Smartlamp LED grow test

[ledgrowtester]

Thought I would share our first kick at testing growing with LED grow lights with you for those that are looking in to it.

First, we went with the TI-Smartbar from Theoreme Innovation. After looking into the various lights out there it seemed like they had the best technology and the most powerful lamps compared to all the others some of which looked like toys.

We thought about going with the Smartlamp 600 they have, but since we already use 1000 watts and since the Smartbars are water cooled, it seemed like the perfect heat control system since we do have to do a lot of air conditioning requirements.

The Smartbars are two bars sold as a kit with the pump, ballast and water hoses (you can see the hook-up in the photos). We had to get a water tub and get the electrical hooked up because the Smartbar uses 220 volt. The pump is submersed in the water and circulates the water through the lights and back. In the long run we will get a chiller and run all the smartbars in series through the chiller.

We grow under a medical permit using 1000 watt HPS for flowering phase. You can see our set-up from the attached photos.

This is our first test with these led lights, so we have made a few mistakes along the way that we will correct on our next test, but for this first test we want to use the same conditions as for our plants under HPS. Later we will try to figure out what nutrient changes might work better.

So a few words about conditions which are the same for both HPS and LED plants :

Room temperature is about 21C degrees
Humidity 55%
Pots are 12 inches
12 hour lighting for flowering
Nutrients:
Canna CoCo A ( 1-4-2 ) 500 ml
Canna CoCo B ( 4-0-1 ) 500 ml
Water 200 L
Cannazym 400 ml
BioBoost 200 ml
PPM 600 to 900

Problem one was that we had an electrical problem in the first 5 days of flowering that we didn’t catch in time so the plants under LED basically got no light for the first 5 days of flowering phase.

So the photos with the HPS are at 35 days and the LEDs at 30 days (or 48 days vs. 53 days for the second set of photos).

Second problem was that we didn’t pay much attention to the water reservoir for the first month and let the water get really low due to evaporation which is apparently a problem because the water temperature got really hot. Apparently this reduces the amount of light generated by the lights and reduces lifespan. We sure won’t make that mistake again!


We harvested at 56 days.

Results so far:

Day 30 (LED) average plant height = 17.4 inches, average width = 17.5 inches
Day 35 (HPS) average plant height = 18.4 inches, average width = 18.5 inches

HPS had received 16.7% more light (in days).but only had a 5.7% advantage in height and width.

Day 48 (LED) average plant height = 17.4 inches, average width = 17.5 inches, average flowering branches per plant = 8.5
Day 53 (HPS) average plant height = 18.4 inches, average width = 18.5 inches, average flowering branches per plant = 9

HPS had received 10.4% more light by this time (days) but only had a 5.1% advantage in width and height and a 5.9% advantage in number of flowering branches.

Temperature under the HPS is 26C (79F) and 21C (70F) under the LED. I am not sure if this will make a difference or not. I could adjust this once the room goes all LED cause we won’t need to run so much (any?) A/C in the room. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Generally watering under the HPS is every 5 to 6 days but every 7 to 8 days under the LED.

We also moved the plants under led closer together after the first month (to the way appear in the photos) since that gave us better light coverage on them without any heat issues or penetration problems.

Dry weight results of the LED : 0.75 lbs (6 plants)

Dry weight results of the LED : 1.4 lbs (7 plants)

According to our calculations this yield works out like this :

HPS LED LED
Test 1 Test 1 Test 2
Power (12¢kWh) (we hope)

Yield 1.4 lb 0.75 lb 1.0 lb
Electricity $94.75 $34.68 $34.68
AirCon $38.77 $13.80 $13.80
Bulb Cost $19.26 0.00 0.00
Ballast Cost $11.42 $25.47 $25.47

Total $164.20 $73.95 $73.95

Cost per lb : $117.29 $98.60 $73.95

Savings to HPS : 0.0% 15.9% 37.0%

So this is a cool result so far with more refining to go.

How did we figure this out :

-we pay 12¢kWh. HPS total to light 789.6 kWH. LED to power 288.96 kWh. You can calculate with your own power rate to see how your figure would be different.

-AirCon : at the time of this test we had air con running. Whether we would need air con at all with a full LED set-up is unclear, but these lamps are really cool so may no. Basically my aircon guy says about 33% of the cost to light would be used in aircon here. Down south I guess this would be a lot higher. The cost of air con was calculated by a friend who knows about air conditioning.


-Bulb costs : ours cost us $129 per an we change them every year so every 4500 hours to pick a round figure.

-Ballast cost for the Smartbar is $1895 divided by 50 000 lifespan x 672 hours for this test. HPS is $850 for a full set-up of reflector, ballast etc lasting the same time as the Smartbar of 50 000. Maybe using 50 000 for the ballast is not realistic ???

Will update on the test 2 start later.

Cheers. Feedback always welcome.

 

[ledgrowtester]

It's official -- I am an idiot and can't upload my photos! Help!!!!

