first time set-up tent/LED good sources for accesseries?

I just don't trust stuff on You Tube for all the reasons stated above. I hate to say it, but to use You Tube as a source of reliable information is a mistake. I know for positive that some grows are "faked". And there really is no way of knowing if the people who post the videos are LED salespeople or not (I suspect that a whole lot of them ARE LED peddlers). I can do tedious work too if I am going to save a bundle, but I don't believe that you can, even when you make your own panels. One of the peeps here made his own panels and they cost huge amounts, even when built from scratch. I'm curious how do you figure that you are going to save a grand? You can set up a 5 x 5 tent with a 1000W HPS and all the ventilation for under a grand. And until someone I trust can show me what they can do, I will stick to the tried and true. I simply do not have enough money to sink a grand or more into a lighting system that is questionable. At this point in time, I see the reduced heat as the only true advantage. However where I live, the heat is a bonus about 5 months out of the year and if I personally was using LEDs, I would have to add space heaters to my rooms, even when the lights were on.

The heat signature thing is a non-issue. regardless of what "propaganda" you may have heard, helicopters do not just run around looking for small grows. People get busted because of loose lips or not taking care of odor or growing debris

I'm not sure if PJ specifically mentioned using a 5 x 5 space, but I think that he is swapping out 1000W HPS for 1000W LEDs. I don't think that LEDs enable you to actually use less wattage or at least not that much less. I do know that PJ had his lights custom made by a company in China and they were quite costy. He is the only one I know that has really done anything great with LEDS....and he didn't do it cheaply. I'll see if I can find some of his posts. He is quite knowledgeable. I'll also look for the one where the guy built his own panels. However, I don't remember ever seeing any pics of his grow. PJ does have great pics of his grows.

Im with THG.
I have yet to see an LED grow from start to finish,,even by PJ. Ive seen the what they call the results,,but no real proof. And im not saying PJ cant grow Dank with LEDS,,I dont know PJ personally to have seen these grows. But if ya have lots of money and want to Test Leds,,go for it.
What results I have seen from LEDS,,didnt look very Dense to me,,not even as Dense as what I got with HOT5s. But hey,,ya just never know till ya try. I dont have that kinda money to prove someone wrong or right on their claims. What I do know is,,I have seen Tons of Dank Killer Dense Buds grown with HPS. I will stick with Facts,,cause im to cheap to do anything else,,but facts. Course thats why I am an Athiest,,I want Facts.

Yep, I'd pretty surprised if at least some youtube dems' were not put up by peddlers. I wouldn't rely on those alone.
Here's some bits of information I've been able to gather so far that I would place in the Fact, not hype category that influences me to give a home made LED array a go for the grow style I intend to do which is SOG for best yield and turnover in a smallish tent.

First off, I understand most LED brands are competing in a 'band width' war to appeal to the uneducated consumer with a 'more is better' mentality ("full-spectrum" "8 band widths" etc.), but it's my understanding that the true PAR wave lengths for cannabis remain to be only 2 to 5 MAX, but mostly in the red, blue spectrums, maybe a little supplementation white, IR for budding, dont even know for sure about that. So this marketing band # hype is defeating the purpose of LED philosophy to begin with.

2. LEDS dont penetrate like HIDs. SOG does NOT require very deep penetration.

3. 1 watt LED chips dont penetrate as well as 3 watt chips. So it's popular to be going with 3 watts or higher chips these days. However, 1 watt bulbs have much more efficient use of energy than 3 watt bulbs. The 1W bulb penetration is a bit more than sufficient for SOG. So a 200W array of 1W LEDs' would have three times the bulbs as a 200w panel with less efficient 3 watt bulbs.

4. You can mount a bunch of LED's on a thrift store cookie sheet, provide mounting for necessary components. Plants dont care about pretty housings. All they know is they're getting the spectrum light they want.

I'm not a high tech guy, i know some basics, but so far it looks good on paper to me.

http://youtu.be/X5lKfc0O57o here theres great vid of what led's. yea there are alot of fakes but this is obviously not...

lovedenugs said:

http://youtu.be/X5lKfc0O57o here theres great vid of what led's. yea there are alot of fakes but this is obviously not...

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you are basing that supposition on, but there really is no way to know whether a video is genuine.

well... I notice my impatience growing and wanting to get growing sooner then later. I'm 'considering' starting off with an HID set up and venture into LEDs later as I need more time to get it all together.
Already have the 5x5 so that means 1K HPS i guess. Not sure If i would veg with MH or HO t5. Im concerned about heat management (and bills). Will it be necessary to use air cooled glass enclosed reflectors in the 5x5 or might good exhaust/fan possibly do it. Need to add some a/c? (This will not be a sealed/co2 system at this point anyway). Ambient temps in my area are moderate most of the year but summers can will exceed 100. I would reverse the light/dark cycle to to night/day.
This would be good experience to see what HID does and later on compare with LED when ready. Hell, I could use a little grow experience with anything really.
any advice appreciated

thanks

newanimal said:

Looked for a thread or posts by "PJ" on a 5x5 led grow but couldn't locate.
could someone direct me ?

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PJs grows are no longer public... he did post here but with all the LED doubters he stopped bc they just cant accept FACTS...

