Are LEDs Misunderstood?

[sso]

but i also think this, plants arent constantly pushed like this in nature, there are clouded days.

and constant hps close to the plants seems to seriously damage terpene production (compared to what it could be)

so there is that too, we simply dont have the technology to do other than a compromise.

im somewhat curious to do a all mh grow again, with a bigger lamp and different spectrum, wondering about the 3000k bulbs.

fraid i dont have the cash to play with the big boys in the leds

id be very curious though using it as a supplementary light.

so thanks guys for this invaluable research.

 

[PetFlora]

The Pr0f uses aquarium HO bulbs, some Actinic Blue (~420) some Fiji Purples (good blend of all spectrums), and Red Sun for deep reds + a few other fill in bulbs. I was getting ready to pull the trigger and buy a couple Actinics when I you guys started discussing UVb. Anyway, I am now on hold for the actinics, hoping someone here clarifies. hth

 

[whazzup]

@sso funny you should say that about the huge leafs. There is a nice scientific report about artificial sunlight compared to hps and cfl. It discusses some differences between full spectrum light and cfl/HPS. You can find it HERE.

Cucumber plants grown under a high pressure sodium lamp (left), fluorescent tubes (middle), and an artificial solar spectrum (right) 13 d after planting the seedlings. The upper image was made before the plants were dissected for growth and morphology analysis (bar=10 cm). The lower three images were made before harvest and are of plants different from those on the upper image. These three images are not scaled; the leaf colour appears unnatural due to the growth light environment.

(AS = artificial sunlight)

Plant growth and morphology
The conspicuously greater size and biomass accumulation of the plants grown under an AS spectrum compared with plants grown under that of an HPS or FT appears to be related to the development by the AS plants of an architecture more favourable for light interception. The properties of the AS plants advantageous for light interception were characterized by an optimal leaf orientation (Fig. 2), long petioles preventing self-shading (Table 1), a larger total area (Table 1), and a lower LMA (Table 2). Compared with the FT plants, the HPS plants also displayed many of the features leading to improved whole plant light interception as shown by the AS plants, but in this case the extent of the differences was much smaller.

I am now blooming a plant that has been outside in miserable weather for 4 weeks blooming after a miserable summer. It's really remarkable how the leafs search for the blue light:

I have bigger leafs outdoor anyways.

It's a bit off-topic, apologies, but I think the effect of spectrum on morphogenesis is very underestimated.

 

[PetFlora]

This plant is only 4 weeks into recovery from near death. Growing under a 400 watt Quantum Bad Boy (though I was only using 6/8 bulbs), so more like 300 watts. The only other time I have had leaves this big was 30+ years ago when I grew under a 1000w MH. FYI: Air Pots rock! Yes it's a male...



but I may cross it with the now 32"+ fast growing bitch below that has 7 nodes @ 2 x 10" side branches, plus I already took 7 clones. This pic was taken Monday; she has grown 4 more inches in height, plus girth since then. Growing her in a F & D using lava rock- another great way to grow.



Bulb Update: My Wave Tech Coral Waves have finally been shipped. Not so sure when the UVL Super Actinic Blues will. One Red Life (deep reds) went bad after several hours of use. Impatiently awaiting its' replacement. So these pics were taken under less than dialed in coral HO T5s. Not too shabby, but the increased resin production under the actinics and far reds should be da bomb.

 

[guest456mpy]

A bump for a good guy.

Very informative thread, just not what I wanted mine to be about.

Keep up the great work! HO flouros still beats LEDs when you consider up front costs!

Much respect!

 

[PetFlora]

Here's a pic ~ 14 days after prior photo.

BK 1 is now 5ft (had to bend her as I ran out of room.

Bud development is ~ 10 days.

All pics are the same plant: bottom two are top bud different views

 

[PetFlora]

A bump for a good guy.

Very informative thread, just not what I wanted mine to be about.

Keep up the great work! HO flouros still beats LEDs when you consider up front costs!

Much respect!

