Led Users Unite!

joe macclennan said:

ok guys been lurking for a while now i have a question for you guys who have a blackstar i have ordered a few other items off epay pumps,timers,bulbs etc. and was dissapointed in the "discreet packaging" when the return address has hydro etc. etc. on it i think we can all agree this is not very discreet. so my question is how is this unit shipped?does it say gotham hydro? how else is it packaged any thoughts or info will be appreciated. i am going to be purchacing a few led fixtures soon and am going to try a hid/ led comparison of my own with stinkbuds aero system. also i was wondering about coverage i am wanting to cover a 8x8 area in flowering eventually phased in over the course of a couple crops and was thinking 4-500 watters should cover it but some of the posts on here have got me considering going with a greater number of say the 240 watt model i have always been of the opinion that more light is better and have been running 1-1000mh and 1-1000hps on their own light movers to cover said 8x8 area but electric bills are killin me and i am ready to make the leap into the next generation
sorry for such a long post!

thanx in advance for your input

Click to expand...

packaging was descreet enough for me.....but it is labeled gotham products on the shipper

thanks kush
i am going to call gotham anyways because i don't like the idea of having a history on ebay that anyone can check
i do have one more question on led fixtures in general tho guys i have seen the claims that a 500 watt led is equal to well over a 1000 watt hid in output but i find it hard to believe what have your experiences been regarding this and one dumb led newbie question a 500 watt led fixture is still going to burn 500 watts of electric so the main savings for me would be on heat related issues like a/c, venting, infrared detection and also bulb replacement costs right?

joe macclennan said:

thanks kush
i am going to call gotham anyways because i don't like the idea of having a history on ebay that anyone can check
i do have one more question on led fixtures in general tho guys i have seen the claims that a 500 watt led is equal to well over a 1000 watt hid in output but i find it hard to believe what have your experiences been regarding this and one dumb led newbie question a 500 watt led fixture is still going to burn 500 watts of electric so the main savings for me would be on heat related issues like a/c, venting, infrared detection and also bulb replacement costs right?

Click to expand...

That's not actually a dumb question and the power consuption with LED panels is actually quite confusing. First off your 1000WHID typically consumes about 1100 watts and I think Digital Ballasts are supposed to be a bit more efficient but they draw at least their advertised rating.

LED is much more complicated. For example a 3W LED is rated for 3W maximum but if you drive it anywhere near the maximum they produce way more heat than light and are incredibly inefficient and their life span is reduced about 80%. When they get hot their spectrum also shifts so it's never good to drive them to max rating. Because of that they are usually driven about 50% of maximum rated wattage so the actual consumption of a panel is much lower than the advertized max. For example the Stealth Grow 602 actually draws 350 watts which is probably 300W driving the LED's and the rest is lost in power supply and fans. My 357 draws 180Watts. If you are buying a 500W panel if it's being driven at peak efficiency it should draw about 250-300 Watts. Some of the new super-high end, high power LED can apparently be driven at about 70% but you won't see those in horticultural panels as they are over $20 a piece wholesale so until the price comes down they are just not viable.

It may seem like a waste to drive them at half power but the 50% in power reduction generally only results in about a 30% loss in light output so they are 40% more efficient at that level. It's better to underdrive them and just use more.

In terms of how many watts to use to replace HID......isn't that the million dollar question.

If you reasearch some grow journals of some well established LED growers (IRISHBOY is one to google) you'll see they are close to 1g per watt but I haven't seen any credible ones beyond that. There's a guy on here, LedBudGuy, who got .9g/watt on his first journal and is running a second one right now. While these numbers don't necessarily seem all that impressive (I have seen HID pulling the same numbers) Keep in mind these number are using the advertised rating of the light so the grams per consumed watt is fairly impressive and pushes over 1.7 grams per watt in the above instances.

