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New L.E.D. Arrays & LowRyder2
- Thread starter dav zap
- Start date
sunnyside
sunnyside
calculating things like heat exhaust deletion and 7 year lamp life are not simple, and I am willing to bet that you by no means have the where with all to do so. show me your criminal schedule calendar of events. its ripe when its ripe. period. or how about your internodal point- do you even know what you're talking about-the branches are coming out of the stem right on top of each other. it could not be tighter. you know some people don't like fluorescent light, too. Hey, LEDs just transformed LR2 into a bush, no other lights have done that monstrous growth.
Thank-You for sharing.
sunnyside
calculating things like heat exhaust deletion and 7 year lamp life are not simple, and I am willing to bet that you by no means have the where with all to do so. show me your criminal schedule calendar of events. its ripe when its ripe. period. or how about your internodal point- do you even know what you're talking about-the branches are coming out of the stem right on top of each other. it could not be tighter. you know some people don't like fluorescent light, too. Hey, LEDs just transformed LR2 into a bush, no other lights have done that monstrous growth.
Thank-You for sharing.
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G
Guest
I have to agree, I think the culprit might be too much blue light.
Also, 100 days is worrying, obviously LEDs are taking much longer to flower the plant to full maturity, under HPS or fluoros it would be done by now. The big difference between yoru LED setup and a conventially-lit fluoro or HPS grow is that you are only providing two small parts of the spectrum plus some UV, this loos to be insufficient, so it looks to me like some other part(s) of the spectrum is also important to flowering cannabis, perhaps it is the lack of IR, or perhaps the green wavelengths play some part, I really don't know, but obviously something is missing, this is clearly evidenced by the increase in flowering time, the plant is not reacting the way it should in flower, it would be much faster if grown under natural, fluroro or HID lighting, so it must be something to do with the missing parts of the spectrum.
This is valuable to know, perhaps after this plant is harvested you could do another run but add in some IR LEDs to see if that is the missing ingredient. I also think that you should change genetics and grow a proven strain rather than an autoflowerer, this will make assessment of the flowering time, end product etc. much easier and more accurate.
MasterBudGrower
Member
Prolonging flowering could be usful for keeping mum from flowering. This could be good info
dav zap said:
look at the lower branches...I see a good 4-6" of stem on some of those lower branches...that is not good node spacing. I don't see alot of budsites either. I see alot of stem and alot of leaves. Just observations...don't take it personal, you are doing a great job with what you have.
relatively tight nodes on a relatively stretchy sativa...
It's not hard math either. I don't have to cool my t5's. I would use the same scrubber/exhaust as I would with any light in this space. My t5's have a 5 year warranty. And they have been used for the last 3 pretty much all the time. No bulb replacements or anything so far. The fact that the led's cost considerably more than the t5's, I'd say that the t5's are more cost effective over a 5 year span, which if you get 5 good years out of any light, you are doing good.
So the math is pretty simple for that.The cost in electricity savings is more work than I want to do right now lol. I'd say that your led grow will come out with a very good gram to watt ratio, which does matter. However time for me is one if not the biggest factor. If I am going to grow plants I want to be as efficient as possible. If the grams per watt is even in the same ballpark, I am always going to go with the light source that grows the fastest and yields the most. Especially when it is significantly cheaper to purchase the equipment. just my opinion tho...
I appreciate you keeping up with this thread. I really do. You have done a fantastic job with the pics and updates. I have enjoyed following along. I just don't think I will be making the switch to led's anytime soon.
Good luck with the rest of the grow...and enjoy the herbs.
sunnyside
sunnyside
I must say that I both enjoyed and was impressed with your last posting.
I also must concede to your math and economics of the T-5. Your plant is
absolutely picture-perfect. I'd be thrilled If I got plants looking like yours.
Sorry if I was a bit too cranky. You're obviously a very good gardener.
Thank-You for giving me credit for trying.
PEACE
sunnyside
I must say that I both enjoyed and was impressed with your last posting.
