How Hard would it be to use a Campfire as a Light Source for a Grow ?

[St. Phatty]

An incandescent bulb puts out between 2500 K & 3000 K - the temperature of the Tungsten filament.

temperature of filament in incandescent light bulb - Google Search

A campfire that is 1800 degrees F, is about 1000 C, or 1300 K.

So you need a REALLY HOT fire to get the right spectrum, which is connected to the temperature of the fire.

The color temperature of Daylight - about 5000 K.

5000 K is about 9000 F. Really, REALLY Hot.

But what if we lost access to sunlight, and only had a wood fire to use to grow our plants ?

A. We Would Starve. :-(

B. The light would provide a tiny amount of Photosynthetically active radiation, unless you manage to make it really hot.

I'm really good at building wood fires for kilns, e.g. for melting & casting metal.

A few weeks ago, I melted my oxygen source using ONLY infrared and visible light. It was completely shielded from the hot air coming from the fire, but the RADIATION was enough to melt the plastic housing of the blower I use to provide Oxygen.

This got me thinking, that's why I'm asking questions about using light from a campfire to grow pot.


ANSWER - it would be really hard, and it would hurt your eyes. If you think UV light hurts your eyes - wait till you feel what infrared does !

But it would be FUN from a Pyromaniac point of view.

 

[unclefishstick]

maybe something more practical like 50 women in pony play garb with gas lamps up their bums being force fed brussel sprouts

 

[Hammerhead]

LMAO..

 

[pop_rocks]

i like where this is going!

/just throwing gas on the fire

 

[Redrum92]

Quantity of light would be the issue, not quality. Too dim.

In this hypothetical apocalypse you'd be better off figuring out how to get electricity from windmills/dams

 

[mean mr.mustard]

How are you getting the wood if there's no sun to grow the trees?

How are you keeping the Earth warm enough for anything to grow?

I suppose that if the sun decided to take a week off we wouldn't have to worry about growing anymore.

 

[St. Phatty]

Quantity of light would be the issue, not quality. Too dim.

In this hypothetical apocalypse you'd be better off figuring out how to get electricity from windmills/dams

No apocalypse.

I'm actually studying thermo-radiative diodes, the official term for the silicon devices that turn infrared into electricity, in a night vision goggle.

I'm setting up to do a measurement from a hotter wood fire, to a conventional photovoltaic. The trick is to not melt the photovoltaic.

I have about 50 pounds of magnesium flares I can use as an additional light source with a higher frequency spectrum than a hot wood fire.

I would define a hot wood fire as one that can melt Copper or Gold, at 1950 F.

My best so far is to melt Silver, at 1730 F. That one was good enough to create some useful Silver castings, which I still have.

When I melted the Silver, I wasn't thinking about the frequency of light from the wood fire.

But now that just the light energy from the fire melted my oxygen blower, I can't help but be interested.

Charles Proteus Steinmetz - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A good article about the invention of the Metal Halide. Sort of related.

 

[Redrum92]

No apocalypse.

I'm actually studying thermo-radiative diodes, the official term for the silicon devices that turn infrared into electricity, in a night vision goggle.

I'm setting up to do a measurement from a hotter wood fire, to a conventional photovoltaic. The trick is to not melt the photovoltaic.

I have about 50 pounds of magnesium flares I can use as an additional light source with a higher frequency spectrum than a hot wood fire.

I would define a hot wood fire as one that can melt Copper or Gold, at 1950 F.

My best so far is to melt Silver, at 1730 F. That one was good enough to create some useful Silver castings, which I still have.

When I melted the Silver, I wasn't thinking about the frequency of light from the wood fire.

But now that just the light energy from the fire melted my oxygen blower, I can't help but be interested.

Charles Proteus Steinmetz - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A good article about the invention of the Metal Halide. Sort of related.

All very interesting stuff, and possibly a useful experiment conceptually to learn about light spectrums, but again if you're talking about applying combustion as a sole light source for plants, I don't think the ratio of heat to light to distance would ever be able to light a grow properly. If you were close enough to be catching signficant light, you'd also be catching tons of heat and smoke, not to mention the literal thousand of hours you would have to keep combustion going for a single grow.

