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You dont need 8" fan for 1 1000 watter. 4" is meant for 400-600 watters. Not that insufficient air exchange is less of a problem with led's.

You dont NEED an oscillating fan with hid's either. It just moves the air better and doesnt whaste space under the lights like your tower fan. also its way quiter.

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Maestro said:
Lol cmon man.

You say how bad the cheap fixtures are and you only had success with 2000$ worth of led's yourself.

So how can you tell someone to go l.e.d. but not go all out? (yes, to me 2000$ is all out.)

Not to mention that you never used hid's, so you can't real

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phychotron said:

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Maestro said:
Lol cmon man.

You say how bad the cheap fixtures are and you only had success with 2000$ worth of led's yourself.

So how can you tell someone to go l.e.d. but not go all out? (yes, to me 2000$ is all out.)

Not to mention that you never used hid's, so you can't real

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Did you have a point to this??

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i was gonna purchase
this

or the 400 watt version money is tight im gonna have to save a couple months to get either

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LED buds are great, you just gotta get a good fixture. There is 99% junk/marketing out there.

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i broke down and went with the 600 and can see everyone is working on a consensus. like it was just said, 2x the light for 1.5x the electricity is hard to beat.

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hawksapprentice said:

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phychotron said:

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Maestro said:
Lol cmon man.

You say how bad the cheap fixtures are and you only had success with 2000$ worth of led's yourself.

So how can you tell someone to go l.e.d. but not go all out? (yes, to me 2000$ is all out.)

Not to mention that you never used hid's, so you can't real

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Did you have a point to this??

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server failure mid post... apparently it cut off mid-quote and everything I said. I kept trying to check it but the board was acting up.

I never said that anything under $2000 is unsuccessful. My first grow was almost 4 oz on 130watts of led for under $300. The blackstar is borderline cheap/effective. It works, but their are higher quality fixtures out there for only slightly more $/watts(actual draw). It was the initial success with the cheaper blackstar fixtures that made me continue with LED. The $2000 price tag is what it will take to put two 400w diamond series in a 4x4 area to maximize available light and reduce clutter.  No regrets spending the money, it's because cash is tight that I chose to go LED and not have to deal with higher operating and maintenance costs. Some people cant do the math or only think month-to-month. I would have had to stop growing if a bulb blew out when cash was tight, or when my electricity was almost shut off.

Instead of giving my money to the power company I chose the wise route of actually getting something out of it.
Similar to buying a house vs. renting, in one your throwing your money away every month, but you still get the 'product'. Sure, one took a large down payment, but you actually get more for your money. By spending it your saving it... hard concept for a lot to grasp. What's the word for that... invest?  A penny saved is a penny earned - Ben Franklin. Does that mean I eventually EARN money from it? yes, according to him.

Like I've been saying, you don't need to go balls out in the beginning, you can slowly convert to LED if funding is an issue. LED can go right next to your HID, it's not like you absolutely, positively have to swap them out. Early LED advise was that you had to run it side by side to your HID. upgrading/new growers are the prime beneficiaries of LED for it's simplicity. I was able to start growing in a sealed room with no ventilation at first, saving money on fans at the time

My experience with HID does not hinder my ability to weigh the pros and cons. How much experience do you haters have with LED to back up your claims? Having grown clones from a friends HID garden I found the bud to be larger, denser and more flavorful. His garden is always having HID related issues, like the light was way too close, or the air conditioner broke, or the bulb went out and he didn't realize it. or he cant leave the house for very long.

I understand the skepticism as the market is flooded with bold claims and junk products. It's not that I'm being sold on the bullshit, it's that I'm seeing through it and going to the people who are building lights for high-demand plants. Those 90w LED to 400w HID claims might apply to stuff like lettuce, but not buds. The balance between quality/price is where most manufactures fall short, there are only a few people developing LED's with our interests in mind and building their product directly around our feedback. Many of the fixtures on ebay for example are just theoretical components put together in an attempt to sell you a new futuristic product. You cant judge the market by being flooded by low quality Chinese fixtures and then the shitty results people got with them because they didn't do their research or intentionally thought they could somehow beat 'going cheap.'

