[Budgie]

Why does an LED only draw half the power/wattage of an HID?

 

ie, a 300w LED, is equivalent to a 600w HID in output but not power useage?

[Budgie]

For well made/specced LED's It's simple,

 

because LED's (or rather S(uper)LED's as that is what they are) work by switching on and off at a fast rate (too fast for the human eye to recognise)

 

Therefore, they only use half as much power because they are only actually 'ON' in the powered sense for half the time.

[2scoops]

It has potential to run at 600 watt but wouldn`t last long running at that, so they lower power draw and run at a lower power to prolong it`s lifespan, so in reality you ignore the 600watt bollox and look at the power draw its running at and this is it`s real wattage of the lamp you got lit up, well that`s my very little understanding of it after a recent conversation i had.

[2scoops]

Oh and cus they wank as well.

[Anonymiss]

Why does an LED only draw half the power/wattage of an HID?

ie, a 300w LED, is equivalent to a 600w HID in output but not power useage?

It's because (some) LEDs produce more lumens per Watt than HID lamps, so the 300 Watts consumed by (some) LEDs will produce more light than 300 Watts of HID.


ETA: It's the same as HPS producing more light-per-Watt than fluorescent (which is also often around double/half).

 

For well made/specced LED's It's simple,
 
because LED's (or rather S(uper)LED's as that is what they are) work by switching on and off at a fast rate (too fast for the human eye to recognise)
 
Therefore, they only use half as much power because they are only actually 'ON' in the powered sense for half the time.

This isn't really the answer, but it does explain the marketing-speak

If the LEDs are only on for half of the time then they are producing only half of the output that they are capable of

It's like saying that a 100 Watt lamp on a dimmer switch is actually only a 50 Watt lamp when it's turned down to 50%.

[2scoops]

So is a 600watter with a 320 power draw pushing light equivelent to a 600 or 320 watts when lit ? i`m lost.

[Anonymiss]

So is a 600watter with a 320 power draw pushing light equivelent to a 600 or 320 watts when lit ? i`m lost.

It all depends on the device in question, and what you mean by a "600 Watter."

If the claim is that it has the output of a 600 Watt HID, then it could probably be called 'equivalent' to 600 Watts of HID.

But if they say it's a 600 Watt unit (i.e. has 600 Watts of LEDs) running at 320 Watts, then who knows? It will depend on the efficiency and spectra of the LEDs involved, and the efficiency of the PSU/switching circuits as well.


But in all cases, if it sounds too good to be true then it almost certainly is

[revert]

Isn't it more about the spectrum they offer, the PAR? Because leds produces light thats more usable to plants then in theory they could perform as well as a 600w HID for less power.

Thats my understanding anyway. I've been growing with leds since 2012 and I've still haven't wrapped my head around all the tech

I've got 600w true power in my tent atm but I don't believe they will produce anything like a 1k HID. Maybe I'm using the wrong leds lol

 

[Anonymiss]

It seems that there are, generally, two distinct claims made for LED:

"Our 600 Watt LED unit only uses 300 Watts!"

"Our 300 Watt LED is as bright as 600 Watts of HID!"

These are very different things (and both are pretty meaningless without more data).

@revert has a point about the spectrum, but measuring PAR alone is about as useful as measuring lumens unless it's also broken down further — because PAR doesn't take the plant responses into account and treats all wavelengths equally, it could be entirely composed of 'useless' spectra.

[2scoops]

 Tis a mind boggling subject for my little bit of grey matter this one is. I been looking at the viper LED they seem fair priced, but it`s too much of a headache.