 

[lyfr]

very interesting. something about watercooling a light that makes me think technology has a little farther to go with these led's...JMO

 

[KaliKitsune]

You can't upload pics because you haven't had at least 15 posts. You're going to be asked to do all sorts of obscure obfuscation that's totally pointless - you won't be allowed to hotlink. I've suspended my grow journal for this very reason.

 

[lyfr]

You can't upload pics because you haven't had at least 15 posts. You're going to be asked to do all sorts of obscure obfuscation that's totally pointless - you won't be allowed to hotlink. I've suspended my grow journal for this very reason.

Marijuana Passion.........love it, or leave it JMO

 

[papabeach1]

ask mod see if you can post pic along with this thread?

 

[KaliKitsune]

Marijuana Passion.........love it, or leave it JMO

Hard to love a place when it's denizens insist on trampling upon one's personal property rights.

To the owner of this forum - if you live in the USA, how can you even justify trampling my property rights? I own these pictures, you don't.

I'm still waiting on the moral and ethical justification of this enforcement of Rule #7.

Hiding in public is also the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Maybe for an individual attacker and victim scenario, yes, get the public to help you. Any other situation, that's not sound advice.

 

[ledgrowtester]

There is an air cooled model too, but we wanted the water one to have a more total control of heat.

The advantage of the water-cooled is that even though LEDs run way cooler, there still is some heat that needs to be removed from the light for the LEDs to run properly. My understanding is that the water cooled model was created for commercial growers. I think they run the water through heating pads and pre-warmers for the water in hydroponic systems. That is where we got the idea for the heating coils.

With an overall 16% savings on our first (somewhat screwed-up) test compared to our HPS system this is exciting stuff. LEDs will definitely improve, but this looks already better than our HPS system.

very interesting. something about watercooling a light that makes me think technology has a little farther to go with these led's...JMO

 

[KaliKitsune]

very interesting. something about watercooling a light that makes me think technology has a little farther to go with these led's...JMO

Back on topic, I'm willing to bet the watercooling is for the HID bulbs, not the LEDs. LEDs produce almost nil heat.

I stand corrected - water cooling an LED, eh? Now that's a new one on me.

 

[ledgrowtester]

LEDs produce much less heat than HID, but if the heat that is produced isn't removed the LEDs will overheat reducing light output and lifespan and possibly burning them out. That is why all the LED lights have fans or in this case a water-cooling system.

You can touch the glass surface which covers the leds without any problem even after running all day. The heat is inside removed from the leds through a heat sink.

Back on topic, I'm willing to bet the watercooling is for the HID bulbs, not the LEDs. LEDs produce almost nil heat.

I stand corrected - water cooling an LED, eh? Now that's a new one on me.

 

[Rogue]

Hello all!

This posting got me really excited until I did a little research.

I would take this whole posting with a giant grain of salt. It smells to high sativa plants of guerrilla marketing. As a person who makes their living doing e-commerce I can tell you that popping into forums such as ours and raving about your wares while pretending to be a dis-interested third party is pretty much the norm for those scrapping out a living on the lower end of the direct marketing world.

The exact same starting post was also just recently posted here: hxxp://www.gardenscure.com/420/planting-indoors/118275-growing-test-ti-smartlamp-led.html

It is amazing how someone growing on a medical permit has not had reason to be a member of a growing forum until they started to use a brand new product and then they suddenly join at least 2 in 10 days time. :confused2: I also find it very incredulous how they do not have any pictures of progression during the "first test" and how they chose the name LEDGROWTESTER over something to do with medical MJ. Also the color make up of the lamps are fairly close to the ones in my 25 watt grow.

Pulled from the sellers web site for their 600 watt HPS light replacement:
Hi-Power LED Composition
105 red, 18 blue, 15 white, 12 ProBloom proprietary agronomist mixture

If you read my 25 watt you will see how this red heavy make up will give you very stretched ladies something you don't see in the images posted on the other forum.

The final nail in the coffin for me was the lack of any contact information other than an email address for the seller (who I won't mention here cause I don't want to give them publicity). Even if you lookup their whois info you still can't get a name of any one in the organization, their address or phone number. I don't know about you but I won't be sending $1800 to someone that I don't even know what their address is.

All I can say is buyer beware. :ciao: :bolt:

 

[ugmjfarmer]

How do the plants look as far as difference from the HPS? Density? Compactness? Node Length Differences?

 

[Rogue]

How do the plants look as far as difference from the HPS? Density? Compactness? Node Length Differences?

Follow the link in my post above. They look like HPS plants to me.

 

[KaliKitsune]

Hello all!

This posting got me really excited until I did a little research.

I would take this whole posting with a giant grain of salt. It smells to high sativa plants of guerrilla marketing. As a person who makes their living doing e-commerce I can tell you that popping into forums such as ours and raving about your wares while pretending to be a dis-interested third party is pretty much the norm for those scrapping out a living on the lower end of the direct marketing world.

