The Future Now!

Hey everyone! I almost hate to post in this thread, as it has gotten fairly heated. I think there is alot of misinformation being posted here though.
While I do think LED's are exciting, I have read several grow journals, and believe that it is several years way still. Technology is always improving, and I don't want to be an early investor in this technology as its very expensive, and the results arent there yet. In fact I see alot of growers growing with LED's using cfl's too to get the needed light to produce anything useful.

On another note, RichardDawson, while the 1000 light is not the best choice, a 600 I believe is, your analogy that the 1000 only puts out "a measley 124 watts" is total misinformation dude! You should stop passing that sort of misinformation around.
Using your formua, a 400 wall light would rank somewhere around a 25 watt cfl!

While it is true that a large amount, not quite 50%, of HPS light is in spectrums not used for photosynthesis. This however does not really mean that one can just deduct that percentage of lumens from the total. Lumens are a human measurement of light based on the wavelengths visible to our eye. PAR measures the photosynthetically active spectrum for plants, this means that it measures the light energy available for the plant to photosynthesize. Even if the spectrums of HPS light are not all usable they still provide an amount of light energy for photosynthesis equal to several times the energy available from the sun at plant growing ranges and equal to the sun up to several feet away.

videoman40 said:

While it is true that a large amount, not quite 50%, of HPS light is in spectrums not used for photosynthesis. This however does not really mean that one can just deduct that percentage of lumens from the total. Lumens are a human measurement of light based on the wavelengths visible to our eye. PAR measures the photosynthetically active spectrum for plants, this means that it measures the light energy available for the plant to photosynthesize. Even if the spectrums of HPS light are not all usable they still provide an amount of light energy for photosynthesis equal to several times the energy available from the sun at plant growing ranges and equal to the sun up to several feet away.

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You dont deduct them but you have to severely reduce them due to the photosynthetic percentage the created light allows. So in a sense you might as well consider your HPS doing as good or less than the sun. Remember its the spectrum of the lumens that counts not the raw ammount of them.

The sun produces a full spectrum through emission, though, its main elements are red and blue spectrum. So even the 10,000 lumen per square foot rating of the sun is less so as far as a plant is concerned.

You can make the statement, as you did, that there are a certain number of lumens in the PAR spectrum being emitted by the bulb, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting that number of lumens one foot from the bulb. It seems for some reason people feel Foot-Candles has something to do with what’s going on 1 foot from the bulb. It does not. A Foot-Candle is defined by a number of lumens being cast in an area measured in square feet. If a bulb putting out 100,000 lumens is lighting one square foot, then you’d have 100,000 Foot-Candles, but one foot from a bulb, using a typical 120° reflector, would light an area of 3.14 square feet. Of course two feet away you’d get four times less than that. So, two feet away from a bulb putting out 50,000 lumens would give you 3,979 Foot-Candles, which is of course the same thing as 3,979 lumens/ft.².
If you wanted to find the amount of PAR received 2 feet from an HPS bulb that puts out 100,000 lumens, you’d take the value in Foot-Candles received from that distance (795 and multiply by 0.131 to find the number of micromoles/m²/sec² of irradiance in the PAR spectrum.

The statement that a 1000 watt light only puts out 124 watts of useable light is totally ridicilous. Using that math a 400 only has 50 watts?
No frigging way dude.

Of usable light? Not too far off actually. I've run the numbers on HPS and most of their luminous intensity is bunk.

ILoveUMaryJane said:

What a lot of shit flying around on this thread! Everybody needs to do less bitching and more reading.
Just on an anecdotal front; I use LED lights on my bike. They're bright as hell - only 3 of em on the front and you can see them from miles, they can be on for hours but generate almost zero heat, and the batteries last a ridiculously long time. I've not needed to change the 2AAs in 3 years. That's a LOT of light for the amount of energy. Plus they're much less cumbersome than say an HPS with its big old ballast box. Even if they're not cheap yet, they've got fantastic potential, and I for one will be keeping an eye out for them.
Cheers for the thread Tilltheday, and awesome avatar!

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cheers mate

Holy cow godkas, do you really believe that a 400 watt hps only has about 50 watts of useable light? If that were so, we'd all be using cfl's and getting simular results.

Godkas said:

Of usable light? Not too far off actually. I've run the numbers on HPS and most of their luminous intensity is bunk.

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videoman40 said:

Holy cow godkas, do you really believe that a 400 watt hps only has about 50 watts of useable light? If that were so, we'd all be using cfl's and getting simular results.

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Not necessarily, because CFLs use the full light spectrum aswell, reducing 40 watts to even less. right?

videoman40 said:

Holy cow godkas, do you really believe that a 400 watt hps only has about 50 watts of useable light? If that were so, we'd all be using cfl's and getting simular results.

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well i think he means if there 5 feet above the crop, which only some people do, i use a aircoolible reflector less then 10 inch's away so i get maybe a 10% light loss. But im going to add missing spectrum into my grow room with RED LED's without a doubt it is going to grow better, Chlorophyll make plants grow, and it needs the right spectrum to have the best growth. RED led's will give you that, and using them in addition to your hps is prime mate.

