Led choice confusion

[Stag]

Hi everyone.

Ok so I have been researching the web for months looking at my lighting options. I am already using Leds but want to upgrade as there are some great products out there. This is where my confusion comes in.....
So I’m looking for what you all have to say. To narrow it down here are a few details
Grow area 2 mt x 2 mt x 2.20mt. Inside a 3 meter sq sealed room. I implement Co2 at up to 1600 ppms and also have a lung room.
A/c in both rooms.

So my question is.... if you had up to 3.000$ (2.500€) for lighting what would you go for?

Im looking for an average of around 800 to 1000 Par.

Any help will be greatly appreciated
Pete

 

[mrmoeee]

To be honest, I went through the same phase you're in right now. You know what I settled on, cheap China brand 300W (true watts) COB LED lights. They've been running for about 4 months now and not a single failure. They're about $110/each so if you go for an 8 light setup (see photo of mine below), you're talking roughly $900 and trust me, these things are powerful AF. The only drawback is that their size and COB LED style mean that they do put out more heat than other, more evenly spaced, products out there.

That being said, I wholeheartedly recommend not buying into the marketing BS currently floating around. A full spectrum LED light will put out what the plants need, period. No need for all sorts of different bulbs. The truth is that even though LEDs may be slightly better than HPS in producing grams per watt... remember that this is still measured in watts. If you want 2 HPS bulb equivalents in yield, be ready to buy 2000-2400 true led watts in lights. You just can't expect LEDs to magically make watts more efficient. Their main advantage is that they can be cheap and disperse the heat upwards, leaving more room for plants to grow near it. Definitely not nearly as hot as an HPS but they will require AC depending on how many you cram in there.

 

[Stag]

Thanks for your reply, well that has thrown me a bit. I need the grow for medical reasons so need to get this right.

I currently run
3 x advanced platinum p-600 1 x P-300 and a budmaster god 9 .

I was trying to get more efficient light/watt as I am running about 2300 watts with this setup.

I was also trying to get away from the burpple type leds.....

 

[mrmoeee]

I started off going that direction for a while. Trying to get the most lumens/watt. For this you'll need to look at flood lights and stuff like that, which doesn't really suit you. I was going to go with the lights in white just because they're more powerful for same energy consumption but took full spectrum (which most are anyways to some degree). I don't know if it was a good choice but the plants have loved these lights since day one. They took a bit of light stress at first but once they got accustomed to them, they really took off... That foto is from day 35 (Week 5, day 1).

 

[Dan789]

This is a kit from Rapid led, 3500K cobs, white not bluple light, 12 cobs fills a 4x4 tent, that said if I’m translating your tent it’s 6’ square, you’ll need more to fill that. My fixture complete was $1200 using vero 29 cobs which though good aren’t the top shelf cree’s.
PS, I’m only driving each cob to 50 watts each, so 600 watts from the wall...that’s to keep them in the sweet spot for efficiency over light production and heat.

 

[mrmoeee]

This is a kit from Rapid led, 3500K cobs, white not bluple light, 12 cobs fills a 4x4 tent, that said if I’m translating your tent it’s 6’ square, you’ll need more to fill that. My fixture complete was $1200 using vero 29 cobs which though good aren’t the top shelf cree’s.
PS, I’m only driving each cob to 50 watts each, so 600 watts from the wall...that’s to keep them in the sweet spot for efficiency over light production and heat.

Sweet setup! Yeah, we're pretty much on the same page.... you run 600 watts in 16ft2 and I run 2400 (less efficient) watts in 50ft2. I'd say that if you standardize it for bulb efficiency differences we're pretty much putting out the same lumen/ft2 .

I like the individual light setup's versatility. If you look at my tent, I don't know how I would've been able to install the (admittedly bigger than necessary) air filter + extractor with a boxed system or a widespread LED setup like HLG's. However, what I REALLY dig about your lights is that all of the replacement pieces are readily available and you're running 12 individual lights. If one goes out, the show goes on and you can pretty much DIY repair it for maybe $20 tops.... nicee...

 

[Aqua Man]

This is a kit from Rapid led, 3500K cobs, white not bluple light, 12 cobs fills a 4x4 tent, that said if I’m translating your tent it’s 6’ square, you’ll need more to fill that. My fixture complete was $1200 using vero 29 cobs which though good aren’t the top shelf cree’s.
PS, I’m only driving each cob to 50 watts each, so 600 watts from the wall...that’s to keep them in the sweet spot for efficiency over light production and heat.

