LED Theories and General Thoughts

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ookiimata

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Hey Guys. This section seems to be addressing a certain brand of LED Panel, so I hope it's okay to post here. I didn't see a more general LED area. Please delete or move as appropriate if this is the wrong section.


Alright. Having many (around two dozen, relatively "many" for some, relatively few for others) grows under my belt, having had to sacrifice my lighting equipment two years, and preparing a new micro two cab grow, I obviously needed some new lighting. Because the cabs are quite short, I considered LED. Here are some thoughts and resources I've put together through my research, as well as more detail about my cabs just to give you a better idea about what kind of setup I'm considering the LEDs for.

I'm adding a new aero grow area, one cabinet for mom and clones, one larger cabinet for veg/flower. Neither cabinet is particularly tall, so I'm going with scrog. Used srcog before with good results under HPS in a roughly equal sized, but taller, area. Because the area is small, but I'm also someone who demands more-than-adequate lumens per sq ft, I obviously became interested in the LED technology. The potential depth of an LED panel is also appealing, as it could save me a couple inches in the height department. And, as always, there's the heat issue. Using a 400W or 600W HPS in the flower cabinet would require extensive ventilation, and while this isn't necessarily a "stealth" grow, I'd prefer to have as little vent holes as possible in the cab, and use as little fan energy on cooling the light as possible. Looked into water cooling the light, but that seems too bulky for my situation, and I hate the idea of the light having to go through the water and layers of glass. Because the cabinet is not very tall, and I'll be scroging, light penetration is not my greatest concern. Up front costs are not my biggest concern. I either build efficient, high quality rooms, or I don't grow. I'm growing tomatoes, by the way.

My instinct is to play it safe as far as the light efficiency is concerned, buy a new 400/600w digi ballast, mount the ballast outside the cabinet, and cool the hell out of the bulb. I still worry this will put out too much heat/per distance to the plants. Every inch of available plant height is a concern in this situation, even if I ultimately don't use it all.

But I read all these things claiming you can keep LEDs inches away from the plants, that they put out minimal amounts of heat, and that they're long lasting. Well, hell, who wouldn't want that? So I began researching. I'll share some of the things I've found here with you guys.

http://www.ledgrow.eu/

That guy is one of the best resources I've found. Grow journal details seven LED grows with images, and images of final dry weight on the scale. He's in the middle of a new grow now. Some wonderful tips on there. He found that adding far-red bulbs to the spectrum dramatically decreases the delay in flowering common in LED grows. He improves his setup each grow, experimenting with different bulbs and panel placements. He found that adding side panels eliminated the stretching problem. This seems like an obvious solution in retrospect, but I notice that all the commercially available LED setups are still working with stronger and stronger sole top panel designs (well, I guess in theory you could buy three of their panels and use two as side lighting, but the cost is prohibitive as hell in a real world situation). Looking at the improvements in spectrum claimed by the newer commercial LED panels, I'm assuming they've found the same thing out about supplementing far-red and various white bulbs to the initial red/blue claims and designs. With his small SOG LED grow, his last (and best) yield was 53grams from a 60w setup. So around .66g per kwh. We all know this is inferior to HID. But that's not necessarily the point, merely a point of interest. 53grams of nice product from 60w is acceptable for me at this stage of LED grow research, considering this is a homemade light rig and a soil grow. Tweaking veg times and slightly scaling up the grow dimensions and number of lights (visit the site and check out his pics to get an idea about his grow size) could potentially offer the grower a steady supply with very little wattage - just building off the design that guy is using. He achieved those results with the Rebel LEDs. He's switched to the CREEs this grow, and his calculations predict something like 1.4x increase in light output at the same wattage. Time will tell how the math translates to a real world grow. His site also offers a great faq on truth and myths surrounding LEDs based on his experience and research. His notes on heat generation are particularly interesting. One thing about his light setup is a lack of lenses. I think a narrow lens, which would unfortunately lead to an increase of bulbs needed to cover the same width/length, would significantly improve penetration. I wrote, "I think," meaning that is the general consensus of the industry, not some breakthrough I've discovered. Lenses for the LEDs seem to claim efficiency of around 83-88%. So you'll be losing some light, but air cooling a HID bulb without sucking out precious CO2 will also require some kind of pyrex or glass, so I don't necessarily consider that a draw back.

http://www.reefcentr...d.php?t=1587273

That thread details a saltwater aquarium light build using LEDs. Great information. He even took a PAR reading of the light at different distances. As with the first builder, this gentleman does not use light-concentrating lenses to improve penetration. If nothing else, his experience demonstrates that LEDs are effective for vegging. Reefs require blue veg light, not the red spectrum we're looking for. So his light is entirely blue and white. So while it's interesting to have some kind of confirmation on the effectiveness of maintaining vegetative growth, the real question for growers still hasn't been answered. Flowering. CFLs can veg adequately for negligible costs, what's important to us is flowering. In this regard, the grow journal discussed above seems to be the best source I've found.