I also must concede to your math and economics of the T-5. Your plant is
absolutely picture-perfect. I'd be thrilled If I got plants looking like yours.
Sorry if I was a bit too cranky. You're obviously a very good gardener.
Thank-You for giving me credit for trying.
PEACE
G
Guest
Dav, I give you full credit for trying! I have scoured the net for LED grows and so far, yours is about the best attempt. I think you have an uphill struggle as you are a pioneer and pioneers always have it tough. However, the work you are doing is very vauable to the community as a whole. The big problem is that LEDs are totally unproven and untested for flowering cannabis, really, you are one of the first to be doing this! Therefore, there is no pre-existing knowledge of how to grow with LEDs to draw on, so really Dav, you could end up teaching all of us how to grow with LEDs.
So far, I think the best conclusion to draw is that yes, LEDs will grown cannabis, and it's clear that LEDs will produce prodigous vegetative growth. I think that what we are seeing here is that stimulating Chlorophyll A & B production by providing blue and red wavelengths is not the only thing you need to do to get cannabis to flower to it's full potential. Obviously, other parts of the spectrum also play a role, we need to figure out what those other needed parts are. Reading scientific research papers will not give us this info as they are working with other plants, we are talking about a specialised application - flowering cannabis, and the only way to work out what flowerign cannabis requries is to experiment with flowerign cannabis plants. This is what Dav is doing, experimenting with flowering cannabis plants. I admire him for this and I intend to follow his example and try my own LED experiments very shortly, I'm currently building my LED light array, it's gonna be a bit of a beast. I've added IR and UV LEDs to the red and blue, perhaps this will work betetr than just red and blue?
One other point about LEDs, the 5mm clear plastic LEDs (and 8 and 10mm ones for that matter) are old technology, they might be cheap, but they will never be as efficient as the modern hi-power SMT LEDs. You need hundreds of these older 5mm LEDs, whereas the hi-power LEDs are producing several watts each at current technology, within a couple of years we will have LEDs producing a few hundred lumens per watt and those will kickass for growing. I heartily recommend folks skip this current generation of LED lights that use many 5mm LEDs and go straight to the hi-power technology. Currently this means shelling out 600 bucks for a Procyon (don't bother with the UFO, it's shit) or DIYing your own light. Give it a year or two and commercial units using hi-power LEDs will be commonly available. The 5mm LED lights have shown that it is possible to grow plants with LEDs, but they will never be the answer. I doubt Nasa used cheap 5mm LEDs, they probably have research contracts with companies like CREE to develop specialised units.
Dav, I just bought 6 0.5W IR LEDs and a 350mA driver for them for 35 bucks, add five bucks for a piece of aluminium to mount them on, and I have a 4.2W IR light. I reckon if you decide to add more LEDs in future, you should go for hi-power ones, I'd be more than happy to help with any info on these or help with wiring and construction, it;s not hard to wire them together if you have a soldering iron, it's just a case of soldering two wires to two nice big solder pads on each LED and conenctign them in parallel to the driver, then mounting them on a piece of aluminium for heat dissipation with either little self-tapping screws or thermal epoxy.
Perhpas adding IR and UV LEDs to your current setup would make a big difference? I really don't know, until someone does the experiemnt no-one knows for sure, but if I were to take an educated guess, I'd say that IR and UV will make a difference, but there may be more then red, blue, IR and UV needed for flowering to full potential. LEDs are available in all colours, so all parts of the spectrum can be added.
One other thing I've been considering is using white LEDs. 5W white LEDs aren't too expensive, about 7 bucks if you buy 10, they produce full-spectrum light like fluoros and HIDs do (but without UV and IR) so they should be as effective for flowering as fluoros and HID are, you would of course, have to add the missing UV and IR. Perhaps using white LEDS but with added red ones to strengthen that part of the spectrum would be more effective than just using red and blue ones?
