Not by a long shot. The HID will grow taller plants because it is able to get usable light at a longer range. LEDs need to be close to the buds, If you have long branches, parts of the plant will starve for light. If you plan on growing short plants then they are even (watt for watt). Whoops, i forgot to think before I talked. Happens all the time.
More powerful...depends on your definition of "more Powerful". More versatile....yes! With a 1000watts worth of LED's you could provide 2 primary lights and many(!) sublimity lights that can be mounted on the side, over head, upside down, etc, etc... The plants in the pics (below) were grown using just 98 watts worth of LED's. (note: keep in mind I am a novice and for the matority of these plants life they were cramed in a small grow box with only 1 light.) My local grow shop has a side-by-side in door grow-room. They blocked off a section of the show room floor and made a room with big windows for everybody to see. It is roughly 10'X15' and is divided up in half. On one side is a 1000watt HPS and the other is a 1000 watt's worth of LED's.They grow tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, and other fruits and veggies. The LED side has outperformed the HPS. However(!), the cost of 1000 watt's worth of LED's is 5-6 times then the cost of the HPS . Also, I want LED's to work because they save electricity. I want to do more with less! However(!), almost no heat from the LED's, no noise (my grow-area is less then 1ft from my head when I sleep), and a 1000 watts worth may be a little over-kill. 500 watts would probably do the trick just fine. The cost would still be more then double that of a HID. Tough choice, tough choice...if you have the money to have the choice...
The cost of a 500w LED is going to be about 5-10x that of a 1000w hps. I will only use 600w HPS lights though when i build any rooms using HPS, higher lumens/watt than the 1000w, and the ballast wastes less electricity. Price/ Actual draw 357 Magnum $1,199.99 - $100 "special discount" for $1,099.99. <---357w Black Dog Platinum XL $1599 <---740w I like the look of the black dog Apollo 16 about $650 for a 5 band. <---550w 600w hps (for me) always digi ballast: w/6 in c-tube - $150-200 each Gavita Setup (GAVITA Holland | Home) $300 each <--If you want efficiency this is where to go. Gavita PRO Ballast 600 1000 PRO-Line Grow Light Ballast DEMO - YouTube (listen to it, i didnt know alot of the things he says about HPS lighting Attached is the Apollo LED price list. I know it isnt listed anywhere. Prices are all for the 2 band. It cost me 5 bucks to upgrade an apollo 8 to 5 band, i just had to pick all the wavelengths individually. View attachment 2011-11 Apolo grow light (1).pdf I think LED is more fun for people like me. I'm a tech geek, i have alot of fun researching info about PAR, led light, light absorbtion. There is actually a good article that helped me a bunch in the september high times. "Light Through the Eyes of Cannabis" It explains PAR, the benefits of full spectrum lighting (LED does not have this), and a few other things such as plasma lighting. On the Apollo i added a daylight LED diode in each of the modules and i'm going to see if that helps at all.
yeah,IMO, maybe not at this time, depending on yourself, but it's better than other lighting in the long run， or mixed use the hps ,hid , cfl, led,lol, maybe the effect is amazing!
No, not really. I could google something up, I suppose... but I'm not going to. The thing to remember about lights is that you're not just getting light, but radiant heat too. And that radiant heat is very important. LEDs have none, HIDs have too much... T5HO is like Goldilocks, just right... plus you can run just about any spectrum you like. Go blue heavy for veg and red heavy for flowering... -Loki
I may not grow the biggest trees with LED, but I sure get a lot of complements on the crystal production on my bud. There is also more than simply just volume production: I dont have to worry about my bulbs exploding and damaging my plants I dont have to worry about my grow room catching fire because of a light malfuntion I dont have to be think about changing grow bulbs after a couple harvests I dont have to worry about people not liking my bud I dont have to bother with an A/C unit I dont have to worry about the building owner shutting me down (he likes my LED's) I dont worry about penetration too much since I LST my girls. All my buds are tops My electricity bill is around $100 for 2 months- including all the power I use just living. It all depends on your need. I am simply supplying myself and I dont need to be pulling down QP's every month. This is what worked the best for me, research and do whats best for you.
Those are all excellent reasons. The only draw back to LEDs is when there's a problem, you have to replace the whole unit. If your LEDs have a fan cooling them, you can expect them to last about 2 years. T5HOs offer the same benefits, except the changing bulbs one, but they're cheap and you have a lot of spectrums to choose from... -Loki
I grew these with $550 worth of lights (*see link) that use less then 100 watts of power. These girls are still 2 weeks(ish) out (I think) and I am most certainly not a proessional grower, but overall I can't complain. I am using 2 GP45"s (just added a third) and 3 GP(14 watt). The next ones will be WAY better and bigger due to increased knowledge and better equipment for all stages of groth. GlowPanel 45 LED Grow Light
I'm surprised you have any flowers at all. The experience i had with those panels was terrible. Even the first UFO panels i had didnt do s**t
Bagseed, plant was only about 16" from soil to tip and it yielded 33g. This is what she looked like right before harvest. This was flowered with 1, 90w UFO from prosource. I aint mad.
[quote name='"Surrealism"'] Is a qp from one plant supposed to be a lot?[/quote] Depends how long you veg the lights the strain indoor or out I consider a qp per plant a good harvest
A qp from an indoor plant would be a nice harvest indeed. A qp from a large outdoor plant would be more of a wtf moment...
I guess I did well, my first ever grow yielded 10 oz from one plant indoors. Would have been 2 plants but I managed to kill one. It's the grow in my sig but I never updated the thread with the harvest pics.
I actually started with an led wash light frm a rave and one cfl 4700k for two plants in a grolab tent....these leds were real bright lights and had blue red and green Colors giving me diffrent spectrums....in vegy I kept the blue light from led on with the cfl worked great then turned into the red led wth 2700k cfls and got some real good bud from the ak48