ok boys I,M NEW. that being said i am researching the led light grow methods. been a lurker here for a while and have gleened gobs of information from you fellas and have even searched led lights here and have found some good and bad arguments as to pro's and con's. where i live the powers that be have decided to de regulate electrical suppliers so now they can charge what they want and screw us all. i am sick of low grade crap and with the trouble in our southern neighboring country prices of low grade and mids have gone up dramatically, is hard to find and lets face it, good sticky stuff is way to pricey for the average guy. so i am going to start my own room this coming summer. i just cant come to grips with doubling my electric bill every month to supply myself. 600 watts at about 9 amps (i think) for about 18 hrs a day equals way to friggin much money each month. and will only continue to increase in the future. i am a retired/ disabled electrician and have decided that if i am going to do it i may as well shell out the money to buy the materials and make my own led panels. got plenty of time on my hands and i have the ability to solder hundreds of connections. per this fellas instructions http://www.ledgrow.eu/diy.html.........only, i want to do it in hydro. initial outlay should be recouped in about 2 yrs if all goes well.i wont hafta constantly search for it and i wont haft drive to go get it. i only work with fellas i have known for years and am way to old get it from the high school kids anymore so in a perfect world i would be supp myself. no one else. so i guess what i am asking is this.has anyone else here ever done this , like this? in a hydro setting? and what were the results.
if ur sick of low grade crap...use the leds for veg and a good hps for flower... power is in the penetration...you do like to penetrate, dont you?
well of course i do.the wife helps with that. so a full spectrum led set up will not penetrate? keep in mind fellas i'm no farmer. just a couple outdoor grows under my belt but they werent really much to right home about.
http://marijuanapictures.com/led-grow-lights/led-growing-marijuana-126w this is what i'm going for. 6/10 plants in a large enough room to grow 50.
even cheaper to buy, and to power are CFL's. They work amazing for veg stage. There are a few folks here that flower with them too, blackprince is one finishing up right now. see for yourself. If you can swing it though, you won't regret buying an HPS for flower. I bought a couple small LED's as an experiment with my veggies, and I was not impressed. IMHO, they're a waste of money. GTWT :XXhippylove:
A 600w HPS pulls 5 amps and a 400w pulls 3.5. If you want results that are worth the effort for 6+ plants a 400w is minimum. For decent results from an LED garden that size you'll need to learn some intensive training like SCROG or intense JOGing. Most new growers simply lack the experience necessary to make them successful in an LED setting. Not to mention in general flowering LED suck balls (my personal opinion). The reward in value returned will make the elec. $$ spent seem minimal. Besides, any LED set that can compete with decent 400-600w HID draws around 2.5 amps so you're really only looking at a difference of 1 amp extra draw. What's a half pound of you're own home grown dank worth to you?
thank you for the info. truthfully i was only guessing at the wattage numbers there.i havent researched it that hard.i only made up my mind to do this yesterday really. so a half pound of my own eh? well a 1/4 of that in my neck of the woods is about 125.00 so a half pound of that would be like almost 6 house payments worth. hmmmmmmm.:roffl: good points all
ok so after staying up till 3 am researching i have decided to steer clear of the led set up for now. looks like cfl for veg and hps for flower will be the ticket till i get some experience. so for my grow room. i have a 12 x 12 room in my basement. in that room is my electrical service, a drain in the floor and a water supply(well water very acidic). i have an old dryer vent going thru the fascia board above the foundation and i will vent the room for odor control through the walls and into the attic and out the roof.i feel ican safely grow about 6 feet to the top of the colas from the floor. i want to go hydro but the extra expense of pumps and a circulating system is still holding me back on that. i have a couple of hps fixture i can modify for my needs.the way i look at it i will have about 1500 initially invested let alone seeds.i only want 6/10 plants to start with.and if i get enough yield from it i may only do it twice a yr.just for my own medical uses. the three guys that have replied to my post all seem to know what is what so please fellas how about a list of supplies and suppliers so that i can start buying up what is needed. keep in mind i want to try to make the system as user friendly as possible and as automated as possible as i sometimes like to take weekends away with the wife on my bike. any info will be further researched and will be taken to heart as truth. i want to get a feeling of what works consistantly for you fellas before i spend any money as i need to make my money count the first time. as for reading the faqs i dont know what questions to type in yet so please bear with me. and thank you for your help.
Search "LED" on the site. there was a side by side 600w HPS VS High Output LED grow done a while ago. That'll answer your questions about LEDs perfectly. basically, the technology isn't even close yet. HTGsupply.com - great for everything except lights pretty much 1000bulbs.com - great for light bulbs For starting a grow, plan to invest a minimum of $800 with a mentor telling you what to get or $1000 without a mentor. That's if you wanna produce any amount of weight. If you want personal, a few plants under leds or a 400w will work. If you want more exact figures, check out the DIY section on the various cabinets and grow rooms. check out the materials lists and prices, and make the comparison between your space to see what you need and what you don't. for your amount of space, you are really going to kick yourself hard if you don't get at least a 600w light. save up and buy higher quality, bare necessity parts for your first grow. by that, I mean buy a good ballast instead of a dual spectrum lightbulb, GH 3 part nutrients instead of the massively expensive AN line, etc, etc. and good luck! we're happy to help with whatever concerns you have. I believe Bigbud just started a beginner grow thread where he came in knowing very little and some GK experts helped mentor him. IME when it comes to expenses, the first necessary expense is a light from a good reliable brand (ballast is most important), and an inline fan to cool it. Opt for an air cooled reflector. I'm a fan of cool tubes, but you may prefer something with a wider, less rectangular footprint. The HID light and inline fan together will run you at least $400, but after that you can get away with using box fans to circulate air and inexpensive dirt and nutrients until you get a crop up to reinvest. Oh, a word to the wise: the nutrient market is the biggest hustle in the marijuana supply industry. For your first round, don't spend more than $100 all together for nutrients AND ph adjuster. General Hydroponics offers soil and hydro nute lines that are cheap, consistent, and good enough quality to make some excellent buds. Spending tons on nutrients is how hydro stores stay in business, and most of the time the amount of actual bud you'll get extra compared to the starting expense of the nutrients plus 2+ months interest just isn't worth it. Buy cheap nutes, and add one new product per crop in order to evaluate its effectiveness.