If anyone out there (perferably in the UK) is seriously interested in doing some serious research into LED growing and wavelengths required, and would be interested in doing some LED grows with the sole purpose of gathering data, please PM me, and perhaps we can work something out, I'll build the LED light to do the experiments with, and will modify said light as determined necessary following results of experiments until we hit on the correct formula to flower cannabis to full potential. Perhaps using 50w of white LEDs with 40w of red, 5w of UV and 5w of IR would be a good starting point?
So far, I think the best conclusion to draw is that yes, LEDs will grown cannabis, and it's clear that LEDs will produce prodigous vegetative growth. I think that what we are seeing here is that stimulating Chlorophyll A & B production by providing blue and red wavelengths is not the only thing you need to do to get cannabis to flower to it's full potential. Obviously, other parts of the spectrum also play a role, we need to figure out what those other needed parts are. Reading scientific research papers will not give us this info as they are working with other plants, we are talking about a specialised application - flowering cannabis, and the only way to work out what flowerign cannabis requries is to experiment with flowerign cannabis plants. This is what Dav is doing, experimenting with flowering cannabis plants. I admire him for this and I intend to follow his example and try my own LED experiments very shortly, I'm currently building my LED light array, it's gonna be a bit of a beast. I've added IR and UV LEDs to the red and blue, perhaps this will work betetr than just red and blue?
One other point about LEDs, the 5mm clear plastic LEDs (and 8 and 10mm ones for that matter) are old technology, they might be cheap, but they will never be as efficient as the modern hi-power SMT LEDs. You need hundreds of these older 5mm LEDs, whereas the hi-power LEDs are producing several watts each at current technology, within a couple of years we will have LEDs producing a few hundred lumens per watt and those will kickass for growing. I heartily recommend folks skip this current generation of LED lights that use many 5mm LEDs and go straight to the hi-power technology. Currently this means shelling out 600 bucks for a Procyon (don't bother with the UFO, it's shit) or DIYing your own light. Give it a year or two and commercial units using hi-power LEDs will be commonly available. The 5mm LED lights have shown that it is possible to grow plants with LEDs, but they will never be the answer. I doubt Nasa used cheap 5mm LEDs, they probably have research contracts with companies like CREE to develop specialised units.
Dav, I just bought 6 0.5W IR LEDs and a 350mA driver for them for 35 bucks, add five bucks for a piece of aluminium to mount them on, and I have a 4.2W IR light. I reckon if you decide to add more LEDs in future, you should go for hi-power ones, I'd be more than happy to help with any info on these or help with wiring and construction, it;s not hard to wire them together if you have a soldering iron, it's just a case of soldering two wires to two nice big solder pads on each LED and conenctign them in parallel to the driver, then mounting them on a piece of aluminium for heat dissipation with either little self-tapping screws or thermal epoxy.
Perhpas adding IR and UV LEDs to your current setup would make a big difference? I really don't know, until someone does the experiemnt no-one knows for sure, but if I were to take an educated guess, I'd say that IR and UV will make a difference, but there may be more then red, blue, IR and UV needed for flowering to full potential. LEDs are available in all colours, so all parts of the spectrum can be added.
One other thing I've been considering is using white LEDs. 5W white LEDs aren't too expensive, about 7 bucks if you buy 10, they produce full-spectrum light like fluoros and HIDs do (but without UV and IR) so they should be as effective for flowering as fluoros and HID are, you would of course, have to add the missing UV and IR. Perhaps using white LEDS but with added red ones to strengthen that part of the spectrum would be more effective than just using red and blue ones?
If anyone out there (perferably in the UK) is seriously interested in doing some serious research into LED growing and wavelengths required, and would be interested in doing some LED grows with the sole purpose of gathering data, please PM me, and perhaps we can work something out, I'll build the LED light to do the experiments with, and will modify said light as determined necessary following results of experiments until we hit on the correct formula to flower cannabis to full potential. Perhaps using 50w of white LEDs with 40w of red, 5w of UV and 5w of IR would be a good starting point?
knna
Member
Excelent post, Ganja Pasha,
i couldnt agree more with what you wrote, except for the IR thing.
