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Solipsis
m̶a̶d̶ disappointed scientist



Registered: 12/28/09
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LED lighting
#23764550 - 10/23/16 03:31 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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So I'm shopping for budget LED panels on eBay, but basically it's mostly with about 75% red vs blue LEDs for flowering up to higher power level, or if blue / blue+white for vegetative all I see is 10 or 14W.
I'm looking for vegetative growth so preferably blue-white as I don't think it's healthy to have no light for the 'secondary' chlorophyl, the yellow-orange-reds etc. Sucks that they don't have something like 75% blue 25% red.
What's the rationale behind this? Basically everybody markets to weed growers? Even then, weed has a vegetative stage...
Apparently there is a risk of getting fake wattage ratings anyways from budget Asian vendors, just like with amplifiers some vendors mess with the RMS ratings.
I have a domestically sourced blue-white panel already that might as well originally be asian and also is not that high wattage. It's fine I guess but for the new unit I am building I want powerful light for exotic plants like cacti that are demanding and I'd really rather not go with more conventional sources like HPS etc.
Would be grateful for some advice on both power of LED lighting and my choice of seeking higher wattage blue-white, reasons for that being so hard to find... experience.. etc 
As I browse first thing I find is a 2900 lumen one that looks pretty dope if the ratings are real: http://www.ebay.com/itm/225-LED-2900LM-Grow-Light-Panel-32w-Ultrathin-Hydroponics-Room-Tent-Blue-White-/232012697833?hash=item360508d0e9:m:mYkap0uVVJWcdsULVsZ21LQ
Although the shipping is quite a lot...
Edited by Solipsis (10/23/16 03:37 PM)
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Oggy
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Re: LED lighting [Re: Solipsis]
#23764846 - 10/23/16 05:32 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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I don't know much about commercial panels but I do know that some of them advertise full spectrum LEDs which is an impossibility and should be looked at with skepticism. Also white LEDs are actually blue LEDs. I have put together two LED arrays that use about 40-45w each. They did incredibly well and I just recently put one together one for flowering. The materials cost about $30 total. However I didn't like the fact that I wasn't giving my plants all that I could so I supplemented full spectrum CFLs in as well.
[edit] some more information about my personal experience. the LEDs I bought are 3W individuals. I purchased them under the assumption that they would fall within the wavelengths I was particularly interested in. However due to false advertisement 10 of the LEDs that I purchased were about 1W each and I melted them pretty quickly. The panels themselves have been functioning for about a year now with no noticeable loss in quality. They definitely need heatsinks! I used an aluminum sheet for my first panel but moved to bars for the second one for a few reasons. Mostly it was easier to hang up and also they were thicker than the panels and worked as heat sinks much better.
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Edited by Oggy (10/23/16 05:39 PM)
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impaired420
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Re: LED lighting [Re: Oggy]
#23764895 - 10/23/16 05:57 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Oggy said: I don't know much about commercial panels but I do know that some of them advertise full spectrum LEDs which is an impossibility and should be looked at with skepticism. Also white LEDs are actually blue LEDs. I have put together two LED arrays that use about 40-45w each. They did incredibly well and I just recently put one together one for flowering. The materials cost about $30 total. However I didn't like the fact that I wasn't giving my plants all that I could so I supplemented full spectrum CFLs in as well.
[edit] some more information about my personal experience. the LEDs I bought are 3W individuals. I purchased them under the assumption that they would fall within the wavelengths I was particularly interested in. However due to false advertisement 10 of the LEDs that I purchased were about 1W each and I melted them pretty quickly. The panels themselves have been functioning for about a year now with no noticeable loss in quality. They definitely need heatsinks! I used an aluminum sheet for my first panel but moved to bars for the second one for a few reasons. Mostly it was easier to hang up and also they were thicker than the panels and worked as heat sinks much better.
That's extremely interesting man do you have any pictures of your panels you made?
-------------------- "Our task must be to free ourselves... By widening our circle of compassion, To embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty." -Albert Einstein Offering salvia divinorum clones, leaf, and extracts for trades legal states.
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Oggy
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Sure, I have some of the first iteration but none of the current one, but maybe soon when I swap some lights out.
"work-in-progress"

in action, extremely unpleasant to look into even in-directly

and a picture of a calea zacatechichi cutting (rip 2014-2016 ) under the panel at about 4 maybe 5 feet distance

