HPS Vs CMH Vs LED | Should you upgrade from HPS and MH?

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[oscarsilva]

Shane is super smart. I love how he always looks thirsty and baked. Love this guy. 🙌

[aaronunderwood]

The ease and flow of your side by side comparison chart deserves a Nobel

[backupintheday]

LED ok for Veg. Metal Halide Best for Veg.
HPS Best for flowering and yield size. That is all you need to know.

[spicy]

I just love how lit this guy always looks giving us grow light recommendations. good shit.

[giskio]

Man, i don't know if you gonna read this comment but... Thanks for your work.
I'm not into Likes subscribes and that stuff. I can see your tired face some times but, here we are again with a smile sharing knowledge.
Thank you from Italy.

[Crafty]

The real MVP of this video is that insanely level table

[bruceholinight]

I'm lucky enough to have a friend who owns a large hydroponics company and he turned me into the CMH about 4 year's ago, I was using a hps 600 watt at the time, the CMH is cooler, way more resin and potency, just better in every way ! I also have quantum boards, every kind of led that's been out ( because I get to try everything new for free ) ! Still would never switch from two 315s I use now in my 4x5 box, 3100k, I run two 4 foot t5 ho LEDs along the walls and no larf or popcorn !

[daluxnutz]

Thank you for keeping all these other big LED brands in check,

[iamrocketray]

When I used to grow(many moons ago) you had two choices Fluorescents or HPS/metal halide, Old timers used Fluorescents and us more modern guys(I'm Nearly 72 lol) used MH for vegetative and HPS for flowering, heat was our biggest problem, so loads of fans. Electricity was the next problem and many people fixed their meters, not because of the cost but to hide the high fuel consumption. We never fixed our meters because in doing so you drastically increased detection risk and left yourself liable for two offenses, growing/distribution of a class C drug(later reduced to B) and Theft(of electricity). Bearing in mind we were small scale 4 x 600 watt HPS in flowering chamber and fans and extraction etc. our Electricity costs never raised any attention. Energy suppliers are more concerned with fraud and non payment and as long as you pay your bills and don't tamper with the meters they didn't seem to care too much.
I'm retired now(in more ways than one lol) but to get the same amount of lumens from LED's would the electricity costs be greatly reduced as you're not paying for the excess heat or are HPS still the way to go?

[MsSAinyourFace]

My Aray 4 is being delivered tomorrow and I CANNOT WAIT!!!
Great video as always, thanks Shane! Truly appreciate the consistent and valuable knowledge sharing :)

[glockasauruswrex]

Great stuff! Love how you break down not only the spectrum, but also efficiency and cost of use. LEDs are the obvious choice so glad I went that way...my 1st grow n my plants are exploding!

[Merlin-wokj]

All depends on size of your grow space, if your growing in a small 2x4 LED is definitely more manageable. Big difference between a large open room and a tiny little tent.

[timeisart]

UVB is not present with hid fixtures? According to other reports Cmh Bulbs give off quite a bit of UVB. even on the cmh packaging they say to wear glasses for this reason. thx for the info

[lunaherman]

Hanging the bulb straight down tends to spread more light after measuring it with a light meter but I know that this is not efficient in air-cooled hoods because there's no hood design with air cool for this but if you have a way to cool the room the old school cone hoods still throw the most light to this day

[sykebymike]

1 he ain’t consuming on camera So what he does in his spare time ain’t nothing to do with anyone . Great video and love the new hoodie and the new light 🤞🏽🙌🏽

[alexcrisan]

Hello Shane! First and foremost I want to thank you for the content and knowledge you share! But I have e few remarks:

1. You stated that DE fixtures can give you 1.3-1.4 PPFD/watt which is somewhat correct(cocoforcannabis puts Gavita DE at 1.47) which is again is somewhat correct but if you do the same test in a grow room with 6 or more lights overlapping each other the PPFD/watt is more like 1.7. Comparing 6 (Migro Aray)light sources to one (HPS) in a grow tent is not a fair comparation.

2. You’ve tested Single ended HPS + with the SecretJardine parabolic Reflector and you stated a 1.35 PPFD/w efficiency You should of gave that as an example to be as fair as possible.
In Spain I can get a digital ballast + Sylvania Bulb and Secret Jardine Reflector for 115€ at 0.078 €/kWh it’s pretty hard to beat!

3. I have personally tested ppfd/watt in a growroom with 12 x 1000w Dimlux DE Fixutres and the average PPFD/watt is arround 1.76.
As you know the bigger the grow area the smaller the wall to growspace ratio is.
Btw Dimlux and Gavita are arround 450€ Per fixture but there are other brands at 220-240€ but are 5-10% less efficient than Dimlux

4. 4x4 Grow tent are not to be used with DE lights. DE HPS has a rectangular light footprint of 1.1x1.7
That’s why if you take ppfd measurements in a G2 Mamooth Grow tent(size 2.2 x 1.8 m) using 2 DE gavitas with Small Room Reflector you will have and average ppfd/w of 1.63 (source: I tested myself)

5. A 1m x 1m grow room has 1 sq meter of of grow space has 4 m of wall so the ratio is 1/4

A 5m x 5m grow room has 25 sqm grow space and 25m of wall

That’s a ratio of 1/1

The larger the grow room the more efficient HPS becomes.


That being said I think that led is preferred for the small home grower especially at the 0.17 €/kWh


I tried high end led like HLG 550 rspec for 5 grows now and I have to say that I prefer the herb grown under DH hps.

From my experience the plants grown under 3500 kelvin color temp produces a bit more leafier final product compared to DE HPS under same ppfd. What do you think?


Best regards

[jeffreywolf]

Ive used high end led Sk600. 400 and 600 watt MH and HPS. 315 and 400 watt CMH and none are as good as the CMH bulbs. The 400s have no problem doing 4X4 and run cooler than MH and HPS over the last 3 years.

[fakevirus]

My new fave and what I know for a fact is the most manageable heat wise is 315 (philips dont blow on cheaper ballasts as much as the rest and don't blow with shock if your aircooling the lights) you can do two 315s on £150 light movers set the end delay for a minimum of 40secs and you will beat three stationary 600s for fun and give three stationary 1000w a run for their money with zero bleaching. I appreciate this might seem silly talk until you actually witness it and repeat results too. I will say this again so nothing is confused > two 315s on a light mover at the correct height adjusted height wise every 2-3 day with 40+secs of end delay will beat two 1000+ SLs hps stationary in air-cooled hoods. My first stationary 315 I got 23 Oscar when everyone was saying 15 Oscar max first time out under a single 315. Auto skunk1 and Lithium OG and 23 dry from a single 315 Philips. Two 315s on movers only need a single 5" KSA box fan to keep the place spot on the set temp.

[sethlappin]

I love your channel very informative and unbiased even with your own brand of lights hopefully when I'm ready for new I'll be trying yours

[greengold]

Great video Shane, only you are making informative videos like this and we appreciate it very much.