Suncloak

[PetFlora]

oooh man petflora is gonna eat you for breakfast....yeehaw

lol

 

[lumengineer]

Thank you PetFlora, Phaeton, Timmur, Dion and Oregonism (great name BTW) for your comments. I look forward to responding to as many of your comments as I am able.

Please note...I have never communicated with Timmur prior to this thread. I do however use Google Alerts with the keywords "suncloak" "LED" "light" in order to find and answer questions about our products. If there is reasonable discussion and viewers in a forum then I approach the forum and apply to be a vendor or sponser.

As I try to answer questions I would kindly ask that posters assume until proven otherwise that I am not a liar. For example I am an engineer as I stated and not a salesman, though I do sometimes wish I was a salesman as they make more money.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to providing more posts.

 

[REALSTYLES]

You guys need to chill out those lights do work. I've seen finished results. Don't have me talking about my lights. @PetFlora you known what I'm talking about. Amare is overpriced and I think is about the same price if we went watt for watt. Lets play who yielded what from what watt used. Let's take a look at my last harvest which I finished trimming yesterday. I had 4 plants that will weight 8oz dry weight each plant under 910w from the wall

1 plant

and another plant btw it's Incredible Bulk

I've spoken with the owner of the company and he's a good guy and you guys are on a witch hunt and if that's the case attack Mars because they lie.

 

[lumengineer]

Very professionally designed report. Too professional, perhaps?

Suncloak used data provided by Tommie Trichrome to produce the certificate that timmur downloaded and inserted into this thread.

Suncloak actually did not think that the report was user friendly enough so we reformatted the information as attached below.

Important results:

Grape Ape Short Indica Strain
THC 23.8%
1.8 lbs on 4'x 4' Table
600 watts
1.4 grams/watt

I hope this information is helpful.

 

[Dion]

I'm not as smart or as well spoken as others here(word salad cracked me up, what a lovely turn of phrase) but did anyone else look at the spectrum graph and think "farky, with all that green/yellow no wonder the LEDs get 160L per watt"?

Obviously 160L per watt is not break through and certainly not efficient by today's diy standards

So anyways engineer-

Why this spectrum? Why no ppf/ppfd?

Ur grow bars sacked between plants is by no means a new thing nor is charging an arm and leg
Just look at Philips led grow bars
But it's still a cool idea, I might try it with some cobs next build

Anyway ppf plz

 

[lumengineer]

Why this spectrum?

Thank you for the question Dion.

We compared the yield of 26 local grows with different lighting set ups. The best yield results by far were with light fixtures that used the Phillips MASTER GreenPower Plus 1000W EL Bulb.

Phillips MASTER GreenPower Plus 1000W

Even though this bulb was used in multiple fixtures by many companies the results were about the same for all fixtures. So we decided to mimic the spectrum of this bulb in an LED SMD to the best of our ability. The Phillips MASTER GreenPower Plus 1000W EL Bulb spectrum is attached.

At the time time of this decision no LED manufacturers made an LED with this spectrum. So we had to design our own LED with the spectrum I posted earlier. We are extremely happy with the results.

I hope this information is helpful.

 

[timmur]

Realstyles, thanks for weighing in. It was clear to me, based on the outcome of Tommie Trichrome's grow, that the performance was good. I was just looking for more experiences with the system and some more technical data.

 

[lumengineer]

Anyway ppf plz

Answer to Dion and timmur.

For our 16" on center plant spacing systems (3 x 3 plants on 4' x 4' table) each LED is powered by 0.16 watts.

There are 3 active sunblades per 4' x 4' table.
There are 1280 LEDS per active sunblade.
There are 3 active sunblades per 4' x 4' table.
There are 3840 active LEDS per 4' x 4' table.
There are 9 plants per 4' x 4' table.
There are 426 LEDS per plant

Each SMD LED has a PPF = 0.54 μmol/s (when run at 0.16 watts)

Therefore the PPF delivered to each 4' x 4' table is 2073 μmol/s

Therefore the PPF delivered to each plant is 230 μmol/s

I would like to stress that:

Top down lighting delivers PPF to the plant two dimensionally.
The Suncloak Lighting System delivers PPF to the plant three dimensionally. Three dimensional delivery from thousands of light sources is so much more efficient than 2D delivery that it makes traditional concepts of PPF obsolete. Our yield results are slowly but surely proving this fact.

