Switching from hps to led

[inceywinceyspider]

@anarchycamp not ceramic heat bulbs but I've been messing with an incandescent lamp and a dimmer switch alongside  the leds in the veg area to provide a flick of heat to the leaves, the plants turn towards the lamp, I cant say anything more conclusive. It is very much like using an hid light to supplement but the difference I'm working on is the dimmability where the lamps could eventually be run with a dimmable thermostat, I dont know how it might work out for flowering as the red/ir balance is important for control of stretch.

[Antonio_DutchPassion]

13 hours ago, GSZZ said:

 

and that is the key, a plant has evolved incredible abilities to change itself and its immediate environment to accommodate itself, because it can't get up and walk off! These very same mechanisms can be used to our advantage  

 

 

It is only when we correlate everything together the picture becomes clearer. The more ways we can listen or visualise what our plants are telling us, the better cannabis we can grow. Data logging and visualisation are invaluable tools.

 

100% true mate, tools can come in very handy, however a good/experienced grower will not need these tools perse to feel and see what is needed to grow solid looking plants! The more you know the better you grow!

 

2 hours ago, fatboy77 said:

I always monitor canopy, very little interest in the rest. 

 

Canopy is indeed the most important one, but not the only one that is smart to measure. Temperatures at root level can have a massive influence too and the effects should not be underestimated. Especially growers on cold floors (basements, sheds, garage, etc) can have issues, even when the temps on canopy level seem pretty solid.

 

2 hours ago, blackpoolbouncer said:

Well, to throw a cat amongst pigeons. Growing in the house with ambient temps never going above 23'c pot level I did 1400g on 720w of LED with issues. The lung room was set at 20. 

 

Anyone that thinks hps is a superior light is definitely a dinosaur. 

 

Cant comment on my shed grow as that's obviously heated and I'm keeping roots and ambient between 25-28 to see if it actually makes a difference.

 

Haha agreed, I don't think anyone is able to hit up the same g/w results as with LED nowadays. The efficiency of the newest modules is also so much better that it is almost impossible to choose HPS above LED based on the data. But that doesn't mean you cannot grow great weed with HPS still, and also growers with HPS can hit the 1,5-2 g/w mark if they do it right.

 

1 hour ago, 4kali said:

talk about how ive been stuck in my old ways, i must be the t rex of all  dinosaurs, reading this thread makes me realiase just how much ive got to go with the times, or be left behind so to speak

I really like the idea of a lung room though its something ive pondered on for a while now.

which leds would you guys go far with low head height, one that you can get really close to the plants without having negative effects

 

 

If you are looking for something that will work great in room with less height or in a situation you want to place the LED's very close to the canopy, look for barlights like Fluence for example. Only 15-20cm from the canopy with these lights and they are sure to give you super solid results. Nowadays many other companies have copied the design. I personally like Migro a lot too. Good value for money as well.

30 minutes ago, NezA said:

Agreed, we already know that in order to run some LEDs flat out requires more Co2 than is present in the atmosphere naturally. Think of it like climbing Everest without oxygen, we're working the plants hard but not giving them enough air to breathe. Obviously there's a hard limit to the Co2 available in the atmosphere though, so at a certain point it doesn't matter how good your air exchange is you've hit that limit. 

 

I'm fortunate to be in a loft where I can intake directly from the bedrooms below (thanks to some defunct warm air heating ducting) which will have a way higher Co2 density than occurs naturally in the atmosphere. My hope is that I will potentially be able to push my plants a bit harder than most because of all the additional Co2 the people below are expelling in their sleep.

 

Smart thinking man, free extra supply of CO2 you are getting this way! You can push your plants a lot with high levels of CO2, but you will need very high PPFD levels to make efficient use of the extremely high CO2 levels though.

 

Very interesting topic guys, seems to me there are a lot of people with knowledge here

Cheers!

[GSZZ]

1 hour ago, blackpoolbouncer said:

As long as my lung room is warm when I walk in I know everything's all good without without checking my one thermometer.

 

When did you transition into a tropical plant mate?  

 

2 hours ago, blackpoolbouncer said:

Cant comment on my shed grow as that's obviously heated and I'm keeping roots and ambient between 25-28 to see if it actually makes a difference.

 

It will make a huge difference. Last time you brought your available light levels down to accommodate your environmental conditions, where as it appears you're at least trying to bring your environment up to match the light this time  Obviously I don't know your soil, but I remember last time you said you had issues with the no till pot, but I suspect some of that was down to the fact you weren't running optimal conditions in the room. 

 

Im excited to see how you get on  

 

Just now, Antonio_DutchPassion said:

however a good/experienced grower will not need these tools perse to feel and see what is needed to grow solid looking plants! The more you know the better you grow!

