LED Fireball, Very surprised on the power on this light

[Maxsack331]

hey, I finally got that video Megahurts, I was having trouble uploading it to my youtube account from my phone (was the easiest way to take a video at the time, but the droid incredible is pretty good at videos/pics) anyways I also got my light meter in today and tested it out... to keep it short the fan is pretty quiet, not as quiet as I remember it but then again that was because it was in the shelves I made for growing the seedlings, and in the video I put the mic right up against it, and it was a little hard to take the video and hold the LED light safely at the same time..

and the light meter was cool, it showed about 136,000 lux from about 2-3" away, (which is why I fried some of those seedlings at first haha) and I tested it, raising it up and down and seeing when I started loosing light in the corner of the 3x3' grow area, and that height was at about 3-3.5' or so and it read 1,700 lux, which isn't bad considering the actual area where the LEDs are in that light is about a 7x7" area.. with the whole unit being 9x9". and at ~3' the meter read around 10-15,000 lux I think it was, maybe a little more, can't remember, but either way, well over what is needed which is pretty cool..

so I personally think that LEDs are great when wanting to save energy, and growing a few mature plants or starting out a bunch of smaller plants in a small area and maybe adding a cfl or 2 just to give off some extra light for the sides, but after testing my 400w MH HID, and finding that with that on, in my 6x6' tent, it read 8,000 lux at the furthest corner from the light where I could put a plant, which was about 3' from the edge of the light fixture, and with the light hanging about 5' 5" above.. which is pretty cool.. but it also costs about $35-40 a month at least in CT to run it 16 hours a day, in a month with 30 days, compared to the $13 a month it takes for the LED to run, but for a smaller area.. or make it $20 a month and add a few CFLs..

(sorry if my video skills are horrible, I'm new to the whole video review kind of thing.. but you get the idea)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh1nwu3p6bI&context=C36eaa0fADOEgsToPDskLwmvE7zgIgDIeWhciUCu81

 

[megahurts]

I just realized the video was here. You should record it with regular lighting since the spectrums in the LED mess with teh camera. That IS a quiet light and its USA made - f**k YEAH! I like how you can chain it and it looks quality. I would think in combo with some T5 or some 2G11 (base for a double long cfl) compact lights, it would work out pretty well. Are you using this as supplimental in the window?

MHz

 

[Maxsack331]

I just realized the video was here. You should record it with regular lighting since the spectrums in the LED mess with teh camera. That IS a quiet light and its USA made - f**k YEAH! I like how you can chain it and it looks quality. I would think in combo with some T5 or some 2G11 (base for a double long cfl) compact lights, it would work out pretty well. Are you using this as supplimental in the window?

MHz

what do you mean with regular lighting? the lights in the room were on so there was that light.. but compared to the LED light.. you couldn't really tell.. I measured it with the light meter and it is crazy bright.. at 2" (just wanted to see what my seedlings at first got fried from) it measured at about 136,000 lumens lol.. but other than that, it was equivalent to a 400w HID just about.. it just didn't have as much lumen power in the outer ranges of it's effective growing area as an HID would... since the LEDs don't shoot out light all over the place like a HID bulb would.. but it's great..

and right now I am not using it, I am using my HID light in the grow tent, but I need to move my mom's tomato plants into a mini greenhouse (about 6x4' tent) that i need to setup in the basement, but I will use that and probably only 2 CFL lights.. it doesn't really need much more light than what the LED light puts out. since it has blue/red and white LEDs, although the white LEDs are not a whole lot of use.. but it's good to have them, and there are only a few of them.. so I will be using that by the end of the week, the only reason I didn't use it before that was because it was too strong for the pepper plants I had in my shelf, and didn't cover a wide enough area for the plants I have in the grow tent right now (I needed a 4x4' area at least. and it only cover's 3x3')

but the quality is great, and even the sound in the video is less than what it sounds like, that cage covering the fan is just a tiny tiny bit loose, so that was making some of the noise too.. I just need to tighten it up even though I will not be around to hear it.. it just makes me feel better knowing that it is tight and working well lol

 

[megahurts]

By regular I mean cfl, hid, the_sun_ftw, or other wide-band lighting.
I think the light is great quality. Its hard to get accurate sound because all of that changes when you listen to it from a normal distance.
Video quality was also great, but I think the colors (or this monitor) was making it look darker than it should. Sometimes that bright purple color can dominate the camera.
I think you're 100% right to start off on floros for seedlings. Thats the way I would and will do it...besides, you dont want to spend all your operating hours on the expensive equipment.

Are the LEDs in that unit Cree or Phillips? My research says Phillips is the only company producing 5w far red led diodes, but I dont know what Cree has. I wish I could stop in there (Cree), the headquarters is a couple miles down the road from where I'm sitting lol. White LEDs are there for your viewing pleasure and make it more impressive. I think they have more to do with marketing. Its like this swordsmith I knew made such well balanced blades, people didnt think they were quality and made from cheap metal. It caused him to lose sales until he unbalanced it and people though a heavier feeling sword meant that it was stronger.....

i wish I was a ninja...

MHz

 

[mrz1988]

Wow AJ, I think I have the same light and it just wasn't doing good work for me. I think I was having fert probs alongside it though. I think I'm going to try a side-by-side test this year with T5/LED and see which one I'm getting better growth out of. Then again I'm pretty convinced that the plants take their sweet time in the first 30 days regardless of what light they're under, it's the second 30 that you need bright light for.

Is this the one? I got my babies under it now but they're so small it doesn't matter much.

Also tried it for fruiting once. Did okay for some of the plants that didn't need much light until the aphids showed up. The rest didn't like the light so I wouldn't recommend LED for fruit. Figured I'd post the pornage:

And I'd much rather spend operating hours running this guy than HID or T5 if I had the option. Fluoros and HID burn out or dim after a while but LEDs have a lifespan something like 10x longer.

 

[Maxsack331]

yea if I didn't already have those 14 plants that were a few weeks older than the other ones that I started out later, and are now flowering.. I would be able to just stick all the plants under that LED light that I have, which would save a lot of money.. butttt.. like other things this year, I didn't really know what I was doing and jumped the gun.. but at least next year I will have a good plan on when and what to do and which lights to use when

By regular I mean cfl, hid, the_sun_ftw, or other wide-band lighting.
I think the light is great quality. Its hard to get accurate sound because all of that changes when you listen to it from a normal distance.
Video quality was also great, but I think the colors (or this monitor) was making it look darker than it should. Sometimes that bright purple color can dominate the camera.
I think you're 100% right to start off on floros for seedlings. Thats the way I would and will do it...besides, you dont want to spend all your operating hours on the expensive equipment.

Are the LEDs in that unit Cree or Phillips? My research says Phillips is the only company producing 5w far red led diodes, but I dont know what Cree has. I wish I could stop in there (Cree), the headquarters is a couple miles down the road from where I'm sitting lol. White LEDs are there for your viewing pleasure and make it more impressive. I think they have more to do with marketing. Its like this swordsmith I knew made such well balanced blades, people didn't think they were quality and made from cheap metal. It caused him to lose sales until he unbalanced it and people though a heavier feeling sword meant that it was stronger.....

i wish I was a ninja...

MHz

haha that's funny about the sword, that is on my list to purchase eventually.. a really nice samurai sword.. or something like that.. but anyways as far as the LED, the diodes are actually 3w not 5w.. they say 5w on almost all the sites, but then when you get the package it says 3w diodes.. and I read somewhere that it was a mistake on advertising.. but who knows, I don't know what the difference in size or anything if there is one, between 3w and 5w.. and I'm not about to pull them out to test the wattage on them haha.. but whatever it is, it's bright as hell..

and yeah like I said, the lights in the room were on.. but compared to the LED, it just made everything else look dark.. and when I was shifting from position to position, it didn't give the camera enough time to adjust.. but at one point in the video you can see it just barely start to adjust so that the room looks like it is lit up from the CFL lights in the ceiling.. but then the LED takes over and makes it all look dark after lol.. I show the video with my old 6 megapixel Cannon digital camera.. although for 6 megapixels it does a really good job (and it was the highest megapixel when I bought it available, and of course the next year, they jumped to like 10 but oh well.. that's to be expected), but I love Cannons

see here is a site that changed it.. I just think some were slower to fix the mistake.. and others probably are slow to fix it because 5w sounds better anyways lol
http://www.greners.com/i/grow-lights/led-brand/cap-xtremeled/xtremeled-grow-light.html