Hi Rumple, Good luck with your grow. I have a couple of questions. What are the ppm's of the nutrients right now. Also, I see black airline and not clear. Did you have a problem with the clear airline? Also I don't see check valves. Why the switch? Thanks Bro
I've been looking forward to this grow. It's a good test because the many previous HID grows by this grower growing this strain in this environment have laid down a strong baseline against which comparisons can be drawn. To me, railing against the marketing literature is pointless. It's bad marketing literature. So what? The interesting question is, how will the lights perform? If these lights demonstrate HID-like performance, then HIDs will be the poor man's LED (with some caveats). If I can hang one of those lights in my shower stall and flower four plants without ducting and inline fans, without noise and heat, and without wondering whether I'm going to burn my house down, then I'm not going to consider a HID. LEDs will lower the barrier to entry for hobbyist growers. The caveat that comes to mind is the penetration issue. If plants have to be three feet or shorter for LEDs to function properly then HIDs will retain a sativa dominant niche. ProSource has refrained from posting in this thread so far. That's a smart move. If they do become active in the thread then people will flame them and other people will report the abusive posts to the admins and the admins will pull the plug on the thread. "No hawking of wares on the message board." ProSource's best play here is to stay away.
Aint that the truth! What did you mean about the 3 feet or less thing? I got one growing that is 9ft flowering fantastically.
Is that 9 foot plant your Super Lemon Haze grow? How tall is that tent? Did you put a hinge in the stalk of that thing? Well, that has been one of the knocks on LEDs, that they do not penetrate beyond the canopy to illuminate the lower three quarters of the plant. With an indica dominant plant, there is less height to deal with, less distance for the light to travel and therefore less diminishing of light intensity due to the distance covered. There is also more canopy to penetrate, but indicas can easily be further shortened and spread out horizontally via LST. Sativas can be bent over, almost always are bent over because most people do not have 10 foot ceilings in their grow rooms, but 6 or more inches between nodes means that you cannot get the same bang out of training a sativa that you get from training an indica dominant plant. The distance from the LED light pinned to the ceiling by that 9 foot high top and the lower branches is a challenge. It's a challenge with HIDs as well. That's why breeders try to make plants that look like indicas but smoke like sativas. This distance problem is exacerbated by the use of LEDs. They do not have the brute force of HIDs. LED manufacturers seem to be addressing this by upping the wattage. The 90 watt UFO is giving way to the 180 watt UFO, which in turn may be giving way to the 318 watt panel. Vendors are also moving toward a narrower footprint. The 120 degree LED lens is giving way to the 60 degree LED lens, which may give way to the 30 degree lens. I have no doubt that LEDs can be produced that grow pot better than HIDs do. The question is, how close is the current generation of LED lights to achieving that goal? It appears that we are about to discover something about how close the ProSource 180 watt UFO is to achieving that goal. Well, Rumple is going to do the discovering. (Go, Rumple! ) We get to watch.
I lost the bet. That is one impressive grow. I am just finishing my first legal grow in Michigan. I wish you luck with this. I have shared it with our boards everyone asks how LED’s compare. Well after this we will all know you have your room as dialed in as I have ever seen. I am looking forward to this its going to be fun. Todd MedinMI Michigan Medical Marijuana Association
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the claim about "absorbable light" doesn't add up. If the majority of an HID's light output goes unused because it's not within the absorbable spectrum of a plant, then why do 2700k and 6500k CFLs which are made to put out light within these critical spectrums still not match up to, let alone outperform an HID bulb, even watt per watt? Does anyone get what I'm trying to convey here? I hope for the growing community's sake that these lights can grow, even if not as well as HID. I'm sure many people would be happy to settle in between CFLs and HID given the advantages. It seems that right now, there's no middle ground between buying your CFL's at your local Lowe's or Home Depot and having to go bigtime with a ballast and HID, for indoors, anyway. These LEDs may provide a discreet alternative to the latter, but what keeps me skeptical is that these claims seem so plausible in theory, but are unproven in practical use as of yet. Until now. Rumple, they did a great job picking you to do this. You might just be making history for our growing culture. BTW, awesome Bubblebucket tutorial. Just made mine yesterday.
thank you for sharing this with us Rumple Im real excited to see what comes of this..... also am quite perplexed by the near 400 watts they gave ya for one plaant.... I, too will save my negativity for when it doesnt compare to the HPS (if thats the case) You've already given the city great reading material to help so many.... really is awesome you'll be adding LEDs to the resime Ill be watching throughout!
Main reason I use the LED's are due to their discreetness. I am seeing great tric production and budding. Very very interested in this thread. Glad to see it here on GC When are you expecting harvest?
rumple i think you will find that the leds work great for vegging (mine do) and clones but you will want hps when flowering. my 90 watt ufo just will not penetrate the canopy and the light is too weak to bounce like HID. this is what i am finding atleast.
*subscribed* Go Rumple! Can't wait to see how these UFO's do with a good canopy. Honestly, I think the LED people need an experiment like this, asking people to fork out that kind of money up front requires some kind of backing, and the marketing claims have always seems a little fishy to me. Using 1/2 the watts at double the cost (of hardware) just doesn't make a lot of sense. Even watt-per-watt at double the price is a hard sell. This is almost like an episode of Mythbusters LOL
I can't wait to see this on an episode of the discovery channel,kinda like steppin on the moon hmmmmm
Looks like Mrs. Rumpleforeskin has a nice pile of nugs to tide her over while you work to enlighten the community..........I'm glad I found your thread......heard you talk about it a while ago. Pullin up an easy chair and a widescreen monitor for this thread. All the best to you and to Prosource.