Lighting LED Information Overload

[SeedsWeeds]

Check out www.cobshop.net and the Autocob built by user/sponsor BigSm0. I per plant is outstanding. I have 6 of those lights. Low electrical draw (.49 amps), no noise (no fan), low heat throw, small and easy to move around and nearly as bright as the sun. They are kick-ass lights.

What type would I want? 4000k, 6000k etc.. also what kind of PAR ranges are we talking, etc..


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[bad dragon bzzz]

Lights sure are a minefield nowadays.im on my 5th light in 6 or so years,i know less about loghts now than i did 3 years ago.
Good luck n keep er lit

 

[nicojellic]

No doubt that is the truth, although is there any public information I can read about it? Maybe it'll convert me, just need to be convinced


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If you want to read about it, go to ledgardener. Ex. Take a look at this one https://horticulturelightinggroup.com/products/qb288-quantum-board?variant=5508760141851

 

[AutoWonders]

What type would I want? 4000k, 6000k etc

The 3500K would be the best all around. That is what I have. Many others too.

 

[Gone Camping]

The 3500K would be the best all around. That is what I have. Many others too.

I'v got 3500 autocobs for my new setup in a 4x4.. cant wait to run them.

OP, do some reading here on journals running these.. that was enough for me to purchase.

 

[MickJ]

The good thing with the cob lights like cob shop, is your plants will grow at different rates and you can adjust each light to suit. Cob shop lights are silent. They are small so easy to work with.
Two of these will run the other side of your tent, which I'm assuming you are going to use as a nursery. There's my 50c

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[orrganic]

Hello guys and gals.

First time poster, third time grower. My first 2 grows were using VIPARSPECTRA LED grow lights.

This time round, I want to try something new, something that gives the most value for money. I am truly overwhelmed of all the options, there are plenty of cheap lights, and plenty of overpriced lights... So here is the plan:

8x4 Grow tent, I'm planning to setup only 4x4 of the tent for growing to get me started then the other 4x4 for for rotation to keep the flow going. I am planning to use 5 Gallon, 12 inch (diameter) fabric pots, I am planning to put 6 plants in half the tent, in the 4x4 area. My initial plan was to buy x6 MAXSISUN 300W dimmable LED lights, one for each plant which will cost me approx $600 worth of LEDs - this will ensure each plant gets ample lighting while being able to adjust the lighting accordingly - the true pull from each light is approx 142Watts which totals to 852Watts for 6 plants (auto flowers)

That was my original plan, but I am now second thinking this, since I want to get the most value for money, I want to get the highest & best quality yields for what I've got setup. I have been looking at the OPTIC range, OPTIC4 & OPTIC6 which apparently has the best yield per wattage of light. I was thinking of getting the 3000K & 5000K in-one model, I feel as if the more spectrum the better.. BUT, the price of this LED is significantly MORE expensive per power draw from the wall compared to the cheaper LED light, I understand there is a lot of variables that will be taken into consideration, but I want each plant to get the most lighting but I also don't want to waste electricity by giving them more light than needed.

See, how I was thinking of giving each plant their own 300W LED, this to me was a good option since in my mind, it would be giving each plant optimal lighting, opposed to going for let's say a OPTIC6 to cover 6 plants in a 4x4 area, it's going to focus most of the light energy to the plants that are directly below the light and the plants that are not directly under the light will loose out on lighting causing more popcorn buds. At least this is what my theory has been, and I am not too sure if this information is correct, but I am just basing this off research.

Just to ensure I make sense, each pot is 12 inches. So having 6 pots will use 36x24 inches of space (obviously I will space out the pots more, but this is just to make sure I make sense, haha). Having 1 led light for each plant, this will cover a total of 47x17 inches since each light is 15.7x8.4 inches. Opposed to 1 OPTIC6 LED Light which is 15x22 inches, which leaves a lot of dark spots where the plants aren't gaining optimal lighting.

