Hi there,

First Post,
I searched for this and couldnt find it, so I hope this hasn't already been asked. Has anyone tried any of the cheap LED's that are for sale on Ebay? The reason I ask is that I have seen a few belters over the past few months and I am dying to try out LED's for myself. Can anyone give me some advice on what ones to look out for, or if anyone has used them before? There's so many from China and Hong Kong its unreal but there are others. Any thoughts or ideas?

Thanks!!!

i wouldnt bother m8... most of the people ive known to use them have switched to conventional bulbs......
think of this.... 200w of leds is using the same power as a 200w mh... ie 200w
i think you should save your money and buy a decent grow light 250mh or something like that

Some of those Ebay LEDs are useless. I wouldnt bother. My friend spent £400 on one (more money than sense) and he swapped it back to his reflector etc. I wouldnt waste your money especially not on ebay.

The LED's claim not to use the same amount of power as conventional bulbs though, something like 0.1W drain for each diode and emitting equivalent of 1W. Will the power efficiency and lack of heat not be a major advantage when a cheap, tent grow is needed?

i tried purchasing a 120w led panel light off ebay for about 175 quid which is the same price as a new 600w coolshade with digital ballast, so i thought bugger it i will give leds a go, i paid for it and then got a load of crap about how it had to be made first in the factory in china, then they requested a paypal payment with no connection to the ebay listing, i notified ebay and they closed there account, its a scam coming from china buy from the uk, im using a 600w hps and am swapping to a 120w 630nm 660nm 430nm spectrum led, i cant afford the prepay electric for the 600w, ive looked all over the web for info on leds then i found an article by jorge cervantes, he reckons there the way forward in growth technology, look it up in last months soft secrets or maybe i will post it later. all in all i found the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to leds versus hps/mh, less cost, less heat, ideal for grow tent no need for ventilating the light it has them built in. i found a reputable dealer selling 120w panels for 275ukp they give a warranty as well, they are more expensive initially but they pay for themselves in the long run, you can control the lighting spectrum much better with leds. anyway i will let you know how it goes when ive used it but dont buy off ebay unless its listed as already manufactured and in the uk not china.

have a mooch round these parts bud

http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showforum=171

Had a quick scout around after reading that post and Ive found a couple of sites from the UK. The minute power drain doesn't seem real to me, 13.8Watts for 225 LEDS that give off the equivalent of 225W??? WTF??? So 2 of them running is going to be about 30Watts???

¿You say you can't afford the pre-pay electricity to run a 600W HID, but you're splashing out nearly £300 on something that's almost certain to not give you any smoke?

¿What's wrong with this picture?

Is this guy promoting/ selling LED's?
Is that in the linky?

im only asking a few questions, is that not the point of a forum??

Sorry, I should have said, can you edit your post to remove those links.
And I thought Cheeba420 may be promoting them.

[/quote]
Sorry, I should have said, can you edit your post to remove those links.
And I thought Cheeba420 may be promoting them.
[/quote]

Done

it costs me fifty pounds a fortnight to run a 600w hps 24/7 in veg this means by using only 120w i look to make a big saving and thus leds pay for themselves and who says you get no bud from leds ive read info that says different, im not promoting leds just thought i would add my input, its MY personal way forward sorry if anyone misunderstood my plan

thank you i see theres plenty to read on leds there, thanks, cheeba

My friend bought two led panels, a blue and red, and was convinced they were going to be brilliant - they were proper crap mate, I promise, and could barely grow a decent veg. plant.

I wouldn't run 600w HIDS 24/7 - that would be very expensive. Why not use a good CFL in early growth and only use the 600w on 12/12?

The savings would pay for a good CFL in a few weeks, and you'd be guaranteed healthy plants.

you will also see there arent many completed grows using leds either

sure is but this question has been posed and discussed with similar conclusions. They are shite!

If you need to scale down, a 70 or 150 watt HPS should still outgrow fluorescents. Even 6 £1 CFLs from the pound shop should outgrow LEDs watt for watt.

(check out Blab's wonderful 80 watt CFL grow.)

I'm sorry there's so much misinformation out there - folks always come here too late.

EDIT - oops - it's in the "micro" sub-forum so maybe I should keep out of it ...

You guy are kinda behind on the LED way to grow. make sure the LEDs are at least 1watt each to ensure the light will penitrate a bit, scrog is the best option and have a CFL grow light in the background to give a more complete spectrum. Also try to get ones with the more exspensive 660nm red leds as these are best for flowering. Do all this and a 125w cfl and 120w led can get near to the results of a 1000w bulb.

Don't be afraid of new tech, but don't be a sucker and buy shit. If its under £2 per 1 LED watt you can be pretty sure its a POS

I've seen a guy with 90w led, 250w cfl and 150hps and has the healthiest plants that almost kill themselves under the weight of bud near the end of the grow.

So the LEDs are in effect making hardly any contribution ?
(1/5 of the total 490 watts of power)

What was the actual yield ?

A shame there wasn't a 400 or even 250 watt HPS grow to compare it with.

Ok, maybe im wrong in saying its good as 1000w. My comparison is based on a grow I saw with a 1000w, this guy was doing a extremely similar grow to his later led grow previous to his ballast burning out. He got 10oz from 6 easyryder in scrog which is damn good for LR strain.

