Im a new member of this site and new to growing. I grew a few clones outdoors before that's it. But the great state of mass finally did something good for once and legalized 12 plants per house. So I plan on doing most outdoors at 2 houses and a small little 3x3 tent to start them and leave a few in to flower inside. My only problem is my family doesn't feel great about the hot hid bulb in the tent. I'm kinda bummed bc I don't have 1500 bucks to drop on an expensive led. I have read so many conflicting opinions on led my head spinning. I'm going to scrog 2 east coast sour d and a GDP in the tent. Any recommendations on cheaper end leds? I have heard good things about vipraspectra. I do have like 300 I'm willing to spend on a light. The other question is it true to measure by the actual watts it pulls from the wall when trying to match it to hps. Or do you go by the watts advertised. Also is it true you want to grow with warmer temps and use less nutes with leds? It's a small little grow area 36x36x72. I don't want to shoot to high of an estimate. Or should I really only flower with the Hid if I can't afford a real expensive led. If I really should I'll veg with led and try to throw a smaller hid in as well for flower. Any advice at all for a new moron would b greatly appreciated.
You don't need $1500 for a great LED ($300 will get you MUCH more light (not burple either)for the $$ ..There are threads hear (use the search) on HLG Quantum Boards..Amazing and you will be way under what you think. @Tbone Shuffle is the lighting expert here and Ima sure he will be joining in. meantime..Read here..Great site: AND BTW: the real morons here don't have the smarts to ask growweedeasy.com
Here is a QB288 3000k (good basic for veg and flower)..2 of them would do you right in a 3x3 for veg, or even 4x QB132s. ($133 + driver..less than $200 total) It hurts to look at the pic..yes?..LOL 135 TRUE watts..not BS marketing watts..(kit or assembled for another $25) Edit: The 288s are $200 each and 4x the 132's are $133 on Amazon.
3x3x72" is perfectly filled by a 4 x qb132 kit. It's about 300 watts total and $175-250 depending on what driver you want to run and if you make a frame for the boards or just hang them. I'm pretty confident that you cannot beat this setup for the price with any commercially available product. These are samsung lm561c s6 diodes. They're capable of 2.66umol or 177lumens/watt at full power. If you look around at what is supposedly top end leds on the market that actually give you those stats you'll see that those are about the highest you can find. They also have samsung reliability and are almost bulletproof. There's a qb288 torture test video on youtube where a single board takes over 600 watts without burning up. They're normally about 135 watts max each. Order these 4 boards. They don't need heatsinks. Simply hang each board by 4 9" trout leaders attached to a ratcheting hanger. 4 of them in a cube formation in the top of that 3x3 will veg the crap out of it. www.amazon.com/4x-QB132-Quantum-Boards-3500K/dp/B078P4K8J9/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519171050&sr=8-1&keywords=qb132+quantum+board Those are 3500k. IMO probably the best for start to finish as far as spectrum. Jump on it. The 2700k that were on amazon are now sold out. They come and go and are gone for a month or more sometimes. They sell like hotcakes and I know why. https://www.arrow.com/en/products/lrs-350-36/mean-well-enterprises That's the best power supply for the money that will run all 4 boards at max output. You can buy more expensive power supplies that have built in dimmers if you want to have that feature. For me I just raise the lights up when the plants are small. I don't like dimming them. https://www.arrow.com/en/products/hlg-320h-36a/mean-well-enterprises This one will dim. Those are both for parallel wiring. If you want series wiring you'll need a different driver.
Here's my 4x4 veg tent with 4 x qb120 boards. About 250 watts in there. They're the older 24volt cousin of the qb132's.
The LRS-350-36 does have some dimming capability but it's voltage based so only very limited. The more expensive HLG-320h-36a driver has a current pot for limiting actual current accurately. Both drivers will run nice and cool since they are well under max capacity running those boards. That's the easy advantage of running a parallel driver.
