[Shafto]

So far every LED "grow light" has just been a mashup of previously commercially available LEDs that were originally designed mostly for signage and backlighting.

Finally there is now an actual LED with a tailored spectrum for photosynthesis.

https://www.illumitex.com/horticulture-lighting.php

I'm not affiliated with these people at all, I just got a newsletter through one of my suppliers for my real life job and thought people here would be interested.

[paladin420]

Nice, those look loke we may be gettin somewhere.tagged

[alkalien]

There are other LEDs made for that purpose, like https://www.lighting.philips.co.uk/ap...l/index_en.wpd

They are expensive and aren't designed to be the only source of light. They are used to supplement light in greenhouses and give a few extra hours of light in the morning and evening to not flower plants like tomato in the early spring.

They will replace those 400V 1000W you see in greenhouses today, those can as well be used for indoor growing but they use them in a way smaller density.

I saw those yesterday morning also. Do you get the Cutter newsletters?

I like these small LED engines. The PPF and efficiency is on par with what we could make ourselves. They don't sell horticultural lights, just their "light engine" which is a group of LEDs in a housing with the optics already in place. They took everything we want with a horticultural LED and packaged it in a nice neat little square that will allow DIY LED arrays to be easily built by anyone. Molex even designed an adapter connector to make wiring not require any soldering. They really did take the next step and engineer a nice package for simplicity and a nice tight light pattern.

Alkalien, those are not the same as this new Illumitex. They improved the form factor and optical design. Those Philips still use the same LEDs with the secondary optics. They aren't improving much in the form factor and other areas I wish they would. That is why I like these new Illumitex modules so much, they realized what needed to be done. Plus one of those Illumitex modules was $15 AUD at the online shop I saw them at. You aren't paying for the overpriced housing, heat sink, power supply, or optics with these. They are a DIY dream IMO. I think I came in my pants a little just talking about it

I think I will try a couple of these out in the near future. They just came out earlier this year, so distribution is light and I saw them for sale at only one place. LED Store.

[medical marvel]

i only quickly checked the specs..is there a PAR equivalent , and or
wattage comparison ?

[asde²]

1.7µmol/s/w isn#t bad, if its worth a try depends on the price!
but in fact, the philips module hits 1.93µmol/s/w including(!) the driver losses, that ~2.3µmol/s/w for the philips leds (newest luxeon rebel)

i dont see a need for the illumitex products if its not cheap/w

[Shafto]

Originally Posted by alkalien

There are other LEDs made for that purpose, like https://www.lighting.philips.co.uk/ap...l/index_en.wpd

They are expensive and aren't designed to be the only source of light. They are used to supplement light in greenhouses and give a few extra hours of light in the morning and evening to not flower plants like tomato in the early spring.

They will replace those 400V 1000W you see in greenhouses today, those can as well be used for indoor growing but they use them in a way smaller density.

That's not an LED designed for photosynthesis, it's a fixture with standard signage LEDs made for use in the horticultural industry.

µmol/s/w doesn't tell the whole story, I don't think. Each plant uses light differently, what was PAR calculated with, a carrot, an apple tree?

A MH light has more PAR energy than an HPS but HPS gets a better yield. Using a luxeon rebel that has a more efficient radiometric conversion, slightly out of peak absorption wavelength will calculate to a higher µmol/s/w or PAR, but will it be as effective? I guess you'd have to test to see.


Sm0k4, I do get the cutter newsletter yes. I'd love to tell you specifically about all the LED stuff I do, just not a good idea on a site like this, my work is very unique. I have my own manufacturing shop where I build specialized LED light engines. I'm thinking it might be a good idea to get some of these modules to assemble into complete working fixture and break into the LED horti market. I think these illumitex modules could actually compete with an HID in a high enough density.

[alkalien]

I actually don't see where they make their own LEDs, I'm pretty sure they just assemble those modules.

Don't get me wrong, I would have ordered some to test by now but since I got a few hundred Osram Golden Dragon ready for use, I don't really need them.

Didn't want to critize your finding, just wanted to add another interesting product

[Shafto]

No worries alkalien, I don't feel like you criticized my finding. I just wanted to point out the difference.

Here's a quote from illumitex:

"Since we manufacture the LEDs, Illumitex can create LED-based light content tailored to your specific species of plants."

To my knowledge, this is the first LED actually manufactured, made from scratch for photosynthesis.

[bonsai]

From my local supplier these appear to be more than 3 times more expensive than the equiv. power in 3W Cree diodes. Still great to see commercial horticultural developments so far up the component foodchain regardless of what they initially cost by the time they make it to us regular folks.