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LED and BUD QUALITY

delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
here is one of my experimental lights. it has 120 14-watt walmart home led bulbs in it for a total potential of 1680 watts.

2 equal 60 bulb circuits, inner and outer.

the bulbs are 2700k and 5000k. sometimes in equal numbers and sometimes not, depending on my objective.

each bulb has 32 diodes so the total diode count is 3840.

i can remove them altogether in one area or use them in any pattern, or change weighting on the spectrum at will.

1. this just shows the work plane height, it is about 36" above the plant.

2. shows the inner circuit alone.

3. how i use my par meter.

4. par reading inner circuit only at 36" = 695 umols

5. shows both circuits on again.

6. par reading both circuits on at 36" = 1090 umols

what happened here?

most of us understand that hid lights, incandescent lights, automotive, and almost every type of light before the advent of leds were all point sources of light.

all of these point sources of light have, in general, spherical radiation patterns.

leds are not point sources of light. they are flat emitters

and they do not emit evenly across the face of each diode. hot spot in the middle of the diode weakening towards the edges.

led grow lights rely on high numbers of flat emitters to achieve intensity. they overlap heavily.

my little experiment here clearly demonstrates that.

since the fixture itself is 4' in diameter and the sensor was kept in the same place the sensor is 2 ft laterally away from the outer edge.

the last pic is a rough drawing that might help some folks.

intensity is the number of photons hitting a specified area over a specified time.

clearly, when i turned on the outer circuit photons from it combined with the photons from the inner citcuit to make a more intense light field.
 

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AmanteSativo

Well-known member

delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
the surface area of a canopy is very hard to quantify. you have the total surface area of the plant itself and we know that all green parts are more or less photosynthetically active.

you can have a different total surface area of the same canopy illuminated under different lights.

a single point-source light directly above the canopy sees one quantity of area illuminated. it has one perspective.

a multi-point light fixture of the same total power actually "sees" more canopy area than the single-point source because of less shading.

and might possibly drive the plant to higher photosynthetic efficiency.

i think this explains the increased nutrient needs under led lighting. simply more light hitting more surface area.

in the setup i showed above, the reflectix under the plant is describing a rough shallow parabola.

at the top of this plant, at this height, with the full fixture on, set at the 1500 umol point, i get a reading of 450 umols upward from the reflectix towards the plant.

it is literally bathed in light with very little shading.
 

delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
@delta9nxs Is there a make and model on that light meter? seems nice! Congrats on the DIY light,
3415FXSE$361.00

i have owned both apogees and spectrums and they are about the same. both are good relative handhelds but not good enough for peer-reviewed research.

it's interesting to note that dr bugbee, when doing research, uses li-cor gear.

editing to say that dr bugbee is the owner of Apogee meters for those that don't know.
 
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Charles Dankens

Well-known member
"people have grown the dankest weed with poor spectrums for many years, "

"intensity is more important then spectrum"

"when they get to a point that the dry data is factual and not witch craft maths and equations I will give them another go for flowering"

I didnt read the whole thread. Do i understand correctly that you believe ppfd is more important than spectrum and that high quality flower is produced by low tech illumination but that led is not appropriate or satisfactory, in your view for flowering?
Im confused about this view or i am misunderstanding. Could you please explain?
 

delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
Ooops. Ya sorry. Those quoted passages all appear in post #658 @snakedope.

Super confused. Does the point being raised assert that hid light engines put more photons on the canopy than led light engines?
essentially, yes.

but he is missing the point that photons are photons, no matter the source.

he is right about intensity, it is more important than the spectrum because photons are what produce assimilate and assimilate builds plants.

try putting a perfect duplicate of the suns spectrum on a plant at 200 umols. it's gonna like it but it's not going to grow fast.

what spectrum does is influence morphology and hormonal signaling.

for example, in the grow i'm doing above the plant spent the first two weeks after transplant under 5000k bulbs only. it is growing a short, compact plant. it has those tendencies anyway but i'm enhancing that.

i want to see if we can entrain the plant to grow with a tight nodal structure early on in life by using intense light weighted towards the blue end and whether that effect is maintained throughout the life of the plant while i'm changing the spectrum around.

it is finishing the 3rd week tomorrow since transplant as a 7"clone. the 3rd week i installed 38.5% 2700k bulbs.

i will maintain that until near the end of stretch, whereupon i will increase the red significantly, maybe to 70-80%.
 