They also overpower the 85w 5200k CFL I have in there in fact, you can still notice that the green leaves on my plants seems blacker.
Oh, I use an old computer power supply I picked up for $5 to power them. It's super stable which is nice because I get frequent power outages.
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Edited by Oggy (10/23/16 06:35 PM)
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the_r3dz
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Registered: 03/26/15
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Re: LED lighting [Re: Oggy]
#23765018 - 10/23/16 06:47 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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just ignore me
Edited by the_r3dz (10/23/16 06:58 PM)
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Oggy
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Re: LED lighting [Re: the_r3dz]
#23765043 - 10/23/16 06:55 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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On that panel there is only 30 LEDs so it would be around 90W, but I've measured it with a Kill-a-watt unit and it averaged out to about 85w. I am deliberately keeping each series at about 600mA each.
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Edited by Oggy (10/23/16 06:56 PM)
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the_r3dz
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Re: LED lighting [Re: Oggy]
#23765049 - 10/23/16 06:58 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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yeah wow, I have no idea where my head was with that math
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Oggy
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Re: LED lighting [Re: the_r3dz]
#23765073 - 10/23/16 07:07 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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no problem haha, it's our secret
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impaired420
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Re: LED lighting [Re: Oggy]
#23765148 - 10/23/16 07:37 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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That's amazing.
I have been growing with LEDs for a few years and I love them.
I have a spare power supply laying around maybe i should slowly horde all the parts I need and out together a little panel.
Thanks for uploading some pics man.
-------------------- "Our task must be to free ourselves... By widening our circle of compassion, To embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty." -Albert Einstein Offering salvia divinorum clones, leaf, and extracts for trades legal states.
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JustAnotherAsshole
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Re: LED lighting [Re: Solipsis]
#23765460 - 10/23/16 09:53 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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When it comes to LEDs the cheap panels suck balls. Only brands that seem to actually work well are Kind led, California lightworks, and Advanced LED lights. They're units aren't the cheapest, but have proven themselves to be on par with HIDs. in fact most have a higher PAR per watt than any other light source on the market.
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DualWieldRake
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Registered: 07/17/16
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I haven't been able to find a source showing blue light at a ratio of over 1:5 against red promoting growth, did you found one?
About the led panel you linked, the leds in it are probably too small to be powerfull enough. These tiny lightbeams will not get very far... Starting at 1w up to 5w diodes should work depending on plant shape/size and distance from the light. Lenses can work to reach lower parts of tall plants.
Lumens are completely useless stats for plant lights as it measures light intensity perception by the human eye. (Yellow is most luminous) Better look at the watts. And not the advertised watts butt the consumed ones. (10 x 3W red led are around 2.4 volts times 700mA = 16.8 watts)
Edited by DualWieldRake (10/24/16 09:16 AM)
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impaired420
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Watts aren't q good judgement either. If you really wanna see results you need a PAR meter.
I'll second what was said don't waste any time with panels with low wattage diodes, they have no juice, get at least 3-5 Watt diodes.
-------------------- "Our task must be to free ourselves... By widening our circle of compassion, To embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty." -Albert Einstein Offering salvia divinorum clones, leaf, and extracts for trades legal states.
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DualWieldRake
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You are right what matters is how much good light gets on the plant.
So you'd have to calculate for things like falloff with distance, luminous efficacy and PAR indeed.
At some point it gets complicated to put more led light into a given area cause the efficiency goes down in higher power leds while temperature goes up
Edited by DualWieldRake (10/24/16 02:03 PM)
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Solipsis
m̶a̶d̶ disappointed scientist