Again, quantity, not quality is the issue. Spectrum is good to know but the spectrum doesn't matter when you're at next to 0 ppfd.

 

[St. Phatty]

All very interesting stuff, and possibly a useful experiment conceptually to learn about light spectrums, but again if you're talking about applying combustion as a sole light source for plants, I don't think the ratio of heat to light to distance would ever be able to light a grow properly. If you were close enough to be catching signficant light, you'd also be catching tons of heat and smoke, not to mention the literal thousand of hours you would have to keep combustion going for a single grow.

Again, quantity, not quality is the issue. Spectrum is good to know but the spectrum doesn't matter when you're at next to 0 ppfd.

There are thousands of different kinds of semiconductors.

I don't mean model numbers, I mean dopings of Silicon Gallium etc. before they do imaging.

To think that only 2 of those can make electron flow from a 1000K or 1500K light source -
I don't buy it.

It's all about Chemistry.

It sort of has to do with optical qualities.

CO2 and Ozone are very similar optically, the difference between one Carbon atom and one Oxygen atom.

What happens when they are struck by a light source like from a hot wood fire ?

What happens when interesting dopings of semiconductors are struck by a light source like from a hot wood fire ?

 

[Three Berries]

They have been using thermal energy to make electricity for along time Trash to Gas to Power....

 

[St. Phatty]

They have been using thermal energy to make electricity for along time Trash to Gas to Power....

Normally that means burning methane to run a steam generator.

One of the best classes a Grower can take is the Sustainable Agriculture class at Santa Rosa Junior College.

It's a one unit class with 4 or 6 class meetings and 1 or 2 field trips and 1 or 2 labs.

1 of the field trips was to Sonoma Compost when I took the class.

That is a 22 acre facility where they capped over an existing landfill using scrap/ broken concrete.

There is a 2.5 megawatt steam generator that burns the methane that the landfill creates.

Enough for about a 1000 homes in the nearby housing development.

 

[Dime]

An incandescent bulb puts out between 2500 K & 3000 K - the temperature of the Tungsten filament.

temperature of filament in incandescent light bulb - Google Search

A campfire that is 1800 degrees F, is about 1000 C, or 1300 K.

So you need a REALLY HOT fire to get the right spectrum, which is connected to the temperature of the fire.

The color temperature of Daylight - about 5000 K.

5000 K is about 9000 F. Really, REALLY Hot.

But what if we lost access to sunlight, and only had a wood fire to use to grow our plants ?

A. We Would Starve. :-(

B. The light would provide a tiny amount of Photosynthetically active radiation, unless you manage to make it really hot.

I'm really good at building wood fires for kilns, e.g. for melting & casting metal.

A few weeks ago, I melted my oxygen source using ONLY infrared and visible light. It was completely shielded from the hot air coming from the fire, but the RADIATION was enough to melt the plastic housing of the blower I use to provide Oxygen.

This got me thinking, that's why I'm asking questions about using light from a campfire to grow pot.


ANSWER - it would be really hard, and it would hurt your eyes. If you think UV light hurts your eyes - wait till you feel what infrared does !

But it would be FUN from a Pyromaniac point of view.

If we lost access to sunlight we would all freeze and die.

 

[Redrum92]

There are thousands of different kinds of semiconductors.

I don't mean model numbers, I mean dopings of Silicon Gallium etc. before they do imaging.

To think that only 2 of those can make electron flow from a 1000K or 1500K light source -
I don't buy it.

It's all about Chemistry.

It sort of has to do with optical qualities.

CO2 and Ozone are very similar optically, the difference between one Carbon atom and one Oxygen atom.

What happens when they are struck by a light source like from a hot wood fire ?

What happens when interesting dopings of semiconductors are struck by a light source like from a hot wood fire ?

Ah, so were you just using combustion as an intro to talk about the chemistry behind HID lighting? My mistake