The truth on LEDs

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I am using a California Nurseries 120 watt LED light. It incorporates 100-1.05 watt BridgeLux LED's. I am growing in soil inside of a 6X4X2' grow tent. The interior of the tent is made of reflective material. The plants are AK-48's and are about a month old. I too had given much thought to the light penetration issue. What I have done is to remove a majority of the large fan leaves, in order to allow more light to reach the lower canopy. As you can see in the pictures, I have not yet experienced the lower foliage problems that Blanco has experienced. I am not yet able to report on the end result, as this will be my first grow with this setup. In my opinion, everything has gone just fine so far, and the plants look great for being a month old and started from seed. This is a great thread, and I hope others will share their experience with this type of method. I will post more pictures as growth continues, so others can see the results.:)
 
Hey erwin, plants are lookin nice there, I'll definately be keeping an eye on your grow, you should get a grow journal up and goin. It's always interesting to see how LED grows go. Looks like the light you got is pretty quality, and at a manageable price, if it turns out to work decently for me I might have to pick one up for the price. I'm curious, hows the lightspread on it?
 
Hey Blanco. If by spread you mean red to blue ratio, there are 88 red and 24 blues. It seems to be one of the better LED's. So far it's going well. I will take your advice and start a journal.;)
 
sod does anyone even have a lumen output rating on any these led grow lites they sell?
i posted this before somewhere else but heres a video of a make your own led grow light that consists of 100 "3 WATT luxeon powwer led's.
hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-R5xi0n2nc
now, i looked up these 3watt luxeon power leds and heres wat i found on them as far as lumens. and even ratings for the 1 an 1.5 watts ones etc etc. hxxp://www.plasmaled.com/3w_high_power_led.htm thats insane. cuz i mean the dude in the video used 100 of these 3watt lux leds and at the rate of cost there that over a grand$ and ya lumen output on a panel of 100 3 Watt leds is only gonna be under 20'000 give or take still.
unless im seein this wrong it dont seem even near worth it. like cfl's are king kong compared to led's in my eyes with this knowledge regardless of seein results on any other grow even.
granted i think it'd work if you clustered like 100 on one panel and basicall screw mylar or poly just line ya grow room or bcab wit panels. but the ya gotta have all tat bread to spend on em an wat not lol.
 
results for weed grown under led's are not here yet. I believe in the VERY near future, developments in technology will give the same results as hid lighting, and we will know when it does because everyone is waiting for an affordable way to use light in better spectrum's with significantly lower temperatures.
 
oh i totally agree. i see the whole picture as led's bein way too expensive is bout the main deterrent. the amount you'd need to actually make equivalent lumen output as an hps would be alot the way im seein it.
 
erwinsweeney said:
I too had given much thought to the light penetration issue. What I have done is to remove a majority of the large fan leaves, in order to allow more light to reach the lower canopy.
Click to expand...

Do not cut off the fan leaves. This is detrimental to the plant and does not help the "penetration" problem. The fan leaves are the little solar factories that turn light and nutrients into THC. Removing them inhibits the plants ability to produce THC.

Penetration is really not the correct word to use, although we use it all the time. No light is actually capable of "penetrating" through solid foliage. What we are really talking about is the loss of intensity over distance. The light from LEDs (or any other type of light, for that matter) loses lumens over distance and is only effective for x number of inches from the bulbs--the number of inches is different for different types of lighting. So removing fan leaves that are in the light to expose bud below that is receiving very few lumens is actually counterproductive. Your little girl needs all her fan leaves.
 
wow thanks blancolighter. this is a great write up! if i wouldnt have already purchased cfls and my 600w HID setup i probly would of given it a shot. but its all very interesting and i think at some point LEDS are gonna be in alot more grows
 
Thanks folks for an intelligent, informed debate about LEDs, I've been reading it carefully and finding it useful. It makes such a great change from endless bickering about who does/doesn't like LED which threads like this can so often succumb to.
Today I got my first UFO from China: 90w as 10 blue 460nm and 80 red 660nm, in a nifty well made box with fans inside for LED cooling. Frustratingly my old seeds of unknown origin havn't germinated so I have no use for it until I can get more seed. However its bright - very bright. I've constructed a wardrobe area 0.5m x 0.45m x 1.5m with carbon filter. The lighting besides the UFO also has 2 x 55w cfl. All lights switched on is very bright. Running like this for an hour without the extractor fan only raised the internal temperature from low 20s to high 20s (Celcius).
Once I'm up and running with new seeds I shall report back how it all goes
Cheers
 
Here are a couple of pics of my cureent AK-48 LED tent grow. These were vegged with the LED only. At start of flowering I added the 2700K 250 watt CFL bulb. Im real happy with results so far. We will see how i ends up when all is said and done.

Photo0095.jpg


Photo0096.jpg
 
Head_Down_Under said:
wow those pics are great erwin you've got me keen to start (well keener anyway)
Click to expand...

I'm excited to see what you get going there Down Under. Let me know if you start a grow journal so that I can subscribe. Good luck to you.:)
 
i am a lead electrician. & LED lights are still evolving. They are not as good as they will be in 10 years. I predict that they will be the only light used for garden use eventually, unfortunatly we will have to wait 4 that progression. With that said I am all about LED lights, but damn are they expensive.
 
Any one have an update on LEDs, it now Jan 2010. Have things improved or are we still going to have to use HPS??
 
leds can't be measured by lumens like hid systems. blanco already stated this.
it does seem that the leds are getting better. i've been researching many brands and threads and how people are using them. after this harvest i plan on trying the illuminator 350 watt led by prosource worldwide. heres a link that really explaings leds as blanco did in the begging of the thread. but it does seem the technology has advandced with there new 5band light
hXXp://www.prosourceworldwide.com/category_s/42.htm
at least they make it seem like the technology has gotten alot better.
THE HEMP GODDESS stated on this thread
"Do not cut off the fan leaves. This is detrimental to the plant and does not help the "penetration" problem. The fan leaves are the little solar factories that turn light and nutrients into THC. Removing them inhibits the plants ability to produce THC.

Penetration is really not the correct word to use, although we use it all the time. No light is actually capable of "penetrating" through solid foliage. What we are really talking about is the loss of intensity over distance. The light from LEDs (or any other type of light, for that matter) loses lumens over distance and is only effective for x number of inches from the bulbs--the number of inches is different for different types of lighting. So removing fan leaves that are in the light to expose bud below that is receiving very few lumens is actually counterproductive. Your little girl needs all her fan leaves."

So it seems that she knows what shes talking about and was saying that not only do the lumes lose stregnth but hid systems are so strong coming out they bounce all around the plant reaching the lower branches. maybe the 350 LEDS do put out as much light but it can only be a strong light for so long. maybe a short veg cycle like 2-4 weeks than the leds would prove effecient. there really is to much to know about these lights and we just need to experment tell someone gets it right. ill make sure in a couple months when i get mine to start a grow journal.
thanks again blanco for getting this info out.
 
Does any one remember who it was that was building his own panels and planning a double decker grow operation?

If so will you please guide me to his thread. He seemed to know a lot about LEDs and to be going about testing them in a really objective manner.

Thanks.

Great smoking.
 
found this interesting-- 90w LED UFO Comparison 400w HPS-

hXXp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh9oGroryoc&NR=1

looks like a legit test...
 
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