These listed above ^^^, HLG quantum board kits, spyder x by fluence are the ones that come to mind. I'm sure there are others but these have proven records. You can get DIY kits or pre-assembled. Rapid LED, timber grow lights, Horticulture lighting group, Growers lights and Fluence are some good places to start looking.

 

[Dan789]

Sweet setup! Yeah, we're pretty much on the same page.... you run 600 watts in 16ft2 and I run 2400 (less efficient) watts in 50ft2. I'd say that if you standardize it for bulb efficiency differences we're pretty much putting out the same lumen/ft2 .

I like the individual light setup's versatility. If you look at my tent, I don't know how I would've been able to install the (admittedly bigger than necessary) air filter + extractor with a boxed system or a widespread LED setup like HLG's. However, what I REALLY dig about your lights is that all of the replacement pieces are readily available and you're running 12 individual lights. If one goes out, the show goes on and you can pretty much DIY repair it for maybe $20 tops.... nicee...

My takeaway is that it’s not so much the lumens as the photosynthetically active radiation or “Par” readings that are significant.
By purchasing a quality product I think, is the whole idea to avoid having to repair said fixture, but essentially you’re correct though the $20 may be off by a substantial amount if any of the cobs would fail. The analogy I would make is that of a laptop versus a larger desktop computer, both may be serviceable but the desktop unit easier to get at...

 

[Stag]

Thanks guys
Yes Ive been looking at hlg, fluence, optic, migro, gavita, California light, works , black dog etc etc

Thats the problem ... apparently they are all The Most Powerful led on the market ...... lol

Still cant make up my mind though

 

[Aqua Man]

Thanks guys
Yes Ive been looking at hlg, fluence, optic, migro, gavita, California light, works , black dog etc etc

Thats the problem ... apparently they are all The Most Powerful led on the market ...... lol

Still cant make up my mind though

They all work so i shoot for quality, reliability, efficiency and last value (not price) so that eliminates most of the knock offs even though they grow plants too. Personally i use the HLG-600 but there are lots of good LED's. Custom fixtures allow you more ability to build to your needs personally i feel its worth it.

 

[Stag]

Sweet setup! Yeah, we're pretty much on the same page.... you run 600 watts in 16ft2 and I run 2400 (less efficient) watts in 50ft2. I'd say that if you standardize it for bulb efficiency differences we're pretty much putting out the same lumen/ft2 .

I like the individual light setup's versatility. If you look at my tent, I don't know how I would've been able to install the (admittedly bigger than necessary) air filter + extractor with a boxed system or a widespread LED setup like HLG's. However, what I REALLY dig about your lights is that all of the replacement pieces are readily available and you're running 12 individual lights. If one goes out, the show goes on and you can pretty much DIY repair it for maybe $20 tops.... nicee...

I have been looking at a company in Ireland called Migro. The setup would be 10 separate lights on a rack. I like the idea as you can get a better light spread. https://www.migrolight.com/migro-600/
This link is for a 6 light setup.

The area is 2m x 2m = 4m2.
For an avergage of 600 PAR you need a total delivered PAR of 4m2 x 600 = 2,400 PAR.

Each of our MIGRO 200+'s deliver 520 PAR.
So you need a total of 2,400/520 = 4.6 (even up to 5 x MIGRO 200+)

 

[Stag]

They all work so i shoot for quality, reliability, efficiency and last value (not price) so that eliminates most of the knock offs even though they grow plants too. Personally i use the HLG-600 but there are lots of good LED's. Custom fixtures allow you more ability to build to your needs personally i feel its worth it.

Yes I have been looking in depth at the hlg light,
My other consideration is that I am in Spain and shipping from the usa is a nightmare. We get hit for high import tax and big time delays. Hence reliability is very important as returning products is a real problem

 

[Dan789]

This is a kit from Rapid led, 3500K cobs, white not bluple light, 12 cobs fills a 4x4 tent, that said if I’m translating your tent it’s 6’ square, you’ll need more to fill that. My fixture complete was $1200 using vero 29 cobs which though good aren’t the top shelf cree’s.
PS, I’m only driving each cob to 50 watts each, so 600 watts from the wall...that’s to keep them in the sweet spot for efficiency over light production and heat.

Also failed to note that this pic has been darkened to show detail in the plants and is not representative with regards to the lights full illuminating potential...