Thanks. It's not fair of me to say this T 5 set up blows away all LED watt for watt, but to me the results are very impressive, regardless of the fact that it cost about half what current 400 watt LEDs sell for.

I can run 2 bulbs at a time 2/4/6/8, so electricity is further saved.

 

[420ish]

Thanks. It's not fair of me to say this T 5 set up blows away all LED watt for watt, but to me the results are very impressive, regardless of the fact that it cost about half what current 400 watt LEDs sell for.

I can run 2 bulbs at a time 2/4/6/8, so electricity is further saved.

i scrapped my 660 watt pll cabinet.i did 1 run with leds same genetics,in the same cabinet, and got better results then the pll t5s.went back to hps with the leds for supplimental lighting.i love my leds for veg!since going vertical with hps and getting over 1 gpw,it has slowed my interest in building led arrays.leds do work and the newer ones are cheaper and way better then the first few generations.it still costs alot more to go led and you still need to run similar amounts of watts to get impressive results.most of my leds are cheap ebay lights.i had 5 of them in the cabinet.the cabinet was 2 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet high.

 

[PetFlora]

Hi all who still lurk, or contribute, I remain happy with my HO T5s as most LEDs are little more than mixing spectrums, HOWEVER, LEDs that show great potential are finally coming to the marketplace. I really like the EVO90 (no fans!) but they have a substantial improvement in the wings, and a competing product called the Snake (also from Spain), Also, ledgrow.eu seems to be poised for a small personal use grower.

Let's dust this off

 

[Phaeton]

I have yet to find a single toy capable of outperforming the sun.

However, when lots of different attacks are all focussed together things start to happen.

280 nm through 850 nm are the frequencies covered.

440 nm through 740 nm come from above (think sun).
280 nm through 440 nm come from the whole area above and around (think blue sky).
660 nm through 850 nm come from low on the horizon (think sunset).
Yes, lots of overlap and blending.

I spent a year with a test budroom, killing plant after plant with light after light. From above, sideways, and yes, underneath also. The underneaths were my first LED's, nothing else ran cool enough. Bottom lighting sucked, but the LED's are cool.

The plants I grow like it well enough, but the sativa wants almost 20% more blue than the indica. When they are both in the room at the same time one of them suffers.
They do that in clone/veg also, to the extent I separate them and use different spectrums. Cannot afford two budrooms.

This was posted per the title "Are LEDs Misunderstood?"
Yes, misunderstood in the sense that they cannot do it all just because they are expensive. They only work on the main chlorophyll feed frequencies and all the trace frequencies used by the plant are not there.
The "white" LED's added are NOT white and the UV diodes are 380 nm UVA, identical to 420 nm actinic blue in plant chemistry.

I am on foot as I spent my car money on LED's, nothing else I have even read about can feed the chlorophyl as well as a good LED unit.
But I realize the limits and spent another 30% on supplements, and I am not sorry, this kicks and then creeps up and kicks again.

 

[squarepush3r]

I have yet to find a single toy capable of outperforming the sun.

However, when lots of different attacks are all focussed together things start to happen.

280 nm through 850 nm are the frequencies covered.

440 nm through 740 nm come from above (think sun).
280 nm through 440 nm come from the whole area above and around (think blue sky).
660 nm through 850 nm come from low on the horizon (think sunset).
Yes, lots of overlap and blending.

I spent a year with a test budroom, killing plant after plant with light after light. From above, sideways, and yes, underneath also. The underneaths were my first LED's, nothing else ran cool enough. Bottom lighting sucked, but the LED's are cool.

The plants I grow like it well enough, but the sativa wants almost 20% more blue than the indica. When they are both in the room at the same time one of them suffers.
They do that in clone/veg also, to the extent I separate them and use different spectrums. Cannot afford two budrooms.

This was posted per the title "Are LEDs Misunderstood?"
Yes, misunderstood in the sense that they cannot do it all just because they are expensive. They only work on the main chlorophyll feed frequencies and all the trace frequencies used by the plant are not there.
The "white" LED's added are NOT white and the UV diodes are 380 nm UVA, identical to 420 nm actinic blue in plant chemistry.

