Slips explains leds

[FreedomGrower]

 

[FreedomGrower]

First, Good led's cost $ it's an unfortunate fact ...

Because of this only my mother plants and flower room get any ...

Mother room is a green / shade house with 660nm (no optics) leds and some warm white (90 degree optics) to stop them from flowering ...

Flower room is conventional c02 sealed HID with 660nm leds added to speed up flowering.

 

[FreedomGrower]

First up led quality / spectrum ...

Spectrum:

We need to take some lessons from the aquarium CORAL REEF hobby. They are the only ones with LED lights that are working on a somewhat decent scale.

With corals they need specific spectrum's even more so than cannabis; This is why you see blue leds in Coral grow Lights ... to much full spectrum light bleach's them. Coral can grow perfectly fine under the correct intensity white leds as well ... The thing is the most efficient cool white leds put out the same amount of blue spectrum as blue leds.

Because of this there is no reason to use blue leds in our led grow lights and is just a marketing ow aww / poor design decision to use them.

The ideal & efficient way spectrum to replicate the sun or full spectrum hps would be to contain diodes of the white spectrum and 630, 660nm red spectrum's.

Hps

MH

Quality
Leds put out different amounts of light based on the brand; The same way with cheap vs high quality hps bulbs. Also the spectrum of the led can be incorrect if dimmed or driven incorrectly.
It basically comes down to this;
Chinese leds = low efficiency
Bridgelux leds = The same efficiency as hps technology
Cree / Philips leds = Slightly more efficient than hps technology.

Make sure you have the correct spectrum / par / intensity; spread should be secondary.

 

[FreedomGrower]

Cree / philips / bridgelux & Optics
Bridglux led lights tend to use more diodes with no optics; they throw out a wide spread; kind of like using a HID without a reflector. (like using a 1kw pulse right bare bulb) bridgelux with optics (like a 1kw pulse right in a super sun 2 reflector)
Bridgelux 120w no optics

Brideglux with optics

Cree 60w with optics (Like using a hortalux 600w with a supper sun 2 reflector)

The best diodes on the market are;
Cree White http://www.ledsupply.com/creexpg-nw354.php xt-e are the best
Cree Red http://www.ledsupply.com/creexpe-red-3.php
Philips Deep Red http://www.ledsupply.com/07007-pdred-c.php

This is an old cree design; If you added 660nm Philips chips, reduced the white and switched to 3w diodes ... this would be ideal ...

 

[FreedomGrower]

So basically there is not one retail led on the market that has what we want;
(Cree / Philips , Lense optics, Neutral, red, deep-red)

The closest technology so far;

Is the kessil amazon sun; But the spectrum is more directed towards veg growth, and does not state if 630nm or 660nm leds are used in the array ... and also uses there proprietary tech

Evo Led grow lights( cree xt-e white + red)
http://gudomeledgrow.com/blog/?page_id=19


AgroLED 12w Lamp - Full Spectrum ( NO Cree diodes, switch blue 420nm with white and 630nm red)

http://www.sunlightsupply.com/p-14042-agroled-12w-lamp-full-spectrum.aspx

• Full spectrum output with red emphasis.
  • 59% Red (660nm)
  • 25% Blue (420nm)
  • 16% White (5500k)

Warm white led flood lights (Cheap led's, reflector instead of lenses (can be added), lacks red 630nm % 660nm)
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2128756&highlight=100+watt+led+multi+chip

Generally less efficient;

Some info on the Chinese Led Lights
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2110092

Ecoxotic PAR38 LED Aquarium Lamp 18 Watt Red, White, Blue (6 Blue, 4 White, 2 Red) (switch blue to 630 / 660nm red) good veg light cree with optics

 

[FreedomGrower]

No fear the future lights have almost arrived ... They are not designed for us ... so cost is jacked $$$$$$$$

They are finally making custom color lights for reef tanks

Aqua Illumination's Vega + Powerpuck customization shows the most promise for LED fixtures that we've seen in, well, at least a year if not two, and possibly ever. The fact that they're offering multiple diodes, a drag-n-drop configuration (with a spectrograph!) makes this fixture possibly the only fixture we'd spend money on. Interchangeable, customizable LEDs? Yes please! Kudos to AI for what is sure to be a stellar LED light. We can't wait for the release!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fBPuMT7NE&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqXGBQ8vwLc&feature=related

http://www.aquaillumination.com/vega/
http://reefbuilders.com/2012/06/04/ai-powerpuck-vega-led/
http://reefbuilders.com/2012/06/22/ai-vega-blue-color/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reefbuilders%2FCTjt+%28Reef+Builders%29

To make your own 36W led array equiv to 1/10 of a 1000w hps would cost around 300 usd but not be to much work to make ...

 

[RespectGreen]

Thanks for the info Slips

 

[FreedomGrower]

LOL look who I found selling led's
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_TE8cHoaaTg#!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f-jIaYAEdgY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAw13w9eFxY&feature=plcp

 

[SeaMaiden]

In aquatics you generally aren't looking for anything in the far red end of the spectrum. The reason for this is that water filters out pretty much ALL red wavelengths within a fairly 'short' portion of the water column. That means that photosynthetic organisms that occur at any depth typically don't require those wavelengths (it's also why deep sea animals are often very red or orange--they disappear).