The drivers needed to effectively power the LEDs are a significant portion of overall cost. For anyone electrically inclined, this guy has written some interesting DIY methods for building your own efficient drivers.

http://www.instructa...gh-Power-LED-s/

I'm not proficient enough with electrical work to comment on his methods. I've purchased several books on electric work and wiring and am working my way through them now, trying to attain the knowledge to judge and attempt his methods. They seem easy enough, and the prices vary from pennies to a few bucks for the required parts of the varying designs. If anyone here is willing to take a look at this DIY guide and provide informed feedback, I'd certainly love to hear it.

So, looking at the new 5 band spectrum panels being sold for (current price as of 10/29/2010) $1,199, I would assume they've added/increased far red bulbs and possibly white bulbs (although looking at the image on their site, I can't make out any individual white bulbs). I'd further assume they've added optics to increase penetration. Their site says varying angles for different applications. I don't know what this means. They give you several complete sets of optics of varying degree which you can manually swap in and out? If anyone can clear that up, I'd appreciate it. They also only give a three year warranty, which I find somewhat discouraging. It seems that if their components are built to work the claimed length of the bulbs' effectiveness, they'd have something closer to five years. Not a deal breaker, but just something that caught my attention. So they're expensive. But if they're using the same high-quality parts that one would use in a DIY build, they're testing for optimum light efficiency, they're doing all the assembly and wiring for you, the end user is only receiving one shipment rather than many (as well as having to shop around to different stores to find parts) the convenience factor and professional (I assume) construction would make the price reasonable enough for consideration. However, being the finicky bastard I am, not knowing what kind of bulbs (brand, wattage) and optics they're using is a problem, pretty much because the technology is in such an early, relatively untested stage. I'd also like to know how many heatsinks and fans they're using to cool it, as well as some rough idea about what kind of heat this thing exhausts (I realize temperature will vary depending on room size and ventilation, but some kind of rough idea would be nice). They also claim that a separate LED panel, a flower booster, will increase yields by a large margin. For a considerable additional charge. For $1200, it seems that I shouldn't need to be buying additional $200-300 lights. I'm not sure if constraints arose due to a desired final size of the big panel, desired final wattage draw, or if they're just splitting it up to make more money. Otherwise it seems that they would have just incorporated whatever lights the flower booster has into the main panel. I would hope size and/or wattage draw to be the cause.

The cabinets are constructed, the aero units as well. I took my time and researched both designs, as with all my rooms. Yet I'm torn on the light issue for this particular space. While I have the funds, I don't enjoy throwing money around on things I'll find are not what I hoped, or are not worth the money. If anyone can shed any more light onto the questions and data I've discussed, PLEASE do. I'm not afraid to have someone more informed than myself correct me.

That was the original post I made on another site (only received one helpful reply there, so I came here to try my luck). Since then, I've been in contact with Chinese manufacturers, and have figured out a little more about factory costs of these things, and factory cost of buying the individual bulbs for a DIY panel.

I've also seen a great LED grow using 3 150W panels (bought direct from China) made up of the following color ratio: 50% 660nm, 10% 630nm, 10% 600nm, 10% 3500k warm white, and 20% 460nm. The grow is featured on another forum. I'd be glad to link to it, but I'm not sure of the rules here regarding that, and I also wouldn't want to link to the gentleman's grow without his permission. But he grew the tallest, densest, most bud-packed plants I've seen with LEDs. It's actually impressive enough that I almost have a hard time believing he only used LEDs, but he's not selling the lights, and he clearly shows them at work growing the plants, so I'll take him at his word. Due to his success, I'm taking those colors and approx. those ratios as a starting point for a successful panel design.