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snakedope

Active member
led grow lights rely on high numbers of flat emitters to achieve intensity. they overlap heavily.
Sigh... I'm teird of this... No matter how much overlap you have if it's still from the same low lm source... Understand this: intensity is source based ! All you did is adding light to the space by adding more diodes at different places ! the source/s rated power is still the same.
intensity is the number of photons hitting a specified area over a specified time.
No, stop confusing ppfd (space related) with lm/lux/light per sec (source related)
Intensity is only source based, not area based.
Intensity is how much light does your single source/s make per sec, that's it.

clearly, when i turned on the outer circuit photons from it combined with the photons from the inner citcuit to make a more intense light field.
More light in the field, not more intense field.
Picture sprinklers and hoses, sure you can reach the same qty of water from a lot of sprinklers apposed to a big hose if you put enough, but putting 20 sprinklers won't change their water flow rate ! Just the qty of water in the end.
I didnt read the whole thread. Do i understand correctly that you believe ppfd is more important than spectrum and that high quality flower is produced by low tech illumination but that led is not appropriate or satisfactory, in your view for flowering?
Exectly, not ppfd as that's space related, more like a high lm source, no matter what it is.
it's not belief, but a fact when you examine the past and their own data on their lights...
What are you missing here ? Low tech ? Do you even know what does that mean ?
Do you even know what are the difference between them ? Do you also think that if u put 5000 diodes next to each other you will get 5000w single source monster readings ?
When people got you killer Bud for years before led you think it's cuz the spectrum was great on those HPSs or the intensity is the one to blame...? I'll let you speculate about that for a bit.
Ooops. Ya sorry. Those quoted passages all appear in post #658 @snakedope.

Super confused. Does the point being raised assert that hid light engines put more photons on the canopy than led light engines?
No, the point is that HIDs make more intensity (light per sec) from a single source then any other single source lights.
Diode is a source, 3840 diodes are sourceS
not one source, so why count it like one ? Only works for ppfd, which is how much light there's in a certain space, not how much light is being produced per sec.
 
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delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran

eyehortilux disagrees with you.

"No, the point is that HIDs make more intensity (light per sec) from a single source then any other single source lights."

and now you're twisting your original statements.

you were saying hids grow better weed because they are more intense. intensity in horticulture means measurement at the canopy .

so we are comparing led fixtures to hid fixtures not one diode to a hortilux DE bulb.
 
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delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
"Picture sprinklers and hoses, sure you can reach the same qty of water from a lot of sprinklers apposed to a big hose if you put enough, but putting 20 sprinklers won't change their water flow rate ! Just the qty of water in the end."

by your own logic, you are wrong about sprinklers too.

lets take "same qty of water from a lot of sprinklers" are you saying the same quantity of water, one passed through 20 small sprinklers and one passed through a large hose, in the same length of time, if caught and saved is going to have different volumes?

really?
 

JKD

Well-known member
Veteran
Different intensity/pressure. A firehose will knock you down, but the same volume from 1000 sprinklers won’t.

Remembering Snakedope’s argument is all about intensity and trichome production, not photosynthesis and plant growth.
 
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delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
Different intensity/pressure. A firehose will knock you down, but the same volume from 1000 sprinklers won’t.
yes but if you take all the water you applied in either scenario, assuming the same total volume and same delivery time frame in each case, and caught it in two containers that were equal in size and had the same size valves and opened them simultaneously, would they flow at the same speed? would they be the same volume?

applying this to light, if you have a 1000-watt sunlight supply hps and focused all of it's energy to a single spot on the plant it would probably burn a hole. but it doesn't because it is not focused, it is diffused.

and so is a 1000-watt led fixture diffused. it diffuses by having the energy spread out across the entire canopy just like hps bulbs do, only it's multi-point instead of single-point. the total energy is the same.

my meter measures photon flow between 400-700 nm. it only has two settings, electric and solar.

the meter can't tell you what kind of light it's measuring. only the quantity.

it says that all photons between 400-700 nm are the same regardless of the source.
 
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delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
"Remembering Snakedope’s argument is all about intensity and trichome production, not photosynthesis and plant grow"

good point, but he's saying hps intensity somehow magically makes better trich's than the same led intensity.

intensity is either there or not. if it were a different kind of intensity would they not make different instruments for different light sources?

in other words, if he thinks he sees a difference in trichome quality with hps over led, he may be right but it's not because of intensity.
 

