Chinese LED Grow – 75 (actual draw) Watts per plant veg/100W per plant flower

aphrodisia said:

Looking very good GroErr, specially the JTRs, have you grown these before ? Have always wanted to try out subcoolsstuff but they dont do feminized seeds. Would like to grow out their agent orange. Anyway will you be flowering these under LEDs too or just vegging ?

Click to expand...

Thanks, they're looking happy so far. First time for both of these strains. For JTR, I wanted a saliva dominant strain with a kick, this strain can supposedly get as high as 26% THC which is about as high as it gets (not saying I'll get that but whatever, it has the potential). Hopefully, they'll both turn out to be ladies, I'm pretty confident the one in the 7Gal Geopot is, hopefully both but too early to tell. The PBK's are fem seeds I got as a freebie, I've been impressed so far, PBK1 is starting to run fast now, possibly outgrowing JTR1, should be good

This round we'll be vegging and flowering under these panels. Want to see what they can do, particularly in flowering. I know they can veg, been there, done that. In a couple of rounds I also plan to do these strains under a combo of vegging with these panels, then flowering with an Inda-Gro 420 induction light, to see if/what the differences are between them.

Well going by my own grow and this is just an observation, nothing scientific, but I reckon if you flower with LEDs you probably need to factor in an extra 2 to 3 weeks on top for the plants to properly bulk up and finish, but I think the extra time will be well worth it in the end. Eg, my herijuana is supposed to finish in 7 to 9 weeks but I reckon its going to be more like 10 to 11 weeks .

midgetaus said:

Its not that they dont work.. its that they more often than not break down, dont last more than a grow and dont live up to their warranty... reputations get earned not given for no reason..

Click to expand...

While I don't disagree that there are many fly-by-night LED's out there, with a bit of research and investigative work, there are panels out there that can grow quite well for relatively low investment, I believe these fall into that category. Haven't had to use their warranty yet but with a total of 5 panels, I imagine I'll get that opportunity at some point and post my experience. The way I look at it (hobby), if I get 4 oz, I've recovered my investment for all 5 panels, representing 1000W of actual draw. I've already gotten that from 2 plants (with the original "450" (300W) panel, and dealing with a bunch of environmental issues in my 2nd indoor grow - my bads, yet they still produced. This grow I expect to get 6 oz from three plants (larger one will veg longer and become a short-term mother while waiting for another batch to catch up). There are higher risks with buying anything other than top-tier, but even those break, so they're not risk free, you'll just get better support/warranty. If you're willing to live with higher risk though, these cheap panels can certainly pay off.

Another way you can look at it, is that if they can produce even 2-3 grows, the savings in electricity, and initial investment should grow you enough bud to pay for upgrades. Either way, it's low risk and not a huge investment.

Personally, from a budget stand-point, I could have gone straight to A51, even Apache. But getting into indoor after many years of outdoor I had no idea what to expect and wasn't going to invest 1000's into it before getting my feet wet. Spending a few g's on lights would have put some pressure on me to produce, and quite frankly, after the first 2 grows I'm glad I didn't spend a lot. Now I'm comfortable enough that I'll invest in induction next to see what that can do (one light will cost as much as I paid for all 5 of these cheap panels) but I'm glad I didn't spend big bucks on the first couple of rounds.

Just curious, can you explain the experience you had that left a bad enough taste in your mouth to post what you claim above?

EverythingsHazy said:

You are pulling 300w from a 400w chinese panel? That's great. How much did it cost? Link?

Click to expand...

Not sure if this was directed at me or someone else but if you go to the first post, I linked to these panels I'm using, and listed what each one actually draws for each panel. The "450" panels draw (metered) 200 on veg, 300 on veg/bloom which is kind of typical for chinese panel marketing...

In before metal shavings...

aphrodisia said:

Well going by my own grow and this is just an observation, nothing scientific, but I reckon if you flower with LEDs you probably need to factor in an extra 2 to 3 weeks on top for the plants to properly bulk up and finish, but I think the extra time will be well worth it in the end. Eg, my herijuana is supposed to finish in 7 to 9 weeks but I reckon its going to be more like 10 to 11 weeks .

Click to expand...

Interesting that you say that, my last grow took what I think was 2-3 weeks longer than it should have to finish as well. I attributed it to my fuck-ups rather than the lights, should be interesting to see if it happens this round, hopefully I can keep the environment steady so I can rule out brain farts as the cause - lol

Both of these are relatively quick finishers if you go by their documented finish times (8-9 weeks for PBK, 7-8 weeks for JTR which I think is a typo, that's very fast for a sativa dominant strain but we'll see).

