First time LED DIYER gathering thoughts on all white panel(s)

And remember SDS boutique panel makers like PlantPhotonics/Hans don't care about white. Are they ignorant/limited? Also ever see what happens to a severely broken bone when it's not set by a doctor. Nature isn't always right.

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IMHO,
White light is a subjective term.
That being said, when I think of white light in this context, white light is referring to broad spectrum, harmonic rich, homogeneous radiation in and around the visible spectrum.
I also think that "good white leds are so new and unproven/misunderstood, most "led pimps" are either unwilling or unable to make any change at this point in time.
(just look at the marketing)
It's really tough to come out and say our wiz bang party light is no longer any good and you need to buy our new wiz bang white grow light.
(Hans would be an exception, because he is on a logical progression over many years.)
Lumitec is heading in the right direction with their new lights, but.........

Well,still with either remote or local phosphors , can have dedicated plant growth led lights..... Remote phosphor polymer covers.....Hmmmm...Not a bad idea at all... Protecting leds and supplying yellows/ambers/reds/FR at plants,at the same time ....Guod,what about absorbance (power losses ) of remote phosphors ? Any info there ? Great idea ,indeed....

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Remote phosphors, hmmmm
Now we can add some magnetism/current and not interfere with the operation of the led.
Polarize the phosphors.
shift/fill the spectrum????

My bubble got burst when I could find no data sheet. ;-(

MajorCoco said:

I've got a grow diary (in my sig) from a grow I did using all white LEDs. It worked really well, and I think it's a good way to go. Two 85W monster arrays (although I'll grant you that breaking that down into smaller wattage LEDs is a more efficient way to go!)

Feel free to check it out if you want to see what I got up to...I pulled 0.5g/W in the end, but it could have been higher if I'd done a better job, so that isn't the lights' fault. I did have some cfls at various stages too, but they didn't really add much over the LEDs..

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Impressive.Great Work there.
A big -big bravo ,from me.

FranJan said:

This is from "Nitride Phosphors and Solid State Lighting" by Yamamoto et. al.

"In general, white light can be created with LEDs in two primary methods,
as shown in Figure 1.6:
1. Multi-LED chip approach, in which light coming from three monochromatic
red, green, and blue (RGB) LEDs is mixed, resulting in
white light to human eyes.

2. Phosphor conversion, in which a GaN-based blue or UV LED chip is
coated with a yellow or multichromatic phosphor. The mixing of light
from the phosphor and the LED chip appear white to human eyes."
View attachment 2417998

So really some manufacturers are just using metamerism to get us to see white, but in reality it's RGB (Blue pump with a Red and Green phosphor) added. So do you want your "white" light from an RGB (and sometime Y) phosphor conversion process or straight from individual mono diodes with no loss from conversion. Hmmm?

There's also a way to create "white" light by using 2 complementary dies with nm's that are shite for our purposes, but will still create the illusion of white light. Here's a section from Shubert's "Light Emitting Diodes"
"White light can be generated in several different ways. One way of generating white light is
the use of two monochromatic colors, called complementary colors. Two complementary colors,
at a certain power ratio, result in tristimulus values that cause the perception of white light. The
wavelengths of complementary colors are shown in Fig. 12.1.
The numerical values for monochromatic complementary wavelengths are given in
Table 12.1."
View attachment 2417923

Far as I know there is only one way to make a true full spectrum white and there isn't any company that does, (but things move fast and I could be wrong). Too expensive and efficacy sucks supposedly. But one day when the performance is there, white LEDs might just dominate. And according to the great book "Practical LED Design" the only way to truly know that a light will work for it's purpose or not is TO BUILD IT. Still one can't make any judgements on white LED growing performance without knowing what technology the LEDs are tied to IMHO.

And remember SDS boutique panel makers like PlantPhotonics/Hans don't care about white. Are they ignorant/limited? Also ever see what happens to a severely broken bone when it's not set by a doctor. Nature isn't always right.

What up Major Coco? Now there's a man who knows something about growing with whites!

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Well...
If you can tolerate some babblin',I'll try to explain....
First of all, what you say about generation of white light,are accurate enough....

But....

