LED grow lights...?

[MountainGoat]

I'd like to open a discussion about LED grow lights. Anyone using them? Opinions? I'd also appreciate input from people that have practical experience with them vs CFL, MH, and HPS.

Cheers,

MG

[pinegapcontrol]

great topic, they will only get better with time.

Im currently using one, 90w, its round with a built in fan. probably 6 or 7 years old.

im using it to germinate and grow cacti seeds with great success.

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

I'm currently using 5630 led strips. Both warm White and blue approx 2:1. Roughly 2meters total for a surface area of 2.5ft. I need to rejig it tho, and put some walls on my stands as I am loosing too much light out the side. It's still in beta. It is happily supporting shit loads of grafts and they are all growing as well as the ones outside, no doubt about it. Here are some pics.

Loph on right grafted 2mths ago at the same size as the little guy on the left, I'm happy with that growth

Bit of a pic of my ghetto setup

[Bigred]

there are already a lot of threads on horticultural lighting i have worked in the industry since i was 14 .

LED lights are crap when philips starts putting out led grow lights use them .But you cant beat a hps

some leds make claims but a lot of them are mono cromatic so you dont get a heathly spectrum of light

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

I'd also expect a lot of people to be not saying much about these either. They really seem to work that well for grafting and seed raising and it's cheap as buggery if you rig it all yourself. I've also used this to root semi hardwood cuttings

Edit: big red totz hear what ya saying hey, but for propogation and raising plants to a certain point, they seem really good. I doubt you'd pull mad nugs off it

Edited May 31, 2015 by theuserformallyknownasd00d

[Bigred]

they work great for that aplication but so do fluro's soon they will be worth using i have a lot more faith in induction lighting

[☽Ţ ҉ĥϋηϠ₡яღ☯ॐ€ðяئॐ♡Pϟiℓℴϟℴ]

I came into it from an aquarium perpective

ya need super terbo ones for corals and marine aquaria and still rather fkn terbo ones for growing freshwater plants too

so they kinda set my prescedents of delvage - from them having to penetrate water and still be enough light for success..

Therefore: if they can grow high light requiring plants underwater , they should piss all over plants through air with their sunshine.

So far affordability has been an issue for me so I got cheap Interpet daylight white LED bars by a company called Hagen

-from vetinarian supplies in uk..

(only £15 for a 30cm (1-foot) bar but also got a double long for my 3-foot aquarium on ebay and will probably boost it with another triple by next year since it beats the pants of fluorescents especially on energy consumption and zero wastage of light)

so these little led bars seem to use 3 watts; are waterproof and awesome for over seeing up to 2 electric "cactus" propogators

(approx 1 ft each)

and 2 have been essential and indispensable in the rainforest box where waterproof really matters a lot [100% humidity].

the ones I have came with rubber suckers and are fully immersible.

On the other hand after inspiration from Evil Genius I went hunting and ...

I know the prices of some awesome horticultural LED units are rocketing down in price.. this usually indicates that perhaps a super "best new thing" is about to launch ...? tends to with video games and computers in the past anyway

also any high quality LED floodlights with the right kelvin (i tend to look for 6500 kelvin) may be a super idea

-since I saw a youtube vid of some guy in usa who put two on his aquarium and grew plants that usually need co2 addition along with their very high lighting requirements.... without any additional co2!!

which was reassuring

- just there are a lot of similar looking ones that are not even earthed so it's all still very new to many..

and there are always tossers who sell dodgy stuffs to be vigilant of and ya know it makes sense to be super vigilant regarding

electrics/electronics connected to mains.

so it's very much a toil over "shall i sit and wait or try to grabbem now?"

because the real wounder will be if you fork out 600 bar on something thats 200 bar with extra tassles and a kitchen sink included;

a few months down the line.. - lol

either way its a great "show" to watch ... [has chosen the "sit and wait for the prices to stabilise" path]

there are a few good LED threads on SAB , one popped up a few moons back, right while i was studying LEDs in depth and i linked pretty much every tab i had running on that thread at the time ..

If I come across it I will add a link to it here

and good luck in your LED voyage and I hope it comes to a satisfactory success for you!

and as far as last time I looked, LG along with Cree made the very best LEDs

-hoss

Edited May 31, 2015 by ☽Ţ ҉ĥϋηϠ₡яღ☯ॐ€ðяئॐ♡Pϟiℓℴϟℴ

[☽Ţ ҉ĥϋηϠ₡яღ☯ॐ€ðяئॐ♡Pϟiℓℴϟℴ]

but i dnno yet , still new to cacti in a way ...

maybe they would like 8000kelvin LEDs like orchids love?

[Bigred]

ok with a led system if a led burns out tough shit but with H.I.D's (mh hps ) and fluro's you can replace the bulb cheaply

there are still in the infancy and i have been sent so many light's with big claims .One used 300watts and said it out performs

a 1000w hps this may be true with lumens but not useable lumens .The highest output bulbs before leds were low presure sodium

the only problem the to were mono cromatic meaning the only produce a single spectrum

[Bigred]

mods can we pin a lighting thread i will start it if ok

[MountainGoat]

Thanks all for the input. I'm currently running about 300w (actual draw) from 2 units (+ 250W cfl). I am only using them for cuttings/vege and grafts. I read that in 2012 they were running at about 70% "as good as" hps/mh as far as growth and yield (in the med. mj field). But for me the advantage is that you don't need excessive venting, which reduces the noise. I'm real happy to not listen to fans 18 hours a day...

