Hal Incandenza
Active Member
...when I have some of these!
No but seriously, why do people chose LEDs instead of HIDs?
No but seriously, why do people chose LEDs instead of HIDs?
Why should I use LEDs...
- Thread starter Hal Incandenza
- Start date
Swiftowl11
Active Member
California grower, got LA sheriff choppers all the time scanning houses. About 1 year ago, a house on my block got raided out, they were growing in the whole top half of the house. Nice suburban neighborhood too. Don't want that happening to me and my family. So I went led. No heat for the choppers to see.
puffenuff
Well-Known Member
For me it all boils down to efficiency, max yield with minimum watts. It's just my way of doing a little more to consume less energy for mother nature's sake. Less heat is an added bonus. Higher thc content is another plus. I'm also a big tech geek so I love getting new gadgets. Everyone has their own reasons for choosing their lights and nobody is wrong or stupid for it.
stardustsailor
Well-Known Member
-It seems that you never tried out some "led weed"...
The quality is astonishing...Regarding potency,aroma and taste...
This kind of quality ,only a HQI + MH combo of HID lights ,will probably be able to provide ..
HPS will never reach that kind of quality...Never...
-Soon,the quantity per watt ,is going to be surpassed ,by leds also....
-Electricity bills ? There 're already ,plenty of led grow lights,outhere, that provide an efficiency ( grams / kWh ) ,that HPS growers can only dream of....
-Plants do not spend their photosynthesis energy yields to protect themshelves from heat...
-Better climate conditions ..Healthier plants...
-Ever had a broken lamp ? Fond of house fires or Quicksilver (Mercury ) "treated" weed ?
-Ever got shocked-electrocuted from Fe/Cu ballast ? ....
(Makes nice dread-lockish hairstyle,though..After the short "low-flight" across the room )......
-In fact ,HPS lamps are supplementary lighting to MH lamps .Check out what HPS/MH makers ,say about their lamps and growing plants......
i.e. ....
....HPS ?
Prehistoric....
Lux Neardental....
At 70's they had HQI....
At 80's-90's had HPS/MH....
Now,year is 2012 ....
Technology moves fast forward ....
Of course ,it's not obligatory to follow along ...To get on board...
But,it's never too late...
Adjust-a-wing can be recycled into a nice toy-airplane,with a bit of cutting & mending ....
Or a nice home-made , light reflector for photography purposes....
Furthermore...
What leds have to offer to a grower (and to plants) comparing to HPS ?
......
Let's just say ,that render HPS useless ...
Along with any kind of reflector ....
.....
....
Hal Incandenza
Active Member
Nice sales pitch, but...
1. Any evidence to support this wild claim?
2. Nope.
3. Nope...this stuff doesn't happen to me.
LED lights are also extremely dangerous to the human eye at higher (150+) wattage. So far I'm not convinced that LEDs are a smart choice for growing.
dolamic
Well-Known Member
People can't use 1000 watt lamps in a closet grow, people don't want to burn up their clothes and shit. HPS/MH is a lot more work to me, more wiring, more heat, more space. LED's are the best thing for me right now, and I'm not going to be a salesman either. I just like 'em, you don't. So that's that.
IlovePlants
Well-Known Member
Really at this point anyone and everyone is probably starting to notice LEDs replacing commercial lighting. As large as the commercial cannabis industry is, the commercial lighting industry will always be a thousand fold larger. So you have this massive industry that gets to trade off low materials cost for high manufacturing cost, and as an added bonus currently they are making a huge markup until people catch on, switch over, and force competition to lower prices.
At the current pace of technological advance, LEDs will soon catch up to HID lights. LEDs aren't just being used to grow cannabis, they are also being used in almost every form of modern technology, hell they're even starting to switch the street lights over to LEDs. With this new lighting technology taking over the commercial industry, and the fact that they are cool running and nearly 2D, I think that it will be a matter of years before the advances and product testing take LEDs over the hump and towards a brighter future.
Over a year and a half ago Bridgelux announced they had a silicon substrate led that produced 135lumens/watt. Considering that 600w HIDs get around that amount, I thought that it would be prudent to invest in something that was so absolutely clearly better in most ways when compared with HID lighting. If technology continues to get better, the most likely scenario, then I have made a wise choice.
http://phys.org/news/2011-03-bridgelux-silicon-substrate-lumens-watt.html
^Bridgelux Silicon Substrate chip
Don't look at the Led Grow Light industry as any indicator of the health of the LED market, as they are just a small piece of a larger picture. If you really want some amazing lights, build some LEDs yourself so that you know what's in them. LEDs are here to stay, and they are getting better every day. If you don't think so, well too bad for you I guess. There are some companies putting out LED lights that have yields extremely similar to HID, look them up. Oh yeah if you would have, then you wouldn't have posted this question.
