LED lights for growing

I saw an ad in HT and a website selling these. They look like a tail light on a Honda Civic or something, red and orange...anyone see or know of real results?
I started using T5s years ago when no one believed, but these look way more out there...

I've tried to use LED lights in a lot of situations, I think however that they'd not have the output necessary to really meet a plant's needs. And once you got enough of them to do the job, I think you'd lose the efficiency edge. How many LED's were in these lamps? I'd be excited if they work at all, but I don't expect much yet. Maybe some of the 1W LED's might work better, but then again, they produce much more heat and have less life than a regular one.

Oh, God, not this topic again.

Could the mods please block any posts containing the term "LED" until there are some reputable, mainstream applications of this technology?

LED

LED



hmm welll. Ledtronics.....www.ledtronics.com

http://www.ledtronics.com/ds/plantled/default.asp

claims to have this 'plantbar' type led strip. It runs on 24VDC at about 5.5w and they claim it can cover a 2x1x1 area. They are connectable so you can have multiple bars linked together. There are some pictures of some rooms with the ceilings covered. Check them out.

imagine the walls of your cab covered with those led strips. oh yeah. in about 5 years when the price falls about 80%!!

krustytheclown said:

Oh, God, not this topic again.

Could the mods please block any posts containing the term "LED" until there are some reputable, mainstream applications of this technology?

Click to expand...

Why, so that no knowledge is spread and an already vague topic in our particular field becomes impossible to learn about? I have seen a few very good threads about LEDs, and tons of good information. I don't know if anybody that knows about the topic doubts their potential, the price is just high right now. Once it comes down, LEDs will change growing.

bounty29 said:

Why, so that no knowledge is spread and an already vague topic in our particular field becomes impossible to learn about? I have seen a few very good threads about LEDs, and tons of good information. I don't know if anybody that knows about the topic doubts their potential, the price is just high right now. Once it comes down, LEDs will change growing.

Click to expand...

Agreed, LED's will one day become the lights to have. We need threads like this to find out how LED technology is progressing.

I DO NOT BELIVE THIS!!!!!!!
what is wrong with some people? how can you say that leds don't have enough output for plant growth? i always see such statements like "you don't have enough lumens..." and not even thinking about spectrum. i have seen led grows way back at OG, i've grown with leds and you'd be surprised what i've grown (i'm not tooting my own horn,just saying). and furthermore, whaen i tried to show people a good led grow,it turned into a monolouge. you try to show them but they don't even look, yet a few weeks later they're bad-mouthing leds without even knowing what they are talking about.

this was purple power strain grown under leds



same plant but at the beginning of flowering



and overall photo





look at back-right pot,next to the hole for vents. There she grew,under 100 leds, 1/4 of the whole system. the whole system is 17w so do the math.

i'm in the middle of a led grow right now and when i borrow a camera i'll post some pics

greg said:

I DO NOT BELIVE THIS!!!!!!!
what is wrong with some people? ....you try to show them but they don't even look....

Click to expand...

Sorry, did you say something?

Seriously, great work! Would love to read more about your work, spectrum used, etc. Did you etch those boards, or use pt board stock? Cool stuff, at least someone is taking time and risk to experiment.

later, flip

Excellent LED Grow. this is the type of post and reference we need. LEDs are going to change the way we grow. HPS is measured in lumens which is human eye visible light waves, light plants barely use. LEDs will change growing, especially when you can flowerr under 50w that would be equivalent to 600w hps, because per watt led put out 100% more plant usable light even if your eye cant see it. LEDs will be growing food for humans year round in underground bunkers running off of Windmills and Solar panels. horray for the future it is now.