I built some QB panels recently 70 per driver, 60 per heatsink, 150 for 2 qb288s, some wagos, powercable, connector. light hangers
That's for qb288 and qb304 older design boards. The qb120's and qb132's are way cheaper to build with since you need no heatsink. You also need no wagos if you buy a driver with screw terminals. You don't need a wago for a qb260 either. Run the driver right to the boards and jumper the other size with a single wire. I have no idea why most pre built lights put a wago on the driver output. It makes no sense to put an extra connection in there when the driver outputs are long, will reach the boards, and are proper awg to fit in the molex push connectors. The qb260 kits based on either qb288 or qb304 boards are $325 unassembled for everything. You get the heatsink, driver, wagos, wire, everything you need. It's very easy to built too. A single one of those will cover a 3x3 as well if you don't want to mess with boards but the qb132 board setup will be slightly higher output, wider light distribution, 3500k which you can't get in the qb260 right now, and about $100 cheaper. Horticulture Lighting Group 260 Watt Quantum Board LED Kit They also run warmer then the 4 x qb132's would I think.
Thank you guys. I'm glad I came here before rolling the dice on a cheap Chinese model. That was more useful info than I got in a week reading google searches and reviews on lights. Everyone I know around here I had talked to is still using hid.
I've been growing with led only for two years. This is the 4th brand of lighting setup I've tried and by far the best.
Here is a bath tub grow with a QB288 (3000k) and a pair of QB123s flanking it (2700k) The second shot shows a mix of different lights inc a 175 true watt Unit farm UFO80..about 505 watts in my 3x3..QB32's flanking the UFO80 on the right. The beauty is that you can completely custom configure till your heart's delight.. On the left side is a single Nextlight Mini (same diodes as the QBs but a lil older model.
Did you grow with hid before? I know a lot of experience and a million little other factors go into a good harvest. But are there any major differences to you in bud quality under leds.
I'm over 40. I've been a pothead for a long time. I've known quite a few growers over the years. My bud is better then anything they've been growing and they'll tell you that as well. It's got me a job offer growing. I'll see if it pans out. Permit paperwork and other stuff waiting.
All my other friends grow with HID except one. I converted one of them over to qb boards and he has a crop coming up. He's a mad scientist. He has a fogponic system with a flood and drain blended together.
The biggest difference to me comparing HID to led bud is the density. All of my HPS grower friends have semi fluffy bud compared to mine. Not so much this winter harvest but my last summer harvest was the densest bud I've ever seen in my life. I had 3/4 full quart jars that weighed in at 54 grams. The buds were like rocks once dried.
Wow those look yummy. I'll b one happy man if/when I get to growing like that. One step at a time lets see how I do on this light. Qb 132s you think b best as well
any recommendations on nutes. The grow store down the st sold me on the "Nectars of the Gods" line. I read that you should feed your plants 30 percent less nutes under leds. Is that typically true you think or just One persons opinion.
I think the qb132 is the best setup you can buy. They're way larger boards then the qb288's and qb304's. The same wattage is spread over more then twice the area. It can only help but grow more efficiently If you grow efficiently as well and train wide. The qb120's did great at that. They outdid my expectations in veg but if there's anything they lack it's a slight amount of intensity in flower. I think the qb132's make up for that and probably make for a much better bloom setup because of that increased intensity. I bloom with qb304's but IMO they're too many led's concentrated too tightly compared to the other newer boards. They run darn hot and have only a marginally better distribution of footprint compared to HID where the larger fixture that multiple qb132's make is like a giant sunshine panel in the top of the tent that has near the same ppfd reading in the sides compared to the center.
The nutrient recommendation is going to depend on your preferred style of growing. I use mostly GH nutrients. They're highly available, one of the cheapest of the top commercial brands, and they're proven to work. I recommend lucas formula with GH flora micro/bloom along with calimagic and rapid start for your beneficial microbes.