Still means that to replace 2000W of HID you are looking at running a whole lot of LED but exactly how much I really couldn't tell you. I'm just over two weeks into an LED grow myself trying to answer that same question and the link is in my signature if you want to take a look.

joe macclennan said:

thanks kush
i am going to call gotham anyways because i don't like the idea of having a history on ebay that anyone can check
i do have one more question on led fixtures in general tho guys i have seen the claims that a 500 watt led is equal to well over a 1000 watt hid in output but i find it hard to believe what have your experiences been regarding this and one dumb led newbie question a 500 watt led fixture is still going to burn 500 watts of electric so the main savings for me would be on heat related issues like a/c, venting, infrared detection and also bulb replacement costs right?

Click to expand...

i believe the buyers are private on ebay, but anyway I have never grown with hps.. but i do believe kaptain kron said the 240watt flowering model out performed his 400watt hps grows. So that claim may be true, im not sure though. and as far as the power goes i believe dunit is right on with that info up above..

You said you have and 8x8 room with light movers huh? I suppose you wont be moving the LEDs. If not then you will need around 5 500W (12 sqft each) to come close to saturating that space, I would recommend 6 actually, or even toss a 240W (6 sqft each) in there. Noting that the foot print is smaller with leds, I'm not sure how that would all work with a light mover (I haven't seen that tried out yet) But it may just be the trick.

If I were to recommend how many LEDs to put on that mover, I would just be shooting in the dark.

kush groove said:

i believe the buyers are private on ebay, but anyway I have never grown with hps.. but i do believe kaptain kron said the 240watt flowering model out performed his 400watt hps grows. So that claim may be true, im not sure though. and as far as the power goes i believe dunit is right on with that info up above..

Click to expand...

I have seen a setup of LED's on a mover though wasn't it IRISHBOY correct me if im wrong? but I think it was on a smaller scale of what your trying to do 8x8 is pretty big...

There Is a guy linked to hydroponics hut that uses light movers with their 550w model and you can link to his grow journal from their site

He uses 2 550w in a 12x12 tent pretty interesting

Cereall said:

There Is a guy linked to hydroponics hut that uses light movers with their 550w model and you can link to his grow journal from their site

He uses 2 550w in a 12x12 tent pretty interesting

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure he's using a GL145L tent and its 4'6" by 9'6" unless he moved into a bigger tent later in the grow and I missed it.

Guys I'm a soil grower by trade but would like to set up a no fuss watering system based on drip irrigation and wondered how to do this on a small scale. My tent will be 4x4 with 6-8 plants. I'm thinking something similar to a product called the oasis by claber but more controlled on watering amounts and schedule. I'd like a set and forget method that I could just fill the res as needed with pre mixed water/mutes solution. Any suggestions?

Has anyone got an HH 550? There isn't a lot of tech info on their site. From what I can tell they use 630 and 660nm reds and then just full spectrum whites. They also have 288 LED's in their panel so not sure what the breakdown is to get 550W. From pictures looks like they have 8 rows (12 each) of whites of which 4 look to be UV or IR leaving about 92 whites which is I'm guessing the 3W CREE HO Full Spectrum they are talking about which would leave the other 196 LED's being the 630-660 reds with maybe some uv or IR in those rows?

I always figured the advantage of LED was to target the spectrum peaks for Chlorophyl a & b which is why most manufacturers focus on blue and red leds with only a few whites, UV and IR. These panels certainly seem to be a very different configuration from most LED grow panels so will be very interesting to see how they perform.

I have one dunit I have their 260 and 550 models
Performs great for veg, way better than my 8 bulb t5 old set up

I'm going to flower in a few weeks so no experience flowering yet

dunit said:

Has anyone got an HH 550? There isn't a lot of tech info on their site. From what I can tell they use 630 and 660nm reds and then just full spectrum whites. They also have 288 LED's in their panel so not sure what the breakdown is to get 550W. From pictures looks like they have 8 rows (12 each) of whites of which 4 look to be UV or IR leaving about 92 whites which is I'm guessing the 3W CREE HO Full Spectrum they are talking about which would leave the other 196 LED's being the 630-660 reds with maybe some uv or IR in those rows?

