Californian,

I'm going to link a thread started by a well known pepper grower, he uses a $300 LED product which he claims is good for 4ft x 4ft coverage for vegetative growth, but if you want pods then it's only good for 2ft x 2ft coverage. He grows plants to sell btw, so i don't think he could afford to waste his time on something that didn't work...in my humble opinion anyway.

4ft x 4ft is pretty good coverage to get seedlings up to a marketable size imho.

He claims he uses the "Illuminator UFO 5-Band Tri-Spectrum": http://www.amazon.com/Illuminator-5-Band-Tri-Spectrum-Grow-Light/dp/B001J9SYW2

Here's the thread where he discusses it: http://www.thehotpepper.com/topic/19960-ajs-february-2011/

(you'll need to copy and paste those links to another browser window obviously)

Too much. Not worth ever geting a LED in the next 5 years.

Not worth getting? Proper ones are so efficient that I use them exclusively in my own home for tobacco, peppers, tomatoes, tendergreen bush beans, herbs, and much much more. Payoff time? A year and a half.

But I have the advantage of being a researcher with a lot of access to a lot of information.

Good call MasterG, don't waste your money on a commercial light for at least 5 years. But DO spend your money on LED's and build your own - they are worth the expense and trouble.

I use a 120 panel costing around $300 as well. I also combine it with T5 HO's which as this time seems to be a good combination. I have had many successes, however I have also had some failures usually due to water or pest issues, not light problems. It does take some getting used to though, especially controlling the amount of light falling on a plant. Young plants definitely don't like to be too close.

That depends on what kind of led lights you need!

Here is a link that might be useful: rayleich.com