 

Whilst I don't disagree with you entirely, I don't care how good of a grower somebody exclaims to be, without the proper measuring equipment, you simply do not know what is going on and you are GUESSING. Visual inspection and feeling can only get us so far, as aforementioned, we are not tropical plants. I can try and think like one as much as I want, but unfortunately I do not perceive or interact with the environment in the same way so therefore without the proper ways to read and visualisation information I simply DO NOT KNOW, nor does anyone else.

Edited April 12, 2022 by GSZZ

[bill cooper]

Still using HPS and I don't see that changing, i.ve had LED lights in my basket the last few times Adam has had deals on but never pulled the trigger, as my house unfortunately is freezing and running led would cost a lot more than HPS.

[Antonio_DutchPassion]

Just now, GSZZ said:

 

Whilst I don't disagree with you entirely, I don't care how good of a grower somebody exclaims to be, without the proper measuring equipment, you simply do not know what is going on and you are GUESSING. Visual inspection and feeling can only get us so far, as aforementioned, we are not tropical plants. I can try and think like one as much as I want, but unfortunately I do not perceive or interact with the environment in the same way so therefore without the proper ways to read and visualisation information I simply DO NOT KNOW, nor does anyone else.

 

Yeah, I also totally feel ya mate, that's what I said I agree with your previous statement 100%.

 

However, what I sort of ment is a good grower can change things in environment and dial it in without the need to measure. Temperature can be felt, light can be seen and you can change things in small steps without actually measuring what is going on. Plants do tell the full story, all you need to do is look properly, listen and act cautiously. In my opinion it is a lot about the genetics (genotype) and the way it interacts with the environment (phenotype expression) that we as growers try to understand and steer the right way in order to get bumper harvest and the most potent flowers

 

It does use a lot more time and effort though, we have been cultivating (cannabis)plants for milennia, without the use of measurement tools, I think we have just become a bit more lazy and have come to rely a lot more on digital meters than ones own meters, if you catch my drift

 

However, I'm too a big advocate of measuring everything you can in a grow; temp, humidity, VPD, co2, leaf temps, soil temps, root temps, water level, light levels, etc. It all correlates with each other and once you get the data you can act accordingly and grow the most beautiful and clean plants one has ever seen!

[NezA]

With the appropriate environment LED will give you more grams of weed per watt of electricity used. Change my mind.

 

It's all about the way you set up your room an LED isn't a hot swap plug and play upgrade for a HPS room your room needs to be set up correctly to accommodate one. You can fight your oversized extraction with additional heat or you can get an appropriate extraction setup for your new fixture and save money.

[GSZZ]

Just now, Antonio_DutchPassion said:

Temperature can be felt, light can be seen and you can change things in small steps without actually measuring what is going on. Plants do tell the full story, all you need to do is look properly, listen and act cautiously.

 

10 minutes ago, GSZZ said:

When did you transition into a tropical plant mate?  

 

You can *see* PPFD can you? I'm not trying to be a dick here, but lets not devolve this discussion into bro science. Your eyes can see 500 - 600 nm with any real accuracy, PAR spectrum is way bigger than that, and ePAR is even bigger. I appreciate your view point, we have been relying on visual inspection and feel, like you say, for a very long time - but in regards to this discussion, switching from HPS to LED has clearly highlighted how unreliable that methodology actually is, otherwise we wouldn't be having these issues of light & environment out of balance, which is kinda why I am hammering the point I am. (e2a: You think we'd be seeing the same threads over and over again if everyone had a IR gun and a PAR meter to go along with their thermos?  )

 

Edited April 12, 2022 by GSZZ

[blackpoolbouncer]

Not being funny @GSZZ but when you walk into a room 1000 times and look at a thermometer you get used to what temperature it is. Not just inside but outside. 

 

I'd bet a fair chunk I could tell you what temperature it is to within a degree or two max in my growroom or even outside. 

 

I could tell you what temperature it is in my grow room right now in whatever area you desire to within a degree just by me sitting here in the rain in a soggy 8'c day 

 

I can also tell what time of day it is and navigate by the sun too

 

But I'm definitely not a tropical plant. The amount of time I spend in frosty condition I'd have wilted years ago

 

E2a. It's important to have a feel for your environment and temperatures even more so when working with sensitive plants outdoors imo. Rarely do I check the weather but I've not been caught out by a frost yet.

 

 

E2a again. I do get your point about matching parameters.

No instruments in the world is gonna change the position of my led fixture or how strong its run other than the plants. 

 

Understanding all parameters is definitely important and I wouldn't suggest running without a hygrometer or thermometer at least somewhere.

