Lighting Hps or LED?

[ThaGreenBandit]

Everybody is gonna swear this or that brand is the best. There are some great budget brand lights you can choose to go with, or you can go with the high end brands. GN has some awesome new tech out, but it costs. Mars Hydro has some awesome low cost lights that I've seen plenty growers on here do very well with. Decisions, decisions...

 

[Peteey010]

I may get crucified for this but in Europe there's huge greenhouses that run 20,000-40,000 1000w hps' made by a company in Holland called gavita. If there was any better light source i would imagine they would be running something other than those.

If the leds were as powerful and really saved that much money , these huge ops running mega watts of lights would easily run leds.

Colorado and Washington have huge legal and medical warehouses that run the same lights as the big greenhouses in Europe.

I personally upgraded to these type of lights from a standard 1000w air cooled.

I figure why not get the best equipment when i want to produce the best medicine.

i have the 600s and they are individually brighter than my old 1kw. When they are both running i need sunglasses in my 5x8 room.

Seriously these lights are the shiznit.
Best thing about them is you dont have to worry about matching bulb to ballast anymore.

Cfls waste a lot of power. (2) 55w & (2)26w cfls use as many amps as one of the 600w gavitas on half power.

Think about it that way maybe. How many watts of cfls are u using? Then check the bulbfor amp rating and you will be surprised how inefficient cfls are.

If you google led in greenhouse then you will see what is slowly springing up around my part of the country.
The big salad crop producers etc have cottoned onto led in a big way

 

[Frost Don]

I'm Going To Take A Look At Both Of Them And Get Some More Research I was looking at blackdog LED's too

 

[ThaGreenBandit]

Good choice. More research is always a great answer

 

[DABaracuss]

Let me chime in lol I love LED my Grow northern have done beast for me..but I moved to a colder place and now if I even think about growing in the winter I need the HPS for the heat with an added 1500 watt heater ..LED has come a long way in 3 years and if you are growing where your ambient temps are steady I would go with LED..Use a dialed in light spectrum and long life.

 

[growbiewon]

After seeing all the great led grows around here I'm now awaiting the arival of two Mars hydro 100×3w panels to compliment the gavitas..... yall helped me see the light. Lol

honestly the proof is in Tha pudding, there are some compelling arguments each way but , For a hundred bucks each I figure why not?. they cannot hurt my flower room,only help it, hopefully get that MOJO going super charged up in thur .

one last thing , seems to me that multiple lights means overlap, and that equals more buds. I'm seeing that led might be better run as multiple panels rather than one large led . I was going to put the gavita lep 300 in there but that thing is pricey. I want full spectrum. now when two 100 dollar leds can supplement the 1200w of hps the same as the 1000 dollar lep , Its a no brainer.

Sorry I was so adamant about hps... lol I fail at life sometimes. ...

Irie vibes my fellow cannabis aficionados

Cheers all!

 

[Budsta rhymes]

Im an advocate of cheep brandless LED setups. Get them directly from china and you can get them to put in the diodes you want.
My custom setup is a mixture of reds blues & whites.all 90 degree 3w chips
Works perfectly. I find my veg time was reduced with LED and they bud out really well.

send messages to all the chinese sellers asking if they do custom and what degree lenses they stock. If they dont do custom move on... The guy i went to had 120 90 and 60 degree & all the colors you could want.

Its what all the "brands" are doing ... so why use a middle man and spend 3x the price?

 

[DABaracuss]

Well AFN I think has the most comprehensive LED grows on any site and we dont F around about our growing autos..We have allot of light for autos and to save that money is a good thing ..plus the dialed in spectrum gives you 100% light used ..Last 3 years have really grown in LED production and quality and will continue to make strides like the HS1....the future of grow is LED BRIGHT LOL

 

[81camaro]

I recently found myself in that very same place. HPS, tried and true, but hot and power hungry. LED has the big upfront buyin and is great, but will get better yet as materials improve. I went for the LEC 315 ceramic metal halide. It's been hanging a few days and so far so good. first pistils April 1 and I'm seeing more everyday. ABSOLUTELY SILENT. ZERO HUM. Full spectrum (4200k bulb). Low heat and fast startup. 15 inches to scrog canopy, penetration may be an issue for some, but not us scroggers. Cheaper than LED but more than HPS. Light output similar to aircooled 600w HPS. but without the glass that filters out UV. High Hopes, High Hopes. Still too early to tell, but massive upgrade from my starter rig, 13 x 16 watt led house lights. I have 2 9inch fans blowing between the light's bottom and canopy on the low setting. Smallbox, 50 cu ft, 4x3x4. Good luck.

 

[smith4924]

Has anyone used solar storm 800s I am currently running 4000 watts and looking to switch to led. I was thinking on 4 solar storm 800 panels or trying out 4 of the marsII 1200w. Obviously the solarstorm panels are highly expensive which is why I'd like to research them more but let me hear your thoughts. The only led lights I have used were 2 200w Chinese panels for small plants and I like how they seem to keep plants from stretching so I can imagine that a high end led like SS would impress me