LED lights

[schlendrake]

Has anyone heard of using led lights for growing before? I've been seeing this more and more on the net and was wondering the if it works and how well/bad.

 

[AlienBait]

Didn't we just have this conversation...?

http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11398

I'm using LEDs for my grow on this thread:

http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10461

 

[AlienBait]

I just noticed that you already asked me about them in the 16 oz. cup thread. Do you need more info?

 

[Stoney Bud]

Has anyone heard of using led lights for growing before? I've been seeing this more and more on the net and was wondering the if it works and how well/bad.

From what I've read on the subject, LED's work great for growing as long as the grow is kept within scale with the lights. Lumens....the great limiting factor with all lighting for plants. Spectrum and lumens.

The cost of LED's is another factor. If one were to buy a premade board with enough lights for a maxed out 3 ft x 5ft grow at 5,000 lumens per/sq ft, the cost as I understand it, would be huge.

 

[AlienBait]

The price is coming down. 6 months ago, the equivilant of a 400W HPS cost $1,300.00. The price for the same unit is down to $1,100.00. Still too expensive, but with more companies making them, the price will continue to come down.

I think in a year or two, it will be cost effective. Until then, I'll just use the few that I have to grow one plant at a time for experimental purposes (like the 16oz cup grow).

Here is the company I bought mine from (it has a ton of info):
http://www.gro-tek.com/

Don't buy them from that website, though. They are cheaper on ebay.com.

 

[Stoney Bud]

The price is coming down. 6 months ago, the equivalent of a 400W HPS cost $1,300.00. The price for the same unit is down to $1,100.00.

Youch! I use two 430 HPS in a 3 x 5 foot area. I hope they do bring the price down to a level that could be realistically used for growing a private stash.

What figures have you develops for electricity cost? Do you have any figures that would compare to a pair of 430 watt HPS on a 24/7 burn? What Kw cost?

Thanks for the info man. I'm very interested in this.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

I'm not sure about these, but there is a guy on ebay who makes small panels of 245 led bulbs. It draws 9w. I think these $1300 systems are made up of the circular fixtures (see pic below). I might be wrong on that though, but the guy who listed this up on ebay said he paid $1300 for it so I'm going to assume it's the one we're talking about. Unfortunately the auction ended and I can't get the info from it about the company that makes it...I have a feeling it might be this company here www.ledgrowlights.com. I think you would need quite a bit of these to get a nice harvest from one plant though. I've been waiting to see someone do a grow completely from start to finish with only leds.

 

[Stoney Bud]

I've been waiting to see someone do a grow completely from start to finish with only leds.

Unless some really rich guy comes along, I don't think we'll see a "pound" size grow happen any time soon.

Those puppies just cost too much!

 

[AlienBait]

LaserKittens, that is a picture of what I was using as the "400 Watt HPS equivelent." They go for around $1200.00 on this website:

http://www.growwithleds.com/ledproducts.htm

So, it is around $1000 more than a 400W HPS (with enhanced spectrum bulb).

It uses 80 watts.

So, lets to some math....

80 Watts x 24 hours x 30 days = 57600 Watt-Hours = 57.6 KWH/month
At $0.11/KWH (Yes, I pay a lot!), We have 57.6 x .11 = $6.33/month

With a 430 Watt HPS
430 Watts x 24 Hours x 30 days = 309600 Watt-Hours = 309.6 KWH/month
At $0.11/KWH, We have 309.6 x .11 = $34.06/month

Difference = $27.73

So, You would save $27.73 per month in energy by using the LEDs (maybe a little more because you wont need as much ventilation).

1000/27.73 = 36 months = 3 years. SO, It would take 3 years to make back the initial investment in the LEDs in power savings.

And that is if their claims are true that their light is the equivelent of the 400W HPS.

 

[Elephant Man]

LaserKittens, that is a picture of what I was using as the "400 Watt HPS equivelent." They go for around $1200.00 on this website:

http://www.growwithleds.com/ledproducts.htm

So, it is around $1000 more than a 400W HPS (with enhanced spectrum bulb).

It uses 80 watts.

So, lets to some math....

80 Watts x 24 hours x 30 days = 57600 Watt-Hours = 57.6 KWH/month
At $0.11/KWH (Yes, I pay a lot!), We have 57.6 x .11 = $6.33/month

With a 430 Watt HPS
430 Watts x 24 Hours x 30 days = 309600 Watt-Hours = 309.6 KWH/month
At $0.11/KWH, We have 309.6 x .11 = $34.06/month

Difference = $27.73

So, You would save $27.73 per month in energy by using the LEDs (maybe a little more because you wont need as much ventilation).

1000/27.73 = 36 months = 3 years. SO, It would take 3 years to make back the initial investment in the LEDs in power savings.

And that is if their claims are true that their light is the equivelent of the 400W HPS.

Great post...nice work Alien. Just wanted to add we can also subtract the additional cooling an HID requires too.

Be careful with ebay as always...I tried to purchase a pre-made LED board fron Hong Kong...months later, never got the board and it was a big hassle getting my money back. There is a thread here somewhere...

Nasa has done much work in space growing with LED's...there is some info on this site:
http://www.aeroponics.com/

There is also a thread...it is on another forum...rather not link to it...but it is the 'definitive' LED thread (TONS of info).

Normally, I would go copy and paste some stuff here from it for you guys...but a bit to busy lately...perhaps someone will though.