GroErr said:

While I don't disagree that there are many fly-by-night LED's out there, with a bit of research and investigative work, there are panels out there that can grow quite well for relatively low investment, I believe these fall into that category. Haven't had to use their warranty yet but with a total of 5 panels, I imagine I'll get that opportunity at some point and post my experience. The way I look at it (hobby), if I get 4 oz, I've recovered my investment for all 5 panels, representing 1000W of actual draw. I've already gotten that from 2 plants (with the original "450" (300W) panel, and dealing with a bunch of environmental issues in my 2nd indoor grow - my bads, yet they still produced. This grow I expect to get 6 oz from three plants (larger one will veg longer and become a short-term mother while waiting for another batch to catch up). There are higher risks with buying anything other than top-tier, but even those break, so they're not risk free, you'll just get better support/warranty. If you're willing to live with higher risk though, these cheap panels can certainly pay off.

Another way you can look at it, is that if they can produce even 2-3 grows, the savings in electricity, and initial investment should grow you enough bud to pay for upgrades. Either way, it's low risk and not a huge investment.

Personally, from a budget stand-point, I could have gone straight to A51, even Apache. But getting into indoor after many years of outdoor I had no idea what to expect and wasn't going to invest 1000's into it before getting my feet wet. Spending a few g's on lights would have put some pressure on me to produce, and quite frankly, after the first 2 grows I'm glad I didn't spend a lot. Now I'm comfortable enough that I'll invest in induction next to see what that can do (one light will cost as much as I paid for all 5 of these cheap panels) but I'm glad I didn't spend big bucks on the first couple of rounds.

Just curious, can you explain the experience you had that left a bad enough taste in your mouth to post what you claim above?

Click to expand...

i dont dispute that you have lucked out and am really happy for you.

its a good thing to see not a bad thing..

For me i would just rather sepnd the extra for piece of mind as i dont watn the thing to break down mid grow... then you are really fucked but like i said... really good to see you growing some nice heads

It looks like you are doing good with that light. I bought a different one about 2 years ago, it's a 300 watt with actual draw of 185 watts. I got it before I did any real investigating and have been not to pleased with it. It works but it is noisey and about as warm as a 150 HPS and does not bud or veg very good. I have noticed a better selection lately on EBAY , targeting the correct light spectrums. Your plant's are looking good by the way. LED technology has been doubling every 18 months. Another two years from now there should be a good selection of killer LEDs. I have a grow pro 260, solar flare 200 and a Hans 80 watt panel going now. they are probably out dated already(electronics are that way). Any way I hope you do real well, I want to see a cheap LED that works good.

midgetaus said:

i dont dispute that you have lucked out and am really happy for you.

its a good thing to see not a bad thing..

For me i would just rather sepnd the extra for piece of mind as i dont watn the thing to break down mid grow... then you are really fucked but like i said... really good to see you growing some nice heads

Click to expand...

Thanks we'll see, I'm still a little skeptical on their flowering abilities compared to other technologies but after what I've seen them do during vegging they'll have a place in my veg room, don't mind mixing it up if these don't produce the bud quality I'm looking for. The way I look at it, use what makes the most sense for veg and flower, so could go veg with LED's and Flower with Induction, best of both worlds right now I think, takes advantage of cheaper power, less heat (and associated cooling costs), during the longest lights-on periods.

medicinehuman said:

It looks like you are doing good with that light. I bought a different one about 2 years ago, it's a 300 watt with actual draw of 185 watts. I got it before I did any real investigating and have been not to pleased with it. It works but it is noisey and about as warm as a 150 HPS and does not bud or veg very good. I have noticed a better selection lately on EBAY , targeting the correct light spectrums. Your plant's are looking good by the way. LED technology has been doubling every 18 months. Another two years from now there should be a good selection of killer LEDs. I have a grow pro 260, solar flare 200 and a Hans 80 watt panel going now. they are probably out dated already(electronics are that way). Any way I hope you do real well, I want to see a cheap LED that works good.

Click to expand...

