Led Users Unite!

Dodgey99 said:

I have to say, for all the Mars Hydro bashing, I've just flowered a 4x4 tent on them and I'm impressed.

I normally grow NFT, 5 plants to a 4x4ft tent, 400w MH veg, 600w HPS flower.

Depending on the strain, I get between 11 and 14 ounces. That's proper dry - self use dry - not "nearly dry" to sell. Mostly around 12 ounces. So we are looking at 0.5 to 0.6 gm per watt (my 600 HPS on digital ballast pulls 640w from the wall). I reitterate, dry - I see buds that get sold (someone else I know) and our idea of dry and cured are different, through different motivation.

The latest crop, I vegged with 400W MH, but then switched to LED for all of the flowering phase. I picked up two Mars Reflector "blurple" 144 LED units - the long ones with three panels in each . One is the older 3w led version, and the other the newer 5w led version. I paid around £100 GBP each. Together they pull 540 watts from the wall in full-on mode (veg & bloom both on).

Flowering was markedly different. The buds started with many more white hairs than I'm used to. Very neat. When the buds actually started getting bigger they were much much denser than I'm used to. Very dense structure, more compact and less airy than I'm used to (Purple bud, growing from cuttings used under HPS previously). Almost "knuckle like" in their density. Strikingly different. Also no signs at all of heat stress or bleaching. I kept the lights about 1ft above the canopy.

Because the two rectangular lights fill the space so well in a 4x4 tent I got very even bud sizes across the canopy, rather than the giants being focussed nearer the middle.

I also didn't notice any difference at all betweem the side with 3w leds, and the side with 5w leds. Which wasn't a big surprise as they pull a very similar current from the wall.

I weighed it up tonight. Again, properly twig-snapping dry. Done slowly over 2 weeks. They stink before they've been near the curing jars. 9 Oz. So thats 0.46 gm / watt.

Not bad at all. Not far behind my HPS average (0.51 and 0.60 at best) with a very easy to harvest crop (neat compact dense buds), and all running around 2 degrees C lower than my HPS.

I bought a third light for less than £100 too, so I might try flowering with all three next time.

Are they worth the money at full price? Definitely not. Lower yield for a LOT of money of you bought two at RRP you'd be short of £420, whereas an £80 HPS setup would yield more. But as an experiment, I was impressed. If I lived somewhere where the heat was a problem it would be an attractive option, and based on my simple experiment, I can confirm they are not "shit" / "junk"

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Troggy_420 said:

Hey everyone, new to the indoor growing world and new to leds. I currently start my outdoors under a 400w mh factory light that I picked up at a garage sale for 25$ and will be starting my indoors under it as well I till I find what I’m looking for in a led. A Friend pointed me in the direction on this used add on a buy and sell site. 1000$ cad. retails for over 2000$ New so I thought I’d see what you lovely humans recommend I do within that price range. Maybe someone familiar with that brand or has another they would recommend. Thanks

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oldtimer54 said:

Im a LED grower and have been for about 7or 8 years . I Ihave used the cheap Chinese lights and I have used what I thought to be high quality lights as well .
When I first started it was strictly the Chinese lights .I had grown outdoors for decades but I was new to indoor growing . I was pleased with the final results that the cheap lights produced
After a few grows with the inexpensive Chinese lights I thought I'd step up my game with a more expensive light and was quite impressed with the difference in the quality of the unit and the intensity of the light the warranty and customer service that the manufacturer provided. With that being said you can have success with the Chinese lights but you run the chance of problems that you will have to remedy on your own.
I was lucky the problems I had with the cheap lights were minor and never caused me any significant problems. With my high end lights I've never experienced any problems . As u can see I didn't name any manufacturers . Do a little research and buy what you can afford . Learn from your mistakes and keep plugging away. Make upgrades when you can if you think you need them. I try and keep a spare light just in case and to be honest it's a cheap Chinese light and if all else fails I have a 1000 watt metal halide with ballast that was a gift from a friend.

