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lighting Why I like LED lights
- Thread starter wordwiz
- Start date
How old are they?
I have a 5w led and I have 6-8" tomatoes an peppers an they're only 1 mth old or so.
Do you know what wavelengths the colors are?
I just made several boards of LEDs for my plants.
I'm playing with as many reds,blues and a yellow as I can find in the 430nm - 670nm range.
Hard to find high end 660nm red and 430nm blue in very high mcds(that are more than 6000mcd.).
What lights are you guys using?
I just made several boards of LEDs for my plants.
I'm playing with as many reds,blues and a yellow as I can find in the 430nm - 670nm range.
Hard to find high end 660nm red and 430nm blue in very high mcds(that are more than 6000mcd.).
What lights are you guys using?
Mine is a sunshine system 15w not 5w
From what i've read not all wavelengths of red promote flowering.
Here is a chart I found on what different wavelengths are needed.
Beta-carotene 450nm 480-485nm dual peak
chlorophyll a 430nm 662nm dual peak
chlorophyll b 453nm 642nm dual peak
phycoerythrin 590nm single peak
phycocyanin 625nm single peak
I think I read that the 660nm - 670nm is the wavelengths that promotes flowering in some plants and the lower reds do other things.
Blue during early growth is supposed to promote short stocky plants where red early makes tall less compact plants.
You need both after a certain growth stage is acheived.
Different plants also like different wavelengths better than others.
It's supposed to depend on the plants genes or wherever it is originaly from-natural growing conditions etc.
I don't know how long a plant has to be domesticated to adapt to different coneditions that aren't like it's native habitat.
My other computer is down so I don't have links to offer with some interesting info about light and plant growth right now.
So far on my LED panels it seems that a ton of lesser MCD Leds in more wave lengths and more bulbs is better than a couple wavelengths in much brighter bulbs.
Basicaly I used about 9 wavelengths from 425nm - 675nm on my 5mm LED panels(500 or so per panel-12in X 7in.) and 125 10mm .5watt LEDs in 3 or 4 wavelengths for the same sized panel.
I have a 6in X 16in panel with red and blue star LEDs in 3 wavelengths(2 red,1 blue) 1 and 3 watt LEDs.30 on the panel.50/50 mix of blue and red that I haven't finnished yet.
I forget how many Lux the 5mm panel was (something like 12000 lux I think)but the 10mm was just shy of 19,000 lux at about 24in.
That day the afternoon sun was 22,000 Lux to 33,000 lux in the open during a couple readings taken 15-20 min. apart.
I made several 3in. X 4in. panels for testing out single wavelength mixes over enclosed plastic boxes for sprouts.I wanted to see the differences between single red and blue wavelengths and mixed wavelengths of each mixed in different combinations.
Didn't work very good.The boxes were too small and the sprouts needed transplanting too fast to be able to see much differences in growth.
I'll have to use bigger boxes if I decide to try it again.I probably won't because I don't have room for trying it in my apt.
Here is a chart I found on what different wavelengths are needed.
Beta-carotene 450nm 480-485nm dual peak
chlorophyll a 430nm 662nm dual peak
chlorophyll b 453nm 642nm dual peak
phycoerythrin 590nm single peak
phycocyanin 625nm single peak
I think I read that the 660nm - 670nm is the wavelengths that promotes flowering in some plants and the lower reds do other things.
Blue during early growth is supposed to promote short stocky plants where red early makes tall less compact plants.
You need both after a certain growth stage is acheived.
Different plants also like different wavelengths better than others.
It's supposed to depend on the plants genes or wherever it is originaly from-natural growing conditions etc.
I don't know how long a plant has to be domesticated to adapt to different coneditions that aren't like it's native habitat.
My other computer is down so I don't have links to offer with some interesting info about light and plant growth right now.
So far on my LED panels it seems that a ton of lesser MCD Leds in more wave lengths and more bulbs is better than a couple wavelengths in much brighter bulbs.
Basicaly I used about 9 wavelengths from 425nm - 675nm on my 5mm LED panels(500 or so per panel-12in X 7in.) and 125 10mm .5watt LEDs in 3 or 4 wavelengths for the same sized panel.
I have a 6in X 16in panel with red and blue star LEDs in 3 wavelengths(2 red,1 blue) 1 and 3 watt LEDs.30 on the panel.50/50 mix of blue and red that I haven't finnished yet.
I forget how many Lux the 5mm panel was (something like 12000 lux I think)but the 10mm was just shy of 19,000 lux at about 24in.
That day the afternoon sun was 22,000 Lux to 33,000 lux in the open during a couple readings taken 15-20 min. apart.
I made several 3in. X 4in. panels for testing out single wavelength mixes over enclosed plastic boxes for sprouts.I wanted to see the differences between single red and blue wavelengths and mixed wavelengths of each mixed in different combinations.
Didn't work very good.The boxes were too small and the sprouts needed transplanting too fast to be able to see much differences in growth.
I'll have to use bigger boxes if I decide to try it again.I probably won't because I don't have room for trying it in my apt.
origamiRN said:
That depends on a few different factors.
-Are you cheap or broke? Just go on ebay or amazon and buy one of those 14W low powered LED panels. They get mixed reviews but they are what they are, and they work, for the most part. The good thing about this type is that most of them will keep working if one or more indivitual LED shits the bed.
-Want to roll your own? Then the best source I've found for high powered LEDs and drivers is LED Supply. You will need to also source an AC/DC power supply, old laptop or old PC power supplies work fantastically for this and are often literally free.
-Another option is Edison socket types- This kind. They give good bang for the buck. I've been using them for close to a year now and quite honestly I've been getting as good results out of the 3W as I have out of the 5W. I learned a costly lesson though- DO NOT USE THESE IN DIMMERS. I had them all in one of those fancypants 5 bulb octopus light stands with a dimmer switch. It wasn't even a week and two of them were burned out. Ouch.
-Another low cost option is LED traffic stoplights LumiLED and Dialight are awesome and GE sucks.
YMMV, but unless you can get a great deal (less than $25) on the 14 watt panels, I would not buy them. Even then, I would probably stick to the all-blue panel. The reason: they do not have the intensity needed to grow mature plants. Plus they only cover about a square foot - a shop light that covers twice the space costs half as much.
The higher power panels are a different story. At full retail prices, I would have paid less than $2 per watt for a 125 watt panel compared to more than $3 per watt for the 14 watt panels.
Mike
The higher power panels are a different story. At full retail prices, I would have paid less than $2 per watt for a 125 watt panel compared to more than $3 per watt for the 14 watt panels.
Mike