Thanks, so far for vegging I'm happy with them. I have one of those older models, first one I bought on e-Bay about a year ago so don't feel bad. Worked well for vegging but sucked during flowering and noisy, sounds like an airplane They are definitely getting better though, but it's still buyer beware. they'll sell anything from china, if we're willing to pay for it

GroErr said:

Thanks we'll see, I'm still a little skeptical on their flowering abilities compared to other technologies but after what I've seen them do during vegging they'll have a place in my veg room, don't mind mixing it up if these don't produce the bud quality I'm looking for. The way I look at it, use what makes the most sense for veg and flower, so could go veg with LED's and Flower with Induction, best of both worlds right now I think, takes advantage of cheaper power, less heat (and associated cooling costs), during the longest lights-on periods.

Click to expand...

yeah I agree totally,

There is so much info out there about what does and what doesnt work... thats why grow diaries make so much difference.. I think half of it comes down to the grower too but if your light works I say ignore the price and keep using it

midgetaus said:

yeah I agree totally,

There is so much info out there about what does and what doesnt work... thats why grow diaries make so much difference.. I think half of it comes down to the grower too but if your light works I say ignore the price and keep using it

Click to expand...

I like this idea of journaling on here, keeps me on my toes and focused. It's easy to make mistakes and forget the basics, lights are a critical part but not the whole picture, light, water, air, and nutes (soil/organic, synthetic or both) makes or breaks the grow, a combination of all of them in synch. That's what I like about indoor, we get to (try to) control it

Gaius said:

Wait... a... minute...

I thought Chinese LEDs can't grow bud!!?

Better be careful, because according to several users here they're supposed to electrocute you, burn your house down, rape your daughter, and kick your dog...

Click to expand...

Mine did try grabbing my ass now that you mention it, but seems like a fair compromise in my book

GroErr said:

I like this idea of journaling on here, keeps me on my toes and focused. It's easy to make mistakes and forget the basics, lights are a critical part but not the whole picture, light, water, air, and nutes (soil/organic, synthetic or both) makes or breaks the grow, a combination of all of them in synch. That's what I like about indoor, we get to (try to) control it

Click to expand...

check out http://sourceforge.net/projects/herbiq/ awesome free software that I use to keep track of everything. Also has to where you can encrypt your info for some extra security, definitely worth at least checking out

hillbilly86 said:

check out http://sourceforge.net/projects/herbiq/ awesome free software that I use to keep track of everything. Also has to where you can encrypt your info for some extra security, definitely worth at least checking out

Click to expand...

Thanks, I actually have it and it looks great, just haven't spent any time using it yet, too many projects going on For now I just log everything into a Word document and use keywords for the titles so it's easy enough to go back and find it. Will eventually get around to either using this herbiq or build my own database, I'm a tech nerd so will probably just build my own whenever I get the itch/time. It does look pretty extensive though, would require a lot of input.

With my background in IT, will definitely incorporate more automation/technology as I go but I'll likely go with automation that tracks as much as possible for me vs trying to maintain inputting data. Started with some pretty basic stuff, using La Crosse Alerts wireless devices for each tent/cab/room, it logs temps/humidity/soil temps are logged for me and I just download them once/week into a spreadsheet. It also sends alerts to email or text based on user-set minimum/maximum criteria, saved my butt a couple of grows when 2 timers crapped out.

Longer term I'm eyeing this Growtronix system, haven't fully dug into it but I like the concept/potential... Will have to get a couple of decent crops before I invest in something like this though

The Growtronix system looks pretty sick, but at $560 for the base system it definitely is an investment along with everything else I'm having to drop money into lol. HerbIQ does take allot of user info input but for now it's definitely worth it for me. It's free and I can keep track of everything, and after the initial setup of putting in all the info it's not that hard or time consuming to maintain up to date info. I was using excel before to keep a general time table on my plants but with HerbIQ I can keep better track of 'em and keep track of my investment and payoff which is kinda nice. There's a good possibility I'll invest into Growtronix but it'll be a little ways down the road

hillbilly86 said:

The Growtronix system looks pretty sick, but at $560 for the base system it definitely is an investment along with everything else I'm having to drop money into lol. HerbIQ does take allot of user info input but for now it's definitely worth it for me. It's free and I can keep track of everything, and after the initial setup of putting in all the info it's not that hard or time consuming to maintain up to date info. I was using excel before to keep a general time table on my plants but with HerbIQ I can keep better track of 'em and keep track of my investment and payoff which is kinda nice. There's a good possibility I'll invest into Growtronix but it'll be a little ways down the road

Click to expand...