I'm not trying to argue LED > HID and vice versa (that would take all day and then some), but the idea that LED's don't work is a misplaced and antiquated opinion. With the proper equipment you can get spectacular results. The cost:benefit ratio is good and an overall good investment despite the higher initial costs.  Lets just say that starting now, there are some LED fixtures out there that can produce good results on par with HID. Could you guys at lease accept the chance that maybe LED has reached a new milestone?

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Maestro said:

It takes reasearch to realise you need to invest a lot of $ into something thats going to be twice as cheap in a year. Im saving more money waiting for bbetter l.e.d's while you fund the reasearch by paying for prototypes. Which is great, but only for someone who has no $ issues.

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Pilze said:
my hydro store stopped carrying them years ago. if you try to order one theyll try to talk you out of it. for YOUR sake.

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hawksapprentice said:
He didn't want LED.  You need to learn that not everyone wants to go that route.

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I actually didn't hear a preference, just that he is upgrading was thinking of an hid package. In my experience LED has been good and I'm just trying to share that. No one's ever going to want to go that route if they never hear anything positive about it

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Maestro said:
Good point.
Phychotron, do you need to use heaters in the winter?

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Maestro said:
I DONT have expirience in L.E.D. All I said about them I took from your posts.
However, I don't go around claiming HID is "better" then l.e.d...

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how often does an ac break down? Doesnt take a greenthumb to know, not too often.
How often does a good hps bulb just go out? idk, but from research I know to replace it after 2 harvests, not when it goes out.

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It's not the frequency, it's the risk of it. More equipment=more risk, plain and simple. Not having to buy the extra equipment also saves money .  I live in the middle of nowhere, it's a long drive to get supplies *should a problem arise*. You seriously buy a new bulb every 4 months? how much do they cost per? It was those reoccurring cost that helped influence my decision--I'm on a tight budget.  There are also other drawbacks that i didn't go into, like no misting around hot bulbs or hot starts or the fire hazard it presents. Sure, your house doesn't always burn down, I'll give you that.

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How do l.e.d's reduce cluster?

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You said "almost 4 oz off 130watts". Well theres plenty of HID grows that get .8g/watt.

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How does the idea of always upgrading chime with that Ben F. thing? Instead of paying rent you buy a house...and then buy another house and another?

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My whole point is that spending even your initial 300$ on a Blackstar is not a good investment FOR someone who is tight on cash. A budget is a budget: it has limits.

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one last question:
Do you think spending an extra 100$ to get l.e.d. lighting would make up for the loss of yield, if you had to spend 100$ less on sub+nutes+additives, or 100$ less on seeds (use bag seed)? Just 2 examples..

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Everyone knows HID works, but what they don't know is that there is a perfectly good alternative emerging in the market that is able to compete with it. HID's been around for quite some time and it's well known technology. I took all those years of experience and weighed the options and in my case it's much much simpler and cost effective to use LED.

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buy saying one sucks your saying one is better.

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Actually tons of people do that, their called rental properties. Or after your house is payed off you can spend the money or save it or do what you like with it. Instead of spending the money on a disposable product (electricity) I and spending that money on a product that I physically own. Eventually those monies pay for the entire fixture and then becomes saved/earned every month. Of course it's limited to grow area, but you do see a return on your investment, other than the bud your smoking. Sure, its maybe only $10-15 a month but that shit adds up.  I'm not even factoring in all the savings in other areas as well, but they are/can be there depending on the operation.

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How people spend their money is up to them, they need to determine whether it's sustainable to continue to spend the extra money each month and more frequent maintenance cost,  or if they can front some cash and not have to take on those extra costs.

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You don't seem to understand that some people JUST don't have that kind of money. How they spend it is up to them..but what does that have to do with anything loL?

There are 0 MONTHLY maintenance costs to hid's. What extra costs are you talking about?

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What loss of yield are you referring to? it's kind of a loaded question since it assumes there will automatically be a lower yield.

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One point I would like to make is that the simplicity of LED enables non-growers to pick up just the fixture and start from there. That's all I had, and 1L of AN grow/micro/bloom that lasted a few runs. My ventilation was opening the closet door when the light was on.  You will see more of the elderly/disabled able to grow their own meds because they don't find HID appealing.

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