I just don't get LED's....Someone enlighten me

lilroach

lilroach

Well-Known Member
I have just about every type of light currently in my grow room. I have MH, HPS, T5's, CFL's and even a couple of T8's. Most were purchased on Craigslist so I don't have a ton invested in lighting.

I am obviously an interested party in regards to lighting....but when I look at the cost of LED's, and the perceived lack of "throw" or penetration I've read about with these lights....I have to ask why is there such a following to use these expensive lights that don't seem to offer more and often offer less than traditional lighting.

I'm not trying to be a dick, I just want to understand the draw to this type of lighting.
 
kinddiesel

kinddiesel

Well-Known Member
I have seen a lot of pics of led grows. and my opinion . I could get a 50 dollar cfl lamp to out preform a 900 dollar led. I see veg pics with led and the plants are stretched so tall. not bushy at all. you thought mh stretches plants some wait until you see a led veg ! lol led are insanely over prices for what they do. if your trying to save cash then use cfl. I would compare led to Christmas tree lights . and I bet the Christmas light would grow better, this is my opinion. I have seen a lot of led grows. and they all look horrible. can go into the hydro store and look at a led veg. and see the most sick looking plants any where. if a hydro store cant make health plants with led, you will never make a quality product at home .
 
PICOGRAV

PICOGRAV

Well-Known Member
kinddiesel said:
I have seen a lot of pics of led grows. and my opinion . I could get a 50 dollar cfl lamp to out preform a 900 dollar led. I see veg pics with led and the plants are stretched so tall. not bushy at all. you thought mh stretches plants some wait until you see a led veg ! lol led are insanely over prices for what they do. if your trying to save cash then use cfl. I would compare led to Christmas tree lights . and I bet the Christmas light would grow better, this is my opinion. I have seen a lot of led grows. and they all look horrible. can go into the hydro store and look at a led veg. and see the most sick looking plants any where. if a hydro store cant make health plants with led, you will never make a quality product at home .
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[video=youtube;v5Ky4OnXdEM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Ky4OnXdEM[/video]
 
lilroach

lilroach

Well-Known Member
kinddiesel said:
I have seen a lot of pics of led grows. and my opinion . I could get a 50 dollar cfl lamp to out preform a 900 dollar led. I see veg pics with led and the plants are stretched so tall. not bushy at all. you thought mh stretches plants some wait until you see a led veg ! lol led are insanely over prices for what they do. if your trying to save cash then use cfl. I would compare led to Christmas tree lights . and I bet the Christmas light would grow better, this is my opinion. I have seen a lot of led grows. and they all look horrible. can go into the hydro store and look at a led veg. and see the most sick looking plants any where. if a hydro store cant make health plants with led, you will never make a quality product at home .
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I'm not asking so we can bash LED's.....I've seen nice plants grown under these lights...as I have other light sources. I just want to understand why as many people are drawn to these lights as there are.
 
kombucha20

kombucha20

Well-Known Member
Some ppl will like the because of the little power they use and they don't put off alot of heat, good for stealth grows, I'm using 2 Hans panels now and they seem to be working great.... So far
 
PICOGRAV

PICOGRAV

Well-Known Member
kombucha20 said:
Some ppl will like the because of the little power they use and they don't put off alot of heat, good for stealth grows, I'm using 2 Hans panels now and they seem to be working great.... So far
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LED lighting produces about the same or more heat then HPS lights (HPS is still one of the most efficient light sources developed), LEDs have the heat advantage because most of the heat is being displaced on the opposite side to where the light is omitted, there for, allowing much better cooling design.
 
