What is your personal opinion or experiences with using LED grow lights? Anyone have a brand they prefer over other?
There's only a few companies I would consider. Horticulture Lighting Group Premium LED Grow Lights for Agriculture Horticulture Lighting Group Invisible Sun supplier and manufacturer of UK Quantum Boards If in the UK/EU Timber Grow Lights LED Grow Lights, Drivers, Heatsinks and Accessories | RapidLED.com If you're comfortable putting a light together. I would highly consider you order a 4 pack of these while they're still in stock. I can steer you to power supplies for them too. They are plug and play, hang and go. No heatsink or other hardware really necessary but wire, cord, and power supply/hangers. There's many happy growers running them. About 300 watts capacity per 4 pack. Top end samsung lm561c s6 diodes. www.amazon.com/Horticulture-Lighting-Group-Quantum-Boards/dp/B078P4K8J9/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1534216042&sr=8-1&keywords=qb132+quantum+board Two of these drivers for each 4 boards you run. They'll run two boards a piece wired in parallel. They have built in dimmers. https://www.arrow.com/en/products/elg-150-36a/mean-well-enterprises
LED's have finally surpassed the performance of HPS especially in g/watt if you buy the right model and learn how to grow well with them. You can save lots of money on electricity. I bloom my 4x4 with only about 550 watts and get between 1-2 pounds every time. Dense stoney buds. I've been growing led only for near 3 years. There is lots of junk on the market if you're not an educated shopper. You should know what diodes you're looking for in my opinion. That's a smart led shopper. You want to know specifically what model they're running. If they're all shady about that then just walk away IMO. Anyone running top end diodes won't hide the models they're using. They're more likely to brag about them. It should be a selling point not a secret.
cobs and "quantum boards". I like the cobs and am doing my second grow now with a "qb 260" I like that it spreads the light out much more then the cobs do almost like a blanket. overall I cant really speak much about gain, I started out with a 400watt hps then switched out to the 650 watts of cob and the light is so much better but I was getting inconsistent yields in that time so I couldn't compare between cobs and hps. personally cobs still got game but per dollar the qb's are cheaper to source/ make. i'd recommend building one or ordering a kit.
Im personally testing out platinum led 600 + HLG 100 combo with my three girls. Hows my Blueberry Looking?
DIY is the way to go today... I just don't see why anyone would pay up to 4 x more for components that they can easily acquire and put together their own self. For example you can buy a 288 LM301B LED boards from china for $33 each shipped if you buy 4 or more. I bought (8) and (2) hlg 480h drivers with digital dimmers and power cords for $540.00 shipped. Then I bought (2) heatsinks and (2) hanger kits from another site for another $120.00. So I now have (3) HLG 550 V2, one I paid full price for, I paid close to 1100.00, and the other (2) I built myself for less than $700.00 for the both of them.
I have a platinum p900 in my closet I can't resell locally for only $300. Nobody wants it. I previously used platinum leds. They're not bad but HLG and other high end cob setups will outperform them and be nicer to work under.
while I agree that they are easier to work with, i am still not convinced that the plants prefer quantum boards over the platinum led yet. is the p900 you have from alibaba or the actual store? I know there is some fake ones out there
Got it going with a 600watt HPS. Just for some different colored lights maybe I'll get better buds I dunno.
No, legit platinum lights. I grew with mine for 18 months. I ran a p900 and a p450. I used to use California Lightworks for veg. Vegmaster 110's. They were almost $300 each. My last led setup cost me over $2000 for veg and bloom areas. I replaced my vegmaster 110's with 3-4 qb120's for about $55 each on average. I replaced the platinum lights with 2 qb260's. I dropped over 100 watts in my bloom area and I've grown larger harvests with the qb's. I paid $285 for each of my qb260's since I got them before the price went up. $1000 for my p900 and $500 for the p450. I've ran mars, platinum, california lightworks, and HLG qb boards. The qb's are by far the best performance per watt out of those. I've also been one of the more active people talking leds on here for years. I've seen a lot of setups and the results of those.
Because it's all I smoke I grow only my own bud. The potency is just as good if not better. The best I ever was able to get with the platinums was about .8-.9 grams per watt. The best I've done with qb's is 1.5g/watt. The density of the buds is better with qb's. Last year I grew one harvest that was the densest bud I've ever seen. I could dig you up some pictures. Normally a quart jar about 3/4 full for curing is near 30 grams. My first harvest with qb buds I had jars that weighed 54 grams 3/4 full. The buds were like small rocks.
BTW my avatar and many beautiful pictures of bud I have were grown with platinum leds. They are great but too expensive for the wattage and outdated now. If the engineers from platinum were in this thread they would tell you so. That p series platinum led light was built in 2014-2015 and it hasn't been changed at all. The performance of the leds on the market since then has gone up about 100% or more in efficiency of output. The amount of light the qb's put out per watt is pretty mind blowing. If you want an example just buy yourself a 65 watt HLG65 for a great clone/veg supplemental light. They're $98. That will give you a window of what their higher powered boards can do. Look at my qb120 thread that's in indoor growing with 58,000 views since only September of 2017. There isn't a single person who saw the qb boards come on in person that wasn't blown away at how bright they are including myself. Pictures don't do them justice. They need to be seen in person. You'll have to let the streaks in your vision clear out after you take a look at even an hlg65. Platinum follows my posts. They are on my followers. They know I talk shit now. They followed me when I was running their stuff and I'm sure they noticed I don't recommend it anymore.
I am on my first grow with a GrowthStar Scorpion 5x 325W COB LED Grow Light So far so good I think.... I have no other experience to compare it with but i'm hopeful! Got some nice frosty leaves and plenty of growth. http://ledcanada.com/product/growthstar-scorpion-5x-325w-cob-led-grow-light/
I’ve got 5 vipar spectras, just got my qb288 quantum board today and HOLY SHIT, you can’t actually look at it not even side on, it’s like looking at the sun. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I was looking forward to seeing the 132’s in action. LRS 350-36 is faulty, get what you pay for️ Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk @ I love growing weed