Anyone interested in a group buy for LED grow lights?

[Dr.RR]

What company is this? Any backup information? I dunno, I'd like to see some photos of their products before I buy into the "manufactured in-house" stuff..

Yellowsnowman - Please....it's quite proven that LED lights handle the veg state fairly well & even do quite well in flowering (if you have significant wattage, thus having to shell out hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Some LED companies have managed to make quite a few good LED lights but most being sold seem to be BS. A 90w certainly does not equal 400W HPS, but to say that LEDs are garbage...well that just makes you look dumb!

 

[brainwarp]

All I see no upside to this. Nobody is going to save enough for it to be worth the hassle. I should send you money, and you'll order the lights and send them to me? Right.

 

[CaptainPointless]

dont waste your money on led's...hps is the way to go for now
there are lots of ppl trying to sell leds on ebay, craigslist, etc..even seen it on youtube
especially if they are products made in china...just means garbage trust me

I don't mean to offend you, yellowsnowman, but I would appreciate it if you would refrain from responding to this thread again. I have already said every response I am going to say, to another young gentleman who has identical views as you, regarding LEDs. If you are wondering what those responses are, you have every right to read through them in this thread. Again, until you can muster up the nerve to educate yourself before responding, please avoid doing so.

"Trust me, 'cuz, I mean, I saw it on YouTube, so it HAS to be true. And I don't like those Chinese people either, they have little feet and always sound like they're yelling..."

What company is this? Any backup information? I dunno, I'd like to see some photos of their products before I buy into the "manufactured in-house" stuff..

It is a company called Rambo Industrial. There is a link to their LED website with pictures/specs in post 15. But I'll make it easy, since people seem to want pictures anyway. These are only what's on the website, I'm waiting to see if they will send me some more detailed pics at the moment.

EDIT: Pics have been moved a few posts down.

 

[CaptainPointless]

All I see no upside to this. Nobody is going to save enough for it to be worth the hassle. I should send you money, and you'll order the lights and send them to me? Right.

You clearly have not read more than the first post. As I stated before, I have no desire to handle the money. I am trying to get the operators of this website involved to do that. And as I said before, possibly in a different thread, $25 a month savings, going from 1000W HID to 300W LED is pretty significant. I could use that $25 for nutrients, or maybe save for a year and a half to buy another 300W LED light, or save for a few months and spend it on high-quality seeds, or I could blow it on video games, or... you get the idea. There are tons of uses for saved money. I don't know about you, but wherever I can save money, I do my best.

And I'm not even going to get into the other benefits again. I've done that too many times in this thread already. It is definitely not my fault that you are too lazy to read through the longer posts.

EDIT: And if, by savings, you are referring to the money potentially saved by going with this manufacturer vs. another more well known one, then you must have really deep pockets. $750 for a 600W from this supplier, vs. the $1,800 to $2,500 from a different supplier is pretty significant to most people. You know, the people who could use that much money to BUY A FUCKING CAR...

FURTHER EDIT: I just re-read your post again, and it occurred to me that you haven't even read the first post. You must have simply read the title, because I clearly posted the prices and a comparison in the first post. People need to quit responding to things they aren't willing to try to understand.

 

[seasmoke]

For a large order, wouldn't the company itself set up an account? I know if I like them and want to buy more, I want the same or better break as I have now.

I understand the dynamics of lumens. I'm talking "INTENSITY", are you telling me that i'll get the same yield from 9 150s as I would 9 600s? I doubt it. Theres a reason theres different wattages. Even after all that, will it be enough to get nice buds on a perpetual grow of 24 plants in a 8x8 room? I doubt theres a thing called "to much light" in this senerio...

Don't get to wound up with the dis-believers. We gotta what we gotta do, they gotta do what they gotta do...

 

[CaptainPointless]

For a large order, wouldn't the company itself set up an account? I know if I like them and want to buy more, I want the same or better break as I have now.

I understand the dynamics of lumens. I'm talking "INTENSITY", are you telling me that i'll get the same yield from 9 150s as I would 9 600s? I doubt it. Theres a reason theres different wattages. Even after all that, will it be enough to get nice buds on a perpetual grow of 24 plants in a 8x8 room? I doubt theres a thing called "to much light" in this senerio...

Don't get to wound up with the dis-believers. We gotta what we gotta do, they gotta do what they gotta do...

