THANKS to everyone who commented above. After a lot of research about comparing LED,HID, LEC,HPS, etc. I came up with the same as Sirius Fourside. Just as he said_ the heat produced by different lights (LED,LEC,Lamps, etc.) is measured in BTU's and the amount of BTU's depends on how many watts your lights draw from your power source. So a 600 watt LED produced the same heat as a 600 watt HPS (or other type of lamp). LED manufacturers claim that their lights produce less heat, but thats at least somewhat misleading_ their reasoning behind this claim is that LED's have better penetration so you don't need as many watts to produce the same amount of light. But that depends on where you want the most light. Lamps provide less penetration but they also provide more even light to the canopy. If your training places your colas at the same level then the penetration of the LED's may not be as significant as it would be if your crop has height differences of more than 12". I use LED's because my grow room can't be vented to the outside and I need to use fans to keep the temp in the 70-80 degree range. I presumed that the advertisements were correct_ that LED's produced less heat, so thats what I got, But they do produce a good amount of heat_its just not directed downwards as much as lamps because LED's don't use hoods. I have 900 watts of LED light (Platinum brand)_ they are nice lights and have the veg and bloom switches. But they do produce a lot of heat_for instance the temp in the grow room is increased by about 10 degrees after the lights have been on for just one hour. My third crop is just about finished and as recommended by the manufacturer I used both the veg and bloom LED's for the flowering cycle. But this time I decided to use just the bloom cycle LED's for the past ten days. This enabled me to get the lights closer to the colas and at the same time avoid burning them (the red spectrum produces less energy than the full spectrum). They seem to be doing fine at about 12-16 inches rather than the 18 inches recommended.This seems to have improved the development of the buds during this final phase. I have a ton of notes on light intensity, color spectrums, watts, heat, efficiency, etc...I'll post this if anyone is interested. In addition to a bunch of other interesting information there are some charts that show how much light (measured in lumens_ which is the only accurate way to compare light output_ watts don't correlate to lumens specifically) is produced by different light sources at specific distances. Its pretty interesting and revealing. Also have a bunch of information on light spectrums.
Basically after all that research I've concluded that the type of lights you get are mostly dependent on how much you have to spend and any personal preferences. Specific types of lights can possibly affect your productivity if all your other conditions offer optimum growth potential. Just as important are the immediate environmental conditions, grow medium, nutrients, strain/genetics, etc.
Oh yeah, as far as LEC lights are concerned they produce true full spectrum white light_ especially at the UV end of the spectrum. This might help plants to produce more resin and THC due to the additional stress placed on them in order to deal with this potentially damaging end of the spectrum. The spectrum is also the closest to daylight. The LEC's also come in two types of lamps_ one warmer than the other_ specifically for the bloom phase ( just as you'd use with lamps). Since LEC's produce a full spectrum white light they need to use some of their power (watts) to produce green light, which is not provided through full spectrum LED's (they don't provide green light because plants don't use much green light, instead they allocate that power to diodes that produce the most usable light).
Truly full spectrum lights don't give you the red_orange_purple colored light that you get from LED's and lamps such as MH/HID of HPS. But if you go with LEC's you need might consider getting lights that are a little use a little more power and make sure to wear polarized glasses to protect your eyes for the UV light they produce.
Man, that was a mouthful but I hope it helps!
o) in a tent and it got just as hot as a 400W HID. I'm currently running a Platinum LED P900 (557W total) and that thing definitely gets as hot as my 600W HPS (if not hotter since I can't air-cool my LED).