 

A stable environment rarely needs tinkering with. 

 

Pots are warm. Plants are warm. Light is maximum for the space which is a variable that doesn't change. 

 

 

If ya wanna get into optimal hanging heights and constantly adjusting be my guest but my light stays on the top of the room. Gets 50% in veg 100% in flower for what the space can take. 

But that's with everything dialed in so little variables to consider 

 

Edited April 12, 2022 by blackpoolbouncer

[Antonio_DutchPassion]

20 minutes ago, GSZZ said:

 

 

You can *see* PPFD can you? I'm not trying to be a dick here, but lets not devolve this discussion into bro science. Your eyes can see 500 - 600 nm with any real accuracy, PAR spectrum is way bigger than that, and ePAR is even bigger. I appreciate your view point, we have been relying on visual inspection and feel, like you say, for a very long time - but in regards to this discussion, switching from HPS to LED has clearly highlighted how unreliable that methodology actually is, otherwise we wouldn't be having these issues of light & environment out of balance, which is kinda why I am hammering the point I am. (e2a: You think we'd be seeing the same threads over and over again if everyone had a IR gun and a PAR meter to go along with their thermos?  )

 

Haha nope unfortunately I cannot, and no problem mate, but our plants do show light stress fairly quickly if the PPFD levels (or DLI) gets too high. Whether I'm growing with HPS or LED makes no difference. My point wasn't to say we are as accurate and reliable as meter themselves, that would make us robots But a good grower understands the story the plants are telling you, the same way a zoo-keeper knows if his animals are sick by looking at them, doesn't mean it wouldn't be better to stick up a thermometer into the horses arse to see if that is the right assumption

But yeah point taken mate, I agree we'll cut the spacy crap and keep it to the science, I'm more of a science kind of guy anyway

[ratdog]

19 hours ago, GSZZ said:

It's not like I haven't been bashing my head against the wall in LED threads about this

 

 

you missed my point, some here have warm houses but still think that adding heat to rooms with leds is a red herring, i simply wanted to know what people's lung room temps were before they felt the need to add heat, i know all about adding heat because of the lack of IR, been dealing with it for ages

[ratdog]

9 hours ago, grooving said:

I run 3x 375W Scope V1s and I need to keep my tent and room it’s in at 28ºC or more

 

 

fuck me, that must cost some juice?

 

8 hours ago, fatboy77 said:

My south facing room is 20c with the window open and no heating on.  I need a 180w tube heater in there for lights off. 

My North facing room is 18c with the window shut.  I need a 240c tube heater in there for lights off. 

Lights on for both sits around 25-28, if it's in that range I leave shit alone. 

 

so this is where i'm getting at when i say some need to be wary about swapping to leds without warning of heating issues, my south facing room is 18oc with a window open, north is 17 with the window open, but it's much warmer today than it has been. this flat has concrete block walls and concrete block and beam ceilings it drops to 16.5 and below in the colder months and that's the south facing room, the north one probably 13/14 with no heating

 

7 hours ago, blackpoolbouncer said:

Well, to throw a cat amongst pigeons. Growing in the house with ambient temps never going above 23'c pot level I did 1400g on 720w of LED with issues. The lung room was set at 20. 

 

Anyone that thinks hps is a superior light is definitely a dinosaur.

 

so you had heating? my room is never 20 until around the start of mid summer, and i'm not sure who said hps is superior? led is fucking awesome, i just live in a very cold place, i can't have the heating on to warm the rooms because it would cost a fortune and my poor dogs would be very hot and unhappy.

 

all i'm saying is i think this is something that needs to be told to new growers when they are looking to save money when they think changing to led will do that if they have an old concrete/solid brick house.

Edited April 12, 2022 by ratdog

[GSZZ]

26 minutes ago, ratdog said:

all i'm saying is i think this is something that needs to be told to new growers when they are looking to save money when they think changing to led will do that if they have an old concrete/solid brick house.

 

I can't speak for everyone who works in this kind of retail, but I always tell growers of the differences between the technology and what they need to be aware of going into it. 

 

Always there will be variables that change between locations of the grow, but the same environment can be replicated IN the grow with varying degrees of effort due to the aforementioned variables...

 

In my OP in this thread, I said this:

 

Quote

a little consideration for the environmental differences at the putting-together stage can save huge headaches and electrical savings later down the line.