Good one!
IMHO eventually this wont be a question anymore, and in reality the question has been sounding more and more silly over the past year. I'm sure this year they'll be taking HIDs down to a tenth of their physical size, reduce the heat emitted to only 20-30'f over ambient temps, make ballasts that don't use up extra wattage, and all at the exact same price as last time you bought new lights! Yeah, I'm sure that's going to happen, you just wait for that and I'll keep growing with my LEDs.
Best wishes in your growing endeavors,
ILovePlants
At the current pace of technological advance, LEDs will soon catch up to HID lights. LEDs aren't just being used to grow cannabis, they are also being used in almost every form of modern technology, hell they're even starting to switch the street lights over to LEDs. With this new lighting technology taking over the commercial industry, and the fact that they are cool running and nearly 2D, I think that it will be a matter of years before the advances and product testing take LEDs over the hump and towards a brighter future.
Over a year and a half ago Bridgelux announced they had a silicon substrate led that produced 135lumens/watt. Considering that 600w HIDs get around that amount, I thought that it would be prudent to invest in something that was so absolutely clearly better in most ways when compared with HID lighting. If technology continues to get better, the most likely scenario, then I have made a wise choice.
http://phys.org/news/2011-03-bridgelux-silicon-substrate-lumens-watt.html
^Bridgelux Silicon Substrate chip
Don't look at the Led Grow Light industry as any indicator of the health of the LED market, as they are just a small piece of a larger picture. If you really want some amazing lights, build some LEDs yourself so that you know what's in them. LEDs are here to stay, and they are getting better every day. If you don't think so, well too bad for you I guess. There are some companies putting out LED lights that have yields extremely similar to HID, look them up. Oh yeah if you would have, then you wouldn't have posted this question.
Good one!IMHO eventually this wont be a question anymore, and in reality the question has been sounding more and more silly over the past year. I'm sure this year they'll be taking HIDs down to a tenth of their physical size, reduce the heat emitted to only 20-30'f over ambient temps, make ballasts that don't use up extra wattage, and all at the exact same price as last time you bought new lights! Yeah, I'm sure that's going to happen, you just wait for that and I'll keep growing with my LEDs.
Best wishes in your growing endeavors,
ILovePlants
You should wait as long as possible before buying your LED's......... the technology is changing rapidly and getting better every couple months it seems. I bought 4 lights a few years ago and ended up sending them back. The lights are much better now and will be that much better say in 6 months. Prices will come down too.
Hal Incandenza
Active Member
I really rustled your jimmies, huh?.... Don't look at the Led Grow Light industry as any indicator of the health of the LED market, as they are just a small piece of a larger picture. If you really want some amazing lights, build some LEDs yourself so that you know what's in them. LEDs are here to stay, and they are getting better every day. If you don't think so, well too bad for you I guess. There are some companies putting out LED lights that have yields extremely similar to HID, look them up. Oh yeah if you would have, then you wouldn't have posted this question.
IMHO eventually this wont be a question anymore, and in reality the question has been sounding more and more silly over the past year. I'm sure this year they'll be taking HIDs down to a tenth of their physical size, reduce the heat emitted to only 20-30'f over ambient temps, make ballasts that don't use up extra wattage, and all at the exact same price as last time you bought new lights! Yeah, I'm sure that's going to happen, you just wait for that and I'll keep growing with my LEDs.
Best wishes in your growing endeavors,
ILovePlants
I own about $2,500 in HID lighting equipment, so at this point, how LED's are currently priced, it would be silly to buy them as replacements.Yeah, I believe it. When the $/lumen is better than an HID's, I may gradually switch to LED's.
stardustsailor
Well-Known Member
Well,to be honest ,I do not belong to the "sales" department ...
I like better "researching".....
Anyway...
1) Plenty of evidence....Ask around ex-HID growers ...
Get a "chromatographic cannabinoid analysis kit " .
https://greeneacrescaregiver.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/test-for-thc-cbd-cbn-cannabinoids-at-home-grow-buddy™-created-by-montana-biotech/
Analyse HID grown weed and led grown weed (same clones if you like..) ..There's your evidence...You'll probably be amazed ,by the difference...