Its true we dont have avalaible any data about the best spectrum for flowering cannabis, but ive seen it for many other plants and all of them behave better with some green than without it. Only some species benefit little from a more complete spectrum, as wheat, wich is mostly spectrum insensitive. Cannabis seems to be relatively insensitive too, but way less than wheat, so we may expect yield enhancement by using a more complete spectrum.
What is have been proved lately is that blue/red only led grows do the flowering cycle longer. Although its possible is due partially to the lack of central (green-yellow) wavelenghts, mostly its related to the lack of far red (700-780nm), sometimes called infrared, although its not correct.
Over 700nm, humans sense very little the light, but still are sensitive up to 780nm (as the CIE photopic curve shows). So technically, it isnt IR, but visible range (not PAR range, 400-700nm). This part of the spectrum plays a role on many biological proccess, as specifically, on the flowering induction and rippening behavior. This lacking seems to be the main cause of higher duration of led grows.
But to provide it, you need leds emiting in the 700-780nm and preferably around 625nm. Led sellers call them IR leds too (incorrectly) but be aware most IR leds emits at 840 and 950nm, wich are wavelenghts absolutely unusefull for plants. So check whats you IR leds wavelenght (i dont know any 0,5W led emitting at the 725nm range, but just low power leds or packaged leds arrays).
A easy and cheap way of adding far red is using incandescent lights, wich are very good emitting in this range (its where incandescents put more power per watt, more than in the visible range: while they are pretty inefficients producing light into the visible, they are decent emiting far red). Ive seem many studies showing that very often, applying far red just the last hour of light is enough to fight against far red lacking. We should use incans at least while the flowering induction period. Ive suggested it to Dav Zap before. Supplementing leds (red/blue) with some incans seems a very cheap and good way of fighting against their lackings (far red and some green).
BTW, white leds emits a continous spectrum with still some far red, so for leds grow, it seems that white leds must be a part of it.
i couldnt agree more with what you wrote, except for the IR thing.
Its true we dont have avalaible any data about the best spectrum for flowering cannabis, but ive seen it for many other plants and all of them behave better with some green than without it. Only some species benefit little from a more complete spectrum, as wheat, wich is mostly spectrum insensitive. Cannabis seems to be relatively insensitive too, but way less than wheat, so we may expect yield enhancement by using a more complete spectrum.
What is have been proved lately is that blue/red only led grows do the flowering cycle longer. Although its possible is due partially to the lack of central (green-yellow) wavelenghts, mostly its related to the lack of far red (700-780nm), sometimes called infrared, although its not correct.
Over 700nm, humans sense very little the light, but still are sensitive up to 780nm (as the CIE photopic curve shows). So technically, it isnt IR, but visible range (not PAR range, 400-700nm). This part of the spectrum plays a role on many biological proccess, as specifically, on the flowering induction and rippening behavior. This lacking seems to be the main cause of higher duration of led grows.
But to provide it, you need leds emiting in the 700-780nm and preferably around 625nm. Led sellers call them IR leds too (incorrectly) but be aware most IR leds emits at 840 and 950nm, wich are wavelenghts absolutely unusefull for plants. So check whats you IR leds wavelenght (i dont know any 0,5W led emitting at the 725nm range, but just low power leds or packaged leds arrays).
A easy and cheap way of adding far red is using incandescent lights, wich are very good emitting in this range (its where incandescents put more power per watt, more than in the visible range: while they are pretty inefficients producing light into the visible, they are decent emiting far red). Ive seem many studies showing that very often, applying far red just the last hour of light is enough to fight against far red lacking. We should use incans at least while the flowering induction period. Ive suggested it to Dav Zap before. Supplementing leds (red/blue) with some incans seems a very cheap and good way of fighting against their lackings (far red and some green).
BTW, white leds emits a continous spectrum with still some far red, so for leds grow, it seems that white leds must be a part of it.
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Ganja Pasha
Ganja Pasha
You are an eloquent gentleman, sir. And I enjoyed very much, reading
your thoughts and observations. By and large I think you are right in your
thinking. At least I agree. Hopefully one of us will figure out how to snap
up the flowering, whether its with white LEDs or IR, or what? I must
Thank-You for taking the time to share those comments. Best of Luck to
you in your endeavors.
