LEDs; Which Light is Right?

Which LED Grow Light Do You Suggest?

  • Total voters
    29
NietzscheKeen

NietzscheKeen

Well-Known Member
I'm absolutely clueless about LEDs, but am wanting to go that route instead of using all the money on electricity, creating usage spikes, having to do all the work to ventilate and have hot spots in my house.

Here are two that I've found:
The Pro Grow 400 and
The 360w Extreme Flower LED

I have read okay things about both, but wanted to get some more opinions.

Which of these would be better for a small grow room 8' x 6'?
I am not going to use all of the room right away; planning on purchasing additional lights of the same type further down the road when I can afford it.

Are their better LED lights out there? Suggestions welcomed!

I'm attaching a poll to the top of this thread; if your vote is for "other", please create a post stating what your suggestion would be and why.
Thank you much!
 
FranJan

FranJan

Well-Known Member
NietzscheKeen said:
I'm absolutely clueless about LEDs
Click to expand...
You are gonna have to do something about that otherwise the bad guys are gonna take your money :). Look at LED grows and see what they're doing. Look at what equipment they're using and explore those panels and lights. What are you gonna do with that space? How many plants are you going to run? How much cash are you willing to invest to get started? Questions like that dictate what lights are good for you. Good Luck!

PS Your second link is broken it seems. At least for me it is.
 
NietzscheKeen

NietzscheKeen

Well-Known Member
I'm trying to do something about that, lol. I'm so clueless that I don't even know where to start or what questions to ask. I will browse around like you said. Also, I have fixed the link, Thanks for letting me know about it.
 
puffenuff

puffenuff

Well-Known Member
NietzscheKeen said:
I'm absolutely clueless about LEDs, but am wanting to go that route instead of using all the money on electricity, creating usage spikes, having to do all the work to ventilate and have hot spots in my house.

Here are two that I've found:
The Pro Grow 400 and
The 360w Extreme Flower LED

Which of these would be better for a small grow room 8' x 6'?
I am not going to use all of the room right away; planning on purchasing additional lights of the same type further down the road when I can afford it.

Are their better LED lights out there? Suggestions welcomed!
Click to expand...



I would go with something from advanced over the pro grows. Ive personally used the extreme flower, diamond series, and xml units from advanced and they all performed very well for me. I've heard the pro grows are decent, but are loud and the sales contacts are supposedly shady.

I would also recommend checking out area51 leds, fero, california lightworks, apache tech, lumigrow, or purchase from an asian manufacturer direct like cidly or bysen.

Check the threads here and see what others are growing with. Hope this helps some. Good luck, let us know what you decide to go with.
 
NietzscheKeen

NietzscheKeen

Well-Known Member
Thanks Puffenuff,
I've read some good things about Fero and Area51 after posting this thread, however, if I'm going to pay that much I want the lights to be worth that much, ya know? I have read mixed reviews of Cidly though. Have you ever used anything from them?
 
oldtimer54

oldtimer54

Well-Known Member
I found myself in the same position as you several months back...I knew that I wanted to go LED but had no clue which one I would purchase. I researched sent E-mails to manufactures made phone calls but there was so much info out there it almost became overwhelming. I narrowed my search down to a couple of makes.. money did play a role in my final decision but I think I came out alright. MY advice to you is to find something YOU like for what ever reason purchase it and start doing your thing.......oh almost forgot I purchased 2 135 watt Blackstar units thru Gotham so far so good no complaints no problems
 
NietzscheKeen

NietzscheKeen

Well-Known Member
@ Oldtimer54 Very true. I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to electricity, wattage, wavelengths, etc., so I usually wind up not understanding the information anyway, lol. I've heard people say good things about Blackstar, Fero, and A51. I think I will go with one of those and just trust other people's opinions, lol.

Did you use MH and HPS before? If so, how much are you saving on electricity costs? Hopefully the LED lights pay for themselves pretty quickly.
 
S

SnotBoogie

Well-Known Member
Usage spikes are a myth, for starters.

LEDs are relatively unproven technology in comparison with HID bulbs. additionally, they vary absolutely wildly.