You're messing up ,( kinda ) human vision and plant utilisation of light ....
Which are way totally different things ...
.........
Human retina ,has 3 kinds of "colour" photoreceptors ....
One for blue,one for green and one kind for red light....

So,in fact,what we humans sense as "white light" is actually those 3 basic 'colours' mixed in different variations....

So ,yes ,an RGB led ,will obsiously appear that is irradiating white light...
Will the plants also sense ,the same ?
No...
Plants have more than three "photoreceptors.....
In fact ,they have plenty enough (known & unknown ) ,that they can "sense" all the visible to us wavelengths and more than that ...(UV & FR )....
So actually ,to a plant ,an RGB led ,is a light source that emits Red ,Blue and green light...
No violets,no yellows,no ambers,no this ,no that ....
Just 3 spikes ....Nothing more in between....
...........................................................

But there's also another way to create white light ,for human vision...
Not only the combination of the 3 " primary" colours....
There are 3 more combos....
1) Blue + yellow=white
2) Red + Cyan =white
3 ) Green + Magenta = White ......
From those 3 ,mainly the first combo is used to create white light ....
( i.e . blue chip and yellow Fluorescence ...)..
Adjusting the ratio between blue & yellow ,different "temperatures" of white light are created....

But ,there's a big difference with RGB white.....
The spectral curve ,in white-phospor- leds ,is continuous throughout almost all the range of 400-700 nm ....
So the plants ,sense a way different light quality ,than from RGB leds...
More "complete" or "full"....

Way different light ,there...

Now...Are these phosphor white leds ,good for plant growth ?
Well yes,but they sure can be better ,if the flouorescence is moved towards the reds...
But then ,what would be the difference from RGB leds ?
Again:
Continuous spectral irradiation and not just three spikes...
Huge difference for plants...
Way huge...

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And remember SDS boutique panel makers like PlantPhotonics/Hans don't care about white. Are they ignorant/limited?

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This means nothin' to me....
Once upon a time ,the majority of people thought that Earth is flat and is the center of the universe ,while being dead still.......
They were so dam' sure about these ,that .....
They almost kill ,everybody who wouldn't agree... ( G.Galilei )....

Or a more 'up-to-date' another example:
Some people who are thought to be ' wise ', 'educated ' or ' intelligent ',still hunt down ,at year 2012 AD ,
a certain plant and all it's ' users ' or 'growers' ..Like,as if it was / is the source of every evil,upon this planet..The same people,who would exterminate whole nations just for profit...
Intelligent ? ..Or just sick in their minds ?
... Complete Darkness & Sickness...
Now...
Boutique panel makers ,probably ,care for the same " profit " thing ,mainly,eh ?
I do not give a ... ,about them ...Or about ,what they think or believe....
I do have my own brain,to work out / solve /realise those and many other things ....

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Also ever see what happens to a severely broken bone when it's not set by a doctor. Nature isn't always right

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Nature doesn't work ,in human terms...
A broken bone ,in wild nature ,probably it would 've meant death of the organism.
( By one way or another...)
Doctors & medicine ,are human things...Not natural ones....
........
Of course Nature isn't always right...
But were it fails , also exterminates it's fails...
Evolution.Try & error...The weak /fails/mistakes get vanished (eradicated ),immediately...
Nature has not any 'remorses',about it.....
=================================================================================================

So do you want your "white" light from an RGB (and sometime Y) phosphor conversion process or straight from individual mono diodes with no loss from conversion. Hmmm?

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What you loose in conversion (quantity ) you gain in quality of light...
A new chip of 500mW will have 15-20% losses from Phosphor....
So 400mW left (example) ....If the 80 % of those is in red wls....
320mW at reds.... Not that much difference,in power terms, from an actinic red....
Well,with a really wider wl range at reds...
-Actinics have poor quality and way high powers...
Reds ,especially,can cause pretty easily photoinhibition,photorespiration and light saturation...
Why ? Because they have a limited wl range (spike ) ,which makes the plants overreact ..
Most of times ,giving wrong signals to the plants...

Few only makers( i.e Area 51-EraserHead ) or DIYers (i.e. Guod ... ) ,had the wisdom to balance out their actinic reds ...By introducing 'counter-acting' wls ....(GL,BL & FR )
But still actinics ,have spectral blending -distributing issues & limitations....
Not easy to achieve an "even " irradiation ,regarding quality of light ..

