Im throwing in the towel :/

To be completely honest, I’m not even sure I could say I 100% understand every little detail in different types of lighting. But you’ll never be a bother by asking questions. Sometimes I have a lot more time than others, so don’t ever take a short answer vs long one as a sign of my interest. It has everything to do with availability lol.

You’re trying to weigh out differences between a higher end led light and a cmh/lec light?

2 Likes

Yeah that’s it @dbrn32 and to just build up all experience possible and thank you for your reply its good to know definitely :+1:.

My LEDS are knock off top shelf 1000w. Morsen not Mars. I combine 2 with 2 LED FLOOD LIGHTS AT ANGLES. I DONT THINK PRICING MATTERS. I took the risk and ordered based on the generic light scale that’s displayed in ad for lights mine are full spectrum 10w LED dual diodes so it 2(10)x50 little bulbs. Both are the same and arrived brand new. They did have a defect which was noise. I simply opened and gave a little TLC. HEAT is not a factor! You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars to achieve a good grow. Just have knowledge of heat to light ratio as of proximity or closeness of light to plant. LED is powerful. It is important that new plants(sprouts) are NOT placed within 6-24" of a LED start seed with cfl or 35w soft white within 8" of sprout.

3 Likes

My growing system got me 4 oz. From bag seed 1st attempt.
2nd attempt: ILGM STRAIN white widow 2 plants 264g
3rd attempt 1 plant ILGM Blue Dream. Looking for 1200-1600gms wet
I know I will be pulling 3/4-1 pound from this plant.
If you can remember 3x3x3 you can grow a pound easy.
Cheap lights +GH nutrients and attention to detail.
You’ll succeed. My lights cost $98.00 for 2. I can’t disclose store.
My problem now is PH. and I will get bigger plants.

4 Likes

I respectfully disagree with a lot of your statements. It doesn’t take a $1000+ fixture to grow weed I agree with. But you’ll grow more weed with better light.

The main issue with your lights is how they’re advertised. It doesn’t take a lighting engineer to realize that these numbers are complete bs. 8 meters squared coverage at ppfd of 2870umols at 79” height from 185 wall Watts? That defies pretty much everything we know about lights. Definitely the law of inverse square. The 680 umols at 8” I believe, but light intensity is definitely going down as the light goes up right?

Not a doubt in my mind that a quantum board produces higher par level than that at 8”, pulling 50 less Watts from the wall. So increased light at 30% power reduction should mean absolutely nothing? Whether or not you can justify spending the extra cash is totally understandable. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t.

2 Likes

Gramps always said “ you get what you pay for” but I’ve always been a middle of the road kinda guy if possible. I know for a fact I can get 1 pound per plant with my 1000w hid . I have 2 1000w hid and using SCROG I get 2lbs from 2 plants. I’ve done it consistently for 3 years now . I don’t consider myself as a really good or pro grower so I know it can b better than that but will a LED or LEC light do that for me. That’s what I wanna know. From what I am taking us it’s posdible so know I need to find them lights.

2 Likes

Lights and spectrums are always a complex topic what we see as light is white spectrum 400-650 nm this is where term CRI plays color rendering index. Your plants absorb reds and blues reflect greens yellows so absorb below 500 and above 600 is the old thinking however it is now proven they use more of the whites too which is where LEC spectrum grafts you see are logical. The peaks are in both reds and blues with a decent profile of everything in between which means they render 90%+ of visible colors but they also hit on non visible colors. LEDs when first introduced looked like roller coaster high blue a huge drop between then high red :wink:
Giberish right??
Well yes and no as growers even a slight edge or wave difference can factor so we look for what we know they need and what we think they may want. PAR is photosynthetic available radiation a measurement based on what science says plants will absorb: a measurement of what energy is provided for plant in the light given not how bright it is. Lux is a measured in lumen how bright is it? how will it penetrate canopy you can have extremely high lux and low par or vise versa so when we look at color graphs we look for the key peaks High Par means a high energy level in both peaks red and blue while also having UV magentas and oranges lmao.
It is incredibly hard to explain in simple terms but in general you look for as the classic roller coaster pattern with camel humps while not dipping too low between them lmao :stuck_out_tongue:

10 Likes

Good explanation sir!

4 Likes

This is a completely speculative statement, but if I couldn’t pull a unit under even 600 watts of cobs I’d quit growing lol.

You know that strain and so many other factors play into yield amounts. But you’re barely over 1/2 gram per wall watt dry. A decent grower should be able to attain that with a reasonable yeilding strain and amazon panels really. You may see a grow or two worth of adjustments and tuning within your grow, but that yield potential I believe will be there with led or lec.

The people who really geek out on the led tech have some pretty well documented grows claiming 1.5 gram per watt yields even with two year old led tech. Obviously you have to take YouTube video results with a grain of salt. And you can bet they’re clones of heavy yeilders that they have a lot of experience with.