Most importantly, the knowledge you need to understand LEDs is also the knowledge you'll need to grow good weed, so i recommend you get reading and stop being lazy bro :) (not in a bad way we all smokers here :P)
 
NietzscheKeen

NietzscheKeen

Well-Known Member
I'm trying to do some reading, definitely not lazy. I just don't seem to be asking the right questions or using the best key words when searching for info.
 
S

SnotBoogie

Well-Known Member
Okay. well I will give you a really quick run down. Im sure someone else can explain better.

Plants absorb pretty much all colours of light except green. (why we see them as green - its being reflected).

Certain wavelengths (of color) in particular are especially good for plants, because the chlorophyll in their leaves can absorb it easier or more efficiently. This is still being discussed but there are a few main views.

The most important colours are "Red" and "blue" - 730nm far red 660 nm red light, 630nm "orange" light, 455nm blue light could be considered more important than yellows for example, although many people argue that having a more balanced spectrum by using various white LEDs could be better.

If someone was to suggest a colour mix it might be something like 5% far red, 55% red, 25% orange, 15% blue. this is just an example. oh and you should remember that all the wavelengths (nm) that are most important is still being debated. hence peoples comments that you should read around and form your own opinion.
 
NietzscheKeen

NietzscheKeen

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the rundown. I understand it in terms of "k", but when everything was being discussed in "nm" I was lost. I appreciate the explanation.
 
Beefbisquit

Beefbisquit

Well-Known Member
I own Blackstars, Pro-Grows, and Area 51 panels.

Blackstars are the least quality made, followed closely by Pro-grow. My Area 51 panel is completely different. Much heavier, much higher quality diodes, fans, and heat sinks.

More money, but well worth it IMO.
 
oldtimer54

oldtimer54

Well-Known Member
NietzscheKeen said:
@ Oldtimer54 Very true. I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to electricity, wattage, wavelengths, etc., so I usually wind up not understanding the information anyway, lol. I've heard people say good things about Blackstar, Fero, and A51. I think I will go with one of those and just trust other people's opinions, lol.

Did you use MH and HPS before? If so, how much are you saving on electricity costs? Hopefully the LED lights pay for themselves pretty quickly.
Click to expand...
I was an outside grower for 30 plus years.....and this past grow season my age caught up to me....so I decided to make it easier on my self. I do have 2 very close friends that have been using M H for almost as long as I've been growing outside so I do get feed back from them. They are almost as excited as I am and cant wait for me to fire everything up.....It's trial and error my man...so dive right in...Good luck!
 
mamakush

mamakush

Active Member
I use black dog LEDs, and I love them. You can see the power of the diodes as soon as you turn the unit on... so nice not to have to cycle... and my girls seem to really love the spectrum. A little pricey up front maybe, but you make that money back in savings soon enough.

The size of light and wattage will depend on how many plants you're growing under the lights. Kudos for going with LED. There are a lot of naysayers out there but the technology has come a long way. Just remember that you get what you pay for.
 
P

pauldavies9983

Member
LED lighting is the speedily rising and most acceptable commercial lighting technologies in the industry. LED lights are cost effective and energy conservative. LED light engines are similar in appearance to other traditional light bulbs. The Pro Grow 400 is better than other one; by using it you can save money as well as increase performance of your lighting bulb.
 
T

THE KONASSURE

Well-Known Member
anyone on here ever use "deep impact" brand lights ? think they have 3w and or 5w chips and some 10w or 20w chips they seamed like the should penetrate a bit more then your 1w,2w and 3w panels

Still sticky by my led induction mix with huge chips till they fry a plant lol

Hmm need to get my 2 x 300w led 2w panels back from the mate I loaned them to as another mate has a hps grow going with 200w of cfl side lights I was thinking if he dumps the cfl`s and uses the leds with the hps even if he just uses the hps or the leds for the 1st 2 to 8 hours of the cycle he should save some power and yield better I`ve always wanted to see what happens when you add a lot of red led to a hps grow

Hmm I should go and see if anyone's done an led hps grow the last guy that used them said the plants really flowered hard but he just used them for the 1st 4 weeks of 12/12 as he needed them for something else anyway guy yielded a grow and did not share almost anything with me so they can go to a mate that will chuck me a few oz`s for my help instead

Not like I did`nt give him a half in bits over the last month or 2 lol
 
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