Adjorr

Adjorr

Well-Known Member
My LED grows are definatly not sickly or stretchy looking. LEDs use less energy and create less heat, when used properly they watt for watt can match HPS or even surpass it. Older LED units were crap so if your looking at information from a few years ago your not going to see anything impressive, but if you look at journals of people using good quality LED units recently the results speak for themselves.
and HPS definatly isn't the most efficient light source available, only about 20% of the light put off by a HPS is actually usable to the plant, where LEDS have a spectrum custom designed so that 100% of the light is useable to the plant. Im not much on math but 100% seems higher then 20% to me. HID have LED beat in coverage area per bulb and initial startup cost, that's about it
 
PICOGRAV

PICOGRAV

Well-Known Member
In addition you will use roughly about the same amount of power to produce the same light intensity (in lumens) as HPS lighting systems, again the advantages are much much narrow patterns, say 90 to 120 degrees, where as HPS will release light radiation in almost full 360 degrees, this is a problem, unless you are growing vertically or can make full use of the light, normally people will use a reflector to get all the light back into a 90-120 degree beam but you will see big losses in efficiency.

People need to realize you almost have to use nearly 60-80% LED power to match HPS power, so to match a 1000 watt HPS 600-800 watts of LED power,

IMO anyway...
 
PICOGRAV

PICOGRAV

Well-Known Member
Adjorr said:
My LED grows are definatly not sickly or stretchy looking. LEDs use less energy and create less heat, when used properly they watt for watt can match HPS or even surpass it. Older LED units were crap so if your looking at information from a few years ago your not going to see anything impressive, but if you look at journals of people using good quality LED units recently the results speak for themselves.
and HPS definatly isn't the most efficient light source available, only about 20% of the light put off by a HPS is actually usable to the plant, where LEDS have a spectrum custom designed so that 100% of the light is useable to the plant. Im not much on math but 100% seems higher then 20% to me. HID have LED beat in coverage area per bulb and initial startup cost, that's about it
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I don't really want to augury with you but, your information is wrong, if we are talking lumens, yes HPS is not the highest, but LPS are (low pressure sodium lamps). The light they output is a little off as to what growers wanted tho, so HPS was key. LEDs theoretically could way out preform other lighting systems but it is just not there yet.

To many people think the spectrum is the key to light, how could you even think 100% of LED light is used by the plant? If that were the case then there would be no reflections from the leaves and we would actually not be able to see the plant under LED lighting.
 
hyroot

hyroot

Well-Known Member
PICOGRAV said:
In addition you will use roughly about the same amount of power to produce the same light intensity (in lumens) as HPS lighting systems, again the advantages are much much narrow patterns, say 90 to 120 degrees, where as HPS will release light radiation in almost full 360 degrees, this is a problem, unless you are growing vertically or can make full use of the light, normally people will use a reflector to get all the light back into a 90-120 degree beam but you will see big losses in efficiency.

People need to realize you almost have to use nearly 60-80% LED power to match HPS power, so to match a 1000 watt HPS 600-800 watts of LED power,

IMO anyway...
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that is 100% false.

first off lumens and watts don't mean shit. Its about par , spectrum, and cri. Leds produce far better quality and match or beat yield at 1/3 of the power. Leds last 10 times longer than an hps bulb. Leds have 3 year to life warranties. Leds target the wave lengths that plants absorb without wasting light like hps.

there's a ton of threads here to prove just that. Dawgs thread . He got 310grams of dank dense big buds for 310 watts of area 51 cree led
captainmorgan got close to half a p from 190 w of cree globes. Slipons thread, trueg thread, tags420 thread, green santas thread, puffenuffs thread, psuagros thread, 619sters thread, prosperians thread, all the astir threads, etc...
...

read all those threads before making such an ignorant asinine comment. This section speaks for itself.
 
PICOGRAV

PICOGRAV

Well-Known Member
hyroot said:
that is 100% false.

first off lumens and watts don't mean shit. Its about par , spectrum, and cri. Leds produce far better quality and match or beat yield at 1/3 of the power. Leds last 10 times longer than an hps bulb. Leds have 3 year to life warranties. Leds target the wave lengths that plants absorb without wasting light like hps.

there's a ton of threads here to prove just that. Dawgs thread . He got 310grams of dank dense big buds for 310 watts of area 51 cree led
captainmorgan got close to half a p from 190 w of cree globes. Slipons thread, trueg thread, tags420 thread, green santas thread, puffenuffs thread, psuagros thread, 619sters thread, prosperians thread, all the astir threads, etc...
...