So once again, for comparison:

OPTIC6 = $900 - 620Watts (true draw) - 6 COB's (x3 3000K & x3 5000K) with 96 brudgelux/epistar LEDs

MAXSISUN = $660 - 852Watts (true draw) - 62 (372 total) EpiLED/Brudgelux LEDs on each panel - adjustable, so I don't have to constantly be pulling 852Watts especially during the germination stage, and I can back off the blue spectrum a wee bit while flowering. So this will give me a slight advantage in terms of electricity & light coverage.

As you can see my current dilemma. Again, I understand the MAXSISUN LEDs are much cheaper, but I want to make sure I'm getting the best from my plants and the highest and densest yields, I am happy to pay premium if it will pay for itself in the long run!

I used VIPARSPECTRA for my first 2 grows, and I honestly had no issues, although I want more flexibility per plant so I can adjust light intensity and power consumption.

PLEASE NOTE, I AM FROM AUSTRALIA. If anyone has lighting suggestions that I can purchase in Australia please do make suggestions!

From a quick rough calculation, if I ran x6 300W MAXSISUN LEDs, it would cost me roughly $437 over 84 days (3 months) running full power the whole time.

Running x2 OPTIC4 lights on just the COBs for 2 months and full power on the third month (28 days) that would cost me approx $280.

The PAR rating from the OPTIC4 seems to be amazing, so far I'm a fence sitter but more to the side of the OPTIC4. Guys! Halpppp



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SeedsWeeds G'day and welcome, you had me at Led haha

First things first.. Being in Aus... Paying an American distributor for a grow light is costing you an arm and a leg in shipping tax and labour not to mention conversion rate. So building it yourself is going to save alot of money,, and that is the goal right?

Secondly, types of leds..
Starting by grouping anything mass produced in China for the western market all of these leds are designed to be cost effective for the producer, in other words the leds are the oldest cheapest model they can get to work well enough along with all other components In order to be a profitable product even at $150. So they are all going die quicker and put out less than better quality leds.

Next would be mass produced lights that have high end chips in them such as ledhydroponics.com, timber growlights, spectrum king, northern growlights, chillleds along with many others that are mainly western based companies that use the newest components in order to make the best working product they can. These are worth an American consumers money but us lot are substantially upcharged due to no other reason than our location, sucks but is what it is.

Lastly the diy option.. it's simple enough to build the light but that aside the benefit is in the savings you make. You can obtain the leds these high end companies are using and get the same results but far cheaper.

Cob leds are now being outperformed by strips and quantum boards but all three are very user friendly, effective and worth your money but the cobs are the most simple imo. Nothing stopping you from integrating all three.

Check out this site man, Australian based so shipping isn't a massive killer.
http://www.cutter.com.au/categories.php?cat=MAU5+KITS lots of options there, far better than anything encased in painted aluminium unless you're willing to pay for spectrum king or something nuts. Auto cobs are the bomb but you can build them yourself and save having them shipped from America. I hate to shun a customer for bigsm0 but ill help a local if I can.

Check out my thread in the indoor grow journal section called 'My favourite square meter' I'm running a light made of two Vero cutter kits and have citizen (those used in autocobs) ready to be added in.

Hope some of this helps mate, of you have any questions feel free to hit me up in happy to help

 

[SeedsWeeds]

SeedsWeeds G'day and welcome, you had me at Led haha

First things first.. Being in Aus... Paying an American distributor for a grow light is costing you an arm and a leg in shipping tax and labour not to mention conversion rate. So building it yourself is going to save alot of money,, and that is the goal right?

Secondly, types of leds..
Starting by grouping anything mass produced in China for the western market all of these leds are designed to be cost effective for the producer, in other words the leds are the oldest cheapest model they can get to work well enough along with all other components In order to be a profitable product even at $150. So they are all going die quicker and put out less than better quality leds.

Next would be mass produced lights that have high end chips in them such as ledhydroponics.com, timber growlights, spectrum king, northern growlights, chillleds along with many others that are mainly western based companies that use the newest components in order to make the best working product they can. These are worth an American consumers money but us lot are substantially upcharged due to no other reason than our location, sucks but is what it is.