=========================================================

P.S. : Plants are not green....
We just see them as green,with our limited vision..
In fact they reflect way more FR light than green....
But since we are not able to see FRL ,we just see what we are able of...
The small percentage of green reflected...
With an IR camera ,one can see an approximation ,of the true colour of plants ..
(Reddish brown ) .

Cheers guys.
I'm totally with you on this one StarSailor. Plants, as you rightly say can "see" (i.e. absorb) light in all frequencies between UV and IR (you can see that from the PAR response graphs), which is why white light is so beneficial in my opinion. The beauty of the phosphors currently in use is that their spectrums do tend to peak in the correct blue and red frequencies, so they match the par spectrum surprisingly well.

If I had a 90W RGB ufo handy then I wouldn't mind doing a side-by-side against one of my 85W white arrays. That would be a pretty fair fight...

stardustsailor said:

Well...
If you can tolerate some babblin',I'll try to explain....
....

=========================================================

P.S. : Plants are not green....
We just see them as green,with our limited vision..
In fact they reflect way more FR light than green....
But since we are not able to see FRL ,we just see what we are able of...
The small percentage of green reflected...
With an IR camera ,one can see an approximation ,of the true colour of plants ..
(Reddish brown ) .View attachment 2418543

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a little wiki for you... .of the true colour of plants

In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about 900 nm. Film is usually sensitive to visible light too, so an infrared-passing filter is used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera, but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (the filter thus looks black or deep red). ("Infrared filter" may refer either to such a filter or to one that blocks infrared but passes other wavelengths.)

When these filters are used together with infrared-sensitive film or sensors, very interesting "in-camera effects" can be obtained; false-color or black-and-white images with a dreamlike or sometimes lurid appearance known as the "Wood Effect," an effect mainly caused by foliage (such as tree leaves and grass) strongly reflecting in the same way visible light is reflected from snow.[1] There is a small contribution from chlorophyll fluorescence, but this is marginal and is not the real cause of the brightness seen in infrared photographs. The effect is named after the infrared photography pioneer Robert W. Wood, and not after the material wood, which does not strongly reflect infrared.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography

guod said:

a little wiki for you... .of the true colour of plants

In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about 900 nm. Film is usually sensitive to visible light too, so an infrared-passing filter is used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera, but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (the filter thus looks black or deep red). ("Infrared filter" may refer either to such a filter or to one that blocks infrared but passes other wavelengths.)

When these filters are used together with infrared-sensitive film or sensors, very interesting "in-camera effects" can be obtained; false-color or black-and-white images with a dreamlike or sometimes lurid appearance known as the "Wood Effect," an effect mainly caused by foliage (such as tree leaves and grass) strongly reflecting in the same way visible light is reflected from snow.[1] There is a small contribution from chlorophyll fluorescence, but this is marginal and is not the real cause of the brightness seen in infrared photographs. The effect is named after the infrared photography pioneer Robert W. Wood, and not after the material wood, which does not strongly reflect infrared.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography

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Very nice ,my brother...
It's all correct...
But It's my fault ..
I wasn't accurate enough...

This pic of my jasmine is not an actual IR photo....
It is visible + IR.

It is taken with a common compact digital camera...
But customised to absorb IR light...
All digital cameras have a small glass piece in front of their sensor ,which actually is a dielectric mirror ...(RED-GREEN apperance)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_mirror
It is used to cut out IR light .
Once removed ,the sensor of the camera ,accepts IR light and the algorithms of cameras CPU ,"translate" them into visible colors..(brownish deep reds..)
Which ,in fact it is not true ,but just an approximation....

With that kind of camera,if one wants pure IR photography,has to install a visible light cut-out filter ..A
dark deep red ,almost black filter...
Thus now no visible light enter the sensor and only IR is passing through....
(Purplish-red +black +shades of those two , monochrome pics )..