read all those threads before making such an ignorant asinine comment. This section speaks for itself.
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I am not wrong, do your research when you can, why would I post such foolish things? My judgement is good and I can always back it up, so please move on.
 
hyroot

hyroot

Well-Known Member
You are very wrong. I have done my research and many grows. Do your research. Its obvious you don't have a clue troll. You just want to argue. Yet you won't take the time to read anything... You have zero experience with led...
 
loquacious

loquacious

Well-Known Member
If LED's are so great, why are they only light source that everyone agrees needs supplemental lighting for better yields? In fact, there are several professional LED grow lights with built in supplemental lighting. If the companies making them are adding supplemental lighting to their fixtures maybe LED isn't all it's cracked up to be! Besides, plasma is way better than any other light source!
 
Adjorr

Adjorr

Well-Known Member
PICOGRAV said:
I am not wrong, do your research when you can, why would I post such foolish things? My judgement is good and I can always back it up, so please move on.
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I don't know why you post foolish things, but if you can back up what your saying by all means back it up with something. There are dozens of threads on this forum showing how great LED can be, and just about anyone who tries LED sticks with them as they are an improvement over HPS, even the skeptics cant argue with results

[video=youtube;MVNxNVnkBPE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVNxNVnkBPE[/video]
 
hyroot

hyroot

Well-Known Member
loquacious said:
If LED's are so great, why are they only light source that everyone agrees needs supplemental lighting for better yields? In fact, there are several professional LED grow lights with built in supplemental lighting. If the companies making them are adding supplemental lighting to their fixtures maybe LED isn't all it's cracked up to be! Besides, plasma is way better than any other light source!
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another false statement. Are you reading threads from 2006. Leds have come along way
passed up hid a couple years ago.
 
PICOGRAV

PICOGRAV

Well-Known Member
hyroot said:
You are very wrong. I have done my research and many grows. Do your research. Its obvious you don't have a clue troll. You just want to argue. Yet you won't take the time to read anything... You have zero experience with led...
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Could you explain to me, how anything I said was wrong please, should be easy for you to some a few examples up, I will be waiting, thanks.
 
loquacious

loquacious

Well-Known Member
Adjorr said:
I don't know why you post foolish things, but if you can back up what your saying by all means back it up with something. There are dozens of threads on this forum showing how great LED can be, and just about anyone who tries LED sticks with them as they are an improvement over HPS, even the skeptics cant argue with results

[video=youtube;MVNxNVnkBPE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVNxNVnkBPE[/video]
Click to expand...

I find it interesting that in the video the guy says that you don't really have any energy savings when you use enough to match HPS. It starts at 1:52 of the video.
 
fuking

fuking

Well-Known Member
PICOGRAV said:
Could you explain to me, how anything I said was wrong please, should be easy for you to some a few examples up, I will be waiting, thanks.
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He already did. Read his past posts which provide you with plenty of grows and information on just how effective LEDs are. Don't be mad that you can't spend the money on an $800 light and go straight to calling it shit. Area 51 lights are probably the most renown for there growth. Stop arguing with him and let bygones be bygones.
 
PICOGRAV

PICOGRAV

Well-Known Member
Adjorr said:
I don't know why you post foolish things, but if you can back up what your saying by all means back it up with something. There are dozens of threads on this forum showing how great LED can be, and just about anyone who tries LED sticks with them as they are an improvement over HPS, even the skeptics cant argue with results

[video=youtube;MVNxNVnkBPE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVNxNVnkBPE[/video]
Click to expand...
Did you even read the this hole thread? I am a fan of LED and I think they, for me anyway are the best. I think a lot of people don't understand them that well and thats why there is a big variation in results, for some people CFL, MH, HPS could be better if they are not willing to understand the technology.

The LED set up I have is very advanced and technical and I don't think a lot of people would be up to implementing them on the same level, if that's the case, CFL's or HPS could be better because they are less complex to understand and adjust, they offer high efficiency and good results, I think you can push further with LED and potently get better results.
 
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