I am on foot as I spent my car money on LED's, nothing else I have even read about can feed the chlorophyl as well as a good LED unit.
But I realize the limits and spent another 30% on supplements, and I am not sorry, this kicks and then creeps up and kicks again.

is that the Hydro Grow LED product penatrator?

 

[Phaeton]

Yes indeed, that is a 336X-PRO, five of them actually, 462 watts each at the plug. This is why I am on foot, they cost more than the car I needed. The UVB and far red supplement lights were not cheap either.
The LED's have an extremely high growth rate and the supplements cause extreme creeper weed and stunting. Combined together becomes light from heaven.

As I said, I am not sorry and would do it again, darn fine smoke is coming out of that room. I can get .8 gpw if I work it, but that took more energy than I want to use.
The room is putting out .4 gpw with enough room to walk around the plants, less stress is fine with me. At 5700 total watts the lower gpw is also fine with me.

The picture is lower buds, the cola's do not make it to the jar, word on the quality is out and harvests are reserved. The jar is buds destined for extraction. My personal meds.

 

[squarepush3r]

Yes indeed, that is a 336X-PRO, five of them actually, 462 watts each at the plug. This is why I am on foot, they cost more than the car I needed. The UVB and far red supplement lights were not cheap either.
The LED's have an extremely high growth rate and the supplements cause extreme creeper weed and stunting. Combined together becomes light from heaven.

As I said, I am not sorry and would do it again, darn fine smoke is coming out of that room. I can get .8 gpw if I work it, but that took more energy than I want to use.
The room is putting out .4 gpw with enough room to walk around the plants, less stress is fine with me. At 5700 total watts the lower gpw is also fine with me.

The picture is lower buds, the cola's do not make it to the jar, word on the quality is out and harvests are reserved. The jar is buds destined for extraction. My personal meds.

can't folks get over 1 gpw with HPS lights?

 

[PetFlora]

Phaeton: Honored to have you drop in.

Folks this nugget alone is worth its' weight in gold: The plants I grow like it well enough, but the sativa wants almost 20% more blue than the indica. When they are both in the room at the same time one of them suffers.
They do that in clone/veg also, to the extent I separate them and use different spectrums. Cannot afford two budrooms.

 

[PetFlora]

I'm starting a new grow. It's a F1 cross between a Sat dom female and an Indica male. Starting in a Mylar lined DIY closet (see photo)

Closet lights are a mix of 2.5 yo UFO 90 top lighting (90% red) + 4 side lights various strength cool white CFLs & one Repti- Glo 10.0. This is my first time mixing all these bulbs. So far so good. Plants have stretched more than in the past. Not sure whether that's good or bad.

*Root pic is from previous grow, provided to show abundance of bubbles which provides dissolved O2 rich air space for rapid root development


View attachment 156809

View attachment 156810

View attachment 156811

 

[PetFlora]

Why no one light set up works for all

Phaeton said "sativa wants almost 20% more blue than the indica." We can pretty well run with that as ^^^^ 411, BUT, what about crosses? I am going to play to the strain that is dominant. BUT, I am growing my first (F1 X) between S/I and will begin to select the Indica dom from them to clone. THEN I can hone in on which combination of spectrums works best.

The Truth About the Green Spectrum

Originally Posted by Phaeton
The spectrum of light the plant uses efficiently changes with the intensity.
At low light levels red is used most then blue, just like the chlorophyl charts.
As the light gets brighter more blue is used, and more. The break point is reached about 50% of max leaf capacity then green starts coming on. As the intensity continues up red and blue remain steady but green use continues to grow until at maximum it is almost half of all the light energy being used.


Another hot tip is that the blue spectrum is only utilized by ~ 8-10%. So if your grow bulbs have a decent % blue, adding a Special Blue Actinic (I was) is wasting a slot needed by 550-700, but if/when you are in flower, using ~ 80% 600-740, then adding a SBA would be essential.

