Hands down they are the best but if your new to LEDs,DO research and understand that Like HID systems LED systems need to be researched by (YOU) before you buy them......do you wanna know why the war between HID AND LED is still raging...cuzz people who use HID systems refuse to listen to obvious facts and do simple research..they would much rather spew there bios negativity on the subject... also i thnk its funny how people adopt other peoples opinions and use them as there own rather than finding out for themselves....The fact of the matter is LEDS are better than HID systems...and i have The info to prove it...by the way most of these are easily obtained facts Plants grow by the process of photosynthesis. Chlorophyll is vital for photosynthesis, which allows plants to obtain energy from light. Plants only absorb certain light spectrums, mostly blue and red, while nearly all others are reflected or otherwise unused by the plant. Light spectrums are measured in nanometers or “nm”. Chlorophyll production is made up of two parts, A and B. Maximum chlorophyll A production occurs at 662nm (for red) and 430nm (for blue), while maximum chlorophyll B production occurs at 642nm (for red) and 453nm (for blue). These are the peak points at which chlorophyll production is maximized, even just a few nm above or below these points will significantly reduce production. This means that almost 100% of the power input for the LED GROW LIGHT is used for plant Growth. As oppsoed to Sodium and Metal Halide bulbs which plants only use 10% of the light they emmit..... [/IMG] More reason's why LEDS ARE BETTER 1) No HEAT SIGNATURE detectable by infrared cameras. 2) Less heat means lower grow room temperatures and lower humidity, making controlling the micro-environment of your grow room easier to maintain properly 3) No heat damage to plants like burnt out leaves that got too close to a traditional High Intensity Discharge Lights 4) No high temperature lights to worry about. No hot light bulbs or cumbersome, heavy and hot ballast enslosures either. 5) Another great benefit of the LED GROW LIGHT is the very small amount of heat produced. The LED GROW LIGHT operates completely cool to the touch and plants can actually grow right up to the fixture, try that with any Sodium or Halide lamp. Not only that LEDS have an avarage life span of over 80,000 hours.....by the way there are 8,760 hours in a YEAR!!!.....compare that to a HPS or MH with a misely 10,000 hour life span...... MH and HPS bulb spectrums are a certain color because of the element's that burn inside the bulb,so the spectrum isn't Exact.....LED's dont burn anything to obtain there spectrum's... The DIODE is tailor made a certain COLOR in order to perfect Growing for both vegetative and flowering stages of plant life...... so before you buy a LED grow system learn what you can about the systems on the market....or better yet i will tell you to save some trouble..... Led Grow pannel wattages 13-16 watt-- never use!!!! 50-70 watt --perfect for supplemental lighting 90-120 watt-- most commenly used by growers 300-600 watt--expensive and used commercially Never buy a pannel that says its ALL MIGHTY..but then doesn't show its specs..its obviously a scam for the people who dont know what to look for.... make sure to look at the wattage of the pannel,make sure to check the spectrum of the LEDS,before you buy to make sure what your getting is a quality product...... The most common LED pannel you will find is one that will say "225 led High output pannel" THESE ARE NOT TO BE USED FOR GROWING they are 16 watt pannels and are insufficient at growing.....Also you will see 900 LED grow pannels...*Sigh* all they are is 4 225 pannel's sold together...dont be fooled Its the same 16 watt pannel just more of them... The next you will see are probably 45/50 watt LED pannels there ok..... they tend to use 1 watt high output LEDS which are very good...but once again there isn't enough of them to be used individually..*note* these do AN AMAZING job as supplemental lighting..... Next is the 90 watt system......The 90 watt and above systems are the only ones you should ever use if your going to relay on them as the single light source.... The 90 watt system outputs more Chlorophyll producing Blue,Red and orange light wavelengths as a 400 watt HPS.......and all the time running at less than1/4 the energy....still think HID is better check this out (1) 600 watt LED system produces more Chlorophyll producing Blue,Red and orange wavelength's than 3 1000 watt HPS SYSTEMS..... come on HID is stoneage..... get with the 21 century.... Go LED and save some cash and electricity...and maybe even the planet .....hope this helped sway the minds of all the up and coming HPS/MH growers....~peace~
good arcticle man, thats definitely something to consider for future lighting. wheres the best place to get led's from? ps thanks for the props on my grow box
this is an awesome post man +rep for putting forth the effort to get this info out. i can personnally vouch for the 45 watt LED panels, they definately do a great job at supplementing the spectrums of light that plant needs for vigorous growth, im on my second grow with them and the lil ladies are looking darling! good job be cool BP
thats the common theme with postings that LED's are better...Im not saying they arent(not saying they are either...) but show me some doc grows with them, then Ill buy into what your posting.
90 1w lights might use 90ws, but doea not provide 90w of light to the plant. You can see that in the first 2 pictures. You'll notice that what you have is a bunch of 1 watt spots on the plant when using an LED board. Sometimes they overlap, but you are never really getting more than 2ws on any particular spot on the plant. Where as with a 90w (or 400 watt that is used in the picture example) HPS bulb you are getting 90w of light to every part of the plant. These next two pictures illistrate light penetration. (first pic)1 watt of ANY type of light is going to be blocked pretty effectively by any foliage. (second pic) HPS actually penetrates down thru foliage so in reality your plant is getting much, MUCH more light with HPS. Also, you provide this article about why LED should be better than HPS, but you don't provide any examples of grows that actually PROVE side by side that LED is better. One reason for this is you can't. I can provide proof that HPS beats LED hands down watt for watt. Go ahead and check out the results of a side by side 70watt LED and 70watt HPS grow. LED produced 11 grams of bud and HPS produced 23 grams of bud. More important to this grow however is the seeds as that was his main goal:
I put the link to the grow those pics came from in the post. But I'll post it again here: 70w LED side by side 70w HPS: Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 It's not my experiment, but his conditions are identical, and actually favor the LED by using SCROG which helps with the coverage and penetration issues of LED by laying everything out at the same level from the lights.