JAAM, we are only LED doubters because so many of the LED salespeople truly lie about what their products can do and they have been hyped to do unbelievable things. PJ is virtually the only person that I know and trust that has done anything at all with LEDs. Others start grows with LEDs and then we never hear from them again. And I know that PJ said had them built custom to his specs in China somewhere and they were very expensive.

LEDs are not some miracle lighting discovery that is going to give you more yield with 1/2 the wattage. People just need to be smart about them and not buy into all the garbage that is on places like You Tube and not buy into all the (false) hype created by people selling these. A 90W UFO will not take the place of a 400W HPS no matter how you do it.

If you want to get started and have somewhat limited funds, you can start with this light fixture: hXXp://www.hpsgrowlightstore.com/hps1510/best-grow-light-systems/1000-watt-grow-light-sets/ipower-grow-light-1000w-hps-mh-dimmable-cool-tube-xl-set.html With this fixture, you get both the MH and HPS bulbs to go with the fixture, so the single fixture can be used to do the initial veg with the MH and then switch to HPS for flowering. This fixture is very good (I had 6 of these in my setup). The MH bulb is actually made to produce 6000k light rather than the typical 5000k light of other MH bulbs. This is important for veg growth as MJ does best during veg with light frequency between 6000-6500k.

You will have to vent this fixture to the outside of the space as the 1kw HID does produce a lot of heat. I live in the south-east and it can get quite hot here in the summer. But I found that by pulling fresh air into my building from under it and then using a good 540cfm 6" centrifugal exhaust fan to pull the heated air out of my building to the outside, I could keep my grow quite comfortable throughout the winter. I do require the use of AC during the summer though. You will have to have good ventilation anyway for the plants to have proper fresh air flow as this brings in co2 and keeps moisture from building up and causing mold.

Here is the exhaust fan that you will need: hXXp://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/vortex-6-inch-449-cfm-high-power-inline-fan-p-353.html
This is one of the best fans on the market for the price.
Here is the filter that you will need if you want to keep the smell of your plants from getting out to anyone you don't want knowing that you are growing: hXXp://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/phresh-filter-6in-x-24in-virgin-carbon-p-3423.html
You will be able to use this filter for at least a couple years before having to replace it.
You can get good flex hose from the local home builder supply to connect the fixture, filter, and fan together.
Since you already have the tent, this will get you going for the first grow and future grows depending on how you want to do things, and how fast and how much you are looking to produce in a year's time.

thanks for those links. That light fixture package looks like a good buy.
I might splurge a little more for a Panasonic Whisperline fan though for quieter running.

If I decide to get set up and jump into trying SOG grow, putting plants into 12/12 flower after only a few weeks, not sure if I'll need HID for the pre-flower stage. Maybe T5's or a 200W ufo (I picked up for $30) or both.
And would that suffice to keep a few mothers in veg I dunno.
I'm open for any feedback there.

Still trying to research suitable a/c for this tent. I'd like to keep the unit outside the tent and duct it in. Sounds like mini-split systems are the best way to go but hard to find anything below 12000 or 9000 btu's. Sounds a little overkill. they can be pricey too.

When starting from seed, the plants are going to need to reach sexual maturity before they start flowering. it is actually rather counterproductive to do plants from seed like this with little to no veg period. When you put them into flowering before they are sexually mature, they do not start flowering, they stretch. If you want to run SOG, I would suggest that you do your first runs the normal way and take clones. Clones are biologically the same age as the mother they came from, so even if they are smaller, they will flower when put into 12/12.

I also never keep mothers as I simply do not have the room. And unless you want multiple tents, you will probably find that you do not have room to keep mothers either. I take clones from clones and have done this for many many years.

I also do not run A/C with my grows. I have an air cooled hood and am able to pull cool air in from my crawl space that is cool enough to keep the light and room below 80. I have gotten where I run my flowering lights at night most of the time--midnight to noon. This helps with hot summer time days, but also in the winter because not as much extra heat needs to be provided during lights out to keep your space warm enough.

Check out amazon for lighting and fans.

Hey THG do you filter the air before it comes in from the crawl space?

Remember that vegging plants don't take but about half to 2/3 the space of flowering plants. In a 5x5 tent, I normally run just 4-5 plants and allow them to get upwards of 4-5ft high by the time they are finished. I generally veg them until they are about 15-20" tall while Fimming them to make them bush out more (sativa/Indica hybrids only as pure Indica dominant structure plants don't do well with bushing techniques)

Once they have bushed out to desired width and height, I set them into flower and space them equally. I also like to place a screen of some type over them to support the branches as the buds grow and get heavy.

In the smaller veg tent, you can use less light. Most of us generally use T5HO fixtures and try to achieve a minimum of 3000 lumens per square foot of lighted space

Weedhopper, I have filter material over all my intake holes, so not really filtered, but this stops the dirt and any creepy crawlies that may want in that way.

Newanimal, I really like having a separate vegging space. My vegging space is only 2 x 4, but since I do a perpetual harvest, it is enough room to have 6 or so plants of varying size in there. I usually do 8 or so in the 3 x 6 space. My veggging space is only 4' tall so they do go into flowering before they get too tall. I use a T5 in my vegging space and a 1000W in my flowering space.

Just curious.... (have not read the entire thread).... are you stuck with a 5x5 area???? or is this still adjustable??? could do a 3x6 (1 less sq foot) run a pair of 400W HPS.... Fully light the area.... Using less power... and cost of fixture would be a LOT less.... Something to think about....