Paq, I like the way you think! I have my home rigged with a bank of batteries which run my radios, LED lights, and other stuff, including my laptop. Would love to build a windmill to run it all. Or at least a "hit and miss" diesel engine with generator, running on hemp oil. We'll get there, someday. peace.

later, flip

what diesesl engine. you can allready get a solar array arround 1×1m with 1,1kW output. and that thing is still developing and it gets better and better every day. they still use only a few percent of what they could use if they were fully developed.
also leds are still at the beginning of their evolution. and they allready are quite strong. what technology will we get after some years? i'm sure it's not a question IF but WHEN.
i'm very glad that greg makes experiments like that. and i like his experimental attitude - he's allways prepaired to test something new. now he uses only 2 spectrum system, but he'll soon test 4 spectrum lamp. can't wait to see the results.
i'm also in contact with a guy, who will make 70W hps vs. 70W led grow. i can't wait to see how now-time most commercial leds will kick hps's ass. and then it will be our turn to put smilies like to hps growers who want to sell us useless lumens. watts and lumens are irelevant, it only mathers where that watts and lumens go.

Greg, I've seen your other grow and was very impressed. Can you give more specifics on the leds used in your current grow (number of leds, nm, watts per led, total watts, cost, construction info, etc.)

Thanks,
PHB

400 led total, size of array 32×40cm (made of 8 boards 16×10cm)
leds:
80pcs blue 470nm GaN (delta 30nm), 3.5-4.5cd (min-typ), 15°
160pcs red 628nm AlGaInP (delta 20nm), 5.6-8.0cd, 30°
160pcs red 628nm AlGaInP (delta 20nm),7.0-10.0cd, 15°
don't know exact watt/led, but they all run very close to 20mA, total consumption 17W on leds and maximum maybe 2W on resistors.
construction: strings of 4red + 1blue connected paralelly to 12V DC (over resistors).

anything else?

btw: it's my avatar

These are the future.....

These are the future.....

Not just for growing but for lighting in general.... the problem is the technology is not there yet for mass use and the cost is still slightly out of reach.

All the stop lights in America are being changed over to LEDs.... the reasons are is that they produce light in a narrow band of nanometers +10 or -10 and because they use minute amounts of electricity because it is virtually all converted to light instead of heat like conventional lights. Look the next time you are at a stop light... if it looks like it is made up of a bunch of dots it is because it is...... LEDs. Cities are saving millions each year by this switch over.

Peace

Thanks LED_experiments. I read in one of your previous posts that you were planning on a 100W led setup. Do you have any more details?

Greg or LED_experiments,
How does the growth of the plants under the 17W of led's (or another wattage for that matter) compare to another type of light? To put it another way... obviously the spectrum of light being dialed in makes a huge difference and it is probably difficult to make an apples to apples comparison, but is the 17W array you used similar to a 70W hps or 150W cfl grow, etc. (using plant growth, density, potency, quality, etc. as the measurement)? When I looked at led's previously I decided to go the cfl route due to my lack of expertise and uncertainty about how to configure a led setup properly to ensure that I would be getting an optimized environment. Understanding how leds of a specific configuration compare to other lights would help me decide if I want to make the leap to a led setup.

Thanks for any info you can give, I'm sure I'll have more questions ;-)

Thanks,
PHB

LED_experiments said:

400 led total, size of array 32×40cm (made of 8 boards 16×10cm)
leds:
80pcs blue 470nm GaN (delta 30nm), 3.5-4.5cd (min-typ), 15°
160pcs red 628nm AlGaInP (delta 20nm), 5.6-8.0cd, 30°
160pcs red 628nm AlGaInP (delta 20nm),7.0-10.0cd, 15°
don't know exact watt/led, but they all run very close to 20mA, total consumption 17W on leds and maximum maybe 2W on resistors.
construction: strings of 4red + 1blue connected paralelly to 12V DC (over resistors).

anything else?

btw: it's my avatar

Click to expand...