PEACE
QUESTION: When should we chop???
Ganja Pasha
You are an eloquent gentleman, sir. And I enjoyed very much, reading
your thoughts and observations. By and large I think you are right in your
thinking. At least I agree. Hopefully one of us will figure out how to snap
up the flowering, whether its with white LEDs or IR, or what? I must
Thank-You for taking the time to share those comments. Best of Luck to
you in your endeavors.
PEACE
QUESTION: When should we chop???
G
Guest
Thanks for that info knna, I notice that Edison Opto Corporation are producing LED light bars that are being used to grow plant in the Netherlands and they use red, blue and white LEDs, so I think using white LEDs as well as the reds and blues is the way to go.
http://www.edison-opto.com.tw/applications_detail.asp?category=9&cno=50
The company in Holland manufacturing the Growlights from Edison LEDs is called Flowmagic, their products look to be pretty good, certainly better than the 5mm LED light arrays we've seen so far:
http://www.flowmagic.nl/index.php?s=p_2
They give far more detailed information that nother suppliers of LED lights, and they include these LEDs in their lights:
Far-red 740nm
Red 660nm
Red 640nm
Blue 450nm
UV 400nm
Warm White
Soft White
Daylight
So it looks like our thoughts about adding UV and IR wavelengths are also being applied here by Flowmagic, I'm not sure why they use three different types of white LED, probably because each has a different colour temperature.
There are five PDFs of magazine articles from Professional horticultural trade magazine here, so looks like the Flowmagic system is gaining acceptance in the very demanding world of legal horticulture, and anything those guys use definitely must work well otherwise they wouldn't use it!
http://www.flowmagic.nl/index.php/Pers.html?p=457&ADCPHPSESSID=c298c399cd69a459282fa4a4b409517c
Flowmagic are selling two units that look very interesting - the ClusterLED 32 (32 LEDs) and the ClusterLED 160 (You guessed it - 160 LEDs!), these look to be by far the best LEDs lights I've seen for sale so far, and the way they use lots of different types of LEDs bears out what I've been postulating about the needs of flowering plants being greater than just red and blue. I'm gonna see if I can get a price for these units and a supplier who will sell them to me direct without having to buy 10 or more units.
This is the 160 LED unit, it has active water cooling! looks very impressive, and I have no doubt that these are gonna be very effective as a HPS replacement. I wonder how much they are to buy?
The IR LEDs I bought are probably made by Edison Opto, but I don't have a clue what wavelength they are as they are unmarked as far as I can see and Edison make 5 different IR emitters with wavelengths ranging from 650nm upto 950nm. I'm concerned now that I don't know if these IR LEDs are the correct wavelength or not. They were very cheap so if they turn out to not be the right ones, I can always buy some more, although how I will work out what wavelength they are I have no idea. I would guess they are probably 'near IR' rather than the true IR ones, the list below is the four different IR wavelengths Edison produce, I'm guessing mine are 650-670 as they do two different models with this wavelength and they are the cheapest of the range. From what knna says, it seems the 730-750nm ones are the best choice.
650nm~670nm
730nm~750nm
840nm~860nm
930nm~950nm
I'm definitely going to buy some white LEDs rather than a load more reds, the great news for dav zap is that white LED bulbs are getting cheaper all the time, so he could upgrade his current red/blue setup by adding some domestic white LED bulbs without spendign a lot of cash. I think this would be the best way to continue dav's experiment, to do the next flower run with added white bulbs.