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Troggy_420 said:

Thanks for the info, I’m going to go with the light I had posted l. It still has warranty and I’ve had bad experiences cheating out on things with other hobbies so I’m gonna go balls deep and spend the money and if all els fails hopefully I can get close to what I paid for it in resale

Click to expand...

oldtimer54 said:

Im a LED grower and have been for about 7or 8 years . I Ihave used the cheap Chinese lights and I have used what I thought to be high quality lights as well .
When I first started it was strictly the Chinese lights .I had grown outdoors for decades but I was new to indoor growing . I was pleased with the final results that the cheap lights produced
After a few grows with the inexpensive Chinese lights I thought I'd step up my game with a more expensive light and was quite impressed with the difference in the quality of the unit and the intensity of the light the warranty and customer service that the manufacturer provided. With that being said you can have success with the Chinese lights but you run the chance of problems that you will have to remedy on your own.
I was lucky the problems I had with the cheap lights were minor and never caused me any significant problems. With my high end lights I've never experienced any problems . As u can see I didn't name any manufacturers . Do a little research and buy what you can afford . Learn from your mistakes and keep plugging away. Make upgrades when you can if you think you need them. I try and keep a spare light just in case and to be honest it's a cheap Chinese light and if all else fails I have a 1000 watt metal halide with ballast that was a gift from a friend.

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oldtimer54 said:

It's better to start out a little high to begin with.
Once the seedings pop thru the ground you should be able to judge if they need the light closer. Your new light should have some info that can give you a starting point
I'm sure you've seen spindly seedings before.
You'll have to judge for yourself. If you're to close you'll just fry them. I checked out the light you were thinking about purchasing and if I remember it was dimmable . Start out on the lowest setting it will allow u to move the light closer. My lights have a veg/bloom setting I germinate my seedlings on the veg setting.
Once again good luck to you !

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mooray said:

This was a great post, thanks a ton for taking the time to lay out the specifics. If you could somehow be my personal guinea pig, I'd ask you to try the same grow with a couple of the Kingbrite 240w panels.

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Dodgey99 said:

I have to say, for all the Mars Hydro bashing, I've just flowered a 4x4 tent on them and I'm impressed.

I normally grow NFT, 5 plants to a 4x4ft tent, 400w MH veg, 600w HPS flower.

Depending on the strain, I get between 11 and 14 ounces. That's proper dry - self use dry - not "nearly dry" to sell. Mostly around 12 ounces. So we are looking at 0.5 to 0.6 gm per watt (my 600 HPS on digital ballast pulls 640w from the wall). I reitterate, dry - I see buds that get sold (someone else I know) and our idea of dry and cured are different, through different motivation.

The latest crop, I vegged with 400W MH, but then switched to LED for all of the flowering phase. I picked up two Mars Reflector "blurple" 144 LED units - the long ones with three panels in each . One is the older 3w led version, and the other the newer 5w led version. I paid around £100 GBP each. Together they pull 540 watts from the wall in full-on mode (veg & bloom both on).

Flowering was markedly different. The buds started with many more white hairs than I'm used to. Very neat. When the buds actually started getting bigger they were much much denser than I'm used to. Very dense structure, more compact and less airy than I'm used to (Purple bud, growing from cuttings used under HPS previously). Almost "knuckle like" in their density. Strikingly different. Also no signs at all of heat stress or bleaching. I kept the lights about 1ft above the canopy.

Because the two rectangular lights fill the space so well in a 4x4 tent I got very even bud sizes across the canopy, rather than the giants being focussed nearer the middle.

I also didn't notice any difference at all betweem the side with 3w leds, and the side with 5w leds. Which wasn't a big surprise as they pull a very similar current from the wall.

I weighed it up tonight. Again, properly twig-snapping dry. Done slowly over 2 weeks. They stink before they've been near the curing jars. 9 Oz. So thats 0.46 gm / watt.

Not bad at all. Not far behind my HPS average (0.51 and 0.60 at best) with a very easy to harvest crop (neat compact dense buds), and all running around 2 degrees C lower than my HPS.

I bought a third light for less than £100 too, so I might try flowering with all three next time.

Are they worth the money at full price? Definitely not. Lower yield for a LOT of money of you bought two at RRP you'd be short of £420, whereas an £80 HPS setup would yield more. But as an experiment, I was impressed. If I lived somewhere where the heat was a problem it would be an attractive option, and based on my simple experiment, I can confirm they are not "shit" / "junk"

Click to expand...