Ah! I saw his videos of that grow on youtube. At least I'm pretty sure it was the same guy Anyways...The major problem I see with LED grow technique, like you said, is LACK OF PENETRATION. Yes, LACK OF PENETRATION. That may sound strange, but most LED setups that I see have too many small-red LEDS not made for Lumen output. There are many more efficient and brighter LEDS available, but they are more expensive. There are some drawbacks though...they produce some heat. It is not as much heat as an incandescent bulb, but it still must be addressed in cooling. ALSO!!!! Most LED set-ups that I see do not have enough BLUE spectrum. Blue spectrum is necessary in all stages of growth to keep the internodes short. Take a look at this efficieny of cholorophyll picture. Red light is still necessary, it promotes healthy flowering. I believe though that somewhere in this chain of information the blue spectrum was not mentioned....if the plant does not grow enough vegetatively, FLOWER PRODUCTION WILL BE HINDERED! Hope this helps.
Now if you can just get them LEDs to grow weed you might have something. Seems like the only folks saying LEDs are better are the folks selling um.
i understand the controversy between the two and it may never stop.....All i have to add is most of the people who use the LED' setups use BAD quality LEDs.....The pannles are most likely the 225 ones i was talking about earlier, understand that these Grow lights the 225 ones use fractions of a watt to power 225 LEDS like 0.02 watts of something .....The 1 watt LED has amazing LPW=lumen per watt ....so 16 of the 1 watt high output matches the power of the 225 fixture...thats how the crap happends people get roped in by the number of LEDs like 900 or 225 and pay no attention to the actual wattage of the fixture...believe me most fixtures use Under 1 watt to power there LEDS and i know thats crap....anything under 1 watt like 0.4 watt LEDs are HORRIBLE and it sickens me that people sell them claiming them to be something there not like an amazing growing fixture......Like i also said RESEARCH......please for ther love of god......has any one seen the LPW on the 3 watt luxeon LED's....imagine 100 of the 3 watt LEDs on a growing fixture.....people always wanna bag on stuff they know nothing about...and then slander it because of the experience they had....that's was inevitably was there own fault....take this for instance... look the best 2 brands for HPS are SUNMASTER and EYE hortilux.. those bulbs are like 100 bucks a piece..now im gunna be like you guys and buy a crappy 25 buck one from home depot and complain at the Qaulity of the bulb ans say "man HPS bulbs suck......thats exactly whats going on here.....people uising Shit products...then slandering the name of the product because of there lack of information......
ALSO!!!! Most LED set-ups that I see do not have enough BLUE spectrum. Blue spectrum is necessary in all stages of growth to keep the internodes short. Take a look at this efficieny of cholorophyll picture. Red light is still necessary, it promotes healthy flowering. I believe though that somewhere in this chain of information the blue spectrum was not mentioned....if the plant does not grow enough vegetatively, FLOWER PRODUCTION WILL BE HINDERED! Hope this helps.[/quote] Remember what i said about researching or just straight up looking for something.....its not hard just gatta look Blue http://www.thelashop.com/product.php?productid=594&cat=47&page=1 Red http://www.thelashop.com/product.php?productid=391&cat=47&page=1
well after all your posts on this, you have yet to give proof of your findings...If you really have the facts straight on the led's, show some proof. Because people who continually say that LED's are best, like Rump. said prob are the ones selling the product. If you can prove that LED's are better...show a grow with them, cause thats the only way to sway peoples minds on it. No ones just going to say "Ok Kocf is right look at all the info he regurgitated on the forums, LED's must be better Im gonna order them right now"...You may have something on ppl only using the cheap units...but that still doesnt replace the fact that NO ONE has shown a great grow with LED's(at least that I have found). So until proof is given by a Documented grow, I doubt people are going to jump on your bandwagon. Once again, Im not saying they cant work...but I am saying show me that they have worked(which means give better results than hps) I mean I could stand to save money...but not at expense of my meds.
Yes, it did sound like marketing. And it is the stuff I have already analyzed, I want to get one, but first, I really want to see pictures of marijuana vegetating and flowering under them exclusively. I have only seen lettuce grow under them.... My back room would need a heater (4-5months a year) in it using LED, so that is something for me to consider. If enough can be generated in 8 mo for my years needs... Anyone with pictures of the Procyon 100 in use w/ cannabis?
I am an outdoor grower, but find the development of new lighting technology very interesting. And as others have said, let us cut through the adman´s hype, and let us see a grow with LEDs documented from start to finish. EDIT: Hey, this is my 2,000th post !!
Dude have you ever personally grown with LED's? I wouldn't want you to be one of those people you mentioned in your first sentence. I have grown with LED's [still do] and speak from personal experience here. This one is irrelevant for any HID under 1500 watts because the cameras cant detect anything under that. If the grow room is designed properly this doesn't matter either however one huge advantage LED's have is they do allow the user to just plug it in and grow with no exhaust and no fans being essential. This is absolutely not true. While much better than CFL's or HID's, if the leaves touch the LED's they do burn little circles onto the leaves. This is a redundant point and similar to point 1 and 3. How many times are you going to say the same thing with different wording? P.S. Check my link for my grows, start to finish under LED's. They yielded less than my grows under the 400 watt hps but difficulty leven of growing was certainly lower under LED's as compared to HID. BTW My HPS is a Hortilux bulb so it vegges great too.