I always figured the advantage of LED was to target the spectrum peaks for Chlorophyl a & b which is why most manufacturers focus on blue and red leds with only a few whites, UV and IR. These panels certainly seem to be a very different configuration from most LED grow panels so will be very interesting to see how they perform.

Click to expand...

It's a total wattage of the cumulative led's.

Cereall said:

I have one dunit I have their 260 and 550 models
Performs great for veg, way better than my 8 bulb t5 old set up

I'm going to flower in a few weeks so no experience flowering yet

Click to expand...

So are they 8 rows whites and 12 rows reds? A couple IR and UV in the mix?

I will have to look when I get home,
There are a few rows of whites, 8 sounds about rought, like you said and the rest multi spectrum reds and a total of 4 ir bulbs I believe. There are also a few blues in 2 different spectrums placed throughout the middle

Everything is balanced and symmetrical in the layout and I will try to take a photo for ya if you would like to see

The company listed all the waver lengths and wattage in an old email I'll have to see if I can dig up

your just too lazy to go look for your answers in this thread man they are all in here. Just order one you wont be sorry and besides its a cheap mistake compared to buying an expensive panel. At least that is how i looked at it til i got mine and saw how good it works.

dunit said:

I want to be an informed consumer and I think everyone does. If someone says their product is best I ask why, is that so unreasonable?

I never recommended the light I was running and I never said it was the best. I'm running a grow journal so people can make up their own mind. This thread asked to not post biased information without providing results.

As Hudson pointed out, when the first shit storm unleashed in his LED grow thread I was the level headed one when the Blackstar bashing started. I was trying to cut through the drama and just get some real answers. I still am.

I have asked five questions about Blackstar, Hudson answered about the heat sink (thanks for that amigo) and no one has ever actually answered the rest....I just get hate mail instead.

The point of this thread was not to blindly accept unsupported claims. When people started saying their lights were the best I asked why?

I am looking to get maximum yield. It's not for fun and it's not for profit. I am licensed to grow medical marijuana for my own consumption. Due to lung problems smoking is almost impossible and even vaping seems to cause issues. As a result I take my medicine in the form of tea and that uses a ton of product to get the desired effect (pain control). When I run out I'm back on Ocy or Vicoden and if you have any experience with those they are only fun if you don't need them.

I want lights that will maximize my yeild, that's why I ask the questions.

I'll just order a Blackstar and answer my own questions from here on in.

Happy growing! Peace!

Click to expand...

yeah led bud guy is putting out some nice results with those isis panels in that space but so many panels lol

dunit said:

Super nice guy too if you have questions he's great about answering them all even though his threads are crazy busy. It was watching his grows that gave me the confidence to buy some of the latest generation of LED's.

Although I must say props to LedBudGuy for producing killer results in such a small area. Really demonstrates to the hobby grower the potential of every attic or crawl space which is great for those needing the stealth element.

Click to expand...

Kaptain Kron said:

your just too lazy to go look for your answers in this thread man they are all in here. Just order one you wont be sorry and besides its a cheap mistake compared to buying an expensive panel. At least that is how i looked at it til i got mine and saw how good it works.

Click to expand...

The questions were answered? So just as an example what was the temp on the heat sink?

The questions didn't get answered, I just stopped asking because it seemed to cause so much defensiveness and was getting out of hand.

Now I'm lazy too?

I thought we were dropping the name calling and drama.

if i had a laser temp sensor i would go check right now for you. That question was never asked to my knowledge if it was im sure you would have gotten a straight answer, i also ask about what name calling you refer to.

I can tell you though that its not hot enough to make my hand even feel uncomfortable putting it on the back of the case.

Because of that they are usually driven about 50% of maximum rated wattage so the actual consumption of a panel is much lower than the advertized max.ok dunnit that mostly makes sense to my somewhat fuzzy brain but as far as driving them at less than max if the lights run on 120 volts how do you do that use a dimmer? that doesn't seem right. i googled LED drivers but i don't understand how this works
please help
thanx

joe

lemme look for my IR thermometer, I have one somewhere...Give me at least 5 hours until the lights turn on and sustain for 2+hours to reach their baseline temp...