LED lights for 1st indoor grow??

led flood lights ? question is what is the spectrum ? will it grow yes will it grow good is the question . its prob high in the 5000k to 6000k do not expect any thing special in flower

 

Is there any way for you to scrap the bulb idea and buy a cheap led panel with the plan to add another? Screw in bulbs CFL or otherwise are only good for clones and seedlings IMO. Don't try to grow a plant to finish with screw in bulbs. In the end it's not the cheap way to go if you actually want a harvest.

If the bulbs are any good with significant wattage the cost is pretty high. A 35 watt screw in standard socket led bulb is about $35. They're not cheap. The "85 watt equivalent" led bulbs you're talking about are only 15 actual watts.

So if you spend $40 on bulbs, probably the same or more on screw in fixtures and wire, wire nuts, hangers, ect. In the end you'll have a crappy DIY 150 watt led light and it will probably cost you $100 plus it won't grow plants that well. You also have to take the time to build it.

Lower end led's like that actually put out less lumens per watt then HPS. Only high end cob led's can outperform HPS in the lumen scale.

You're spending $100 for a light that's roughly equivalent to a 150 watt hps. I had a guy the other day asking what it would take to build a good fixture out of 23watt cfl bulbs. When you do the lumen calculations it takes approx 32) 23 watt cfl bulbs to equal a single 400 watt hps fixture. 400 watt hps kits with everything go for $99 on ebay or less. You can't even buy 32 bulbs for that price forget the rest of the fixture. It would also take over 700 cfl watts to equal the output of the 400 hps.

I've been looking at these for a cheap led panel my wife can raise herbs for cooking with. $69 for 125 watt panel. You can barely build a screw in builb panel yourself for cheaper for the wattage. This one is actually made to grow plants. It's roughly comparable to a mars300 but has white light instead of burple.
www.amazon.com/Roleadro-Upgrade-Developed-Spectrum-Generation/dp/B01HI3AFYM/ref=s9u_simh_gw_i1?_encoding=UTF8&fpl=fresh&pd_rd_i=B01HI3AFYM&pd_rd_r=4MJMBCDKPVT64HYYKN81&pd_rd_w=fmP1D&pd_rd_wg=YeThb&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=&pf_rd_r=TQ0JXV0DKD1TQMJZTF&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=1cf9d009-399c-49e1-901a-7b8786e59436&pf_rd_i=desktop

I really feel like if you forget the bulb idea and buy one of these you'll be way happier in the end.

 

I would say no unless you're growing extremely small plants like sea of green method. A 125 watt fixture is pretty much a one plant light. You can push it to two plants but you'll probably do better with a single. I've seen 1g/watt for similar cheap panels when used by an expert grower. It's fully capable of 125g harvest if you know what you're doing.

The 600w model is 252 watts. That's a 2 plant light if you veg for 4-6 weeks. It takes quite a bit of watts for 10 plants if you were to veg them to considerable size. I would say a high yielding semi pro garden is going to use 600 to 1000 actual watts for budding 2-4 plants so 10 is going to be about 2500 watts or more if you're budding them all at the same time.

On the other hand if you are talking veg I veg at least 10 plants of various stages with only 2 90 watt clw vegmaster lights.

I bud 4 plants at a time with 770 watts and next crop I'm doing 2 because I vegged them too big.

 

Don't confuse the rated 600w number with actual watts. It's way more important even with LED to look at actual watts. I have 1350w rated watts in a 4x4.

 

HPS technology is here to save you if you want high power on the cheap. This light is fully 4 plant capable. It could yield you 2 pounds if you do her right. $220. HPS is how you get watts for little dollars. LED is high start up cost. Remember weed is about 4k a pound. Suddenly dropping 1k on led's doesn't sound that bad if you can pay for everything and then some in 4 months?
www.amazon.com/VIVOSUN-Hydroponic-Light-Cooled-Reflector/dp/B00P8PIOIC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491618306&sr=8-1&keywords=1000watt+hps+kit

You'll also need about $120-150 fan/carbon filter kit for the hps to keep the room cool enough ducted to the outside. If you're illegal you'll want to watch where you dump the fan. That kit has a vented hood which would be ideal for small scale indoor. If you tried to run an open hood 1k hps without ac and an awesome fan it would cook your plants. The vented hoods are pretty easy to manage with a good fan. They are best in a 4x4 area.

 

Marketing. .. It's evil. They can't resist. They know it's not equivalent to a 600 actual watt hps light but they don't care. The 600 number represents the actual number of led's in the array. 120) 5 watt led's make a 600w but the driver that runs the led's runs them at less then 50% of full power depending on manufacturer. My p450 is 255 watts so platinum is running their led's at near 60% capacity. Roleadro is running their led's at 42% of full capacity to keep them running cool.

 

I think 1 plant and one of those 300w lights to learn what you're doing is a great idea and it won't make hardly any heat. You can research during the grow, learn more, and upgrade your equipment later a few crops in. That old light will become a veg/clone light and you can step up to some real equipment in the bud room eventually.

 

If you don't use a carbon filter negative pressure exhaust and possibly an ozone generator I wouldn't even try in an illegal state with close neighbors I didn't want to know. It's near impossible. Plants stink. It smells like skunk in my yard with that tent full and I have buds drying right now. It's legal here.

 

This is what I do. I have two 400 watt HPS with 2 California Light Works 550 SS total of 9 plants under around 2000 watts. Don't go cheap on LED. Here is pattern.

Running the in 5 galling pots with ProMix HP.

The 400 watts with built in digital ballast were around 170.00. They supplement the LED and this hybrid combination works amazing.

If your gonna set up a room do it right from the beginning it will save u time and problems in the long run. cFl does fair at best. Spend a little more and you will pay for everything in first crop with a nice profit. For nutes I use BIobizz microbelife SFL nectar for the gods. Total organic and very forgiving.



4 week into flower and growing like monsters. Grease Monkey, Extreme Cream, Cookie and Cream, Lemon OG. Spending a little more up front and saving to do so makes it much easier to keep things going smooth and worth it.

Instagram mich.hybrids. Any questions just ask.


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With both rooms bloom and veg with two scrubbers two hyper exhaust fans, two hyper fresh air fans, one room hydro top feed, bloom room organic. My last bill was 278. I run lights at night for cooler temps and lower energy cost. So I would say the bloom room with those lights would be like half that amount. Veg room cheaper to run as I run Quantum T5 HO Bad Boy with 16 54 watt 6400k bulbs.


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The lights alone I would say 100 as I also run two 16 inch hurricane wall fans and the hyper fans. I would budget around 100 - 120 for lights with my set up.


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Try to shoot for 50 watts per square foot of space and or canopy square footage.


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50 is a little on the high side but a good number for HPS. High quality LED you can get away with 30-40 watts per square. I'm running about 48.25 watts per square foot.

I have a buddy that buds 8 plants in a 5x5 in two walmart container DWC scrogs. He runs 2000 watts in there along with UVB lights towards the end. Probably 2200 watts. He's been talking about switching to 600's but he got near 3 pounds last crop like that.