Lastly the diy option.. it's simple enough to build the light but that aside the benefit is in the savings you make. You can obtain the leds these high end companies are using and get the same results but far cheaper.

Cob leds are now being outperformed by strips and quantum boards but all three are very user friendly, effective and worth your money but the cobs are the most simple imo. Nothing stopping you from integrating all three.

Check out this site man, Australian based so shipping isn't a massive killer.
http://www.cutter.com.au/categories.php?cat=MAU5+KITS lots of options there, far better than anything encased in painted aluminium unless you're willing to pay for spectrum king or something nuts. Auto cobs are the bomb but you can build them yourself and save having them shipped from America. I hate to shun a customer for bigsm0 but ill help a local if I can.

Check out my thread in the indoor grow journal section called 'My favourite square meter' I'm running a light made of two Vero cutter kits and have citizen (those used in autocobs) ready to be added in.

Hope some of this helps mate, of you have any questions feel free to hit me up in happy to help

When I'm on my iPad I'll have a better suss. I just want the best for my future babies, something that will get me the best harvest for the style of light I'm using. I did look at bugsm0's website but could not find an email to contact him on. I have changed my mind and I think I will be running the whole 4x8 tent with 8 plants total, to start off with. How many of those lights would I need to give ample amount of lighting? Also in regards to the OPTIC6 LED, that uses a COB light? Someone told me it used old technology. I emailed them to ask them about the quality of their lights and they claim a 2 pound yield from the optic 6 in a 4x4 area.. seems too good to be true.

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[Slater]

To be quite honest, I don't think I'll end up going DIY, unless someone can show my or inform me why it would be hella worth it.


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saves you easy 1/2 the amount of money for the best tech on market and they do like to rip you off in the LED world... once you know how to build one (and it super easy, youtube is you best friend) and then open the back of a shop bought LED up. It makes you sick to see how little in inside and how much those part cost...pennys.

There are only a few companys I would buy a per-built light from and most of the time I would buy there product in parts so I can make my own... HLG, Chill tech, Conshop.net, GN and a couple more I can't rember there name... I would not buy anything from china, ebay or amazon your gonna get ripped off.

The beauty of making your own lights is building them to the size of space and that you can take them apart to re-use a re-configure / up grade when ever you want... You can play with light spectrum and that rabbit hole go's deep (its what I'm doing at the moment with explosive results).

The world of LED lighting go's way bound the world of all other lighting and its just in its infancy. Its the future and that there no denying it. So I would make the leep and dive into the DIY world so you are up to speed when every thing go's full LED and your pockets are no left behind.

Want to see them in action and to see how east its is to build come over to our QB thread on the subject, my self and @F.N. will get you up to speed and also help you build one if you decide to take the red pill... https://www.autoflower.org/threads/quantum-board-thread.65461/page-20#post-1859084

 

[MedCzech]

Ok, I'll chime in here. Just because I just went through the same thing. DIY is great for one reason only. it's the cheaper way to get exactly what you want, but you have to build it and know exactly what you want. The problem with that is, most of us aren't really sure what we want or need.

As far as quality, there is no difference. I have a bunch of different types of led lights. There are positives for all of them in some regards to the grow. In the end, do what you feel is best for you. If you are lazy like me, I only made one diy cob Cree 3590 w/reflector, which performed the same as the other lights I bought, for only slightly cheaper with quality parts I used.

Blurple grow good dope, Quantum boards grow good dope, cobs grow good dope. The differences are large from the bottom to the top, but there is a sweet spot for you with price versus performance you must find.

I actually enjoy having different spectrums to grow under in the same area during the same grow. They all can grow nice plants, and some of them, due to their different spectrums, often create a more full spectrum environment. I like to shuffle them around under the lights and let them exeperiende slightly different lights. Buds really seem to like it.

Have fun bro! There is no stress needed. They will all grow some good stuff.