Well with just 250cfl with 150hps scrog he got roughly 5.5oz (always 2week drying) from 6 diesel ryder. Not great but it is a 10 week mini grow! Adding the 90w brought that 5.5 oz from 6 plants all the way up to 8.5oz with 7 plants again in 10 weeks(all plants rotated under the 4 lights everyday or 2) the largest had 54 grams! Now I'm sure all these numbers seem small compared to you hardcore growers out there going full sized, but come on, for a stealth grow with ryder genetics thats damn good! Perhaps led doesnt suit the larger plants because the light can't penetrate well enough but guys ive seen the results. Sure it could have been chance and the 90w cost him £200 but its from a uk company and has a 2 year warranty and seems to be built like a tank with that thick metal. but then again whole saving electricity with leds is kinda shafted by the fact that he puts then on 21/3 f^%$in muppet!

One thing I wonder is are the guys used to traditional lighting getting the led close enough? I should be damn well touching it from what I've seen, he swears by his cooltube too. My man had centre buds as thick as my forearm right under that led for 2 of his plants. So perhaps it doent match up to the 1000w, or maybe he got unlucky with his 1000w grows or diesel ryder is a bigger grower, but my friend is converted and is is concidering an ungrade to 210w(90+120)led and a 550hps(150+400) keeping the old 250cfl and hopes to throw 16 plants under it in a sog



at bit of youtubeing shows someone forgetting the magic of putting some cfl in with a 700w led...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEv8jYiyTPw...feature=channel
still impressive I guess but not a complete enough spectrum


Edit: just PMed him and he says he recons he should have had more plants under the 1000w and would have had larger yields that way. But he insists that leds makes a great difference, especially when mixed with other lights. He also says he recons he had a few freak diesel ryders that grew massive (85cm+) in the 5gallon water jugs, thinkshe got lucky but next time he hopes to get same results.

I bought 100 led panels , to start with the chinease man ripped me off and only 50 ever arrived (thats £1000 gone),
on first use with 50 panels around walls and a canopy in 7ft x 7ft , the results were amazing, every day they seemed to b growing more and more , healthy with no probs at all......towards the back end they seemed slower to produce the bud so i added a 600w cooltube just to give em a helping hand in the last couple of weeks......at the time i was amazed , i had taken photo records and was looking at importing more as people were impressed with the results....the electricity costs were great , heat of panels is next to nothing , can near enough touch the plants.......after using for 6 months or so i found most panels started to develop faults and did not seem as bright , the quality from china was pretty poor with crap cable , so i ended up having to rewire nearly all of the panels and sacrifice one to replace burnt out led,s in others........so i would say a no no to the chinease cheap manufactures......

Still happy with the initial results i have bought a dozen from a uk manufacturer to test out and touch wood all have been spot on so far (4 month).....I use the led,s for mother and baby rooms all the time now , the cost is next to nothing for these................

I also continue to use the 50 in main room , but only as the walls now , i bang a cooltube on as well just to kick em a bit......

Overall i think the led,s will get better with the creon led,s looking best but very expensive , I am 100% happy and convinced that they can grow plants with no problems at all , and a lot of benefits , no heat , no expensive electricity costs , no glaring light when u open the door , u can open with ur neighbours about in the day and no bright halo light shines out......

The only downside is the initial set up costs (will pay in long run)
Poor chinease quality and rip-off merchants

One last thing , forget the bullshit figures of coverage 1 panel will cover so many square foot ect,ect,ect,you need em everywhere , all walls and canopy........

If anyone is interested I can try n dig out the photos i took at the time , if i have not deleted em.....

You want 'CREE' (i think) led's these are some of the brightest in the game.

Why for feck's sake ?



bollocks.







please do.

I blames the drugs meself

50 quid just to keep a 600 going?? seems a bit pricey

... and you can save 20 percent by using 20/4.

... and might be able to use a smaller lamp for early vegging.

It's all about the LEDS you use. My little pocket torch runs off a single AA battery and will take the retina's off your eyes with the Cree LED in it.

The new P7 led gives off between 600 and 750 lumens per led.

Here is a link to the worlds most efficient LED http://www.acriche.com/en/product/prd/zpowerLEDp4.asp I can speak from experience and say the are FCKING bright but I don't know whether 600w of them would give off more lumens?
I know the leds do draw some power, my AA battery gets red hot in my wee torch.

Anyone know what power a 600w ballast sucks so I can get a fix on how many lumens the same amount of power would give from P4 leds. or if someone else wanted to do the math that would be great because it makes my brain hurt.

A 600W ballast and HID lamp use around 650W of power.

600 watt HPS - 95000 lumens / 650 watts = 146 lumens per watt = 50 percent more efficient

Now even if the spectrum of LEDs was a bit better ..now let me think .. a single 600 watt HPS or 90 (900 watts' worth) of those .... ?

So what? My green laser pointer will destroy large swaths of your retina if you could keep your eye open long enough for it to do damage. It's crap at growing weed.

It's not just the brightness, it's having the proper spectrum, the proper quality of light. LED's have been claiming for years that they grow great pot. Has not happened yet. And until some LED grower is willing to take a chance and post a complete grow diary (rather than just a gee whiz geek playing with their toys or a distributer trying to drum up interest with a half ass diary) about how great th elights work, it's bollocks as far as most of us here are concerned.

Now plasma lamps. When they get the bugs worked out of that!

I actually want a 4 to 6 arm spinner wit a mix of HID lamps.