-Trusting to your smelling /tasting senses also,provides plenty of evidence...
2) Well ,a lot of other people had their houses burned down by a HID -grow....
Or their weed ,showered with mercury / sodium from a broken lamp...
3) I hope that it will never happen to you or anybody else...
Dealing with 50-60 volts is way different than dealing with some Kvolts of HID ballast (at start ) or 100-150 volts (after lamp 'ignition' )..
Sh!t can always happen there...
(both cases...At one case though ,one learns to fly ....
It takes about 30'-60' for the muscles to stop "trembling",after being electrocuted from HID ballast.The experience is rather ..shocking).
Any kind of light is extremely dangerous to the human eye at higher luminosities.
The Sun is dangerous also....
In what way you are convinced that HIDs are a smart choise for growing ?
How do you define "smart choise" ?
stardustsailor
Well-Known Member
Well ,nowdays ,the cheapest -crappiest of (white) leds have same radiometric output efficiency ,as the most efficient of HIDS...
That being .3 ( 30% of electric energy /power turned into light & 70% into heat...)
Now...
Taking into account the better spectral characteristics of leds for plant growing ..
(more reds-blues than any HID,without "high peaks" or "deep valleys" at their spectrum . )
Yes ..HIDs are rendered useless ,comparing to i.e. white leds......
Whether you like it or not....
Numbers,graphs and physical/chemical /biological facts ,
are way more solid than any human opinions or preferences...
Once more :
HIDs are rendered useless by leds .
Soon it will become an ordinary reality ,in almost all aspects of artificial electric lighting ...
(400 W of white leds can grow almost double amount of weed ,from 400 Watts of any HID ..)
And you can laugh as loud as you like ,about it...
It won't change anything....
stardustsailor
Well-Known Member
Those are two plants (White Russians ) grown under 135 Watts (at plug ) of ( white mostly) cheapo leds ..( 0.3$ per diode )
8th week of flowerin'....
Can any of 150 Watt (how much at plug ? )HID lamps , grow plants like those ?
....
LOL !
8th week of flowerin'....
Can any of 150 Watt (how much at plug ? )HID lamps , grow plants like those ?
....
LOL !
Beefbisquit
Well-Known Member
>1g/W.... nuff said.
There's a lot more involved than $/lumen (and SDS has named some)...but if that's your primary metric then you need to include all costs and do so over some time too....replacing bulbs, dealing with all that heat (A/C, large fans, ducting, etc) and the monthly electric bill. Most businesses would consider 3 years a fine payback time but of course every "business" is different and you'll have to figure the right timeframe for you to get a payback. Maybe you are quitting growing in a year...
Maybe you should try some LED side lighting and see if it does anything marvelous for you and your plants. Experimentation is a wonderful thing so you can see for yourself.
PSUAGRO.
Well-Known Member
Well to be fair SDS......an HPS bulb catastrophically failing/ aka "glass grenade" is EXTREMELY rare(never heard of one incident), that's why their ALL open fixture rated.. the inner arc is under low pressure and the surrounding glass envelope is under high pressure. Now MH bulbs can explode by being over-driven/mechanical ware/etc. that's why most mh bulbs are closed fixture rated for safety...........but yes leds are safer to use in an unsupervised environment...........what's the point of this thread anyways????
Hal Incandenza
Active Member
...to find out if I should replace thousands of dollars of HID lighting with LEDs. So far I've only gotten irritable responses citing anecdotal evidence. So I guess this thread was a waste...
Endur0xX
Well-Known Member
I really rustled your jimmies, huh?
Yeah, I believe it. When the $/lumen is better than an HID's, I may gradually switch to LED's.
this thread isnt a waste of time.
if you own 2500$ in HID lighting equipment, how much do you spend on bulbs every year?
I am asking because I was talking to someone and he mentioned something about having to go to the hydro store to buy bulbs and at that point I thought how nice it was not having to worry about the bulbs fading or not being at peak performance... If LEDs work as advertised (Lifetime warranty my main lights anyway) they should last me about 10 years without ever replacing anything. Time will tell...
If you buy high quality HPS/MH bulbs, you dont need many years with LEDs for them to be paid off. Assuming the quality is on par with your expectation.
LEDs are definitely not for everyone but I believe if you try them you would not be disappointed but I would not recommend you to replace your whole setup all at once, starting with one light and then compare, learn ... if you dont like them to flower you will like them to veg anyway... it wont be a waste of money in the end.