Ahhh new student......yumyum I got a system that for about $150 (not including light) that will give you a minimum of 3 ounces per plant, as long as you can read and twist your wrist It sounds like you NEED to go hydro, if you want an automated type system that you can walk away from for a few days http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=26343 Read thru this link.....its as simple as it gets (almost) I shrank it down to a 4 pot and a 9 pot.....scroll thru some of my grows, youll see I wanna say the 4 pot is about 4x5 in space, has a 1k over it....i get a little over a LB every 3 months and thats with a low yielding KUSH Dont be intimidated PLEASE, once you get all the parts, its like 4th grade and legos all over again In the 9 pot with 3k over them, i got a little over 4LBs in 3 months....what that quarter go for again in your area? :rofl6: PARTS : http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/ In my opinion, LED is like takin a bicycle, while HPS is like drivin a Lambo ........
doob, you gonna be addicted to this here hobby bro. I am on my first grow, and my biggest obstacles have been temps. (i'm outside in a shed and it was 5 below zero last night) and keeping the ph in optimal ranges. As for the hydro, search hempy buckets and deep water culture (DWC) on here, there's some great threads on here that will help you. Also great peeps and growers on here, best site on the net for this here chosen hobby IMO. Good luck and keep it simple.
thanx again fellas. i will read and re read all that is given. i also just downloaded the growguide. so that will help as well.
great info from the fellas here, I will add my .02 as well. you said you'll go CFL for veg IMHO this is a good decision. (MH is a good veg, but if you're just growing for yourself/friends, not a big commercial grow, cFL is best option) as far as the setup, get creative. I've seen all types of setups here that work. you can get lights at home depot. the important thing with CFL's is keep them close. they don't get hot, so scorching your leaves isn't much of a concern until you almost make contact. my CFL's I used the clip lights. others have used the (??) socket doubler (is that what they're called?) where you screw the doubler into a socket and it gives you two new sockets. I've seen that actually quadrupled, and with the wattage a CFL draws, there's not a risk of overload that way. (you're a sparky, i'm sure you know that) you can buy a pack of 100W CFL's pretty cheap, and then the sockets, like I said, get creative. as long as they are pretty close together, whatever works best. *someone replied that you wanted a system to walk away from for a few days, but i don't see that in your posts. if that's the case, here's my .02 on that.... if you will need to leave your grow for more than a couple of days, you have a couple of options. soil can be left alone for 5 days, less as they get bigger. hydro, as the boys here explained, is a self-sufficient system, with pumps, timers, etc. the obvious difference - cost, something that is a concern for you right now. the big difference between soil and hydro is the time to harvest. hydro will cut your total time down by around 30%. there's another type of "hydro" called hempy that grows quick like hydro but far less expensive and detailed. it's a passive system, like soil, only you use perlite and you have a water ressy at the bottom of your container. let us know what your plans include, goals, etc and we can help you more. ZOG - I too am a shed grower in cold weather, and it can suck my ass. We're moving our shit indoors this summer. :321fu: that shed. GTWT :XXhippylove:
GTWT, this is what he was saying ............................................................................... Other than that... Pump : $30-50, depends on size of grow Airstones: $4 ea Buckets : $2.50 ea Netpot lids : $2.50 ea 3/4 line (black or dark blue) : $2 a foot Hose clamps: $ 1.25ea 1/8th airline : $28 for a 50ft roll Zip ties : $10 Ebb n flow parts : $75 or so, depends on how many buckets you run Besides building a tent or buying one and a light and fan With this system you can yield out around a LB every 3 months for under $1k investment or Go bigger, up to you
I agree. LED's just dont cut the mustard for flowering. Im sure if you build them, they're probably cheaper, but still, in the end all you've got is LED lighting---and it isnt worth a crap for flowering plants. Added to that, it doesnt work any better for vegging than a T5 Flo, which costs very little. In other words, LEDs suck I bought a 90 w UFO LED when I first decided to grow. I wasted five hundred bucks on the silly thing---I USE it, because Ive GOT it, but once it dies, I sure wont be buying another. Dix
125W cfl to veg and a 400W HPS to flower will get you anything from 12 to 16 oz per 3 month cycle. How much weed you needing to grow per year?
you really pulled that regularly off a 400w when you were just starting out Skuzzi? I'd say just starting with a veg light and a 400w if you don't mess up you could probably reasonably expect about 4 ounces for your first couple grows at least. I think most people would have to run a Micro SOG to get that kind of weight out of a 400w.
you're not beating a dead horse, there's just not a lot of fans of LED's here. a few folks have done experiments, side by sides and whatnot, and for most people, LED's are not for them. If you buy them, they're way overpriced, if you make them yourself, as you mentioned, it's very time-consuming. The suggestions that have been made here (using CFL's and HPS) are for the cheapest, easiest, least power consuming, and most effective. If your heart is set on LED's, PM Happyhighguy - he did a side-by-side, and he could give you his expert opinion on the outcomes. GTWT :XXhippylove:
