Reviews are really good on Amazon but wanted to see if anyone else has used these before. I’m thinking for seedlings and clones in the early stages.
Thoughts?
I tried daylight wavelength regular LED’s straight up against daylight cfl’s. Despite putting out more lumens per watt, the LED seedlings floundered, and I replaced the bulbs. For 20 bucks a pop, I’d stick with cfl. Another note all 3 different brands of leds I tried had a heat buildup in the bases (and hence, the fixture) at least 25% hotter than the cfl’s. Even regular incandescent light bases did not get as hot? With the efficiency of the emitters these days, I think inner circuitry needs to be improved. Be interesting to see how good they work in a veg cabinet!
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My seedlings are under CFL right now and doing well I suppose. Don’t have much to compare them to.
This is a mystery lady I found the seed laying around. Left picture was 24 hours prior to the picture on the right.
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Both of my mystery ladies, been under CFL since day 1. Going to put them in my grow tent with LED lights once those come in.
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I just wanted to throw the new Hortilux t5’s out there.
http://www.eyehortilux.com/products/power-veg.aspx
I heard they can be used to harden off plants for outdoors, used for veg of course, and evidently guy’s are stacking them in grow chambers as side lighting and getting great results. I hate saying “i heard” instead of “i tried,” so hopefully somebody knows more.
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My original plan was to get 8-lamp T5’s but since this is my first indoor grow, a friend recommended the LEDs for quality.
I’ll have to try that combination next time when my budget grows.
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deleted this post thanks
If my understanding is correct, CFLs are good for vegetation but when in flower, it would require LEDs at the least to flower correct? Sorry, I don’t know how to read those charts.
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You can use what ever you want you just need to double the intensity at least. It makes since if you think about it. The plant is going to get at least half as big and you need to penetrate to get to the undergrowth. CFL and LED will both work the LED will last five to seven years if they are quality and the CFL will last less but somebody who has used them will have to tell you how long. I am specifically talking about horticulture LED but Philips is quality and i assume any of there LED’s are similar. I hope this helps somewhat.
You need to consider both the intensity and the light color. It’s entirely possible to flower under CFL, but you’d want to do a lot of training to keep the plants short and canopy flat. LED blasts all of the light in one direction, which means you can have taller plants and lower leaves will get light, but one could argue LED covers less of the spectrum than other lighting options (CFL, HID, the sun). The colors in the LED fixture have been selected specifically to be useful to plants, but other parts of the spectrum are probably useful, too (e.g. UV-B used to increase resin production).
I’ve got a fairly cheap-o horticultural LED fixture paired with some T5 fluorescent lights for my vegging area, and I’ve been entirely satisfied. That said, I’ve been extremely careful about keeping the plants a safe distance from the LED: even though it runs cool as a cucumber, it’s entirely possible to burn your plants from the raw intensity of the light. I did, in fact, cook two seedlings with the LED fixture by only keeping them 2 feet away from the light.
The lighting FAQ has some good info about various types of lighting, though not so much on LEDs right now 
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@oranje Check out what “white” Led’s are putting out as far as flowers. It is pretty neat. The CMH bulbs are less red than HPS but yields are pretty good also. Red is important for yield yes but yield is only part of it. I personally would run a 315 3000k CMH way before a Led, CFL, or 600 watt hps. I think the quality is better with the improved spectrum and uv. Not arguing just throwing that out there. 
PS For flower.
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Fooling around with some cheap Chinese 50w COB LEDs, came up with array for a clone/seedling cabinet. Plants love it.
31000 lux at 12 inches. Less heat, and lower profile than the flouros they replaced. Much better light quality, plants really respond to it.
-b420
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Those lights are way over priced. Go on aliexpress and they are like 5 bucksXD cfls do better then shitty leds all the time. Id choose a bunch of 23w cfls before going with a 1000w china led fixture anyday. Better quality. Longer life. If a bulb goes out its cheap to replace. Go diy. Even do what baudelair is doing and spend 50 bucks on cheap china cobs, heatsinks, drivers etc… if you cant afford quality china or american equipment. Even A single cree cxb3590 cob with a driver, heatsink, reflector and whatever will cost you like 200 bucks and the itll be better then any 2 vipars.
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What about a 315W 3000k CMH supplemented with a 150W HPS? Because that’s what I’m running in my tent right now 
Can’t advocate for it yet (it’s my first grow in a decade), but it seems like a good balance and my girls look happy as can be.
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I have run HPS with plasma and it was great, realy nice yields. I have run HPS with CMH and love it, realy great color, smell, and taste. The yield i gave up to me was negligible, but there. I am curious about LED or fluorescent side lighting. Right now i am running CMH and plasma.
I use cfl’s for seedlings and rooted clones, t5’s for veg and hps and a ufo led for flower. As said above use anything you can but increase intensity at every chance. Light penetration/intensity is the biggest factor when considering yield IMO
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Thanks all for all the great answers!!
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I use Spektrum King LEDs in veg and flower and 100 happy
I am enjoying my Amare SE450 panels for all phases of growth. LED’s have been good to me.
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