I think the only way to 'compare' is to grow...seems tough to convert 'micro-einsteins' to lumens on paper...but I have seen enough pics to know it works.

Nasa has a figure also for how many 'blue' and how many 'red' too...I forget...but I think it is 7 blue LED's for evey 100 (remmaining red). It is in all that info somewhere...might be in the thread we had going months ago here...

 

[Stoney Bud]

LaserKittens, that is a picture of what I was using as the "400 Watt HPS equivelent." They go for around $1200.00 on this website:

http://www.growwithleds.com/ledproducts.htm

So, it is around $1000 more than a 400W HPS (with enhanced spectrum bulb).

It uses 80 watts.

So, lets to some math....

80 Watts x 24 hours x 30 days = 57600 Watt-Hours = 57.6 KWH/month
At $0.11/KWH (Yes, I pay a lot!), We have 57.6 x .11 = $6.33/month

With a 430 Watt HPS
430 Watts x 24 Hours x 30 days = 309600 Watt-Hours = 309.6 KWH/month
At $0.11/KWH, We have 309.6 x .11 = $34.06/month

Difference = $27.73

So, You would save $27.73 per month in energy by using the LEDs (maybe a little more because you wont need as much ventilation).

1000/27.73 = 36 months = 3 years. SO, It would take 3 years to make back the initial investment in the LEDs in power savings.

And that is if their claims are true that their light is the equivelent of the 400W HPS.

Thanks for doing the math, man. That's impressive. I'm going to keep my eye on this company.

Do you know what the expected life span of the lights is?

 

[AlienBait]

Do you know what the expected life span of the lights is?

They claim 7-10 years of continuous use (24/0).

 

[Dada]

That's the other factor that interested me -- the lifespan of the lights. I had heard that LED lifespan was even longer, but even 7-10 years is great. Factor in the cost of replacing your HID bulb every year and things begin to look even better for LEDs after the prices come down just a bit more. And if someone dives in, does a complete grow, and reports back, we'll have a good idea as to how well an entire grow goes with LEDs. I probably won't do a grow during the summer -- partly because of temps but also because I am going to get enough from my current grow to last me more than a year -- but I might be looking into doing a complete LED grow for the fall.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

I have no problem paying the money up front for a quality product. I usually only try to buy the best quality stuff despite the price tag simple because I know it's going to work well and I'll enjoy it. I can't see spending less money on lower quality stuff and then having to end up buy another one when it breaks or buy a higher quality version. I would love to use the LED lights because of the advantages that come with them. All I'm waiting for is to see the technology proven. If someone can get the same results as an hps light with all leds, I would definitely go for the LEDs.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

hmm...I've been trying to find info on adding UV lights to grows. Supposedly the plants produce more resin with the UV rays. I found out that they make 360nm bulbs. That's the lowest frequency I've found. It falls under UV-A...UV-B is what the sun puts out and I think it's 304-320nm or something. I wonder if it would just further make these things better if they added some UV bulbs to those clusters.

 

[schlendrake]

i don't have a problem spending it but the amount that I would need for a 8x3 room would be very costly I would think. Has anyone thought of puttind red lenses over their lights? Just a thought, sounds crazy though.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

Well...Just went up on ebay and found 900 LED panels being sold for 390 a piece. One of them is 900 blue 5mm bulbs. The other is a split of 450 red and 450 blue. The two color panel can switch between both on or one or the other on. You can also get a panel of 900 red bulbs too. It draws 78 watts.

 

[DLtoker]

Wow... Nice. That will cover a 4x4 area?

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

mmm not sure about just 1 system. the demensions on it are 22 x 25 inches. You would probably need more than one. I really don't think these things put out anything near the same amount of lumens as say a 600w. I'm sure if you surrounded the area on all 4 sides and then hand one at the top for a total of 5 or 6 of these you could get some pretty good results. But that is a major investment. In the end though, you would make it back in the lower electrical costs.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

Alright well I was trying to find something to use to convert the light an LED puts out to lumens. You have to take a lot more into consideration to get an accurate intensity measurement from LEDs because it changes with the beam angle and all (there's a lot more that was just too much to comprehend mathematically and all the terminology).

Anyway I found a conversion thing, but again it's not going to give you the most accurate reading because it doesn't take all the factores in measuring the light intensity of an LED.

I entered the most intense beam angle, 20 degrees (there maybe be more intense, I have yet to see them though) and I put in for a red colored LED that emits 15,000 millicandelas. This number will change depending on the color. For this I used red. Entered that in to the conversion wizard and it spit out this...

luminous intensity (millicandelas)- 15000
beam angle (degrees)- 20

Approximate luminous flux: 1.432 lumens

As a point of reference, a standard 100W light bulb typically is rated at around 1,700 lumens in North America, and around 1,300 lumens in 220V areas of the world.


Take into consideration also though, that using the red and blue only you are able to feed the plant the two wavelengths it uses most efficiently for photosynthesis. So, you might not need as many lumens as you would need from a bulb that puts out a much broader range of wavelengths.

Here is the conversion wizard if you feel like finding out how many millicandelas a blue LED puts out.

http://led.linear1.org/lumen.wiz

And if you're interested in reading the more in depth description of how an LED's light is measured...here is the PDF.

http://www.olinet.com/pdfs/R24_LED-MEASUREMENT-ISSUES_NRC.pdf