New Experimental Advanced DIY Designs.

Those SSLs simply kick ass. Unfortunately, the cost and learning to reflow solder caused me to put the idea of an SSL panel on the back burner (paired with curiousity between 3w/1w). My half-assed DIY LEDs will suffice for now, I'm still excited to see what the XTEs can do.

Click to expand...

...you have seen those ,haven't you ?
http://www.led-mounting-bases.com/product.php?id_product=338


http://www.led-mounting-bases.com/

...." 2. We can assemble your LED on MCPCBs, your light engines : from prototypes ( 1 ) to mass production quantities.( >1 ) " ....



...............

I believe they all can produce white light. Although, the slight influences of other colors is what makes it warm, neutral etc.

Click to expand...

Nope ....White light they all can produce .....
In one case " the slight influences of other colors is NOT what makes it warm, neutral " .....

Nope...
Blue -yellow for example ....
More blue=cooler light
More yellow= warmer light ...


Our vision is most sensitive to ...a x color ...
Rest two that remain .....make y 'color'....

So ,the more x color in the mix the brighter the light ....But also .....x-ish .....
Not warmer , not cooler ...

If less x in the light ,light just gets less bright and more ...y -ish .....
Neither again warmer or cooler ....

And the winner is ....


What about the second quiz

...red die and blue/green (or just cyan ) phosphor ?
Is it possible ,you think ?
And if yes ...In what way ?
Cyan die and red phosphor ?
or
red die and cyan phosphor ?

(Note : Guod ,you're out of the competition ...)


3rd Quiz :
Is it possible for 1 Watt of White light to be more than ~ 300 Lumens ?

4th Quiz :
Which is the maximum lumen value , 1 Watt of light can have ? What color of light that may be ?

Pardon me if I don't understand correctly, but I believe source C can not produce warm or cool light. Asking me to explain how I arrived at that conclusion would be a harder question than the quiz itself...

Even when the answers stare back at me I know not their name!

I'd like to continue to try, but I'll stick around for the answers instead of making myself the classroom dunce .

stardustsailor said:

...you have seen those ,haven't you ?
http://www.led-mounting-bases.com/product.php?id_product=338


http://www.led-mounting-bases.com/

...." 2. We can assemble your LED on MCPCBs, your light engines : from prototypes ( 1 ) to mass production quantities.( >1 ) " ....

Click to expand...

Oh MAN! I didn't see those, actually...

Where have I been? Thank you for the link.

(Note : Guod ,you're out of the competition ...)

[video=youtube;78656nwE8pY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78656nwE8pY[/video]

5th and most difficult quiz of all :

Are lumens adequate or appropriate unit for " measuring light-power " regarding plant growth ?

Are Watts ( Joule/sec ) ?

Or umol / sec ( μmol sec-1 , μEinsteins/sec ) ?


What are the parameteres to be taken under consideration ,so to measure
the overall " effectiveness " of a given power ,at a given wavelength ?


lumens ....umoles ..... watts ......
Believe it or not .....
They are not satisfactory units to measure the effectiveness of " light -plant " relation ,regarding photosynthesis yield ....
.....photosynthesis yield ?

Yes...We need a unit ,that combines light power ,light spectrum quality and photosynthesis yield under illumination with that light ...

(Somewhere I had read a pdf about the need of such a unit ..... I'll try to find it ...)



-umol/sec = number of quanta ( "photons"=energy " packets" ,exhibiting both particle and E/M wave characteristics ) ,per second ..
Flux of quanta = flux of energy =power .

-blue photons are less in numbers ,than red photons for same power ..
So number of quanta per wl ,per given flux (power )

λ (nm) / 119.708 = umol/sec for 1 watt of λ nm light

Click to expand...

-Absorption rate of a wl from plant ...

-Relative Quantum yield of absorbed photons of certain wl ....

I.e ....

Blue light of power P[SUB]b [/SUB]and wavelength W[SUB]b[/SUB].....

Red light of power P[SUB]r [/SUB]and wavelength W[SUB]r[/SUB].....

Say that for our example-to make things simpler,also..- ,that P[SUB]b[/SUB]=P[SUB]r[/SUB]= 1 watt ...

So blue photons will be less of red photons ....

blue photons < red photons .....

Plant absorption of Wb is 70%
For Wr is 100 %

RQE of Wb = 70%
RQE of Wr = 80 % ....

To estimate the " photosynthetic yield power " of a certain wl of light ...
Adressing to light power only ( Watts / umol sec^-1 ) ,provides only quantative measurement of photons ...
Nothing more ,nothing less ....

But ,in our case we need more than that .....