Bear in mind I am using an 8 bulb HO T5: Half the 6 bulbs were pink the other have blue-pink. I noticed the plnts under the pinker blend had bigger leaf sets! So today, beginning 3rd week veg: I replaced #2 (SBA) with a UVL AquaSun.

Spectral balance now leans toward pink, as follows:

1 & 4. Quantum Grow (veg only)
2 & 6. UVL AquaSun (veg only)
3 & 5. Coral Wave (veg/flower)

This config distributes the spectrums evenly

* UVL says Red Lifes will be shipped out this Friday. They now have a few 660s for testing. I hope to wrangle 2.

For Flower I'm thinking

1 & 8 Quantum Flower or UVL AquaSun
2 & 7 660
3 & 5 Coral Waves
4 & 6 Red Lifes - 600-615

 

[PetFlora]

Looks like we're done here. Sigh, but man, did I learn a lot

It's amazing to look back to the beginning and see how fast leds have improved and yet with a long way to go.

Clearly, they are viable today, but most of the commercial offerings are well behind the curve. The good news is companies like Rapid Led www.rapidled.com have plug-n-play kits that covers ~ 30 X 30 for < $250!

 

[PetFlora]

COULD THE FOLLOWING BE WHY ADDING GREEN DIODES (~530NM), INSTEAD OF WHITE, IS CAUSING

COULD THE FOLLOWING BE WHY ADDING GREEN DIODES (~530NM), INSTEAD OF WHITE, IS CAUSING

Found this researching vortex water structure

http://theimploder.com/products/super-imploder FYI It’s is made in USA

Origin of Color: We further present the symmetry evidence that this phase conjugation by golden ratio is the origin of color at the link fractalfield.com/fractalphotosynthesis.

That argument depends on the hypothesis that the octave of wavelengths that are visible can be converted in perfect linearity from zero to 180 degree phase angle, or tilt, of the photon (thought to be a torus). Amazingly, this results in a simple platonic series of angles which emerge ‘magically’ exactly at the wavelength/frequencies of the primary colors. (below) For example, green is a color defined by a photon which has rotated exactly at a cubic 90 degrees. We hypothesize that this angle produces exactly a wave interference ‘shadow’ which is opposite to phase conjugate, and why every living plant (photosynthesis ) spits out / does not eat the green photon (graphic at link).

The only 2 photon angles- 63 and 117 degrees tilt or phase angle for Yellow and Blue - which are not cube angles- are in fact the precise face angle to bring the photon into the DODECA face to center. This means that all the angles of the primary colors - photons- are the result of cube / dodec face to center. THAT symmetry is precisely what is required to get the photons to phase conjugate by golden ratio. That means that color is the result of golden ratio phase conjugation sorting in the quantum liquid core of the rainbow. (discussion at link above - see- 3 pair of primary colors fit the hex view of dodec/cube). Note how this PHASE CONJUGATION cause and origin of color hypothesis predicts that rainbows are more likely where the air is fractal / conjugate/ charge dense - measurement examples at goldenmean.info/architecture , also would cause the famous Green Flash, - also would explain why the contribution to phase conjugate plasma compression caused when a Tibetan saint dies- causes rainbows.

COULD THE FOLLOWING BE WHY ADDING GREEN DIODES (~530NM), INSTEAD OF WHITE, IS CAUSING PROBLEMS FOR LIGHT MFGS?


WWW.FRACTALFIELD.COM/FRACTALPHOTOSYNTHESIS

The evidence is clear- the reason every living plant can absorb any photon BUT green- is that the green photon being precisely a 90 degree phase angle or tilt, is exactly OPPOSITE to phase conjugate. And so - being the opposite of constructive interference (green / right angles create max DESTRUCTIVE interference)- so the GREEN photon is the opposite of LIFE!

Life is defined by embedability in perfected (phase conjugate) charge distribution.

Note also how - now it is possible to define evil- simply as that charge which cannot be embedded in the perfected (phase conjugate) distribution of charge called LIFE!