I'm not sure if I understand what you're asking about the company. They are a manufacturer, and as such will sell quantities to a distributor. The price would remain constant as long as the product remains the same. Assuming that there are no major changes in the product, you could expect to pay exactly what you paid the first time.

And yes, I am telling you that IN THEORY you could potentially have the same yield with 9 150W LED lamps as you do with 9 600W HID lamps. We don't know for sure, because very few people have tried something on that scale. The reason there are different wattages with potentially the same output is because of the luminous efficacy of light at each wavelength. Meaning, a 600W HID bulb is highly inefficient in the 660nm and 455nm spectra, though it is relatively efficient in the 550nm range. In order to effectively compare LEDs to HID bulbs, you would need to isolate the frequencies of light of the HID bulb and look at their luminous efficacy as a percentage of the entire spectrum.

Again, intensity is a relative thing. It's all in how the light is perceived. Because photometry is a science based on how the human eye perceives light, it becomes nearly worthless unless comparing two lights of identical wavelength. HID lights appear intense simply because the majority of the light they output happens to be at the peak of the human visible spectrum.

Plants simply don't see light the same way we do. Think of it more as thermal goggles. Our eyes are not sensitive to IR energy, but when you look through a pair of thermal goggles, everything you look at is visible, based on its heat signature. This is because the goggles interpret the IR energy and transform into usable information, meaning they convert it to colors we can see.

Animals and insects work the same way. Mosquitoes are sensitive to certain colors, just like plants are. That's why mosquitoes generally attack more at dusk, when the sun is setting (more IR light). And why they say, don't wear dark clothes. Dark clothes absorb thermal energy, which mosquitoes are quite sensitive to, thus attracting them.

I guess what I'm trying to get across is that colors and light intensity don't have much to do with one another. To a plant, the 150W LED could very much "appear" more intense than a 600W HID.

EDIT: And in all honesty, you should very much have enough light to do an 8x8x8 room with 9 LED lamps. One 600W lamp is rated for around a 10x10x10. I personally would use one extra, just to be sure, but I wouldn't be horribly worried if I could only afford one.

 

[CaptainPointless]

UPDATE: I was just sent some pictures of the lights from the manufacturer. Here they are!

90W UFO

90W UFO

120W

150W (Not Pictured)

300W

300W

600W (This thing is a fuckin' beast!)

 

[seasmoke]

Its not about affording 1 or 10, its about getting phukked in the end.

 

[CaptainPointless]

Its not about affording 1 or 10, its about getting phukked in the end.

I apologize if you thought I was referring to you. I know at the current time, I could definitely not afford more than 1 600W lamp, let alone 9 150W lamps. You asked if 9 150W lamps would be enough to do 24 plants in an 8x8x8 room. My answer remains yes, I was simply stating the fact that 1-2 600W LED lamps would likely be enough. I do understand that you would like to have the 9 smaller 150W lamps. Am I correct in assuming this is to make sure you have even light coverage in the early stages of growth?

 

[chronik4lyfe]

Awsome thread ive beeen wondering about these lights, its a perfectly logical lighting solution to any small time growers garden.. im down for ordering some of these babys a couple 150watters should do.. all the money ive poured into cfls is kinda ridiculous and they stilll require alot of attention leds take away alot of the worry of burnt leaves and they even save on a bit of space and ofcourse the electrical bill too ... i really dont see a down side.. allz i can really see is people denying change

 

[CaptainPointless]

i really dont see a down side.. allz i can really see is people denying change

That's pretty much my take on it. I'm sure the first time someone said, "Hey, let's use this crazy fluorescent lightbulb with no filament to grow plants," very few people probably accepted it. Now it's one of the most widely used methods of doing microgrows. It will just take time and verifiable results for LEDs to catch on.

 

[seasmoke]

I apologize if you thought I was referring to you. I know at the current time, I could definitely not afford more than 1 600W lamp, let alone 9 150W lamps. You asked if 9 150W lamps would be enough to do 24 plants in an 8x8x8 room. My answer remains yes, I was simply stating the fact that 1-2 600W LED lamps would likely be enough. I do understand that you would like to have the 9 smaller 150W lamps. Am I correct in assuming this is to make sure you have even light coverage in the early stages of growth?

