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Introducing the 90W custom LED light

MiLK_MaN

MiLK_MaN

So while I enjoy the hobby of growing indoors, I thoroughly dont enjoy the electricity bill, I think it ended up working out to be $150 a month on electricity for the 600W lamp and associated cooling.

So, off I went to do some research on alternatives. There's lots of talk about LED lights on here (especially from Mike a.k.a. wordwiz), so I won't go into all that when the info is already available.

Essentially I managed to find a guy in NSW, Australia who actually supplies designs to the LED manufcaturers in Asia. I got talking to him, and was sold on a 90W LED light. While it won't produce the same output as the 600W HPS, I figured it would do well enough to grow and fruit over winter, while significantly reducing electricity bills.

$805 AU later (yes, I know its a lot, but I figured that 6 - 7 months of usage and it's pretty much paid itself off), the unit has arrived. Anyone who's grown with HID lamps before knows its a burden to move the shade up and down, so I was pleased to find that these lamps were extremely small in size, and lightweight.

So here are a couple of pics:

DSC01707.JPG


DSC01710.JPG


I ended up moving the light a bit higher than whats represented in the last pic, it's now 2 feet 3 inches from the canopy, and I'm getting 23000 lux at the centre plants, about half that on the walls of the side of the tent.

Should I rise the light a bit further? I think they recommend to have this thing about a metre from the canopy, that just seems a little too high for me, but I guess the spread of light will be far better.
 
MM,

Wow. 23,000 is alot. Even 11,000 lumens is more than enough for fruiting, so I wouldn't move it up unless the plants go into "lumen arrest" that is, start to burn from the intensity of the light. But it is nice to know you can expand your tent and deliver plenty of light to the plants.

Mike (jealous!)

I'm hoping to see enough plants this spring to get the 300 watt although three 90 watters may be better.
 
Yeah, I didnt expect 23000 lux either, based on those ratings you and I saw on the guy's website.

It's obviously going to be a bit hard to judge exactly how the LED lamps work with the current plants I've got in there given they've spent the majority of their life under a 600W HPS, but next year I'll put some new plants in there and be able to report more accurately.
 
Hi

23000 Lux, realy nice. Would loved to see the results while growing seedlings to maturity.
But nice equipment!
 
MM,

Perhaps you should encourage people interested to PM you if they want the guy's addy. The guy seems very upright, not interested in scalping people and if you check the exchange rate, the price is very reasonable. I can see this light covering more than 15 sq. ft. for seedlings and 9-12 for fruiting. From what MM told me, this guy has also experimented with different combos of bulbs and even what wavelengths to use.

Like I said, I'm jealous!

Mike
 
Yup, anyone is welcome to PM me if they want more info.

Looks like they are under $500 USD given the current exchange rate, but that doesn't include shipping.
 
Right, so 8 days since I put this light in, the plants are looking great.

2008-11-21.jpg


I'd also like to take the time to apologise about the incorrect LUX reading I gave. I don't know if I was drunk at the time or not, but the reading should of been 2300 not 23000. From what I've read, LUX is measured in visible light, therefore the lower LUX reading doesn't actually mean you wont get fruit from the plant, because lumens is a much better reading for LED light.

I imagine wordwiz can verify or explain this better
 
Wow they look much better now, looks like the light is working out pretty good. That's awesome man.
 
MiLK_MaN said:
Right, so 8 days since I put this light in, the plants are looking great.

2008-11-21.jpg


I'd also like to take the time to apologise about the incorrect LUX reading I gave. I don't know if I was drunk at the time or not, but the reading should of been 2300 not 23000. From what I've read, LUX is measured in visible light, therefore the lower LUX reading doesn't actually mean you wont get fruit from the plant, because lumens is a much better reading for LED light.

I imagine wordwiz can verify or explain this better
Click to expand...
Different wavelengths absorb differently in plants. different absorptions typically means different photosynthetic rates. different photosynthetic rates means different different amount of energy conversion. Low Lux does not necessarily mean low energy, it's all about the type of light and exposure. it also doesn't mean LEDs are magically better than any other light source, the type of LEDs is what counts.

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MM,

I think your reading sounds low. My 45 watt panel gives me a lux reading of 5300 at ~ 7" from the bulbs. An all red 14-watt panel reads 400, an all-blue one 2600 and the red & blue mixed 600.

Mike
 
I'm sure those fancy red and blue lights work great but they kill my eyes on the page, can't imagine what they would do if I had them set up to grow plants here. Guess I'll have to stick with the old flourescents.
 
Omri said:
Different wavelengths absorb differently in plants. different absorptions typically means different photosynthetic rates. different photosynthetic rates means different different amount of energy conversion. Low Lux does not necessarily mean low energy, it's all about the type of light and exposure. it also doesn't mean LEDs are magically better than any other light source, the type of LEDs is what counts.

absorption.gif
activity.gif
Click to expand...

I understand what you are saying, and I've not preached that LED is better than other light sources when it comes to indoor growing. I've always stated that I wanted to reduce my electricity bill, and find the best light source for my growing area that won't cost me the earth, and when comparing the 600W HPS to the 90W LED, within the first 8 days, I can say I'm rather happy.

It is true that the type of LED's and their frequency is what counts. The guy I bought the light of is experimenting with two different red LED's (630nm and 660nm) in different quantities. He also believes that white is necessary in some portions for the plant, but where the scientific evidence of this I am not sure.

The makeup of the LED light that I purchased is this I believe:

90 x 1watt high-intensity LEDs -> Red (15x660nm, 53x630nm) + Blue(11x430, 11xWhite)

The other benefit I now have is the low heat output, over summer in the tent it would get over 40C with the HPS lamp, there's no way that will happen with the LED light.

So really, there's fors and against both types of light, but not at any stage did I believe these lights were "magical".

wordwiz said:
MM,

I think your reading sounds low. My 45 watt panel gives me a lux reading of 5300 at ~ 7" from the bulbs. An all red 14-watt panel reads 400, an all-blue one 2600 and the red & blue mixed 600.

Mike
Click to expand...

I went and rechecked, 3500 lux 20" from canopy in centre.

Can you check what lux reading you get from 20" versus 7"? As far as Im aware, the lux reading expotentially decrease the further the reading is taken away from the light source.
 
MM,

I did some readings when Nat posted about lumens being basically equal to lux when the reading is taken one foot from the light source. And my meter tended to agree. At one foot, it was about 6,800 or so, at six inches about 10,000 and at 18 inches about 3,300.

Since my reading under the 45 watt lamp was about 5,500-5,600 6-7 inches from the source and your light is 3500 20" away.

IME, a 3,300 reading under a LED red/blue lamp is far stronger that a 3,300 reading under a CFL bulb. 5.5K lux of LED red/blue light almost fried my seedlings. That said, they were not use to it and had been under a much weaker panel for a couple of weeks.

Mike
 
Using lumen meters for plant lights is incorrect.
Lumens is mostly a measurement of green light which is used less by plants.
It is useful when comparing two identical spectrums then more lumens is better.

While plants mostly use red and blue that does not imply they only use red and blue.
LED light development is going slow because extra colors are being slowly added.
Matching the spectrum of HPS with LED then remove colors until it stops working well may be faster.

This light is really nice with the research that went into the extra led colors and their proportions.
Thanks!!
 
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