DXE's LED Grow

Discussion in 'LED Growing' started by DXE, Apr 17, 2014.

  1. DXE

    DXE Moderator

    I guess that depends where you live and how much room you have both outdoors and indoors.


    I personally prefer my indoor grow. The LED lighting makes it much more energy efficient than the old HPS days. Outdoors is dependant on growing season, weather, etc.


    One hint - if you choose indoors - listen to the advice on grow kind regarding the hardware you need to make it happen. There are many vendors selling LED lights - very few actually give you the benefits of LED.


    You really get the most control of the environment setting up an indoor grow. Temperature, humidity, lighting, air flow, etc. Indoor does have its issues - mainly stink control but with some thought and work that too can be easliy controlled.


    Ask lots of questions on here - thats how I learned and continue to learn.
     
  2. sbooks

    sbooks Planted Seed

    Hi DXE,


    thanks for the advice, But I have a doubt about the LED's.


    So is there any perticular color of LED, White or I should go with Ultra Violet ones. Do they have same effect or the light color also matters.


    And what maximum power of LED will be fine for the plants.
     
  3. DXE

    DXE Moderator

    Well - thats a real good question......


    Here is my opinion - and I have been all LED for a few years now having moved from HPS.


    For starters - traditional radient lighting produces about 15% usable light spectrum for our plants and the rest goes off as wasted energy. A well designed LED fixture runs about 85% efficient with little heat and wasted spectrum.


    If you look at a spectrum graph for one of the better radient lights - the Hortilux eye - you will see most of the light requirements are in the visable "soft white" range with some added UV and IR.


    Again - this is MY OPINION here.... - There is an awesome thread under advanced cultivation - LED Lets Get Serious - I would reccomend plowing thru it.


    I have found that the highest PAR VALUES (THE temperature of the photons) is reached with the maximum wattage output of the LED chip. B far the best out there are the current crop of Cree LED 10 watt chips. These chips produce a spectral output VERY close to our needs and with a small amount of filtering via a lense do the job. Adding colroed LED's (blue, purple, red) actually takes away from the total output of the fixture and in my tests DOES NOTHING for the plant.


    You will find that the better lights out there (Rapid Indus, Rapid Onyx, Area 51, etc) offer colors but dont push them. In fact if you talk to the vendor (very few will actually talk to you) they will tell you the colors are for marketing not results.


    As for the number of fixtures, type of fixtures, etc - what size area are you planning on covering??


    https://forum.growkind.com/forum/cultivation/advanced-cultivation/49223-led-lets-get-serious
     
  4. DXE

    DXE Moderator

    Here is my Blue Dawg at 7 weeks under the Rapid LED Indus LED bars - wish i could describe the smell
     
  5. DXE

    DXE Moderator

    BB-Cheese and AK 47 at 9 weeks - will be pulling this room next week.
     
  6. Lvstickybud

    Lvstickybud Bongmaster

    Both are looking pretty good but I'm really liking the BB-cheese. Nice job.
     
  7. DXE

    DXE Moderator

    Blue Dawg at 8 weeks - I have BB-Cheese coming out this week and Blue Dawg next week - yummy
     
  8. DXE

    DXE Moderator

    Can't pass up a nice looking picture - Just pulled this today BB-Cheese at ten weeks. I bet it would look awesome at 11 or 12 if I had the patience......


    Tastes as good as it looks too
     
  9. Mrgreengenes

    Mrgreengenes Administrator

    I'm looking forward to it! lol
     

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