No, and no......
1st, not convinced which one to get....leaning on 5 300s....arranged as a 5 on a dice.
2nd, This is all for flowering. I'll stick with my floros for veg....got a great spectrum going on, my buddy can't even keep up with his 1000 mh.....i even had an AI bud after 8 weeks, 24/0 light. Floros are great for veggin.
However, i'm crankin 2400 wtt hps/mh for flower. My buds get as hard as your fist. I want that same thing with leds,

 

[CaptainPointless]

No, and no......
1st, not convinced which one to get....leaning on 5 300s....arranged as a 5 on a dice.
2nd, This is all for flowering. I'll stick with my floros for veg....got a great spectrum going on, my buddy can't even keep up with his 1000 mh.....i even had an AI bud after 8 weeks, 24/0 light. Floros are great for veggin.
However, i'm crankin 2400 wtt hps/mh for flower. My buds get as hard as your fist. I want that same thing with leds,

Personally, I would suggest the 5- 300W as opposed to the 9- 150W. It's almost exactly the same cost, with the 5- 300W being just slightly more expensive than 9- 150W. The bigger difference is that the 5- 300W would be putting out more lumens than one more additional 150W (4760 extra lumens!) I know, I know, everyone's going to tell me that I can't compare the two. Don't forget, though, that the proportions aren't changing from light to light. The 150 has the same proportions of each wavelength as the 300 does, and the 600, etc.

If you're strictly using this for flowering, I would recommend using a spectrum combination containing very little or no blue spectrum (remember I said before, we can have these custom-fit for our applications). If you still want a little vegetative growth during flowering, leave a little bit more blue in. But personally, I'd stick to the 660nm (ultra-red), 630nm (red), 610nm (orange), and potentially 3000k (warm white). Obviously, you would want to have the 660nm LEDs be the majority. As a thought concerning your bud production, you may think about supplementing your flowering room with reptile or tanning bulbs...UV-B has been proven to increase THC and resin production, resulting in a larger dry yield when all is said and done.

 

[ThinkingGreen]

Okay, I've been doing some research on LED grows and from what I found, It's really not worth it at all! It really wont be worth the buy for another 5 years. The out put of the LED diminishes after just a few inches! I've seen grow vids, read plenty of journals, and know someone that has been growing with LED's.
The best I've seen on a LED grow, is 30 grams, with 10 plants. They just aren't strong enough YET!

 

[CaptainPointless]

Okay, I've been doing some research on LED grows and from what I found, It's really not worth it at all! It really wont be worth the buy for another 5 years. The out put of the LED diminishes after just a few inches! I've seen grow vids, read plenty of journals, and know someone that has been growing with LED's.
The best I've seen on a LED grow, is 30 grams, with 10 plants. They just aren't strong enough YET!

First, I'd like to know where you come up with your time scale. 5 years is a LONG time, technologically speaking. Siemens, the European engineering leader, is projecting that by 2012, the market for LEDs will triple (to over 13 billion euros). Did you know that the European Union has been phasing out clear incandescent lighting above 100W? By 2012 there will not be any incandescent light bulbs sold at all, in any of the countries comprising the EU. They also have stated that high-power halogens will no longer be allowed to be sold. How long do you think it will take before they do the same to HPS and MH bulbs, considering how awfully inefficient they are? Don't think that this is just the rest of the world. GE will be closing its last American factory producing household incandescent lighting in July 2010. But I digress -- I'm not here to argue time scales.

What I am here to do, though, is point out that you clearly haven't done very thorough research. I, myself, have a link in this thread that will take you to a project that has been posted on multiple forums. It's a guy who did at least one verified grow with 2 - 300W LED lamps. I'm not going to post the link again, if you want it, you can go through the posts and find it. Anywho, he pulled 540g of dry weight off of 18 plants, not including fluffy buds. I think that's pretty respectable for 600W of light.

As far as the light output from LEDs go, you are simply wrong. Well, ok, you're wrong and you're right. What you're right about is that the light DOES diminish exponentially the farther away you get from the light. What you're wrong about is the implication that LEDs are the only light that suffers from this problem. Light is light, buddy -- it doesn't matter if it's sunlight, plasma lighting, LEDs, HID, incandescent, or just those little lights that you put on your tree at Christmas. All of them follow the Inverse-Square Law, meaning the intensity of all light depletes at the same rate based on distance. It all depends on its initial luminous intensity -- again, this is only a human interpretation of light, as luminous intensity has no real application to plants and photosynthetic production. Speaking of which, if you were simply saying that the output you see diminishes after only a few inches, I agree -- because we, as humans, have not evolved to be able to sense the majority of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Until you can post some of your own results, or get your "friend who's growing with LEDs" on here to post some comparison pictures, or at the VERY least post links to other grow journals and vids, everything you say is anecdotal. Nothing in your post supports what you're saying. I will agree, however, about there being many others out there who have tried LED lighting and have gone back to HID. In every single one of those threads/posts/journals, the grower was trying to get too much out of too little light output. In addition, the lights were typically the eBay specials -- the ones that are cheaply made with the wrong wavelengths. People seem to think red is red is red, and blue is blue is blue. If I remember correctly, I even found a journal along the way where the grower was trying to use the brake light LED from his car to power the grow. When it didn't work, he swore off of LEDs for good. But he didn't even consider the fact that it wasn't the correct wavelength. He had simply heard that using red LEDs would increase his yield.

I am not trying to shoot you down, here, but you have to realize, as I have told several others in this thread -- This thread is for people who have QUESTIONS, not opinions. This is a discussion of the potential benefits of using a quality product, as well as the potential disadvantages. If you really feel that LEDs don't work, feel free to start a new topic. That's the beauty of a forum.

 

[chronik4lyfe]

so when would there be like a signup list to see how many ppl want in, so u could find out what the total savings for each person would be if there is a bulk shipment.. would the savings be on the shipping or the actuall leds?

 

[shrigpiece]

leds are shite, my friend was bangin on about em and he only yielded an 8th off a plant i gave him. i yielded 2.5 onces on the same hieght plant and same strain. it was a weak leggy thind as well. leds are a bid pile of poo...

 

[CaptainPointless]

so when would there be like a signup list to see how many ppl want in, so u could find out what the total savings for each person would be if there is a bulk shipment.. would the savings be on the shipping or the actuall leds?

I'm in the process of writing a PM to fdd2blk to see if he will be willing to help out. To my knowledge, the prices that I gave in the first post would be the prices that everyone would get. Now, if the order were big enough (ie, 100 or more), we might get a better deal on them. More than likely the majority of savings would be seen in the actual cost of the lamps themselves (can we say $1000 savings on a 600W lamp?! lol).

leds are shite, my friend was bangin on about em and he only yielded an 8th off a plant i gave him. i yielded 2.5 onces on the same hieght plant and same strain. it was a weak leggy thind as well. leds are a bid pile of poo...

I'm getting pretty sick of you uneducated fools responding to my topic. Did you ever consider that your friend might have less than ideal conditions aside from the LEDs? Maybe your friend isn't as good a grower as you claim yourself to be. By the way, learn to spell, you overused tube sock.

 

[shrigpiece]

I'm in the process of writing a PM to fdd2blk to see if he will be willing to help out. To my knowledge, the prices that I gave in the first post would be the prices that everyone would get. Now, if the order were big enough (ie, 100 or more), we might get a better deal on them. More than likely the majority of savings would be seen in the actual cost of the lamps themselves (can we say $1000 savings on a 600W lamp?! lol).


I'm getting pretty sick of you uneducated fools responding to my topic. Did you ever consider that your friend might have less than ideal conditions aside from the LEDs? Maybe your friend isn't as good a grower as you claim yourself to be. By the way, learn to spell, you overused tube sock.

hes a good grower, hes using HPS again and things are good. Uneducated? pissed maybe. i like beer. i never insulted you. why do you care so much if you wearn't a sales bloke. 4 WORDS YOU ARE A PLANK!!

 

[CaptainPointless]

hes a good grower, hes using HPS again and things are good. Uneducated? pissed maybe. i like beer. i never insulted you. why do you care so much if you wearn't a sales bloke. 4 WORDS YOU ARE A PLANK!!

Fortunately I am NOT a sales "bloke." As I have stated MANY times throughout this thread (though I'm sure you couldn't be bothered to read more than the title), I am NOT the seller of this product, nor am I interested in making any money on it. All I am trying to do is find people who ARE interested in growing with LEDs, because I found a source who can provide them at an affordable cost (which happens to be the most prohibitive aspect of LEDs at the moment). I guess, maybe it's a foreign concept to you, that someone would actually go out of their way to help make things affordable for other people, but I don't know...maybe I was just raised right.

As for the reason I "care so much," it is because I have responded upwards of 15 times in the same thread to nearly identical responses to the one that you have so eloquently contributed. And for the record, you Brits have funny insults -- plank, what, you're calling me a piece of wood? I'm so hurt.