LED Grow Light Forum

Hi everyone!

Before I start: Full Disclosure:
I am testing the SolarStorm 880 (SS880) from California Lightworks, and this is one of the journals I am using to document my grow.

(EDIT: Please read rules on links)

Part of my motivation comes from the limited information I was able to get from the various places I looked on for actually documented grows.

California Light Works (CLW) claims this should replace a 1000w HPS light.
I'd like to put that to the test.

With the Full Disclosure out of the way, here is a brief description of my setup.

I currently have 20 Sour Diesel clones under a 600w HPS lamp, in a closet measuring 5ft by 5ft. I was planning on using one HPS to get them started, then adding another about halfway into flower (which I already have just laying around).

After totally geeking out on the latest technology and reading as much as I could stuff into a two week period, I drifted back into my previous interest in LED grow lights. The last time I was looking into them was a few years ago, when the technology was pretty new, and the lights were really expensive (like $3000 for the top of the line light, nothing near the SS880). That being said, prices have only dropped 30%, but considering how long they should last, and the savings on power, I think (or, again, full disclosure, hope) that LED's are the future of growing. Why waste all that power on heat that is just vented out of the room (requiring more electricity, or, even worse, air conditioners being run to keep it cool enough to grow)? Digital ballasts help with that a bit, but there is a fundamental lack of efficiency when it comes to HID's.

I could go on a longer rant about the environment and burning fossil fuels to generate the electricity to grow etc., etc., but we've heard that all before. Long story short, if I can use a light that produces less heat, and uses 20%-40% less electricity than its HID counterpart, I'm all about it. I save money, the environment also benefits. Ca-ching.

Here are a few photos of the ladies starting out. As you can see they are 20" tall. I just switched them to 12/12 about 3 days before the photos were taken. I have a 200cfm fan pulling through a carbon filter and venting out of the closet and into the bathroom which has a vent going to the outside. The room itself is still in the construction phase. I just started setting this up about 2 weeks ago. I put in a 220v timer yesterday, and have a box fan blowing on the plants for at least 15m/hr throughout the 24hr cycle.

Passive intake is through a HEPA filter that I screwed to the wall. On the other side I will be installing a light-tight louver, which I am still waiting on the post office to deliver.

More to come soon.

P.S.
Anyone is welcome to comment, but please keep the "Woah, dude, sweet grow" comments to a minimum. It's super annoying to have to wade through 3 pages of those to get to actual, valuable information when you are searching forums for, say, LED journals to see how well they work. If you have questions or want better descriptions/more information, please feel free to ask, and I will answer when I can (probably about once a week).

Welcome to the forums!

1) 20" of veg is too tall for LED lights, imho.
2) The SS880 is NOT a 1000w HPS replacement for growing cannabis; not with equal results at least. 20-40% less electricity will also equal less yield and quality.
3) 4x4 is too big for a SS880w, imho, 5x5 is way too big if you use the whole area for plants.


SME

where are the pics?
good luck with your grow. i don't think the 880 will replace a 1kHPS either. not as far as penetration goes at least.
RKY

The pics are too big for this forum's size limits. I'll take some more or convert them when I have some time.

I just transplanted into 3 gal. fiber pots from 1 gal. and smaller. They were quite rootbound (to the point of getting a mg deficiency, running out of nitrogen), so I broke/loosened the roots up. Most likely they are still in a little bit of shock. The photo was taken only a couple of days after transplanting. They are already looking even better, loving the Ocean Forest soil, and room to stretch their roots out.

I'm going to trim off the bottom 1/3 of their branches/leaves this weekend, and I think I am going to give a few of these back to my friend. I was planning on doing a SOG style grow, but they are a little bit too big at this point, I think. Taking the number down to around 16 will also help me be able to actually get in there. Right now I have to pull a bunch out to get to the ones in the back.
I think next time I will start them flowering at about 8" and either stick to about 16 plants in 3 gallon containers or do 20 or so, but put them in 2 gallon containers so I have some room to walk in there if I need to. These were about 14"-16" when I flipped them to 12/12.
They have grown considerably since then, probably the new soil and the big pots.

SisterMaryElephant wrote:Welcome to the forums!

1) 20" of veg is too tall for LED lights, imho.
2) The SS880 is NOT a 1000w HPS replacement for growing cannabis; not with equal results at least. 20-40% less electricity will also equal less yield and quality.
3) 4x4 is too big for a SS880w, imho, 5x5 is way too big if you use the whole area for plants.


SME

Hi SME, and thanks for the reply. I was thinking it might be wise to supplement the SS880 with one of the 600w HPS lamps for the last 2-4 weeks of flower. Would you recommend supplementing them throughout the entire flowering cycle? I will probably be pulling a few plants out to bring the numbers down, but I imagine the canopy is still going to be pretty much covering the whole 5x5 area by the time the flowering cycle is close to finished.
As to the height, I got these from a friend when they were about 10" tall, flipped them when they were about 12"-14", but they've grown a lot since I transplanted them (almost an inch per day) into 3 gal. fiber pots. I will be pruning at least the bottom 1/3 to 1/2 of the branches off, as I have never had them produce anything but popcorn even under HID.

Since the idea is to test the LED light I wouldn't supplement it until you know what it can do on it's own.

YMMV...

SisterMaryElephant wrote:Since the idea is to test the LED light I wouldn't supplement it until you know what it can do on it's own.

YMMV...

I am going to run a batch of Hashberry that I have seeding right now with just the LED after this batch finishes (4-5 weeks to go), keep them much smaller in a SOG grow. These SD's have gotten way too tall and are too far along to really perform a proper test of the LED at this point, IMO. I've had them under HPS for 6 weeks now, then to cut the wattage in half and change the type of light more than halfway through flower seems like a great way to get low yields and then blame it on the light (it took three weeks to arrive...).
I've decided to keep my journal on another site because in order to post photos here, I'd have to run all of them through a re-sizing program. My original idea was to keep one on each site, but if it's going to take me four times as long...
I have the same user name on the other site if anyone would like to check it out.
I don't know the policy about posting the name of a site here, so feel free to edit if you like (there was nothing specific regarding this in the announcements, just links), but the site Roll it Up.

I use a simple, free app that resizes/renames/strips exif for all of my pictures in batch mode. It took like 5 minutes to install and configure and about 1 minute to process 30 pictures from a folder on my PC. It doesn't have to be complicated but CLW doesn't require you to do your GFP journal here they just prefer it to keep them in one place, to make it easier for people to find, I guess.

Advertising other forums on a forum is bad form, maybe I need to edit the rules...although I'm sure 90% of people here know about that one too. We're different.