Absorption rates for basic pigments are known ....
RQE rates are also known for every single nanometer ...

A "general " formula ( spreadsheet ? ) remains to be found or made ...

Or I'm just too "baked " !
Got to put the pipe down !

HiloReign said:

Pardon me if I don't understand correctly, but I believe source C can not produce warm or cool light. Asking me to explain how I arrived at that conclusion would be a harder question than the quiz itself...

Even when the answers stare back at me I know not their name!

I'd like to continue to try, but I'll stick around for the answers instead of making myself the classroom dunce .

Click to expand...

Ohh.probably you got it all wrong ....
Forget the light sources of the diagram (they are just examples of lights ..came along with the diagram ...)

Green light and violet ....

cyan and red can make warm 'n' cool ( more red or more cyan ,respectively ...)..
Green 'n' violet make ...brighter & greener or ...dimmed & pinkish ..
No warm or cool shades here ....

Common ,brother Guod ,do not hold me a face for that ..
Way too easy for ya !

I was under the impression you were asking me to point out which source on the diagram did not qualify as warm, neutral nor cool. First thing I asked myself when I looked at it was "aren't these all white lights?" Haha, I tricked myself into believing a source was the answer but...

I did, though, arrive at the conclusion that the region underneath the C source would be where the answer lied. Today, I learn...

HiloReign said:

Oh MAN! I didn't see those, actually...

Where have I been? Thank you for the link.

Click to expand...

Is Guod ,that you have to thank for the link ....
We all have to ...
For me that's the greatest link I came across lately ,regarding our ...hobby (love actually for some of us ! )

HiloReign said:

I was under the impression you were asking me to point out which source on the diagram did not qualify as warm, neutral nor cool. First thing I asked myself when I looked at it was "aren't these all white lights?" Haha, I tricked myself into believing a source was the answer but...

I did, though, arrive at the conclusion that the region underneath the C source would be where the answer lied. Today, I learn...

Click to expand...

That green light and our vision ....
Way complex relationship there ...
Once we lived and evolved as life forms in a ...greener planet .....
Green light was everywhere ....The Dominant light ...

In fact was the "left-overs" of a light ....
Since ,older ,bigger and many more in population, than us humans , life forms (the plants ) absorbed most of rest light..
Today's witness for that is the digital camera photos ,of nature....
Pics taken under a forest canopy or where is a lot of vegetation ,always have a wrong "white balance " ...
What sensor sees as white ,we see it as green ......
So ,camera's algorithm "auto white balancing " software ,
adds violet ,and green becomes white to our eyes ( and pictures ... ) ...

Thanks to Guod, indeed. That Petunia array looks great.

How do we utilize green light in an indoor growing environment? Would more green in a spectrum allow a plant to utilize red/blue more efficiently to increase amount of photosynthesis taking place (raising the photosynthetic "cap", so to speak...)?

That Petunia array is totally awesome...

HiloReign said:

Thanks to Guod, indeed. That Petunia array looks great.

How do we utilize green light in an indoor growing environment? Would more green in a spectrum allow a plant to utilize red/blue more efficiently to increase amount of photosynthesis taking place (raising the photosynthetic "cap", so to speak...)?

That Petunia array is totally awesome...

Click to expand...

-Well ...That actually is way long talk ...
In summary ....

In low overall light powers ...( small grow spaces & small powered lights ) ...

At this situation ,plants ,"concentrate " on absorbing mainly red and blue wls ......
If much of green light is introduced in low overall light powers ,then it will slow down photosynthesis ,
induce severe shade avoidance syndrome effects (internodal streching/elongation )
and generally impact plant growth in a negative way .....

So ,indeed ,in low light conditions R/B combos can work almost as fine (IF NOT BETTER !) as white light would ..
(.... very good,indeed, for seedlings ,bedding greens ,leafy small plants ,ect ....)

Now...If overall light power increases ......
Things change now ......


Green wls have to be introduced ,at a certain power level.

-Green light will slow down PS systems ,protecting them ,in fact,from photo-inhibition,light saturation ,photo-respiration ,ect ....
PS slows down ,but can continue it's activity for prolonged period of time ,under strong light ....
Either full power for a 100 meters sprint or ....at 40% of power for 10.000 meters jog .....

I think you get ,where this leads ...
Balance between i.e flowering hours (12 ) and overall light power ...
Way strong red & blue light ,will saturate the photosystems in i.e 4 hours under illumination ....
Rest 8 hours of 12 ,plant is protecting itshelf from light .....Mainly .....