well, that 100W won't be used in one grow. there will be 2 systems (70W and 35W). first one will be compared to 70W hps, so then you might get a chance to see watt to watt comparation.
but now i'll go a step forward. the lamp that greg uses now is 2 spectrum only (628+470). the new system will be 4 spectrum, to aproxiamtely cover all 4 clorophyle peak absorbted wavelenghts. i'll stick to most commercial 5mm leds, so that costs won't be astronomically high. but the models that i'll use will be stronger than those now.
about growth - with equall watts, leds are better than any other lamp. i tested some of 'other' lamps, some will be tested soon. i think greg mentioned that for clones he used 2×18W cool white before and they have no chance against his led system (even if they use more than double ammount of power).
i did a combo grow with one scrog plant, using leds + energy saving (i'll use ES). the array looked like --^-- a bit less than 5W of leds on each side (--), 20W (4000K) ES in the middle (^). internode spacing under ES was larger, buds looked a lot worse than those under leds. those under leds were bigger, full of thrics, nice smell and the smoking effect was amazing. i even got more dry weight under leds than under ES (even if ES used more than double ammount of power and leds in total covered more than one half of the grow surfance).

there is a ledgrow company that claims that 25% of led wattage is equall to hid. so it means that greg's lamp could be compared to 70W hps (according to them). but it depends on models you use.
if you look from another viewpoint. when i make that 70W system, the dimensions of array will be arround 45×65cm - 50×70cm. you can cover approximately 60×80cm grow surfance with that. what is the surfance adviced for 70W hps? 30×40cm maybe? so we have 4 times bigger surfance. i'll also use more leds/surfance. greg now has 200 leds @ 20×32cm, in new system there will be 350 leds @ 21.5×32cm.

in conclusion: if you have enough money, i suggest you to go led (it's better than cfl). if you don't, wait a few years and then go to led, when prices drop and models get even better and more powerfull. i smoked buds that were grown from clones from the same mother plant. the first clone was grown outdoor, second under hps and the last one under leds. the potency of stuff was rising in that order. when me and my friends tested those samples, they said that there is no way, that clones are the same strain.

greg said:

I DO NOT BELIVE THIS!!!!!!!
what is wrong with some people? how can you say that leds don't have enough output for plant growth? i always see such statements like "you don't have enough lumens..." and not even thinking about spectrum. i have seen led grows way back at OG, i've grown with leds and you'd be surprised what i've grown (i'm not tooting my own horn,just saying). and furthermore, whaen i tried to show people a good led grow,it turned into a monolouge. you try to show them but they don't even look, yet a few weeks later they're bad-mouthing leds without even knowing what they are talking about.

this was purple power strain grown under leds



same plant but at the beginning of flowering



and overall photo





look at back-right pot,next to the hole for vents. There she grew,under 100 leds, 1/4 of the whole system. the whole system is 17w so do the math.

i'm in the middle of a led grow right now and when i borrow a camera i'll post some pics

Click to expand...

no offence dude, but the pics you posted show TINY wispy plants. im in no way a doubter, but if you want to show how good LED's are, how about showing a nice bushy indica thats at least 30cm tall ?

i don't have other pics yet, BUT i have plants under leds that you desire to see. i DID show those pics on og and deleted them afterwards. i'll try to get a camera and show you what i've got.just tell me one more thing...what light do you use? it must be something else 'coz every light i used so far, plants were small in the beginning...
furthermore, why 30cm indica ? is that somekind of standard i'm not aware of ? no experiment is valid unless you have a indica pref. 30 cm tall? since there is not much light penetration, you have to adopt certain growing styles (pref. scrog or sog) so i try to keep them low.AND, those pics were my very first grow, power plant grew undes 1/4 of that system so 17 : 4 = 4,25 w. don't you think that plant is a good representation of led with her 1g/1w ratio on my very fisrt grow ? it's not the best, but hey , i'm not complaining .if you wish to see what leds can do stick around and you'll be surprised, i guarantee.if not, go , but let me do my experiments, for those who wish to see them.

p.s.none taken

lp,g


edit:


i had this in my gallery, forgot about that.this was taken 14 days ago and hopefuly you'll he her as she is today