Oh yeah, it's a nice to have for sure, a few grows out in my case before I start that level of automation. HerbIQ for tracking looks great though if you don't mind all the input, but a nice db to track history for sure and the price is right

+rep GROERR! last year I did a similar experiment here on RIU using a 180w Chinese led later on in the experiment I got a second Chinese led 300w but that was only added in week 7 of my flowering scheme so a week and a half not sure it made a difference so late in the game. Anyways i was very impressed and finished with 2 oz. Im sure the thread is floating somewhere in the RIU matrix. I had to stop for awhile cool things down but I'm looking to do another thread using 480w total led power all China made. We should join threads and do a collaboration get two views on the so called forbidden led's!

youngbuzz101 said:

+rep GROERR! last year I did a similar experiment here on RIU using a 180w Chinese led later on in the experiment I got a second Chinese led 300w but that was only added in week 7 of my flowering scheme so a week and a half not sure it made a difference so late in the game. Anyways i was very impressed and finished with 2 oz. Im sure the thread is floating somewhere in the RIU matrix. I had to stop for awhile cool things down but I'm looking to do another thread using 480w total led power all China made. We should join threads and do a collaboration get two views on the so called forbidden led's!

Click to expand...

Hey Youngbuzz, thanks for popping by and the support Checked out your first run, looks like you did well considering everything you were doing was new to you, nice job My first run was similar around this time last year, lot's of new stuff and newbie to indoor but still got something to smoke and learned a lot so it's all good.

I wanted to post this run to quell a lot of assumptions about cheap LED's and see if I can do a clean run without too many issues, what these things will produce. Did a nice run last round even with some screw up's so hoping to keep this one dialled in and produce a good run. So far, so good, everything is dialled in nicely, they continue to grow an inch or so every couple of days. Just starting to setup for some fimming, LST, and will likely Super-crop the sativas as they seem to like it, next update/pics Sunday night...

Funny thing with these chinese LED's is they seem to be coming out of the closet per say, a few guys have been in here with the same lights and I've subbed to them as well, if we support each other through these grows, I think we'll see a few zips pulled from these "crap" panels They're not for everyone but I'll bet 80%+ of the LED being used in here are chinese and produce just fine for the relatively low investment. Grow on and good luck in your next run

Quick mid-week update before a full update Sunday. Babies are continuing to veg well, somewhere in the 1" every other day range. Not so much in height but they're spreading out quick and filling their pots well. As expected from previous LED grows, the node spacing is tight-tight. This is the first shot at these aerated pots and I think I like them. I'd heard they dry out faster and they should as I have air flowing under them with raised stands but with LED's they don't dry out as fast, my initial guess was 4-5 days between waterings. Watered them last night at day 5, larger pot (7Gal) was just about perfect dryness, smaller (3Gal) pots could have gone another day, even two without being too dry. Just another trait I like about vegging with LED's, less maintenance all-around, including watering. This works great for me as I travel a lot and my partner is great and will water them with very specific instructions, but she has a purple or brown thumb (not sure what colour but it sure isn't green!!) so I typically keep her away from the grow area for Karma reasons, except for trimming

This week's activities and plans:
Din't want to hack up the root pouch pots so I built some simple LST frames for the smaller pots that fit in each corner. They help to keep the pots stretched and provide somewhere for me to start LST'ng them. Cost about $12/each in PVC pipe/fittings, not bad, and they look cool I think I may do the same style for the 7Gal pot, the one I have is fine but takes a lot of room around it, it was built to allow for a SCROG fixture but I won't be scrogging this batch so will build a similar frame for it.
Started scoping out the directions I'll take each plant with LST, nothing much, just enough to shape and spread out to suck up as much light as possible
Will be fimming all of them by the weekend, this will be a first shot at it indoor, want to see how they behave and hopefully increase yield
Planning to also super-crop the JTR sat's as they (sat's) seem to respond well to this but that's a week or two out
Cabinet is dialled in well other than adjusting lights-out humidity to peak around 65-70%

That's it for now, two current infrared snapshots from inside the cabinet while the girls are sleeping, (1 shot can't capture everything, can't get it angled below the lights to capture a single shot of the cabinet).


Screen Shot of lights-on environment last night. Blue line is temp, green is humidity, Yellow is the soil temp probe. Sharp spike around 9:00 pm is me opening the cabinet to water and install the LST fixtures in the 3Gal pots:


Cheers