Finally an Actual LED Made Specifically for Photosynthesis
- Thread starter Shafto
- Start date
S
sm0k4
NOTB - I don't use LEDs either, but if you hate 'em so much, why don't you just skip this kind of thread instead of pissing on everybody else's parade?
If there were an inexpensive way to make an LED "net" with a light at every corner and string that up above your canopy, who cares if it's not concentrated into a single point?
The only thing I care about is how much it's going to cost me.
If there were an inexpensive way to make an LED "net" with a light at every corner and string that up above your canopy, who cares if it's not concentrated into a single point?
The only thing I care about is how much it's going to cost me.
T
thefatman
There have been quality LED systems in the aquarium reef trade for several years. Even ones where you can control the K value of the light by increasing/decreasing the amount of acitinic wave length leds supplying lighting. They are far from cheap though. Around about $1500 to $2000 to provide a lumen output equivalent to a single 400 watt metal halides. Reef aquarium keepers that are propagating corals are far ahead of horticultural growers in having supplied their demands for better led lighting. However they seem much more inclined to spend huge amounts of money for such led lighting systems. You can put thousands of dollars worth of corals under just one lighting system which they use to supply light to just 4 square feet. However they are usually not dealing with lighting distances beyond 3 to 4 feet. Usually they are only using 2 foot deep tanks.
S
sm0k4
I wouldn't say the reefers are ahead of growers, they just have more of a DIY crowd that isn't afraid of using a soldering iron or shop equipment. I learned most of my DIY LED knowledge from the reefer forums. They use Cree whites and blues with lenses for penetrating the water level. Its nothing too special, just costs a lot in materials because they cool them passively rather than actively, so they spend a ton of money on heat sinks and LEDs. When you buy quality components, its supposed to be expensive. Those lights will last them 35,000 hours with over 90% output and expected to be replaced every 40-50,000 hours of use. These LED panel manufacturers use what they can get for the best price. Usually not as efficient of LEDs as Cree and other main manufacturers, but they do the job. With little data given from the LED panel companies in terms of PPF, lifetime rating, and LED manufacturer/binning info, I don't want to bother with them.
Some of us stick with DIY and have good results. In my case I have Crees as supplemental lighting to my HPS. HPS does not have much in the blue and far red ranges, so adding specific wavelengths in LEDs provides those missing spectra. I like the benefits the extra LEDs give me. More light for minimum heat gain. The greatest benefit of DIY is that you can make multiple sources of light to put anywhere you want in the garden. An HPS is great, but only has one source of light. With LED, you can get the other side of the plant without creating a crapload of heat.
interesting thread
Crush
Member
Proof?
Wow you took that as far outta context as you possibly could eh?
Take a better quote and ask and intelligent question, I'll be happy to help you.
Mountain_Monkey
Member
Looks the goods, please excuse my lazyness but do they include UV LEDs in their products? I'm only asking as at the moment I'm being schooled by a master and he says he's sure that trichs (amongst other things) are a the plants natural defense against UV and far blue spectrum light. He's sat in Nepal smoking charas and been to pretty much all the best smoking joints in the world and has a strong theory which I'm adhering to which is based on his experiences and those experiences tell him that all the best landrace bud is Highland bud. I've noticed this in Indonesia but I have to add that all the lowland there is hemp diluted. Anyways at high altitude blue light is more prevelant as it hasn't been filtered out like it is at low altitudes and he says all the frostiest plants are highland plants. Makes perfect sense and also explains why a lot of these LEDs produse frostier buds than HPS grown bud. Also, his MH grown buds are frosty as all f%$k so I just thought to ask if they include UV/IR in their LEDs. Sorry if I'm taking this off topic.
sx646522
Member
Greetings Mr. O'Shaft,
Just wondering if you ever decided to investigate these modules further, perhaps building a prototype using them, and what your further observations were/are. I believe the 'wide angle' versions on these employ a 50° angle, correct?
Also, just curious - are you perhaps an Electrical Engineer by trade? Sounds like you get to 'play around with cool stuff' all day at work.
Cheers,
-SX
Hey sx646522. I did look into them a bit further but couldn't get a good price even on a large amount. I figured that for the same amount of money I could use enough "regular" LEDs to get the same or better results. Since then, LED manufacturers have come up with much more efficient deeper reds, jumping from around 15% up to 40%, making these modules now obsolete.
I didn't go to university or college, but that's the nice thing about working for yourself, my boss didn't require any accreditation
I do love to learn, but not the way school teaches, doesn't work for me.
I don't really build things so much any more, not for sale anyway. I sometimes still build my own LED projects. Over the last few years I evolved further away from actually building the products, some of the repetitive tasks started to become tedious, and I'm getting more pain in my fingers and hands as time goes on.
I didn't go to university or college, but that's the nice thing about working for yourself, my boss didn't require any accreditation
I do love to learn, but not the way school teaches, doesn't work for me.I don't really build things so much any more, not for sale anyway. I sometimes still build my own LED projects. Over the last few years I evolved further away from actually building the products, some of the repetitive tasks started to become tedious, and I'm getting more pain in my fingers and hands as time goes on.
grow_right
Member
'advanced led' grow lights are spot on!!
