Here is a Fax we got from a customer using LED's. This is a third party review of these products.
THEY JUST WON’T FINISH!
If you are thinking of growing under LED’s, read this first.
I am a newbie grower and when I decided to grow indoors, the LED light systems made to most sense. Growing in a closet, I thought low heat, no ballast and low energy bills made the LED light system the perfect solution.
How could I have been so wrong? I mean, everything I read said LED technology surpasses Metal Halide (MH) and High Pressure Sodium (HPS) bulbs hands down. I was totally sold on them. I am ashamed to admit I got sucked in not just once but several times before I finally saw the light (HID). Let’s be clear, there is no comparison between LED and HID.
I started with four 14 watt LED panels (114$ on EBAY). They are great for seedlings up to about 3 weeks. Next I bought a 45 watt LED panel and then a 55 watt panel (144 and 98$ respectively). These two light panels took me from seedlings to a weak vegetative growth cycle. With 100 watts of LED I was doing as well as I do under 40 watt fluorescent lights.
TIME TO FLOWER!!
I went for a 90 watt (158$+shipping) The ad said "more powerful than a 400 watt HPS", so how could I go wrong? In fact I was so convinced that LED's were the wave of the future for indoor gardening that I jumped on a 120 watt (299$ free shipping) which was supposed to be equivalent to running a 600 watt HPS light.
I was completely caught up in the LED hype, so much so, that i remained in denial about the fact that some of my plants never flowered even after 50 days on a 12 hour light cycle. The flowers I did finally get were small and never did quite finish even with the 120, 90, 45, and 55 watt LED's running all at once. Now that's a lot of purple light.
When you add up the cost of my LED adventure, I spent well over 600$, not to mention 6 months of growing time. Worst of all, I had nothing much to show for the time, money, effort expended.
One final note: My biggest mistake was not the LED decision, it was, not working with an experienced grower to advise me and warn me off dumb decisions. I thought i could save a few bucks going to Ebay instead of working with a knowledgeable retail dealer. I really understood when my retailer told me "WATTS EQUAL PRODUCTION".
So, you could decide to turn the world purple with LED's OR start producing something with HID lamps. I hope this helps you out. Good luck and happy growing.
