HPS and MH light, I hope I made finally made the right call

[GpsFrontier]

You don't get to my level by being spoonfed everything.

You can claim to be anything you want, but that doesn't make it true, and/or wont make me believe it either. That's the exact type of statement you get from people who make up things and call it fact. They think it puts the responsibility of verifying their information on the other person, and if the other people come to a different conclusion from what they find when they do, they will just say other person is stupid and/or doesn't know the "real" facts. And by refusing to share where they get their information from, they think they can keep up the illusion of knowing something other people don't, and they think that makes them creditable.

When the truth is the exact opposite is true, and I wont buy into that illusion, sorry. Demanding people just believe you may work on some people, but it wont work on me. The more you demand people just believe on faith, as well as refuse to share information sources, the less credibility you have with me. People who have legitimate information to share, generally don't mind sharing their information sources, as well as explaining how they come to the conclusions they have. Well that is unless their just selfish, and just don't like to share anything. But that's not a very good personality either, nor does it portray credibility.

Instead of asking for the numbers you could've taken the 5 minutes to do the research and to run them off in excel and come to the EXACT same conclusion.

What the bleep are you talking about??? First I don't have EXCELL, us poor peon's aren't rich like you. We have to watch what we spend, and don't have an unlimited source of funds. Just what conclusions are you referring to? The conclusion that if you had all the money you need you can create a LED lighting setup to grow just about anything??? I already came to that conclusion well before you ever joined the forum. So what, nothing new there? Like I said many times, us poor peon's need to watch spending, and don't have unlimited supply's of money (no matter what claims manufactures make).

The video you posted in the other thread only illustrates my point to the "T." Those LED grow lights/panels are not cheep and must range between $400 and $500 each. With one led panel needed every 2 feet on center, being conservative and assuming each light panel was only $400, to outfit a 10x20 grow space would cost $20,000. For a small 10x10 space would cost $10,000. Depending on the wattage used, one MH light, or 2 smaller wattage MH lights would be plenty of light for a 10x10 grow space, and cost far less than one tenth the cost in equipment. Even half that cost for LED is way to expensive to consider (for people that care about their money anyway, and for people who are looking for less expensive produce than what's in the market). I'm not interested in growing a $20 tomato.

That's the same distance a 600w HID bulb hits the 2,000 umol range. Does a 600w grow plants a mere 10 inches tall? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Let me make it a bit more clear, does 600w HID bulb and light system cost ten grand? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Who cares if you can create a 2,000,000,000 umol light, unless it cost less than what's already available. Who cares, (except the manufacture, or sales person trying to sell a product).

And NO I'm not "choosing to ignore that multi-ton multi-kilowatt-hour AC unit you have to run to compensate for those HIDs." That is just a way overrated claim that manufactures use to sell their high priced LED's (that I'm sure you work for). Good ventilation is all that's needed in most all cases, and the cost for ventilation is fairly cheep. A box fan like the (18 inch wide) one I use every day during the summer only cost me one penny to run per hour. Even for large grow areas with many HID lights, good ventilation is easy to do. Some venting can even be done without using any electricity at all, using roof/attic ventilation fans that allow the heat to escape as it rises.

Cost to run my 18 inch fan
1.1 amps, 120 volts (1.1x120=132) 132 watts
Calculating The Cost Of Electricity (scroll down to the "Calculating Energy Costs" section)

Our total cost per kilowatt hour is $0.09.29 (9.29 cents), this is easy to find on your electric bill, and make sure to include both the base charge, as well as the surcharge for using more than 400 kilowatts a month. 9.29 kilowatt hr (is our total), 132 watts running for 1 hr comes to $0.01 per hour, or $0.29 per (24 hr) day. These numbers are running full blast on high (max output of the fan). Electricity Cost Calculator

If for some reason ventilation alone wont keep the area cool enough, there is no need for a "multi-ton" ac unit. A small window AC unit that I use to cool my approx 15x15 bedroom (to 72-78 degrees F) during summer, and I rarely run on high would more than suffice for a 10x10 grow space, and would probably be fine for a 10x20 grow space with good air circulation and air flow (that it should have anyway). My small window AC is:

5,350 BTU
500 watts (listed on the sticker)
4.5 amps, 115 volts (4.5x115= 517.5 watts going by volts and amps)

And I only paid $99 for it over 10 years ago when I lived in Calif. But you can still get these small ones at Home Depot for $100 or less, and I'm sure their more energy efficient these days too. But going by my 10 year old AC unit, this window AC unit only costs me 5 cents per hour to run on full high per hour. Or $1.11 per day (24 hours). If I left it on turbo all day long, and for the entire month, it would cost me a total of $33.30 (for a 24/7 30 day month).

Now assuming I needed to to run the AC full blast for 24hr a day, and all year long. Witch of course would be way over kill, but Ill use that for the numbers anyhow. HID lighting for a 10x10 space would cost well under $1000, but assume it was $1000 to make the math easy. It would cost $9000 more to outfit the same small 10x10 space with LED. Running that AC full blast 24/7 all year long, it would take 270 months to break even using LED instead ($9000 divided by $33.30= 270.2 months). Or in other words 270 divided by 12= 22.5 years just to break even. Putting your spare money in a CD account is a much better investment, and you get it back quicker.

LED's can (can, but not necessarily) generally use less overall wattage, but adding up all the wattage from the 25 LED panels needed for a 10x10 grow space wont be that much significantly less overall wattage than just using 2, 400 watt HID lights. Even if it cuts the wattage used by the HID lights in half, that would be 400 watts a month savings (and the LED's would only be 16 watts per LED panel 16x25=400). That's only saving $0.67 a day in lighting costs for 18 hours per day, or $20.10 a month, or $241.20 a year. It would take 37.31 years to break even from the lighting energy cost savings at half the energy consumption than HID. When you compare it to the the extra $9000 up-front costs in equipment for LED to outfit the same 10x10 grow space. Is LED a viable option? Yes if your rich, have money to burn, and don't care if that tomato cost $20 to grow.

Enjoying $40/mo power bills

2, 400 watt lights would only cost me $40 a month to run too ($1.34 for a 18 hour day, $1.34x30= $40.20), and would cost less than 1 tenth of the $10,000 in equipment for LED. Even if LED's saved half the electrical cost, I would still need to wait almost 4 decades just to break even from the equipment costs. And even if using AC with HID, LED's will still take over 2 decade to break even. Again, is LED a viable option? Yes if your rich, have money to burn, and don't care if that tomato cost $20 to grow.

I've run the math over and over. The long-run cost is actually LESS

Ya, but I'm not going to wait 20-40 years before "the long run" happens.

P.S.
If you would have taken the 5 minutes to do the research and run the numbers you would have come to the EXACT same conclusion. You don't get to my level by being spoonfed everything. But unlike you hydrophotobio, I don't mind spoon feeding (if needed), and helping people. Nor do I have anything to hide either. Politely asking someone (who you don't believe in the first place) to explain how they come to their conclusions, is only giving them the opportunity to give them credibility (or at least explain how they got to that conclusion). If they refuse to show credibility, so be it, that's their choice. In school it was called showing your work, and the teacher wasn't about to believe you unless you were able to show your work (at least in my schools, even if you had the right answer). The people who knew what they were doing (or at least were genuine in their effort) had no problem showing how they came to the conclusions/answers they did. The ones that had something to hide, simply refused every time. I gave multiple opportunities, and I now have no doubts anymore which type you are.