@afgahnberry- hey man thanks for taking an interest in my journal, ya it sounds like you're getting some good lighting in there soon i haven't tried stealth led but ive seen some good things, as for your fixtures you'll probably be seeing an increase in temp. in that size of a grow area once you get above about 800-1000 watts, it also depends on the temp outside the tent because those things trap heat like no other, an because i have 2200watts running outside my 4x4 test tent the temps increase pretty quickly, i think I'm just going to get rid of the tent and make it into one big grow room with a walk way in the middle after this grow but I'm probably going to have to get a couple of more fixtures to fill the whole area
@sme hello again! I'm not sure what debate you all are talking about, do you have the link? Also CO2 concentrations aren't deadly to humans unless they reach about 4000ppm I've also heard 5000ppm, and yes those 800's are from Advanced led's
Thanks I am currious to see what kind of an impact the 5W diodes make compared to the 3W diodes. Do you know if the 3W units you have there are single chip or multi chip?
Me and SME have been discussing LED's an issues with lighting systems under New LED users in the marijuna growers section of this web page. Would be interesting to get your thoughts and take on the situation.
Sofar I haven't noticed any heat increase from extra sources. I notice that my humidity levels have either jumped rapidly or decreased rapidly depending on what is happening in the area around my setups. When the furnace is on it blows heat directly in the sorounding area, or dryer too.
I am currently running my 3 speed exhaust fan in hopes it lowers the humidity level enough to speed up my next feeding. Probally will need to do straight water again this next go round.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
Just skimmed through your guys' debate, you all definitely did your research. It's like déjà vu Ive read this debate before only on a different forum lol. This website is definitely a good place for that kind of debate though. I'll try and finish it later.
In my opinion led technology is where growing is headed the price just needs to come down for the majority of people to take it seriously. There is always the classic debate of venitalation of led vs hid which is in my opinion flawed because whether you have an HID or LED the room must be ventilated to remove humidity and replenish CO2.
Those prosource advertisements For commercial growing seem a little far fetched considering their agenda for selling those. I myself have never purchased a UFO but that many in a grow room would still need ventilation and cooling.
Im hoping for great things out of this new fixture as compared to others ive seen and what im using now. I have seen an led grow that has manged to get 600 grams from four LED fixtures that had an actual draw of 280 watts tDotal. But until I start seeing more grows like that I'll stay skeptical.
Depending on how this grow goes with this led I'm probably going to do a 2000 watt comparison grow. 2000 watts Gavita HID grow light. 2000 watts advanced led lights. And 2000 watts of this new solar storm. And we will see if 2000 watts of high quality LED. Is comparable to what is in my opinion the best HID light fixture on the market.
I agree with your conclusion that LED may very well be the future if costs are reduced. That will take some time though.
Sealed rooms can and do work but you have to supplement CO2, you still need ventilation to work in the room. While not deadly, as you pointed out, I get headaches if I stay in 1500ppm very long. Maybe that's just me though.
I wasn't all that impressed with the prosource commercial grow video either, I saw a lot of stretch and and fluffy flowers. It was definitely a commercial for their lights and I'm sure they were pushing an agenda.
600 grams for 280 watts per light or total? Total would only be 70w/light. 600 grams/280w = 2.14g/w and I find that hard to believe without seeing the results for myself considering that a 70w light can't put out much in the way of intensity or penetration, even with 4 of them. @ 6 sqf = 100g/sqf and my 1000w HPS lights, growing trees, were only averaging 42.5g/sqf and I have a hard time believing that 4 x 70w lights can more than double the yield of a 1000w hid in a per/sqf contest. 280w/light x 4 lights = 1120w = .53g/w which is more believable. At that ratio of 2.14g/w a 1000w worth (14.3 x 70w) should have put out 2014.85 grams = 73 ounces = 4.61 pounds per 1000w..off of a 14 or 15 70w lights? Sorry, not buying that.
The Gavita lamps look interesting but the cost is so high (no pun intended), they only seem to come in 400w and 600w models and $120.00 each is pretty expensive. YMMV...
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
The room I'm growing in right now is actually fully enclosed, and being enriched with CO2, but there is always a need to remove humidity from the room which is why I have a dehumidifier that runs at night and an ac to lower the temps. A ventilation system may have been cheaper than purchasing all of that but I'm not sure if I would get the same results because ventilation with co2 ventilation would probably be a waste of CO2 and money, I probably wouldn't be running co2 with a vent system.
As for the claim of 2.14 grams per watt I'm skeptical about that too but Im starting to here more and more from experienced growers about consistently getting over a gpw with LEDs
Since CO2 only really helps when the lights are on many people use CO2 without a sealed grow area. It does waste some of the gas but depending on how they generate it, it may not add up to much.
I've seen LED claims over 3g/w but, since there's no standard way of computing g/w, who knows how accurate it is. I find 2-3g/w hard to fathom, especially based on very low powered LED lights. The best HID grow g/w claims I've seen were a bit less than 2g/w but I'm not even sure about those. Again, computing g/w based on flower watts alone is different than computing for the whole garden, including fans, AC, etc. *shrug*
My grow is down for a while, I originally took it down to upgrade my service panel to be able to go from 2kw to (up to) 10kw for future growth but before I could get the panel upgraded I was in a car accident and my back can't take the strain of growing right now. I'm currently in rehab and they may need to fuse vertebrae if cortisone injections don't help. It'll be *several* months before my back can handle growing again. I can barely lift a 12-pack of soda-pop right now and I walk with a cane. That's another reason that I'm considering changing my growing style too. I used to grow "trees" in DWC buckets but if my back doesn't get a LOT better, I'll have to come up with something else (like SOG maybe) that will be easier on my back and require less maintenance. Whatever I build, in the future, needs to be a little higher off of the ground and lighter than DWC. I *might* be able to get down on the floor to work on things, I'm not as sure about getting back up though. Right now I'm leaning towards SOG in NFT or a modified hybrid DWC system that I've been designing in my head but I'm open to suggestions. I'd hate to have to propagate 90+ clones every two months but I'm not sure I can do heavy trees again either. Maybe if I had an apprentice/partner but now, with my back the way it is, I'm extremely limited as to what I can do alone.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
Well if I was in your area I would be you man! Sorry to hear about that. As soon as you said less lifting and and SOG I immediately thought of an NFT system with a quick turn around like flowering straight from clone every two months or so. I'm not sure any system would require no lifting though because there is always the issue of lifting buckets of water into the reservoir.
I appreciate the thought but I'll figure out something, it's not going to be very soon either way. I can have a line installed from my RO filter in the kitchen to the the grow area through an interior wall. I can then attach it to a large reservoir with a float valve in a closet and use a water pump to move water around within the grow. Really, just about any hydro system, other than heavy buckets, would work and soil is out of the question for now too. NFT being raised up a bit would certainly help but ebb&flow and aeroponics are raised too. I've been designing a large hybrid system that's similar to DWC but without the air pumps, it still needs tweaking though. The short cycle of SOG would keep me from having to rotate plants around the lights, so that would help my back but I'd have to clone a lot more than I'd like.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.