 boards for about a month. I've seen what they can do. My mom is pretty handy. I bet I could teach her how to build one. When I say better coverage I mean that the boards blow away the light spread of a single bulb fixture. It's not even close. 8 boards for a fixture that could compare to 1000 watt is 960 individual leds. You can space them optimally for the room. A simple perimeter frame that was the width of the boards would suffice with a hanger on each corner. They're roughly 1 foot square a board. The 8 board fixture would take up at least 10 square feet even with minimal spacing between the boards. You would get almost identical light coverage from edge to edge. No real hot spots. 480 actual watts. 2500mA per board @ 24volts.
In order to wire all the boards in parallel you can make two single runs of + and - then put a splice to each board down the run or simply twist together two wires in each molex connector and jumper to the next board in line until they are all jumpered together. For an 8 board fixture I would probably buy two 240watt 24 volt power supplies instead of a single 480. The 240 watt ones have two sets of outputs so you only have to jumper two boards then attach the next two to the other set of output screws. Push in molex connectors and screw terminals. Not exactly rocket science. 8 boards is 240 for the boards and the psu's are about $25 each so $50 for 2. $300 roughly total with a cheapy frame from garage door angle iron.
I went from .8 grams per watt with my platinums only to 1.2grams per watt by adding a qb260 and the grow was far from a good round. It could have easily doubled the .8 total. Those samsung 561c diodes are more impressive then cree cxb 3590 cobs.
Yeah I know. It's about $300-$320 or so by the time you buy a cord and wire, ect. For a 480 watter 8 board 1000 watt killer. A 300 watt 5 board fixture could compete with a 600 watt hps though for less then $200. 120 watts for veg in a 4x4. $125 approx. These boards are for real. They're no fish story. Mine were $1 a watt because each has it's own meanwell driver. I didn't go cheapo.
Ok, ok...but in the end the comparison here has to be to the cost of a finished product. I bet she makes a wonderful pie too. The coverage seems a little dubious. Yes, the physical footprint it is understandable and certainly could light the area you describe, but I thought LEDs don't really have alot of spread themselves. So directly over any section you only have 60W. While of course there is some overlap. Because I rotate my 6 plants for 3/4s of their lives, 1/3 of their time is spent direcly under my 600W, I am having a hard time coming to grips with the equivilent or better coverage. It would be interesting to see the PAR data on that spread. Edit: My grow area, in particular. is approx. 4x6...so I either space the 5 boards down the 6' length and expect them to cover the 3' (1.5' on each side of the board) of the 4' not directory underneath. Or more likely I get a 6th board placing one directly over each of my plants, but the non-direct space is still about the same. Call me Thomas, but I am still a bit doubtful. Your current vegging and one grow adding them to your existing Platinums is not that much of a test.