The exact same starting post was also just recently posted here: hxxp://www.gardenscure.com/420/planting-indoors/118275-growing-test-ti-smartlamp-led.html

It is amazing how someone growing on a medical permit has not had reason to be a member of a growing forum until they started to use a brand new product and then they suddenly join at least 2 in 10 days time. :confused2: I also find it very incredulous how they do not have any pictures of progression during the "first test" and how they chose the name LEDGROWTESTER over something to do with medical MJ. Also the color make up of the lamps are fairly close to the ones in my 25 watt grow.

Pulled from the sellers web site for their 600 watt HPS light replacement:
Hi-Power LED Composition
105 red, 18 blue, 15 white, 12 ProBloom proprietary agronomist mixture

If you read my 25 watt you will see how this red heavy make up will give you very stretched ladies something you don't see in the images posted on the other forum.

The final nail in the coffin for me was the lack of any contact information other than an email address for the seller (who I won't mention here cause I don't want to give them publicity). Even if you lookup their whois info you still can't get a name of any one in the organization, their address or phone number. I don't know about you but I won't be sending $1800 to someone that I don't even know what their address is.

All I can say is buyer beware. :ciao: :bolt:

What got me laughing is water-cooled LEDs. I know for a fact there's almost negligible heat inside of an LED, as the clear glass acts perfectly as a heat conductor. If those LEDs produced any significant heat to damage themselves, the glass around the LED itself would get equally hot for as long as the light is on. In other words, this does not happen, and it's purely a marketing gimmick easily seen through by those with any modest knowledge of basic electronic engineering principles. If you wanted more efficiency, you'd water-cool the transformer/ballast used to step down the voltage to those LEDs to increase the efficiency of the transformer.

 

[Rogue]

What got me laughing is water-cooled LEDs. I know for a fact there's almost negligible heat inside of an LED, as the clear glass acts perfectly as a heat conductor. If those LEDs produced any significant heat to damage themselves, the glass around the LED itself would get equally hot for as long as the light is on. In other words, this does not happen, and it's purely a marketing gimmick easily seen through by those with any modest knowledge of basic electronic engineering principles. If you wanted more efficiency, you'd water-cool the transformer/ballast used to step down the voltage to those LEDs to increase the efficiency of the transformer.

A couple hundred watts of LEDs do produce heat. I've recently added 4 40cfm computer fans to my light to keep it cooler. Stays just above room temp now. But water cooling is way overkill. As for a ballast, well that is the wrong thing to be doing with the electricity any way. LEDs are low voltage DC animals not high voltage which is what a ballast produces. If you need a ballast to light your LEDs then you wired them very wrong. :hubba: What you need is a switch mode power supply.

 

[KaliKitsune]

A couple hundred watts of LEDs do produce heat. I've recently added 4 40cfm computer fans to my light to keep it cooler. Stays just above room temp now. But water cooling is way overkill. As for a ballast, well that is the wrong thing to be doing with the electricity any way. LEDs are low voltage DC animals not high voltage which is what a ballast produces. If you need a ballast to light your LEDs then you wired them very wrong. :hubba: What you need is a switch mode power supply.

You use transformers for either stepping up or stepping down voltage, and all ballasts have them. you might as well call anything involving power with a transformer in it a ballast.

And, why go for a switch mode power supply? A simple AC-DC rectifier would do the job for about 50 bucks cheaper

 

[Rogue]

You use transformers for either stepping up or stepping down voltage, and all ballasts have them. you might as well call anything involving power with a transformer in it a ballast.

And, why go for a switch mode power supply? A simple AC-DC rectifier would do the job for about 50 bucks cheaper

Very simple simple reason for the switch mode supply. I would rather let it eat the line spikes than my $200 worth of LEDs, plus it turns off if there is an accidental short unlike a rectifier.

 

[KaliKitsune]

Very simple simple reason for the switch mode supply. I would rather let it eat the line spikes than my $200 worth of LEDs, plus it turns off if there is an accidental short unlike a rectifier.

Old rectifiers, yes. The ones for my solar energy system have surge protection and have capacitors to keep power flow smooth. Rectifiers for solar energy systems are called Trace Charge Controllers, they're far more reliable than the old 12v rectifier you find in cars and older electronics from the early 90s on back. I'm sure one of those can be adapted (or has already been made) to work with house current conversion.

 

[ishnish]

i use 0.5amp and a 1amp transformer to run my fans 24/7, they get warm, but i've never had a problem except for when i pluged the .5amp transformer into the 1amp fan. that one just cut out on me after a week or so. kinda off topic, but i had to say something..

 

[Rogue]

Old rectifiers, yes. The ones for my solar energy system have surge protection and have capacitors to keep power flow smooth. Rectifiers for solar energy systems are called Trace Charge Controllers, they're far more reliable than the old 12v rectifier you find in cars and older electronics from the early 90s on back. I'm sure one of those can be adapted (or has already been made) to work with house current conversion.

I also went for the switch mode because it was just a matter of walking into Radio Shack to pick one up and all I had to do to use it was plug it in and attach my power cable for my light. Nice stable power with safety built in and no worrying if my design would burn down my home. I know a little about electronics but not enough to sleep at night with a 250 watt power system of my own design running.