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LED and BUD QUALITY

4maggio

Member
I went to LED for heat and safety reasons.. 1 Plant, more than I need. I'm old, most of my hang around partners either don't do it anymore, moved away or are dead.
I won't even guess how much money is laying around in light hoods, bulbs (ALL kinds) along wih corresponding ballasts, cycle timers, and other stuff.. when it becomes legal in Florida I'll have a garage sale.. I always worried about fires from HID mishaps.
 

Rocket Soul

Well-known member
You cant have the same metabolic rates... the biggest metabolic rates comes from difference between air temp and leaf temp without great amount of IR it cant be done.
I think that perfect setup is LED/HPS mix.
Atm I have blue led spectrum + yellow spectrum + hps will plan to put small CMH/MH between leds for more UV and this will be perfect.
Youll get much more traction with uv leds, ive tried both and its no contest. Cmh is so many watts for so little uv, its no point if this is your purpose.

What you are talking about, difference in air and leaf, is with regards to transpiration and not metabolic rate. Its VPD, not metabolic rate, how the air dries out the plant.Metabolic rate is another issue but i guess its really hard to separate the two, im splitting hairs maybe.

You need the heat for both in leds. But sure ir will help with both :)
Not quite sure of your statement though. Ive seen these heat photos of led grows and and the buds are clearly much hotter than leaves even without IR.

Ive seen your grow and i respect it but if you havent had success with leds yet (many others have) you may have to accept that your conclusions are more valid for your own grow than for everybody.

Its cool that you are mixing lights, that usually works fantastic. I would still encourage you to some day try the option of going full led but with some incandescent for that IR heat. That combination looks much more productive to me, based on what ive seen different exotic diodes do and what hortiscience says. There is some "magic" in hps i feel, a good grower can really over achieve its basic metrics like par/w. But that magic can also be replicated in other ways, its all down to spectrums and intensity.
Hit me up if you ever wanna try stuff, i e tried a lot
 

JKD

Well-known member
Veteran
I've read that with LEDs temps should be in the mid 80Fs (LEDs emit no Infrared. To achieve similar metabolic rates found in HID lighting conditions at 78F air temp, LED growers need to run air temps at 84F to 88F.) where did I read this?
Edit- reply was a link to a white paper on leaf temperature under various light sources that was deleted by a moderator. Presumably because it was published by a LED manufacturer who does not sponsor the site. Their findings were that LED requires an ambient temperature ~9 degrees F higher than HID.
 
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CannaT

starin' at the world through my rearview
Youll get much more traction with uv leds, ive tried both and its no contest. Cmh is so many watts for so little uv, its no point if this is your purpose.

What you are talking about, difference in air and leaf, is with regards to transpiration and not metabolic rate. Its VPD, not metabolic rate, how the air dries out the plant.Metabolic rate is another issue but i guess its really hard to separate the two, im splitting hairs maybe.

You need the heat for both in leds. But sure ir will help with both :)
Not quite sure of your statement though. Ive seen these heat photos of led grows and and the buds are clearly much hotter than leaves even without IR.

Ive seen your grow and i respect it but if you havent had success with leds yet (many others have) you may have to accept that your conclusions are more valid for your own grow than for everybody.

Its cool that you are mixing lights, that usually works fantastic. I would still encourage you to some day try the option of going full led but with some incandescent for that IR heat. That combination looks much more productive to me, based on what ive seen different exotic diodes do and what hortiscience says. There is some "magic" in hps i feel, a good grower can really over achieve its basic metrics like par/w. But that magic can also be replicated in other ways, its all down to spectrums and intensity.
Hit me up if you ever wanna try stuff, i e tried a lot
Incandescent wont be in my grow room...🫡
I have succesfull grows with both...but still I prefer HPS...like many people in industry do...my expirience and thinking that plants like and need IR its different to thinking of led producers...for billion of years plant thrive in 60% of IR...you cant change this in few years.
Par's are for us humans.
 