So knowing what colors and how many I needed, I got on Alibaba and started sending messages back and forth with about 18 chinese manufacturers. They're chomping at the bit to sell these things, so there's no trouble getting a hold of them for anyone interested. It seems that buying the pre-built panels is roughly the same cost as buying the bulbs individually then building the drivers, cooling and final assembly oneself. I suppose this is because they have hundreds of workers making 10 cents an hour to put these things together, and the driver components probably cost about two dollars for them. The panels they are selling are the same thing I've seen being used on this forum from the so-called "LEDgirl." They also look the same as Prosource. The majority of the manufacturers ask you, the buyer, to specify what colors and what ratios you want, then they build X amount of panels for you with those specifications. For example, using the above colors and ratios, I was quoted a price of $500 shipped to my door for a single 300W panel. The panel itself is around $340, the shipping cost making up the rest of the $500 total. Every manufacturer I contacted is selling these panels for slightly more than a dollar a watt. This is inline with the price for the actual bulbs if one were to order them from China. Different manufacturers use different bulbs. Some of the people I talked to use Crees.

Here is the pre-shipping cost I was quoted if I were to buy the bulbs individually:

Thank you for your inquiry. Now I quote you the price as below:
100x Deep Red 1W : 640nm~660nm $0.98/pc
30x Red 623nm 1W : $0.92/pc
30x Amber 590nm 1W : $0.92/pc
60x Blue 460nm 1W : $0.68
20x Purple 390nm 1W : $3.8
5x Neutral White 5200K 1W : $0.90/pc with 100lm
5x Cool White 6500K 1W :$0.90/pc with 100lm

1W led bulb price: warm white 3000K: $6.78/pc AC 85~265V, which can replace the common 20W bulb.


I added "cool" and "neutral" in my inquiry just to get an idea of what that would cost. I also asked for 10x warm white, so I'm not quite sure what that final quote of $6.78/pc is on those. I believe they can be bought cheaper than that on the internet from American sellers.

Most of the panel manufacturers offer the three year warranty (hence the three year warranty being offered by the companies reselling them here). Driver failure seems to be the biggest issue. Some of the manufacturers I spoke to addressed this issue and claimed they have fixed the problem. I dunno.

At this point, I have pretty much just decided to pick up a 400w Digital Greenhouse setup and drop that in the cab (mounting the ballast externally). A little over 200 bucks, and I have experience with the technology and know it works. But I thought I'd at least share the info I've gathered on LEDs for those interested. It's a shame to pay a $500 or more markup on a product that someone is just ordering from China then re-sending to you.

Hope this helps people looking into LED purchases.
 
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dman16

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if you cooltube a 400w light with a 6 inch fan you will have no temp issues. i have a cola leaning against my cooltube right now and its not even foxtailing.
 
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ookiimata

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Cool. Good to hear. I'm almost positive I'm going to go with HPS. This thread is more about presenting some things I found while researching LED for anyone interested.
 
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ookiimata

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Those look sweet, SS. Hadn't seen them before. I like that they're isolating the color spectrums to individual panels. I think that will prove to be one of the key aspects to LEDs popularity. I also think multi-panel setups with side lighting instead of just one big panel at the top will give better results. Of course, I've not grown with LEDs yet, so that is all just assumption on my part. Good luck with them man.

One thing you may want to ask the company before you buy is if their 20W output consists of a single 20W bulb or if they're made up of clustered smaller wattage chips that are combining to put out 20W. I've seen people selling 10-20W bulbs on ebay for good prices, but when I showed them to someone who knows about LEDs, he said they were just 4x5W dies grouped together in an array on the same heatsink, and that they should be avoided because they cause heating problems which will make the light less efficient and give it a shorter life, or that they have to be wired at lower power to avoid the heat setup. He says 10-20W bulbs are a "novelty" at this point because they're so expensive.
I don't know if that is what Kessil is using or not. Definitely don't want to discourage you, just want to pass along the stuff I'm picking up so we can get more and more growers informed about these expensive light purchases. A search for 30W High Luminous DEX 2100 LED just comes back with Kessil's page and one other. The other page shows their light bar using Optix LED. A search for Optix LED comes back with a bunch of car lighting options. The first result claims they're using "3-Up" Optix Modules, which I believe is three lights on one heatsink.

I too like the idea that Hydrofarm endorses them. Still may want to grill them with some questions before you purchase.
 