It's interesting to see that the most active sites/threads are through reefbuilders and not reefs dot org. I'm curious about Reef Central, they're pretty active on the whole, don't know how many LED-users are there, though. If you find any hits on WetWebMedia, tell Bob I said hello.

 

[FreedomGrower]

Seamaiden; It's funny how the coral people figured out the white / blue combo so fast (blue hard to bleach, white easy to bleach); yet where just seeing the white led's in the plant grow lights. I actually have some coral growing almost on all blue light ... on another note some shallower corals still need full spectrum ... saw bob a few months ago said, gave a nice HIGH.


This led light has the correct spectrum and diodes but lacks any optics / 630nm red; They also seem like a good price

18" OSRAM LED aquarium light plant grow hyper red replaceable light plate

LED color ： 6500K White LED + 455nm Blue LED + 660nm Red LED
Light Source Unit： 4 Cool White LED + 1 Blue LED + 4 Hyper Red LED per piec

 

[Nader]

Great info. deep(red)ly appreciated Is that replaceable light plate array's 80 degrees a bit too narrow or not? It seems pretty damn perfect. What height would you use that above the canopy?

I've been supplementing my eye hortilux bulbs with a Welthink Wex-c 150w panel that's 80% 660nm, 10% 630 and 10% 600nm 120 degrees. Chinese company, but definitely wasn't cheap. Don't know much about them, and I haven't bothered to look into the bramd of the LEDs because they appear fucking strong, but I might one day

 

[FreedomGrower]

80 degrees actually should be perfect, didn't see that they were the Osram Oslon SSL LED; I would have these about 24 inches above the canopy (3-4 48" inches units should be equal to a 1kw hps in par). I didn't notice they where not the osram dragon +; those have 180 degree optics and require lenses.

I believe the welthink use bridgelux quality diodes so are great for enhancing the spectrum of hps's; have you noticed denser buds with faster flowering times?

 

[PetFlora]

First up led quality / spectrum ...

Spectrum:

We need to take some lessons from the aquarium CORAL REEF hobby. They are the only ones with LED lights that are working on a somewhat decent scale.

With corals they need specific spectrum's even more so than cannabis; This is why you see blue leds in Coral grow Lights ... to much full spectrum light bleach's them. Coral can grow perfectly fine under the correct intensity white leds as well ... The thing is the most efficient cool white leds put out the same amount of blue spectrum as blue leds.

Because of this there is no reason to use blue leds in our led grow lights and is just a marketing ow aww / poor design decision to use them.

The ideal & efficient way spectrum to replicate the sun or full spectrum hps would be to contain diodes of the white spectrum and 630, 660nm red spectrum's.

View Image
View Image

Quality
Leds put out different amounts of light based on the brand; The same way with cheap vs high quality hps bulbs. Also the spectrum of the led can be incorrect if dimmed or driven incorrectly.
It basically comes down to this;
Chinese leds = low efficiency
Bridgelux leds = The same efficiency as hps technology
Cree / Philips leds = Slightly more efficient than hps technology.

Make sure you have the correct spectrum / par / intensity; spread should be secondary.

I'm having trouble swallowing "NO" blue, but 10% is quite a bit less then conventional 'wisdom' purports. So basically, I agree

 

[FreedomGrower]

The thing is the most efficient cool / neutral white leds put out the same amount of blue spectrum as blue leds. That is why the evo cree light works well ... cannabis plants absorb more of full spectrum with concentration in the red and in the blue. Why try to cover all those spectrum's with different nm (like really 10 different led spectrum's) when white ones do the same job the most efficiently.

 

[PetFlora]

WORD. I look forward to someone doing a blog using CREE Warm & Neutral Whites + a few 660s on a separate switch for flower

 

[FreedomGrower]

Also if you look at the par chart you see low 400nm to be really important as well ... Most of this time this spectrum is completely ignored by led makers as violet leds used to be horrendously inefficient and costly. The stranded white and blue led barley touch this spectrum.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/American-DJ...170?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2572044042
AMERICAN DJ ECO UV BAR PLUS
Bright, high output Ultraviolet Bar with 18x 3-Watt UV LEDs
long life LED, low heat output, low power consumption & no moving parts
Beam angle: 120-degree
Wavelength: 390-410nm

These t5 ho would be good to mix with the leds as well to get some lower 400-440nm spectrum
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-54w-Tru...825?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item564211a7f9
T5 V-HO SUPER ACTINIC AQUARIUM LIGHTING


Updated 2014 article on new lights
http://freedomgrowers.blogspot.com/2014_07_01_archive.html#1747328941786227161

 

[Nader]

With that LED UV strip, how much coverage would that be? Would you use that throughout the whole cycle?

 

[monkey5]

Great information! Thank you for sharing! Sent you a PM. monkey5