-Plants have "developed " while evolving under the sunlight ,the "green window policy " ,
so for older leaves deeper in canopy to keep photosynthesizing ...(strong light=bigger plants=>deeper canopy )
(thus the lower-older leaves are darker-almost black ,sometimes -,
than newer ,top leaf tissue ..they absorb all the light they can get ! Reflecting only a little back ...)

-At higher light power (white light ) ,green photons are also absorbed just fine as the rest of photons and actually have quite big RQE ....

So in fewer words ....

The more overall power ? The more the green part ,inside the white light ...
(that's how HPS work,actually .....)

As for the petunia led engine ....

Go back here ....

And read about the lenses ,the on board driver ,ect ....

You can custom design (and have meodex make it for you ) ,almost everything ..
Even if just 1 piece ....

And they use high quality leds (Osram,Cree,LedEngin,Rebel,Nichia,ect )
as also PCB materials from Laird Tech USA ...

That tiny 30 x 50 mm led engine has it's own CC 350mA driver built on-board
(needs 24 V power supply,though ..) ,
it has 12 x SSLs ....
And it has already everything reflow-soldered on a tiny mcpcb ..
( Needs also a heatsink / fan ....)

(And a plug ...)
Ready for "play " ....

Great info SDS^^^.............I'm wondering what Guod has been up too/ I can only imagine==evil and amazing build projects for sure....

Guod is a great-great guy and DIYer ..

(Just his humor, sometimes, is difficult for me to understand ...
Just sometimes ...
But enough weirdo I'm ,myshelf ,also ...)

If only we could 've joined forces (i.e. been working together..) on this led'n' growing ' thing '......

Got a response on the active CPU cooler that I've got.

Thermal Engineer for Super Micro said:

SNK-P0035AP4 cooling fan specs can be found below.

1. Rated Voltage: 12 VDC
2. Rated Current: 0.14 Amps
3. Rated Speed: 2,400 RPM
4. Air Flow Rate at Rated Speed: 1.13 m3/min (39.9 CFM)
5. Static Pressure at Rated Speed: 29.5 Pascal (0.118 inch of H2O)
6. Sound Level at Rated Speed: 25.0 dB(A)
7. Average Thermal Resistance at Cooling Fan Rate Speed: 0.167 C/W

Click to expand...

So, at 25°C ambient temp with a 12V x 140mA DC PSU powering the fan shroud, and assuming a 100W multichip LED converts all its energy into heat, it will run ~42°C (107°F) which is well within range. I was going to put a 50W LED on this guy (33.5°C, 92°F at room temp) and my PSU for the fan is 200mA. I'd say it's lookin' good for the veg room, atm.

Man, that 120W LED cooler is starting to look silly (.217°C/W judging by the photos and assuming they're honest). An Enermax ETS-T40-TB is the same price (minus the LED mounting plate), much more efficient at cooling and quieter.

Ok.....

So ...

Really ...

What color has the Sun ?

Spoiler : http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/GreenSun.html


So the Sun is white ....


But sunlight that reaches Earth's surface (not atmosphere ..Surface ,where the plants are ... ),goes through enough "filtering " .....

So the spectral graph of sunlight at Surface of Earth is something like ...
View attachment 2494357
....


Sunlight is a really powerful light ...
Which wls are dominant there ?
Why ?
What happens to rest ?

So under this powerful sunlight ,with a dominant color ( wls ) of ....,
a life form ,depending solely on this light as energy source ,in order to thrive ,evolved for millions of years
and ' chose ' to "utilise to the least"( is that true ? ) the most abundant of wls !
...


-Why plants have plenty of pigments (photosynthetic or not ) with main absorption at blue light ?
(xanthophylls,carotenoids,ChB ,ChA ,ect ) .
Does plants absorb many blue photons or need many blue photons ?



-Why " high-energy " ChA has peak in red light around 660 nm ? Why these photons are not used most efficiently (RQE < 1 ) ?
Do plants need many of these red photons ?
Or at least 'all the time' ? (Nooooooonnnnnnn.......sun zenith ,at noooooooon......)

-Why "low energy " CHB +Light harvesting proteins use more efficiently the red photons of ~ 600-625 nm ,but their absorption is not like the one of
longer wls red photons ?

-Why green photons (500-550 nm ) are not totally absorbed ,but reflected or transmitted ,in a small percentage ?
(Are plants green,really ? Which "color" they reflect most ?



-Why light absorption scheme of a green plant leaf tissue,with many or most or all pigments combined ,has
an absorption curve ,that fits almost exactly like a missing puzzle piece, to sunlights spectrum at Earth's surface ?

Oh ....
-And what warm/neutral white leds ,have to do with all the above question-diarrhea ?

...Hmmm...