Thanks for your opinion video. I'm really interested in this subject, so if you could give me some links or references for the journals you've read I would appreciate it. Not because I don't believe you of course, just that its a current academic interest and I think I could benefit from the readings. Thanks

TillthedayiDIE420, who has there light 5 feet away? That's just plain crazy.

Hey loveis, not a problem, You can find several grow journals using LED's over at uk420, theres a bunch of them there, go into the forums and do a search.
LEd is too small to search for, try this instead: led*
Peace

Cool, thanks man

videoman40 said:

TillthedayiDIE420, who has there light 5 feet away? That's just plain crazy.

Hey loveis, not a problem, You can find several grow journals using LED's over at uk420, theres a bunch of them there, go into the forums and do a search.
LEd is too small to search for, try this instead: led*
Peace

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I dont know who in there right mind would do that, but thats how the HID lighting loses its power, thats why im not stupid and have it that high.
Like i said i have mine under 10 inch's.

a bit tense guys,but the good thing about living in oz,at least where i am,by the time i can get some,the l.e.d light will have come along even farther ,as the states and europe etc get all of that stuff sorted by the time it is as available here as it is where you lot live,it is sometimes good to be abit behind as far as what is available,no doubt i could get some if i hunted around,but ,interesting regardless,anything that will cut my power costs and provide me with the spectrum i need interests me a great deal.
i will keep looking out for more info on these as i have looked on net,but to find shops that sell them here is not as easy for me so maybe that is a good thing,best of luck anyway to all,and i will read on the progress with great interest,peace brothers hope all your buds are beautys.

TillthedayiDIE420 said:

Yes im going to do two tests, Strickly LED's and then HPS and LEDS i think i will be purchasing off the sites ive listed or one of Godkas's sites.
i will be figureing it out along the way.

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sounds very interesting. if you find the time please start a separate thread so those of us interested can follow along and learn as you do.

It is true. Though they do make CFL's closer to the spectrums needed than HPS they still carry the same flaw and have a large spectrum drop off on both ends.

4 feet is a good measure to show properly how the inverse square law works. ttdid if you are under a foot away then you are getting MORE than the advertised lumens to your plant (because its rated a foot away) though the spectrum loss does take a bunch off. Id say you arent hurting with it or anything but LEDs could do the same with a lot less power and lumens.

videoman there are a bunch of ways you can go as far as LED's. I was looking at the light put off by the red LED in one of my lighters and I have to say it is more than feasable as the light produced by it is bright enough for retina burn when looked at directly. And thats just one.

I think I will be going with an led traffic light in 630nm red a led spotlight in 570nm yellow and two led spotlights in 570nm blue. From there I will decide if I want anything in the violet spectrum.

I hear that violet spectrum does wonders for flowering phase.

Ok I have to put my 2cents into this. there are some people (no names) that are commenting on this whole LED topic and are doing nothing other than being fuckin ignorant. If you have no idea wtf you are talking about then stfu. LEDs have there advantages and disadvantages. LED are the future, and believe its right around the corner.


Among the adantages of LEDs:
-Very little heat (CFLs are pretty hot, compared to LEDs)
-very efficient (if have 400W of LEDs... Jesus! You'll have a mini-sun!)
-They produce narrow frequencies of light, instead of many colors of light
Compared to HID's intensity/lumens, they suck... BUT, because their produced photons (light) are on a specific range (not all over the place), they're more efficient. Oh yeah and growing weed has already been done using LED.



here is tons of info.....

I just hate to see people hate on ideas when they have never researched any INFO!

Your pics are not that of a knowledgable grower. Emergency blankets used for reflecting? Not smart.


Emergency Blankets:

These are ultra thin polyester blankets that are sold in most camping stores and are constructed of a single layer of polyester film that is covered with a layer of vapor deposited aluminum.

It is not very effective at reflecting light because it is so thin. Holding it between you and a light source, many small holes are noticed at the intersections of creases and the entire blanket is translucent to begin with, this coupled with the many creases that are in it when you purchase it takes away a significant amount of it reflectivity. It is very easily creased as well which also detracts from its ability to reflect light. And while it is reflects nearly 90% of radiant heat energy, it is only able to reflect around 70% of the light.

The largest advantage of using this type of material is that it is very cheap and therefore easily replaced. Emergency blankets can create hotspots if not attached flush to the wall so it is important that no air gaps exist between it and your supporting wall. The easiest way to attach this is to use tape (Aluminum or metal tape is recommended), as it tears very easily once it is cut or punctured.

Flat white paint reflects better.

there wont be hot spots with LED lighting and no need to reflect because its concentrated directly below so 90%-100% of the light is used. But i wouldent use with HPS lighting, i use Durflect so i never have problems

HEY SEED

are those your plants? can we see more pictures... do you have a journal?



cheers