I ordered a 240 watt LED specific for vegetative growth and clones today from Blackstar, and will be using it to keep my clones and non-flowering vegetative plants growing in its own dedicated tent, while I flower 3 plants in their own tent, under a 400 watt HPS, grown in hydroponic buckets. I'm curious if anyone on here has any experience with Blackstar's new product, and if so, what your thoughts are on it? Even if you don't have one, have you heard anything about them? There are very few reviews on this light. Here is the manufacturer's web site: 240w Blackstar Clone and Vegetation And a picture: Anyhow, keep reading if you want to know how and why I'm using the Blackstar LED, and why I think it will benefit me over running dual HID/HPS lights. I'm open to criticism and suggestions. >>Using the LED, I can keep mother plants and clonelets in their own vegetative tent, while I transfer rooted clones directly into flowering under the HPS in the hydroponic buckets. This will allow for a perpetual sea of green style grow, in a very limited space. The beauty of this setup is that I don't have to worry about ducting out heat from the vegetative tent, and won't have to worry about low yields and other associated problems of LEDs used for flowering. This will allow me to save electricity, speed up time until harvest, and control odors, all inside of a small apartment. The veg and flower tents are both the same size, 36" x 20" x 5'. Also, since I'm a medical patient in California, I stay under the plant limits in the law, and can grow new medication for myself quickly, and get rid of excess if I need to, instead of running a full 6 plant grow and ending up with a pound at a time, and having no room for clones, having to donate my grow, and then running out too quickly. All of this, and the power consumption is much less than using another 400 watt metal halide light, fan, and filter combo.
Sounds good man. I have been kicking around the idea of running an LED panel during veg to deal with temp issues in the summer. I have heard LED work great for veg, but lack in the flower department. Keep us posted as to how well they veg compared to an HID setup. Which is what I run now along with a 2ft. 8 bulb t5.
I am doing the same thing as you, but with a different LED set up. I have a veg tent to cut down on time between harvests. I am using two 135 watt led UFOs in a veg tent. I have not had any problems with heat with very minimal ducting (just an inline booster fan to move air in/out). My only problem so far has been trying to figure out how close to put the LED lights to the plants in veg. Especially when they are just coming out of the ground.
So I installed the Blackstar in my tent, yesterday, and it is perfect for the job, so far. Here's a picture: Right now, it's keeping my strain library for me, and letting me flower 3 plants in my flowering tent, seen here: It's a pretty slick setup, so far. The light doesn't build up hardly any heat, so I can leave the tent flap closed for the most part, and not worry about exhaust issues. I have a clone propagator in the tent alongside 4 three gallon buckets, and put a 6500k grow light on top of it, for my rooting clones, as you see here: The blackstar light seems well built, and is pretty bright. I somehow doubt that it would be as fast as, say, a 400 watt MH, but I'd compare it to a 250 watt MH, more or less. This light is for keeping a mother plant bonsai strain library, so for me, it's good.
I love my blackstar LED. LED's work excellent in veg, I wouldn't say they lack in the flowering department but I also wouldn't say they are the best-mostly because of price. I would expect alot of growth from the LED light even though your just using it to keep your plants alive lol.
I used the 240w Blackstar for several grows--the veg part that is. I was vegging in a 30" X 30" tent and the LED light was perfect for this space. You can look up my Dynamite (Next Generation Seeds) coco grow to see it in action. It produced very nice vegetative growth. You'll be very happy with it. I was doing a similar set-up to you in that it was a perpetual grow. The vegging plants would go into the 4.5' X 4.5' X 7' tent for flowering under a 600w HPS as soon as the previous crop was done. The reason I upgraded my veg set-up was that I needed more space--that small veg tent was a challenge to veg 5 plants for 8 weeks in--and more powerful lighting. Also, the LED actually produced so little heat--normally a BIG plus in summer--that in order to cool the 1000w HPS that I had now upgraded to for flowering, I had to cool the room to the point where the young seedlings where not at optimal temps. However, with a 600W HPS (or less) you can keep the room plenty warm enough for the seedlings and still cool the light. Bud
I have the 240w model just for flowering, even though I'm not that far into it I can tell it should have great results. You can also look at a few comparison threads on here.
Yeah, they do. Check out their site for all the product specs and whatnot: Black Star LED Grow Lights The guy that runs the place answers the phone, too. He seems nice enough. If you want to buy one, make sure you ask him to price match what prices you might see on amazon, ebay, or wherever.