Question about lights.

Hey there everyone!

Im planning to establish my garden in the near future, and Im looking for some info about lights.

The only suitable solution for me is to use a LED based light system for flowering. I have a friend who builds LED stuff, but I cant figure out a few things about the amount of light I need. I tried to collect as much info about this as i could, and so far I learned this:

I need est 8-10000 lumens/m2 for flowering

and

I need the following wave lengths for flowering: 625, 660, 470, 440 nm, so a viable composition of leds might be 28 red 10 blue 1 warmwhite 1 coldwhite

but

If I get it right, the 8k lumens/m2 are meant for ex. HPS lights, which emit this amount of light at the whole spectrum of visible light (with different intensity at different wave lengths ofc).

SO my question is: how much lumen/m2 do I need for flowering for each different wave lengths? (esp. red and blue)

If someone could enlighten me, I would be really happy

Ty for the answers, happy growin'!

(sorry for my bad eng btw)

PS: I read some stuff about 660 nm light is better for flowering than 625 nm, but they are way more expensive. How much difference does this mean? Any links/stuff for more info is appreciated.

this is one of the most basic questions mate! It doesn't look like you're familiar with the site much. Look at a lot of the "STICKY" threads and they can answer most basic questions like these.

Try Growroom Lighting, specificallyAre LEDs Misunderstood? where they're talking about this right now.

FAIR WARNING! LEDs bring out the worst in many. Speak kindly towards LEDs and you WILL be attacked. Please do not engage the flamer, hit the Report button under their avatar (the one with the !) and the Mods will take care of things.

LEDs are tricky things, aren't they? Yeah, you can look around the site to find more answers, but those are tricky for anyone, so don't feel bad that others think you should already know what you're doing.

When you're new, you're going to ask a lot of questions and you should. This is the New Growers form, so you're in the right place.

Thank you guys for all the replies!

Yes u are right, Im new to this forum, and didnt had experience using forums revolving about growing and stuff, Im sorry about that.

I had some time to look around the site a littlebit more, and I already found the places where most of my questions are answered. With time, Im sure Ill find all the info about anything that interests me, its really amazing how much information is gathered in this forum.

FreezerBoy: ty for the links, Ill surely check them out ASAP. About leds: ty for the warning, Ill keep it in mind Actually, Im not a fanboy of leds, Im aware that "traditional" lightsources like HPS are the best choices of growing if I consider all factors together. However, I do not have the chance to use HPS, I need a lightsource with minimum spacerequirements + I have a friend who has experience in building LED stuff (for commercial purposes ofc), so he can build a panel which will match my details in every aspect.

Anyway, Im really happy about all the posts u guys wrote, especially if I consider that I posted something that has been asked and answered about 457654756765 times, and still getting nice, good mannered posts, with also useful information in it.

So once again ty for all who took time and energy replyin, Im really optimistic about the general attitude of this forums users. On other forums I have been visiting (revolving around other topics of "life" ofc), its inavoidable to run into large number of trolls. I was kind of expecting the same thing here too... and Im happy that I was wrong.

I wish all the best for everyone, cheers!

forget LED's mate... please, for the love of god!

anyndir,
Look at the led lighting forum while you're trying to decide.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/forumdisplay.php?f=65640

There are many folks trying them out, many having surprising success using them.
Read some of the threads in that forum and don't be afraid to ask questions of the people using them.
There are also a few threads running side by side comparisons with hid lighting with surprising results, see for yourself.
There are plenty of naysayers about led's, gonzo's one of them, but sometimes people's motives may be questionable at best.
The heat factor is a deciding factor for many small cabinet grows and it looks like the led's are satisfying that niche quite nicely !

hth,
10k

If you have a "friend" that builds them, wouldn't he have the experience to answer these questions?

JJScorpio: hes a guy who has quite good talent in electrics, and came across a job including led panel building. He knows nothing about plants, but (considering the price factor) im hopin to get it cheaper from him than from everywhere else

10k: thank you! you made my day. these are some facts that I was hoping for