The only truly accurate way to judge when to harvest is by checking the clarity of the trichomes, when approximately a third are amber, the plant is at peak ripeness and should be harvested.
http://www.edison-opto.com.tw/applications_detail.asp?category=9&cno=50
The company in Holland manufacturing the Growlights from Edison LEDs is called Flowmagic, their products look to be pretty good, certainly better than the 5mm LED light arrays we've seen so far:
http://www.flowmagic.nl/index.php?s=p_2
They give far more detailed information that nother suppliers of LED lights, and they include these LEDs in their lights:
Far-red 740nm
Red 660nm
Red 640nm
Blue 450nm
UV 400nm
Warm White
Soft White
Daylight
So it looks like our thoughts about adding UV and IR wavelengths are also being applied here by Flowmagic, I'm not sure why they use three different types of white LED, probably because each has a different colour temperature.
There are five PDFs of magazine articles from Professional horticultural trade magazine here, so looks like the Flowmagic system is gaining acceptance in the very demanding world of legal horticulture, and anything those guys use definitely must work well otherwise they wouldn't use it!
http://www.flowmagic.nl/index.php/Pers.html?p=457&ADCPHPSESSID=c298c399cd69a459282fa4a4b409517c
Flowmagic are selling two units that look very interesting - the ClusterLED 32 (32 LEDs) and the ClusterLED 160 (You guessed it - 160 LEDs!), these look to be by far the best LEDs lights I've seen for sale so far, and the way they use lots of different types of LEDs bears out what I've been postulating about the needs of flowering plants being greater than just red and blue. I'm gonna see if I can get a price for these units and a supplier who will sell them to me direct without having to buy 10 or more units.
This is the 160 LED unit, it has active water cooling! looks very impressive, and I have no doubt that these are gonna be very effective as a HPS replacement. I wonder how much they are to buy?
The IR LEDs I bought are probably made by Edison Opto, but I don't have a clue what wavelength they are as they are unmarked as far as I can see and Edison make 5 different IR emitters with wavelengths ranging from 650nm upto 950nm. I'm concerned now that I don't know if these IR LEDs are the correct wavelength or not. They were very cheap so if they turn out to not be the right ones, I can always buy some more, although how I will work out what wavelength they are I have no idea. I would guess they are probably 'near IR' rather than the true IR ones, the list below is the four different IR wavelengths Edison produce, I'm guessing mine are 650-670 as they do two different models with this wavelength and they are the cheapest of the range. From what knna says, it seems the 730-750nm ones are the best choice.
650nm~670nm
730nm~750nm
840nm~860nm
930nm~950nm
I'm definitely going to buy some white LEDs rather than a load more reds, the great news for dav zap is that white LED bulbs are getting cheaper all the time, so he could upgrade his current red/blue setup by adding some domestic white LED bulbs without spendign a lot of cash. I think this would be the best way to continue dav's experiment, to do the next flower run with added white bulbs.
The only truly accurate way to judge when to harvest is by checking the clarity of the trichomes, when approximately a third are amber, the plant is at peak ripeness and should be harvested.
Hi dav zap & everyone. This thread is getting more interesting each new post. The new info is great, the 160 sounds interesting and a bit like bleeding edge working product. I have to agree that the info from this grow is great, I look forward to the end of the month.
I think dried weight should be about 25grams.
I think dried weight should be about 25grams.
up to 14gs
knna
Member
Im very bad eyeballing weight, but i say 17g.
About the Edison leds used on those units, they are of the right wavelenghts, but their efficiency is low. The 660nm units have just a nominal 17% energy efficiency, wich on operating conditions maybe a 40% less, so just 10% of energy efficiency on operating conditions (energy emited as PAR light (optical watts)/input energy (watts)). Compared with 35% for large HPSs, no any spectrum advantage may compensate for less than half photons avalaible. Meaning that until they improve their led's efficiency, they cant save watts respect to cheaper HPSs.
About the Edison leds used on those units, they are of the right wavelenghts, but their efficiency is low. The 660nm units have just a nominal 17% energy efficiency, wich on operating conditions maybe a 40% less, so just 10% of energy efficiency on operating conditions (energy emited as PAR light (optical watts)/input energy (watts)). Compared with 35% for large HPSs, no any spectrum advantage may compensate for less than half photons avalaible. Meaning that until they improve their led's efficiency, they cant save watts respect to cheaper HPSs.
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