 

[Rootbound]

To be honest, I went through the same phase you're in right now. You know what I settled on, cheap China brand 300W (true watts) COB LED lights. They've been running for about 4 months now and not a single failure. They're about $110/each so if you go for an 8 light setup (see photo of mine below), you're talking roughly $900 and trust me, these things are powerful AF. The only drawback is that their size and COB LED style mean that they do put out more heat than other, more evenly spaced, products out there.

That being said, I wholeheartedly recommend not buying into the marketing BS currently floating around. A full spectrum LED light will put out what the plants need, period. No need for all sorts of different bulbs. The truth is that even though LEDs may be slightly better than HPS in producing grams per watt... remember that this is still measured in watts. If you want 2 HPS bulb equivalents in yield, be ready to buy 2000-2400 true led watts in lights. You just can't expect LEDs to magically make watts more efficient. Their main advantage is that they can be cheap and disperse the heat upwards, leaving more room for plants to grow near it. Definitely not nearly as hot as an HPS but they will require AC depending on how many you cram in there.

Are you saying it takes 2000-2400 watts of quality led lights to match 2-1000 watt hps bulbs? Also you said you will still need a/c with led... I had to use a/c with hps but i dont use a/c at all now with QB leds. Really depends on your starting environment.

 

[Stag]

Are you saying it takes 2000-2400 watts of quality led lights to match 2-1000 watt hps bulbs? Also you said you will still need a/c with led... I had to use a/c with hps but i dont use a/c at all now with QB leds. Really depends on your starting environment.

You say you use QB leds, what size boards are you using? Are they QB260 V2?

Im looking for between 800 and 1000 ppfd

 

[Rootbound]

I have one HLG qb 260 XW in veg and and 2 of them in flower.

 

[mrmoeee]

Are you saying it takes 2000-2400 watts of quality led lights to match 2-1000 watt hps bulbs? Also you said you will still need a/c with led... I had to use a/c with hps but i dont use a/c at all now with QB leds. Really depends on your starting environment.

I actually think that LED lights beat HPS watt for watt. That being said, light is basically the plants food source. You cant go from blasting it with 1200watts from an HPS and switch to 600 true watts of LED and expect the same results.

You have to at least come close to matching the HPS. LEDs running cooler allow you to place them closer to the plants which greatly increases their results vs HPS.

But yeah, everything else equal, you're going to have to pump watts at the plants regardless of the light source. So maybe you can set up 800 watts of LEDs and get similar results to a 1k watt HPS bulb but don't think for a minute that you can take a 10k watt room and bring it down to 5k LED watts and get the same results.... it just wont work...

Think about lumen and PAR meters, they dont care what the light source is. Plants are somewhat similar. You can match or exceed HPS figures with less watts if using LEDs and a closer proximity to the canopy, but you can't halve your light/energy output and think that you'll get similar results. IMHO, LEDs will shave a few watts off your bill but if you want big yields, you're going to have to target an electric output which wont varie all that much from other light sources.

 

[mrmoeee]

I have one HLG qb 260 XW in veg and and 2 of them in flower.

QB LED setups are where I'm headed, having smaller diodes with a greater spread means much less heat generation. I would still target the same watt output, but should see a drastic reduction in tent temps vs COB LEDs. Also, I've seen people successfully run the quantum boards at a constant 12" from the canopy, which allows for more light as well as prevents stretching. There are a ton of pros to using LEDs and one of them is how close you can place them to the plants. Spread out QB boards can really let you get in their faces.

 

[Aqua Man]

I actually think that LED lights beat HPS watt for watt. That being said, light is basically the plants food source. You cant go from blasting it with 1200watts from an HPS and switch to 600 true watts of LED and expect the same results.

You have to at least come close to matching the HPS. LEDs running cooler allow you to place them closer to the plants which greatly increases their results vs HPS.

But yeah, everything else equal, you're going to have to pump watts at the plants regardless of the light source. So maybe you can set up 800 watts of LEDs and get similar results to a 1k watt HPS bulb but don't think for a minute that you can take a 10k watt room and bring it down to 5k LED watts and get the same results.... it just wont work...

Think about lumen and PAR meters, they dont care what the light source is. Plants are somewhat similar. You can match or exceed HPS figures with less watts if using LEDs and a closer proximity to the canopy, but you can't halve your light/energy output and think that you'll get similar results. IMHO, LEDs will shave a few watts off your bill but if you want big yields, you're going to have to target an electric output which wont varie all that much from other light sources.

He was getting at the fact it does not take 2000-2400 watts of quality LED's to reach the equivalent of 2000w of HPS. more likely about 1200-1300w ish would reach the equivalent of 2000w HPS