Hey d00d, what wattage are you diodes, and the strips in total?

[☽Ţ ҉ĥϋηϠ₡яღ☯ॐ€ðяئॐ♡Pϟiℓℴϟℴ]

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=34671&page=1

well here's one of them

[MountainGoat]

Hey BigRed, can you tell us some more about induction lights?

[franky]

I'm using those long baton cfls, my grafts are under 4 x 55w cool white cfls, growing crazy

[Tripyamine]

The big thing with leds is their efficiency.

for the most part a T5 fluro has about the same efficiency as chinese leds (epistar and the like) some are upwards of 100lu/watt - where epistar is around 85lu/watt (most t5's are 85lu/watt)

If you want LEDs I think you are a fool not to get Phillips Luxeon M or L or K I really Like the K emitters some of these are 140lu/watt

Im guessing most of you will use white from 3500k to 6500k for the most part

COB's seem to be where it is at now and These little fuckers are the absolute ducks nuts

http://www.bridgelux.com/products/vero-series

130lu/watt typical flux and they are in the best mounting package around!

Kinda hard to get them in australia

You might think I sound over the top here but really spending a little bit more at the start on good LED's will not only last years longer but will cost almost half to operate and put out the same amount of light, or really you should just buy a cheap dual T5 fixture on gumtree, I see 120cm fixtures all the time with ballasts for $5 and they always have hundreds from a job site or some shit

Don't buy chinese LEDS they are shit and fluro tubes are better essential

[Tripyamine]

And gas discharge has better peaks!

there are already a lot of threads on horticultural lighting i have worked in the industry since i was 14 .

LED lights are crap when philips starts putting out led grow lights use them .But you cant beat a hps

some leds make claims but a lot of them are mono cromatic so you dont get a heathly spectrum of light

Absolutely nothing wrong with Luxeon T mate (Or the arrays M and K)
And seriously check out Bridgelux Vero COBs you will cream your pants, Drive them with LDD-1000's and you there

Edited June 2, 2015 by Tripyamine

[brooa]

GAH power went out just before i came home. as soon as i walk in the door all i can smell is the acrid stench of exploded igniter. FML LED is smelling pretty good right now haha

Edited June 8, 2015 by brooa

[nothinghead]

I also have used a 90w 'UFO' style round LED unit with mixed red and blue lamps, manufactured in China.

I only wanted it to grow herbs and greens in an apartment, but it was pretty crap even for that. At 15-30cm height distance from the plants I expected big, juicy basil leaves and a thick stand of tarragon, but all I got were pretty scraggly, sun-starved looking plants. I reckon several energy saver fluoro lamps are just as good, cheaper to buy, cheaper to run.

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

Hey mountain goat, I am using approx 35w per shelf or approx .5w per sq inch. I hope this is what you meant, I am technically illiterate

[etherealdrifter]

ok with a led system if a led burns out tough shit

?

Big ranga i don't understand bruva. Are you saying that when one led burns out the whole array you've bought/constructed is foobar? Do you mean you cannot just trace back to that led and replace it........you know like fixing the christmas tree lights.

Or is it that the whole array of led is now kaput?

I only ask this as i dunno know? i'm not being facetious mate.

I've seen hid's and son t's etc used quite effectively o/s and the places that i saw this where just waiting until led's became more full spectrum.

?

Now this confused me also because we all know that the vibygor spectrum is what you'd aim for if building an led array, so i dunno.

I know that HPS is great for flowering a species and that Metal halide is optimum for vegetative growth and apparently son t agrow'screate a more full spectrum of light for veg through to bloom but it seems led's still remain a mystery that people are still trying to tweak for particular applications.

Either way if using a led will save money, is eco more friendly etc etc i would go for them but until then all i see is people blowing heaps on crappy led's. Onya Dood for constructing your own array.props dood.

Bigranga needs to fill us in on all the idiosyncrasies of this topics me thinks. respect bruv.

Personally i use an aquarium aqua-glo T8 15W46 cm to germ my peppers in winter as to plant them 'running so to speak' before spring hits true.

Yeah, i know there has been natter on this before - even T has said stuff about led's' but more 1st hand knowledge needs to be disseminated and passed on.

[Tripyamine]

Has anyone ever looked into

Light emitting plasma?

SOOOO SPENNO BUT

[Bigred]

Well once a led burns out you can replace it but its a nightmare i just got a ģ8 l led grow light will update when im on my pc

[☽Ţ ҉ĥϋηϠ₡яღ☯ॐ€ðяئॐ♡Pϟiℓℴϟℴ]

things i came across to share with anyone it might help

http://www.ledgrowlightshq.co.uk/led-grow-lights-uk/#240W_panel_LED_Grow_Light_8211_from_Dormgrowcom

http://www.matrixled.com.au/faqs/how-long-is-50000-hours

http://www.dormgrow.com/