Dream diodes.... what are they?

Let's be a little realistic here, but what would your dream diode be? Wattage? Color temp? CRI?

I'm really waiting on a single, powerful diode. 100W is too small, I'd really like to see a 500-600W single diode in 4000-5000k.

Damn inverse square law is what fucks with LED's so much, IMO. Using lenses is a great way around it but having more, smaller, diodes, isn't as cost effective, or as easy to cool as a single large diode. You end up paying for more heatsink, and wiring, and drivers, etc.

Come on CREE or Nichia, time to up the game and produce a single diode, high wattage, badass, horticulture diode!

A LED with that high wattage is not what I want - it is comparable to a single point source, which would yield a very uneven light unless you use optics.
It makes more sense to use more and smaller LED.

Remember, the higher wattage you have on a smaller area, the higher the junction temperature will be. Higher junction temperature directly results in shorter life time and poorer performance.

I dunno..I think a big diode designed from the ground up for horticulture would be badass.

i don't see anything wrong with a diode that could go head to head with a big hid, except with higher efficiency and better spectrum.

Might be technically impossible though, that's something I'd like to ask a cree engineer.

http://ledsmagazine.com/news/9/12/18

This could be the next "big" thing.

How big do you envision a 'single, high-watt dream Diode' would be? the size of a quarter?
=D maybe it could and will happen so long as cooling improves

I was thinking more like the size of a baseball.

With a copper backing/heat tubes the heat would be a non issue.


We still wouldn't run into the exact same problems as HID because the light is still directional. Using a 120 degree lens (or no lens), with high wattage should still provide adequate coverage if all the light is being directed only down, and the efficiency is high enough, IMO.

multipass said:

How big do you envision a 'single, high-watt dream Diode' would be? the size of a quarter?
=D maybe it could and will happen so long as cooling improves

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A diode that size you could cool with a closed loop water system designed for CPUs.

Beefbisquit said:

I was thinking more like the size of a baseball.

With a copper backing/heat tubes the heat would be a non issue.


We still wouldn't run into the exact same problems as HID because the light is still directional. Using a 120 degree lens (or no lens), with high wattage should still provide adequate coverage if all the light is being directed only down, and the efficiency is high enough, IMO.

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A 600w baseball size diode sounds terrifying. Wouldn't that blind the shit out of you? I want one in the front of a ray gun.

Spiko said:

A 600w baseball size diode sounds terrifying. Wouldn't that blind the shit out of you? I want one in the front of a ray gun.

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Hahaha! A guy can dream, can't he? lol

I want a TRUE 1000W HID replacement that doesn't cost $3,000,000 + tax + shipping + hidden reach around fees.

EDIT: That being said, I do run over 800W of LED in a 4x4 area already.... That's better than any HID, IMO.

Yeah but 800w spread out over how many points of light? A single 600w diode would be like looking into the sun. Might be awesome! just...work with the light off.

Spiko said:

Yeah but 800w spread out over how many points of light? A single 600w diode would be like looking into the sun. Might be awesome! just...work with the light off.

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A lot. lol

It'd be sooo awesome. Even a 400W LED if the efficiency and quality of light were high enough, would be wicked on a light mover....

Are you thinking 1 single 600w chip or is a 600w matrix cob good enough for you?

http://m.alibaba.com/products/600w_led_diode.html

This says up to 600x1w

Nah man, no matrix diodes accepted! lol (Side note: It would be kind of cool to see Kessil do a 600W Dense Matrix LED in full spectrum.)

I want a single​ high powered diode.

GaN-on-GaN
http://www.soraa.com/news/ctoblog-april-30-2013
http://www.soraa.com/technology/gan-on-gan

The Violet chips produced by this company look/sound fantastic. Pretty sure they have guys on their team that worked for Bruidgelux and Lumileds. They won't sell the LED's as a standalone product, you have to buy their MR16 lamps which are expensive. If I had the money I'd almost like to make a flower tent using only 2700k Vivid bulbs with 60 degree beam angles. It would be a grid system sort of, where each 10W bulb would be the equivalent to, say, one Illumitex array (50 degree beam angle?).

The superior crystal structure of GaN on GaN allows for much higher Tj's and driving currents. No idea how large their chips can be made, but right now they say the heat sink can literally be untouchably hot without any adverse effects on the die. This could be the answer to single chip, ultra high power LED's if you ask me.

- Edit -
Pico, I didn't think GaN on Si was much better than GaN on sapphire. Might look into that.

Its probably a little way off, but Seoul Semiconductor started making small diodes that will run directly off AC current. When they get to 400w diodes, I will take one in 2700k and 4500k or maybe 3000k and 5000k?

Dimmable in some new way?

I keep thinking weather you could some how use High Power Diode Lasers, they would probably cost shit loads and you would some crazy lenses to shape the beam around the plant, would be pretty cool tho.

Abiqua said:

Its probably a little way off, but Seoul Semiconductor started making small diodes that will run directly off AC current. When they get to 400w diodes, I will take one in 2700k and 4500k or maybe 3000k and 5000k?

Dimmable in some new way?

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I remember talking about this once before, and I don't think they are that efficient them self's, but you don't have to run a power supply or driver with them so you save there. I think they work by just having half the diodes electrically configured one way and the other half opposite, they have a slight flicker to them like old plasma tvs, some people can detect this others cant, I myself fuking hate plasma tvs because of this.

PICOGRAV said:

I remember talking about this once before, and I don't think they are that efficient them self's, but you don't have to run a power supply or driver with them so you save there. I think they work by just having half the diodes electrically configured one way and the other half opposite,

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Yeah, i remember reading about them in some LEDNews article. I don't even think they are selling them yet, just interesting concept for a single diode. Yes, the best aspect would be no separate power supply of sorts, no rectifier at least.

they have a slight flicker to them like old plasma tvs, some people can detect this others cant, I myself fuking hate plasma tvs because of this.

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pwm????? or slower?

Abiqua said:

Yeah, i remember reading about them in some LEDNews article. I don't even think they are selling them yet, just interesting concept for a single diode. Yes, the best aspect would be no separate power supply of sorts, no rectifier at least.



pwm????? or slower?

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It would be based on the AC Power Line, 60 hz for US 50 hz for some other country, the ripple or flicker frequency would double the hz.

PICOGRAV said:

I keep thinking weather you could some how use High Power Diode Lasers, they would probably cost shit loads and you would some crazy lenses to shape the beam around the plant, would be pretty cool tho.

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Expensive and inefficient. Another problem is that they have a very narrow spectrum band. You use an IR pump diode to excite a crystal, that then emits light in a specific wavelength. By the time the light comes out, you have lost about half of it, or more.

Beefbisquit said:

I was thinking more like the size of a baseball.

With a copper backing/heat tubes the heat would be a non issue.


We still wouldn't run into the exact same problems as HID because the light is still directional. Using a 120 degree lens (or no lens), with high wattage should still provide adequate coverage if all the light is being directed only down, and the efficiency is high enough, IMO.

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"the light is still directional" - it is still a point source of light, which requires optics to function properly in the kind of setup we want. Optics and reflectors will make you loose 10% (or much more for bad quality ones) of your light.
If anything, the HID is omnidirectional - but it's also point source.

I want a large uniform light.