i live in idaho, in a 3 person living arrangement. I myself have always payed anywhere from $30-$80 monthly depending on the season. so that equals about $100 - $300 over all electric bill monthly. (now i dont exactly know the precise wattage that would be needed or how long each growth cycle will last) but if i was looking into buying 1, maybe 2.. 1,000 dollar LED lights that have a vegetative wattage of approx 250w and a bloom wattage of approx 500w. now im wondering, if i stick to a nice guide or book that helped me grow some herbs. How much extra $$$$$$$$ should i expect on the overall bill? say after it hits $300 in the middle of the summer. here is a link to the lights (1 or 2 of them) that i'm looking to acquire: Home :: About Platinum LED Grow Lights i understand this can be a tough question to try to answer unless your in a similar situation.. so instead of doing all that math.... if there is anyone reading this that is using 1-2 LED lights with almost identical wattage... im curious what you have to pay extra on a month to month basis? and do your fans and or humidifier cause another big increase? or are they relatively cheap? thanks in advanced -boss dockins
You can figure out the cost of running anything electric if you know 2 things, the actual wattage draw from the wall, and the rate per kWh that you are charged by your electric company. For example, if you wanted to know how much it would cost to run a 400w HPS light... and lets go with the rate I pay in Cali of $0.24/kWh, and you are using it for a 12/12 schedule. this is the formula. KW x hours of the day used x 30 days in a month x rate of electricty: A 400w light is equal to .4 KW So .4 x 12 hours per day x 30 days per month x $0.24. This light on a 12/12 schedule would cost you $34.56 per month to run (not including taxes and surcharges)
that helps quite a bit, thanks. now to just get a place not at my grandpas house and buy that beautiful platinum grow light with only 250w for veg!!!! which is the 18/6 cycle as well... i think.
Platinum have a worse than poor reputation built on copying and using another somewhat better company's own ad content. Slimy dirt balls! Checkout Advanced LED Lights to see what they copied. Huge amounts of propaganda advertising abounds and the uninformed consumer is easy prey. Good led lights use Cree or Vero cob arrays, usually. Several of the best companies are here in US. They list the major components used and actual power used. DIY is not difficult and info is available on forums like this and on YouTube. Don't be in a rush to waste money on Chinese junk like most of us have on the way to truly effective cob grow lights.
I agree with Hillbil, if you go LED either go for a brand using premium chips such as cree, osram, nichia, citizen led or bridgelux vero. I've used the Advanced LED XTE panels and they work very well and are build well, and use Cree XTE and XPE chips. I currently am using Budmaster COBs with Citizen LED COB chips which are up their with Vero and CXB chips, and also using the Budmaster GOD series with osram ssl monos and both are very nicely built panels, that are completely built in the UK. There are a few other brands out there that also build with quality parts. DIY is also another route to go as Hillbil mentioned and many times cheaper than buying panels prebuilt, and can be built to exact needs. I would also recommend staying away from any china made panels which most of the leds on the market are. Usually companies will buy them in bulk at a huge discount, change a few chips around and call their spectrum proprietary and then mark them up 5x in cost. Usually I see a lot of these panels fail, and generate poor results because they are built for profit, not for performance.
thats interesting.. i definitely do need to do a little more research. although. i was quickly sold on platinum because... this man did a weekly update youtube series while using the platinum on 6 plants and he averaged 6 ounces per plant after the harvest.. showed the bud on the scale and everything. he was contemplating for a long time between platinum LED and mars hydro LED lights... he chose platinum. im also seeing that neither of you guys even mention mars hydro LED which I've hear a lot of good things about as well. I scoped the Advanced LED ds xml 350 (the mid size of this series of lights) had an average power draw of 330w. which isn't too shabby in my research thus far. it is also equal at $1,000 in comparison to the 1k platinum i was peeking. it also claimed to do very well in cloning, veg and blooming... so i wonder if it has switch options for this? or does it stick to the same ideal light setting? the 1k platinum had a 250w veg and a 500w bloom light modes you could switch between. the platinum probably uses more watts though.. do watts always account for the same intensity of the spectrum? or can seperate brands create the same spectrum with more or less watts? so now im very curious what your LED lights are? and with those lights im really interested in knowing what your average yield per plant is? thanks for those brand references btw. FYI im willing to spend 1k per light tops. and im sure everyone sees it all different. shit plus all the other components inside a tent might make big changes that the lights cant really control.
Power prices range from place to place. But running my setup, 18/6 750 watt kind led, A/C, 2 fans. My bill went up by $6.87 last month, month before it was only 4 bucks.