This photo has both IR and visible spectrum...
Since the camera ,"translates" (approx) IR light into visible colours,blended with all the other ones ,
we can freely assume that this is the way that plants would be like,if
we were able to see in IR...(up to 850-900 nm approx,as correctly you've stated...)
....
Just a really rough approximation,though...
But ,you my brother....
You already know that plants ,reflect (& 'emit' through flouorescence ) way more FR / IR irradiation ,than green one(in absolute power terms ) ....

But, I could get a good look at a T-bone by sticking my head up a bull's ass, but I'd rather take a butcher's word for it.

Now that's funny

PetFlora said:

But, I could get a good look at a T-bone by sticking my head up a bull's ass, but I'd rather take a butcher's word for it.

Now that's funny

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Lmao, compliments of Tommy Boy!

Also, I love the knowledge being thrown around here. Thanks a lot everyone, this is exactly what I had in mind!!!

Well, I finally have all my parts and tools... But come to find out this 60w (Chinese made) soldering iron won't melt tin at its tip (whatsoever) and it barely melts towards the base of the tip. If I didn't know any better, I either have the wrong material or my soldering iron just doesn't get hot enough. I thought I'd consult the elders before taking more action. If that's the problem, what does a high quality soldering iron look like? Thank you for reading and thank you kindly for a response.

a link or a pic of this soldering iron if possible

Not a problem...

Attached simply to a plug.

This is where I got it from. I'm a cheapass, I know. I haven't e-mailed them for information on any of the products, nor can I read the Chinese instructions for the multimeter .

I'm hoping I'll end up chalking this one down as my own retardation and figure this out. Otherwise, I think a trip to Radioshack may be in order...

Man those Apache LEDs look nice, would I like to get my hands on one of those expensive things...

as we say here "tools for fools"
try this:
shove the tip deeper into to the heater
lose the screw near the tip and find the shortest length where you can work with it.
maybe that will help on this cheapo.
and don´t forget to tighten the screw again...


tools I work with:
http://www.ersa.com/art-0rds80-358-1997.html
80W and a pain in the a$$ for me, with leds on StarPCBs

http://www.ersa.com/art-0g07400141-358-1956.html
this little biest(60W) is perfect for this job.
tip and heater are one piece > very fast heat-transfer

Spot on, yet again Guod. I shoved that tip in (a little too much on accident...) but I have a tiny point to work with now, waiting for it to heat up atm...

I'm also trying to find a distributor for that second linked iron. It's perfect, but I can't find someone who'll ship to Hawaii.

globalista...
ersa > europa.... Weller > american market

see :: P2KC on this side
http://www.apexhandtools.com/brands/weller/index.cfm?model_list=1&att_id=WEL006&att1=Cordless Butane Products&att2=Portasol?reg; Irons/Hot Air Tools


search google for "butan solder tool" for the cheapos

a nice copy
http://www.chinawholesaletown.com/wholesale-Self-igniting-Cordless-Butane-Solder-Iron_40653/

Nice!

Unfortunately, this cheap one I currently have just won't get hot enough... I'm going to head to Home Depot and Radioshack to see what I can find, if not its the intrawebz that will save me. Thanks again!!!!

was my last hope....

but wait...change your business to something like this with your new tool


<jokeOff>

Hey Hilo They sell those things at the 99 cents stores. I know cause I bought one to do a a repair on my Blackstar and it wouldn't even melt .022 silver solder. The Weller 7200 at HD is ok for cheap, but if you're set on building LED lights then get something good that will last you. Can't wait to see your panels in action. Good Luck!

Thanks again to all whom had a say. I picked up a Weller SP40L for $20 at my local Home Depot and it worked outstandingly.


Do you like my Ghetto-Vegatron? It's now being attached to mylar covered cardboard! All recycled computer heat sinks.. Eat that MacGyver!
(2 NW, 6 CW)

I'll be finishing up my real flowering panel soon enough, oh it will be a bright chinese little panel, it will ...

After using my multimeter to test my flowering panel driver, it appears I killed it once ago.

EDIT: It's going to be a $30 mistake for me. Chalk that one up as ignorance, time to order another...

Hey Hilo, if you don't mind me asking, how do you test your drivers with your multimeter? I've been trying to test out a few drivers without plugging them into any LEDs and I can't seem to figure out what settings and where the probes should go to get some kind of reading. Then again I may be doing it right and they're just blown .