Rocket Soul

Well-known member
Incandescent wont be in my grow room...🫡
I have succesfull grows with both...but still I prefer HPS...like many people in industry do...my expirience and thinking that plants like and need IR its different to thinking of led producers...for billion of years plant thrive in 60% of IR...you cant change this in few years.
Par's are for us humans.
You go with what you like, dude :)
Incandescent is just a way of getting the part of the spectrum you cannot get from leds, IR and deepest part of red (in fact its superior to both leds and HPS in deeeeeeep red, 680-700nm, HPS is more orange). Incandescent cant grow for shit on their own, that is very clear for me, lol, i dont blame you for not believing. But the part of the spectrum that is visible, the par, is just so much more effective, customizeable and controllable to get from leds. Check out @greyfader s results your self. And thats just out of regular led light bulbs. So much more is possible.
Tbh if i had the chance to try this for myself id be on it as fly on shit. Maybe when i get my flat back from renter ill have a chance. The grow i work with does not allow much for experimentation since its comercial and people need to live from it.
 
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chiesesganja

Well-known member
IMG_9820.jpeg
 

Ca++

Well-known member
Looks like it has a stat on it.
When the lung is warm enough, you turn the stat till the heater turns off. You are warm enough, so it should be just off. Then when it cools, click, it's back on.
The problem is, it probably won't see the quite instant problem we get, due the the lungs rapid air exchange. It goes off as it's warm, then it itself remains warm, longer than the lung.
It's best to have a range of heaters. So you can find the one, that just runs all the time. A nice steady state, without the hot/cold cycling, that equates to dry/damp RH.

Where is your heat going. Are you spending all your time getting it right, then watching it go up the loft? A lot of us do this. Watch nice hot air leave, as we are making more of it. Heat recovery measures can halve your heat losses. Perhaps you have alloy flex duct, that could be routed through the lung, and where the lung gets it's air. The heat within the extract, will soon leave if it's colder around the duct, than in it.
https://www.icmag.com/threads/cold-and-dry-tent.18129851/
People don't click links, but they should..
 

greyfader

Well-known member
How do you regulate it so it doesn't heat the room up too much?
something like this should work. as CA+ said, the heating device will have a rough thermostat on it but it works at the device.

a better option is to have a remote sensor and an in-line thermostat on the power supply. the remote sensor could be placed in the grow several feet away from the heater.

this allows you to pick a power setting on the device and turn the device thermostat full on letting the in-line thermostat give you a more accurate range of control.

well, fuck, it won't let me post the link.

but, here is the description.

amazon.

Temperature Controlled Outlet, Briidea Thermostat Outlet Compatible with Space Heaters, Window Air Conditioner, Fans, Widely Used for Household, Greenhouse, Reptile, Incubator, 110V 15A​


this is just a little 120volt 15 amp model but it should work fine on a small 15 amp space heater.

i would put the heater on a low to medium setting with the thermostat turned all the way up.

this way it will not be running at max amp capacity just for safety.

if you have 230-240 volt circuits you can find them for that voltage too.
 
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Ca++

Well-known member
I have never used a proportional controller. I'm pretty sure I have one, but it's fully programmable, not consumer gear.

About a tenner, or 20 in the local marketplace. Stat doesn't click on/off, but instead used pwm (so.. erm.. on&off then) to modulate the heaters output, up and down, to keep the temp correct. I paid a fiver, as I wanted to set it another task, that didn't need me to buy the solid state relay.
I should get a relay. It would be great.

More consumer orientated, are controllers for heat mats.

That has a timer, for your lighting contactor. Also, you can set different temps for lights on or lights off. It's only for mats though, and as such 440w. It's gonna need a solid state relay also, to run a bigger heater.

About £50 for the 600w with simply an analogue temp dial.
 

Rocket Soul

Well-known member
Hey @Scfarmer

What greyfader mentioned re external thermostat: the quest we discussed in private, has a nice a nifty feature on the units we have (though not on all their models): external control of thermostat. Some small circuit controllers which will activate the units dehumidifying. This is different than having the unit switch on and off at mains power, which will mean that theres a inrush current situation which wouldnt be good for the unit or our poor power installation always ruunning close to max. Its a great feature cause it means we can use a smart relay to dim som leds up and down, again without inrush risking us to hit max and tripp our installation. Having a possibility to use the 500-800w of our two quests as light, even if only for the around half the time its turned off would be quite a boon for us. Quest are real expensive but i feel you get what you pay for. I think the larger one even have options duct out some of the heat it creates aswell.
 
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