Registered: 12/28/09
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Thank you very much for your responses, I'll definitely look into making my own panel in due time!
At what individual LED power is the efficiency and heat generation not really worthwhile anymore?
I'm reading that white LED light is blue + yellow... wow that sucks a bit, I would have hoped it would be rgb mixed or something like that at least. It baffles me that they just put white leds in a lot of them and it's so pointless isn't it?...
I don't know why I thought that you could just away with getting cheap panels.. I guess I thought light is light, that light intensity for a given wavelength would be pretty straightforward.
Somehow I thought I deleted this thread and didn't see it until now - I got those american panels but will probably get a refund if it's really such a bad choice. I guess the 10w panel I have now is not *great* but 3x would be enough but maybe I am wasting my money.. I'm glad there is an informative discussion going on this..
What is PAR? I take it not parabolized aluminum reflectors?
And how do you shop properly for affordable LED units that generate the high quality light? I guess I would opt for majority blue, supplemented with red and a bit of orange? [note I'm in Europe]
impaired what kind you got?
Edited by Solipsis (10/25/16 03:29 PM)
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impaired420
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Re: LED lighting [Re: Solipsis]
#23772553 - 10/26/16 08:15 AM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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I'm not a light expert but I know a few things.
Why is white light not good? It's surely better than green (which most plants don't absorb)
The main colors in the spectrum you want are mostly blues (for veg) and reds/oranges (for flower)
Whites are thrown in a few different panels with great reviews.
You wanna look at what wavelengths are used most efficiently by then plants, usually that's red, blue, white, orange.
My LED I got from that link I sent you has mostly blue/orange/red 3W Diodes, when I hit the flower switch a bunch more red/orange diodes are activated to produce a more red light for flowering purposes.
I think any diodes over 5 Watts are overkill and the heat + distance you would need between the canopy and light would be too high for most convential indoor growing. Even 5w diodes get pretty hot.
With some heat sinks and a fan or two you could definitely utilize 5w diodes but 3w may be an easier task when making your own panel.
https://www.google.com/search?site=webhp&tbm=isch&source=hp&ei=v7sQWOOMF8fZ0gKvupboBw&q=light+spectrums+for+growing+plants&oq=light+spectrums+fo&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.1.1.0i24k1l3.1618.5829.0.7117.19.19.0.5.5.0.358.4160.0j8j10j1.19.0....0...1c.1.64.mobile-gws-hp..0.19.3209.3..0j41j0i5i30k1j0i30k1.ofcpncEub7o
Edited by impaired420 (10/26/16 08:24 AM)
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DualWieldRake
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for efficiency in led sizes just compare watts to advertised lumens, tbh it looks like 3w aren't that efficient after all looking at some specs...
for growth (vegetative biomass) i've been reading red is better, and blue helps with certain functions and is best to keep below 20% of the total light (correct me if im wrong here)
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impaired420
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As far as 3w vs 1w diodes I'd wholesomely suggest 3watts.
As far as the red for vegetative growth are you sure you don't have that backwards?
Plant species will effect what spectrums you need but let's say this is cannabis.
You'd need mostly blue light or light in the 5000+ Kelvin range for more efficient vegetative growth. Although some red is required as well, just not nearly as much vs flowering.
The wiki page on grow lights has some good information. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grow_light
-------------------- "Our task must be to free ourselves... By widening our circle of compassion, To embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty." -Albert Einstein Offering salvia divinorum clones, leaf, and extracts for trades legal states.
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DualWieldRake
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Edited by DualWieldRake (10/26/16 04:28 PM)
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Oggy
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Speaking of Salvia sp., Salvia Divinorum absolutely love being under LEDs for 18 hours every day.
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impaired420
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Re: LED lighting [Re: Oggy]
#23774469 - 10/26/16 07:42 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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I've been growing all of mine under LEDs and they love it.
The best way imho is look through cannabis grow journals online where they use LEDs and then look into the panels that seem to perform very well and then buy what's in your budget.
That's how I picked mine lol.
-------------------- "Our task must be to free ourselves... By widening our circle of compassion, To embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty." -Albert Einstein Offering salvia divinorum clones, leaf, and extracts for trades legal states.
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