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ookiimata

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From their site:

Instead of individually wrapped LED chips, Kessil applies a brand new platform that densely packs many of them together. For example, our H150 grow light uses a dense matrix platform that carries 21 LED chips in a circle smaller than a dime!

So it does seem like they're using the same approach as the bulbs selling on ebay in that wattage range. I don't know enough to tell you if it's good or bad. I'll run it by the LED guy I've been talking to and see what he says. He doesn't work for an LED or light seller so he's more interested in the science behind it than in selling them.
 
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ibTheMan

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Sorry LEDs aint going to do the job, not yet at least, and anything under 1000w HPS is near pointless, air cooling lights is alright, but once you put that glass on the reflector you loose 25% of your light.
Yah i love the thought of less, Heat and Electricity but thu testing there just not good enough now, even a room full of big ones.(300+w) each.
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

Living dead girl
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638
Ookli, have you run across the Orphek lights yet? Aquarium-specific, but their unit is well under $1,000, and the bigger problem most people are having with even experimenting with LEDs is that initial capital outlay, as I'm sure you're aware.

I've posted a couple of times about how reefkeepers are now successfully using LEDs, said what you posted above, we're still searching for that red end of the spectrum.
 
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ookiimata

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Those look nice, Seamaiden. I definitely like the way the color lights the tank compared to the MH in their side by side. They misspelled a word in their product description, though, and that always bothers me. I've been into marine aquariums for about twelve years, and I keep meaning to go up to the local store and ask the owner if he has any experience with LEDs. He does some big installs and goes to alot of conventions, so I'm hoping he'll have some new info on them.

This guy is offering various "packages" of LED panels for reefers at good prices. He charges based on the amount of labor he puts in, so a DIY system will be cheaper than a system he builds for you. Still very reasonably priced though and he claims he's an electrical engineer. I've read good feedback on reef forums from his customers. I imagine it won't come in a slick metal case, though, so if looks are important to you...
I haven't contacted him about adding red lighting into a panel. Not sure if he would be able to do that or not. But if nothing else, he may be able to help someone out with a veg panel.

http://stevesleds.com/

I've also received some additional messages from the Chinese manufacturers. One message they sent me had their "new and improved panel," which switched from 1W LEDs to 3W. They claimed better performance and efficiency. Still seems like you'd get better coverage out of a properly wired 1W setup, though. They also switched from a three fan cooling setup to a single 3500CFM fan, and they say the temp dropped dramatically. From 55celcius internal temp to 49celcius internal temp.

Another manufacturer sent me the specs on their five spectrum panel, and they're using 740nm infrared bulbs in it. That's definitely an interesting bit of info for me. We know the plant uses all colors in its life, just some more than others, so as the LED people continue to find that they need more and more colors in their panels, I'm worrying that eventually the added efficiency of LEDs will drop. Seems like if you're going to have to keep adding more and more colors, you'll get more lumens/watt by just going with a MH/HPS combo, or one of those dual arc bulbs they're selling now.
 
SupraSPL

SupraSPL

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With his small SOG LED grow, his last (and best) yield was 53grams from a 60w setup. So around .66g per kwh. We all know this is inferior to HID. But that's not necessarily the point, merely a point of interest. 53grams of nice product from 60w is acceptable for me at this stage of LED grow research, considering this is a homemade light rig and a soil grow.

That comes out to .88 grams/watt which is impressive because it is giving the efficiency of a 600w HPS but on a small scale. Also consider that the HPS does not include its ballast losses and the 60w figure probably does, so his results are probably higher when you consider actual dissipation watts. Either way good link I will have to go check that out thnx.
 
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sm0k4

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LED would be a very good supplement to Flower for node and trich development due to added spectrum that HID just doens't do as well. Esp. the 660nm range reds.

Solely using LED would require proper spectrum output and still the required 60Watts per square foot for anything decent.

Most lights sold online use mainly red and blue and forget that plants actually do use other spectrums, yes, even green (albeit not as much). So a balance with white needs to be in there.

For a 2'x2' area, I wouldn't go under 120W evenly distributed.

If you have a small HPS and want to tinker with LED, making them yourself in custom smaller bars can be added as side lighting and you will see lower buds you never knew could grow that dense. Info is out there, but its roughly $400 on the cheap end for 120W of high powered LED components useful for growing. Technology is there as NASA has proven LED works and they say inter-canopy lighting with LED is a 25% increase in development. You can't exactly throw an HPS bulb in the middle of your plants without excessice cooling now can you?