[Maschinenhaus]

Active member
you were saying hids grow better weed because they are more intense. intensity in horticulture means measurement at the canopy .
I think that there are often misunderstandings because there is also an intensity in the spectral range. So certain areas in the possible spectrum of a lamp or illuminant like the area 480nm which LED lamps often show badly although there are diodes which do it better. (Bridgelux Thrive or Seoul SunLike).

Photosynthesis does not stop abruptly at 700nm or start at 400nm. Lamps with a broad, balanced spectrum that take this into account have a much better DLI.

Another issue with LEDs is the many small single strong light sources in COB or SMD based boards that register the phytochrome in the head of the plant. With CMH you ideally have one radiating light source.

Quality, again, is blithely confused, because for me it's the appearance of the plant, the structure and consistency of the flowers, and the profile of the terpenes and active ingredients that you have to compare.

When we talk about quality we should stick to the reference sun and outdoor, everything else is an intervention, a manipulation in the morphology and mode of action of cannabis to obtain desired properties!
 

snakedope

Active member

eyehortilux disagrees with you.

"No, the point is that HIDs make more intensity (light per sec) from a single source then any other single source lights."

and now you're twisting your original statements.

you were saying hids grow better weed because they are more intense. intensity in horticulture means measurement at the canopy .

so we are comparing led fixtures to hid fixtures not one diode to a hortilux DE bulb.
They are relating it to space, not source so again they just measure ppfd, like you... Ppfd won't tell you if the source is strong, will only tell you how much light fell or reached that surface.
When you look outside on a sunny day everything is normal and you see plenty of light (that's your ppfd) but when you pick ur eyes up and look at the sun itself you twitch and cry ( that's the intensity)

Again, the source intensity is constant !
What are u not following ?
I'm not twisting anything ! You try twisting facts to try to suit your needs but fail to understand the simplest things about intensity of lights and spread
Your diode/bulb has a rating of lm from the factory, you can't change it !
Not by adding another same output diode/bulb next to it... Do I need to draw it or what ???
"Picture sprinklers and hoses, sure you can reach the same qty of water from a lot of sprinklers apposed to a big hose if you put enough, but putting 20 sprinklers won't change their water flow rate ! Just the qty of water in the end."

by your own logic, you are wrong about sprinklers too.

lets take "same qty of water from a lot of sprinklers" are you saying the same quantity of water, one passed through 20 small sprinklers and one passed through a large hose, in the same length of time, if caught and saved is going to have different volumes?

really?
No lol haha so you don't know how to read also I understand...
I'm saying the qty at the end will be SAME !
But the flow rate of a sprinkler or a hose is different !!! Or I need to draw that for you also ?
Go out on a light rain day, you don't even carry an umbrella ! Go out on a stormy day, you get the baddest umbrella around !
Catch the drift ?


yes but if you take all the water you applied in either scenario, assuming the same total volume and same delivery time frame in each case, and caught it in two containers that were equal in size and had the same size valves and opened them simultaneously, would they flow at the same speed? would they be the same volume?
How can a sprinkler flow water at the same speed (rate) as a fire hose or a big hose ? Are you kidding us ? And I'm the one trying to twist things... Damn
applying this to light, if you have a 1000-watt sunlight supply hps and focused all of it's energy to a single spot on the plant it would probably burn a hole. but it doesn't because it is not focused, it is diffused.

and so is a 1000-watt led fixture diffused. it diffuses by having the energy spread out across the entire canopy just like hps bulbs do, only it's multi-point instead of single-point. the total energy is the same.
No and no, stop comparing 3000 sources to 1 source, again you are adding intensity by applying more same intensity sources, won't work, never will.
Your problem is that from all the high terms (ppfd,until,lm,lux) you are confused, and I get that, but please stop saying ppfd is intensity and vise versa, you are not right.

"Remembering Snakedope’s argument is all about intensity and trichome production, not photosynthesis and plant grow"

good point, but he's saying hps intensity somehow magically makes better trich's than the same led intensity.
Yeah, not magic, science, learn it.
intensity is either there or not. if it were a different kind of intensity would they not make different instruments for different light sources?
Huh ? Intensity start a 0 till infinity (sun)
So you can have low and high, stop trying to make up shit lol
in other words, if he thinks he sees a difference in trichome quality with hps over led, he may be right but it's not because of intensity.
So enlighten us, what is it because ? HPSs perfect spectrum ? Perfect efficiency ? Haha.. maybe it's hidden in plain sight and u just refuse to see it.
 

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