1 Like

NOT really, my cheap LED knockoffs work excellent I’m just aware of the range to set lights at and with these particular lights I know if I put them within 6" of young plants (not sprouts) they will cook the lil ones. Not a lot of heat signature from lights. Maybe 68° but not much more.I don’t know how, but they are good enough for me. It might be the Floodlights doing the job I don’t know but the cheap mix I got going is magical. Maybe it’s the strains I get but with just about every grow thus far I haven’t had a “short plant” unless I chose so. Usually 2 month veg. As normal. If I go 3 I get the pretty 6 foot plants. I haven’t tried for that indoors yet, but I’m pretty certain these lights do it without much of a change in distance to canopy. Just to be clear I have had dirt bag weed grow 4’+ with 2 LED floodlights. Buds weren’t as gigantic as a say a purchased or genetically feminized strain but formation taste and harvest were adequate. I just think it doesn’t take a lot or some super science concoction to get a natural plant to grow. Dirt bag bud was 3-4" colas from about 30 branches. Untopped. No LST. no SCROG. JUST THE WIND the dirt and the water. Always MG Light. As of I’m not in a fancy area where Hydroponics or indoor growing is popular. I’m in farm country. And in farm country they use plows and irrigation systems. I gave the comparison to tobacco because of the season and timespan to achieve fully grown healthy plants. 5-6 months. These weak knockoffs give me more than enough lumens or par or LUX or IR to achieve success. So I disagree; the cheap stuff works just as well as long as you can identify what it takes to create massive amounts of lumens. I know I’m not paying for 2360w voltage and also my bill dropped a few pennies. After adding 3 fans 5 lights and a timer. I say yes to LED OR COB lights. For the amount of weed I’ve produced over the last year seems like radars would be screaming, example: dude about 7 miles away got busted and had 3 HID setups with ballast. The electric bill sold him out. Like I said I’m a gorilla grower usually outdoors so after fella got caught I studied how and why. I’m sorry but I like cheap. I like being McGuyver. I like privately being able to produce great weed at the bare minimum. It’s even cheaper than growing outdoors in my opinion. My next endeavor is solar power. I know quite a few growers whom have achieved this and it is amazing. Self sufficient automated operations that require very few visits except to put it down (plant) and pick it up (harvest). These folks aren’t millionaires. They simply went online and bought all the necessary materials. I priced one out at about 6k complete. Generated 27000 watts constant flow. Operates totally off the grid and is enough to support a 10’x15’ area. And that ain’t bad to go and grow year round.

3 Likes

Yes really. I’m not here to argue with you though. You pretty much stated the exact issue I was trying to point out. Tall plants indoors are the first sign of weak light intensity. I never said your light, or any other light for that matter, won’t grow weed. In fact, I said exactly the opposite. They all grow weed to some extent. More light=more weed. More light per watt= more weed for less money. The lumens, lux, and ir of your light actually do very little to develop your buds. Lumens and lux are both photometric measurements that measure weighted to a wavelength that the human eye responds to. Coincidentally, that wavelength does very little to nothing for plants. And ir will only really develop buds in the absence of red light. Ir biggest contribution can be found via Emerson effect.

I agree 100% it’s cheaper to grow outside.

Solar is the way to go. As some members here already know, I literally work in the renewable energy field. And have installed two residential solar banks. You meant to type 2700 watts correct? You can do that for $6000 probably a little less. But that’s 2700 watts per hour, not constant flow. And they definitely don’t produce energy in the dark. You can buy a battery bank to store some of that energy for an additional few thousand bucks. But then you have to account for not only the energy your drawing but the energy to charge batteries. The solar option isn’t Terribly difficult, but you’re not going to run a very large grow off grid for $6000. On grid is a different story, because you always have the backup of line power if you need it.

You and many many others are perfectly content with what you have, nobody especially me is going to argue that. And not every light that cost more is a good value. But you 100% without a doubt get more out of your grows with more lighting, up to the saturation level anyway.

7 Likes

Woo there is a lot to this I’m thinking sticking to HIDs and HPS when I am ready to switch too 12/12.

4 Likes

@dbrn32, You’re way more smarter than me with the Light, Lumen, Lux and Color Band thing dude. I’m still dealing with the heat generated by those wonderful lights everyone talks about. I’m using HPS old school stuff probably because I wasn’t smart enough to figure out what LED lights to get. Plus I couldn’t afford those neat things. I’m learning more and more each time you guys discuss light setup’s. Thanks

2 Likes

Well I appreciate that, but I’m probably one of the most ignorant people on here. Not on purpose though… I just lose focus very easily and get lazy. Like I don’t have any issue typing a long post. But I don’t read them very well unless they’re broken up by bud pics or something lol. So I wouldn’t say I’m smarter than you or anybody else, I’ve just spent a lot of time trying to figure it out for myself.

No shame in growing with hps either, so don’t think I look down upon it. It’s still the majority I’m sure. Some people won’t leave what they know, some don’t have or feel it’s worth the money, and others believe it’s all hype. That will change with time. In 2010 100 lumens per watt was a big deal. Now several manufacturers offer 200+ lumen per watt packages, and are still pulling 3%+ increases with every new generation. They’ll become the majority in horticulture applications before too long. And people will still grow with hps, so don’t sweat it. Just do the best you can with what you have.

4 Likes

Well thanks, Yep, we all stick with what we know. I wouldn’t be surprised if they figure out how to put sun in a can. Now wouldn’t that be something? I may buy some LED’s to augment the HPS I already have. They would be used to fill in a couple low light areas since I’ve got a weird shape room to contend with. I’ll have to get back with you when I decide to pull the trigger. I’ve got to figure out my limits first. I’ve got one whole room with a couple fans and lights working off a 30 amp fuse. I need to buy an A/C and some additional lighting. I may have to run another source of electricity into the room with the A/C. Am yes, you guys are some smart hombres.

1 Like

I’ll be here, lord willing of course. I’m sure we can come up with something that will do whatever you need at the time.

3 Likes

@Viktor7 solar is the way to go to be perpetual and self sustaining for the most part. It’s not going to be 100% if you’re using 1500 to 1800 watts all day, but well worth it to keep the electric company from ruining things for you and your family

3 Likes

@OldSkunk @Covertgrower @Countryboyjvd1971 @bob31 @dbrn32 she loves the new lights guys and also got ph and the perfect balance of nutes.what do yall think. Came a longgggg wayyyy

19 Likes

Oh for sure!

2 Likes

Thank you bud. I have been doing lst training on her also. Insane differnce after that.

6 Likes