So my suggestion would be wait until price comes down to switch to total LED, because price per lumen isn't on par with HID yet. Tinker around with some LEDs in the canopy and see if you notice a difference in growth.
 
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Thebogie

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LEDs

Going to my local Hydro store this week and will report back with info. I get on the latest LED tech.
 
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wkpjr1967

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Hello
I am very interested in using LED technology in the near future.
I have been doing some research and am leaning toward either a Supernova system from HID Hut or a Penetrator system from Hydro Grow LED.

Because of the cost of these systems I want to get the best value for my hard earned money.

Is anyone familiar with these systems?
Does anyone have any opinion of these systems or companies?

Thank You in advance
 
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homem-planta

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beware of this company (Hydro Grow Led)

Check this thread bro:

good luck.

Hello
I am very interested in using LED technology in the near future.
I have been doing some research and am leaning toward either a Supernova system from HID Hut or a Penetrator system from Hydro Grow LED.

Because of the cost of these systems I want to get the best value for my hard earned money.

Is anyone familiar with these systems?
Does anyone have any opinion of these systems or companies?

Thank You in advance
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

Living dead girl
23,596
638
So this weekend I got the latest catalog from my favorite organic supplier out in Grass Valley, and I'm sitting on the pot thumbing through and what do my wondering eyes spy in their colored newsprint pages? LED rigs.
 
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IrishBoy

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Guys please do research when buying leds. Ive seen too many people in my time on the forums get riped off. Ive tested allot of different leds in my time and most and snake oil. Their are good ones out their for sure but theirs also bad ones out their. Do ur homework!! I hate seeing med growers getting riped off. These light are not cheap. Stay away from 1w leds and leds that use 120 degree lenses. You want 90 degree lenses with at least 2-3w leds, look for a full color spectrum's. Trust me i am one of the 1st growers to bring up leds on the forums and ive seen allot of stuff in my time. Be careful. No 300w led unit will match a 1000w hps, its a bs scam. Ive proved it wrong many times in some of my grow journals over time. Took me a while and allot of waisted time until i found the led lights that work for me. Dont make the same mistakes, look for journals from trusted growers showing true results.

Good luck

IB
 
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sm0k4

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Guys please do research when buying leds. Ive seen too many people in my time on the forums get riped off. Ive tested allot of different leds in my time and most and snake oil. Their are good ones out their for sure but theirs also bad ones out their. Do ur homework!! I hate seeing med growers getting riped off. These light are not cheap. Stay away from 1w leds and leds that use 120 degree lenses. You want 90 degree lenses with at least 2-3w leds, look for a full color spectrum's. Trust me i am one of the 1st growers to bring up leds on the forums and ive seen allot of stuff in my time. Be careful. No 300w led unit will match a 1000w hps, its a bs scam. Ive proved it wrong many times in some of my grow journals over time. Took me a while and allot of waisted time until i found the led lights that work for me. Dont make the same mistakes, look for journals from trusted growers showing true results.

Good luck

IB

Have you built one yet or have you just bought the junk online? I have seen success with DIY arrays. Spreading the light out to give good coverage and density is crucial. Most lights I've seen have the LEDs grouped together less than an inch apart it seems.

I am going with a 1.5" distance between mine on 20" long U beams. 13 beams will cover the 3 foot width I want to grow in. 120 degree lenses are also not bad as you suggest. 120 degree lights over 10" away from a lower bud is bad yes, but thats where side lighting comes in.

Gotta grow with SoG or LST style to get best results with LED. They do not have as much penetration unless you get tighter lenses, but then you don't get the good dispersion.
 
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sm0k4

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I am building my own array. Osram, Cree, and some Avagos to test out.

I would NEVER buy a light online. I will have ~300 Watts at full power in a 3'x2' cabinet when I am done building it all.

I did the research and only a couple LED grow light companies seem reputable with journals on 420mag forums.

GrowLEDHydro is probably the best known and best product that has been tested there. They still probably don't use the top bin LEDs though. I am buying top bin 1W and 3W leds for my light.

I agree that research should be done. LOTS of research. Here is the driver I designed to drive three strings of LEDs. I will be using 10 of these boards with 21 drivers total. 350W worth of DC power supply.

HID is still the way to go for anything voer a 4'x4' room. It wouldn't be worth the initial costs right now since LEDs are still expensive for the good ones.
 
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