I was hoping that with enough encouragement, we'd come to these conclusions ourselves - retrofitting LEDs into a room that otherwise is designed around HID lighting is going to cost a fortune heating it, and its exactly these rooms that the growers emerge on the boards and in the shops with problems from. Undersize the extraction, move over to EC fans so there is a greater level of control over fan speed and air exchange, vertical air movement instead of horizontal, inline filters to limit air flow even more, a bit of insulation ffs  Theres lots of ways to heat the air up, and keep it warm, than relying entirely on the heater or heat mat. Use a more efficient way of heating, tube heaters and oils rads are crap, they take ages to warm up, and then they stay hot for ages so its a constant push and pull. Inaccurately and costly. 

 

What I will say is we're growing plants inside, and sometimes in small cramped uncomfortable spaces (especially for a plant) and its not always possible to get all the environmental control we ultimately need into such a space, or the preferred,  so sometimes we've just got to fuck with the dick we've got and make it work and thats ok, but don't get making do, and doing our best, twisted into one and the same. 

 

4 hours ago, blackpoolbouncer said:

Not being funny @GSZZ but when you walk into a room 1000 times and look at a thermometer you get used to what temperature it is. Not just inside but outside. 

 

The reason I am hammering my point here BPB is because not everyone has the luxury or experience that someone like yourself has, metrics are very important during these kinds of discussions because its a universal language across environments that can be replicated - "its feels alright in my t-shirt" is so subjective to as to be completely pointless - I can promise you that the scope of the information we post goes WAY WAY WAY further than the boards, consideration must be made for our posts being misinterpreted - and it does, I have today had somebody in the grow shop recite my own advice back to me that he read here online , but applying it to the wrong kind of situation and it wasn't working for him. I'm not just being a rain man or overly anal just for the sake of it, never. People rely on these lovely plants of ours for so many reasons, there is weight to our words.

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2022 by GSZZ

[KC]

All I did was put a fan controller in when I changed to led (loft grow). Maybe I've been lucky. Maybe having a board instead of a bar helps 

I was really worried about changing from all I've read on here but it's been great so far.

[catweazle1]

7 minutes ago, GSZZ said:

 

I can't speak for everyone who works in this kind of retail, but I always tell growers of the differences between the technology and what they need to be aware of going into it. 

 

Always there will be variables that change between locations of the grow, but the same environment can be replicated IN the grow with varying degrees of effort due to the aforementioned variables...

 

In my OP in this thread, I said this:

 

I was hoping that with enough encouragement, we'd come to these conclusions ourselves - retrofitting LEDs into a room that otherwise is designed around HID lighting is going to cost a fortune heating it, and its exactly these rooms that the growers emerge on the boards and in the shops with problems from. Undersize the extraction, move over to EC fans so there is a greater level of control over fan speed and air exchange, vertical air movement instead of horizontal, inline filters to limit air flow even more, a bit of insulation ffs  Theres lots of ways to heat the air up, and keep it warm, than relying entirely on the heater or heat mat. Use a more efficient way of heating, tube heaters and oils rads are crap, they take ages to warm up, and then they stay hot for ages so its a constant push and pull. Inaccurately and costly. 

 

What I will say is we're growing plants inside, and sometimes in small cramped uncomfortable spaces (especially for a plant) and its not always possible to get all the environmental control we ultimately need into such a space, or the preferred,  so sometimes we've just got to fuck with the dick we've got and make it work and thats ok, but don't get making do, and doing our best, twisted into one and the same. 

 

 

The reason I am hammering my point here BPB is because not everyone has the luxury or experience that someone like yourself has, metrics are very important during these kinds of discussions because its a universal language across environments that can be replicated - "its feels alright in my t-shirt" is so subjective to as to be completely pointless - I can promise you that the scope of the information we post goes WAY WAY WAY further than the boards, consideration must be made for our posts being misinterpreted - and it does, I have today had somebody in the grow shop recite my own advice back to me that he read here online , but applying it to the wrong kind of situation and it wasn't working for him. I'm not just being a rain man or overly anal just for the sake of it, never. People rely on these lovely plants of ours for so many reasons, there is weight to our words.

 

 

 

Yes, quantitative information - "it's 14c" - is transferable, whereas qualitative information - "it's mild" - is not, and is not universally understood.

Edited April 12, 2022 by catweazle1

[ratdog]

Just now, GSZZ said:

a bit of insulation ffs

 

 

my cupboard under the stairs is fully insulated with 25mm kingspan, it's also only about 2/3rds the volume of a 1x1x2 tent and keeps a nice temp with the 100w heat mat set at 26 and the led panel set at 200 watts, the cuttings i have in there at the moment have lovely happy glossy leaves.

 

 

i'm going to have to replicate this in the bedroom, i think i will try to insulate the tent first before i build a dedicated room. the only reason i haven't so far is the big tent is more easily accessible from three sides, insulating it will mean blocking off two sides and not being able to inspect plants at the back so easily. but it would be foolish to not play with this now.