My next post will include results from a THC Bomb grow using the Suncloak light system.

I hope this information is helpful.

 

[lumengineer]

Attached are results from a commercial grower...AAA Organics using the 16" on center 48" height Suncloak System on 4' x 8' tables with 18 plants per table.

Summary results:

THC Bomb Tall Indica Strain
THC 23.8%
4.4 lbs on 4'x 8' Table
1200 watts
1.7 grams/watt

Please see attached for more detail. I hope this information is helpful.

PS I should have results from a Bubba Kush grow any day...I am just waiting for THC lab results before posting.

 

[timmur]

Thanks lumengineer! Those results speak for themselves. I was thinking that an Under Current UC 4XL would rock pretty hard with the 4 x 4 set up you guys have.

Hmmm...

Can you go more than 4' in height?

 

[Dion]

Answer to Dion and timmur.

For our 16" on center plant spacing systems (3 x 3 plants on 4' x 4' table) each LED is powered by 0.16 watts.

There are 3 active sunblades per 4' x 4' table.
There are 1280 LEDS per active sunblade.
There are 3 active sunblades per 4' x 4' table.
There are 3840 active LEDS per 4' x 4' table.
There are 9 plants per 4' x 4' table.
There are 426 LEDS per plant

Each SMD LED has a PPF = 0.54 μmol/s (when run at 0.16 watts)

Therefore the PPF delivered to each 4' x 4' table is 2073 μmol/s

Therefore the PPF delivered to each plant is 230 μmol/s

I would like to stress that:

Top down lighting delivers PPF to the plant two dimensionally.
The Suncloak Lighting System delivers PPF to the plant three dimensionally. Three dimensional delivery from thousands of light sources is so much more efficient than 2D delivery that it makes traditional concepts of PPF obsolete. Our yield results are slowly but surely proving this fact.

My next post will include results from a THC Bomb grow using the Suncloak light system.

I hope this information is helpful.

Thanks

So that's over 1400ppfd? Almost double what we generally use for diy led.And I understand what u r saying about the physical desighn.

Thanks also for answerin about the spectrum

So to the human eye the light is white yes? U mentioned 2200k?

It looks pretty cool. Do u think prices will drop? I assume u r trying to recoupe r&d costs?

 

[timmur]

Thank you for the question Dion.

We compared the yield of 26 local grows with different lighting set ups. The best yield results by far were with light fixtures that used the Phillips MASTER GreenPower Plus 1000W EL Bulb.

Phillips MASTER GreenPower Plus 1000W

Even though this bulb was used in multiple fixtures by many companies the results were about the same for all fixtures. So we decided to mimic the spectrum of this bulb in an LED SMD to the best of our ability. The Phillips MASTER GreenPower Plus 1000W EL Bulb spectrum is attached.

At the time time of this decision no LED manufacturers made an LED with this spectrum. So we had to design our own LED with the spectrum I posted earlier. We are extremely happy with the results.

I hope this information is helpful.

Too bad you chose the wrong Phillips spectrum to emulate!

The Phillips Elite Agro 315W Ceramic Metal Halide has a better spectrum.

The Phillips DE is king of the hill for one reason: it's a photon cannon and photons are king! Carefully controlled grows where PPFD is kept constant shows that HPS lags behind CMH and many LED solutions. An ICMag member, Phaeton, shared this with me as well regarding HPS:

A note on HPS, while the least efficient per photon the light itself puts out half again more photons per watt than any other light. The plant adapts to the lack of blue and deep red by manufacturing additional layers of chloroplasts to use the green, which penetrates through the leaf. This results in a heavier plant...

A subject you may wish to research if using high intensity lighting is spectrum, antenna molecules, and chloroplasts.
Red and blue light cannot get through the top layer of chloroplasts in the leaf. At higher intensities (1200+ umol) more of the energy comes from antenna molecules collecting green. At maximum total absorption a full 50% is from green's ability to penetrate through the leaf, using three or four layers of chloroplasts instead of just one.

Please don't take this wrong as I'm not trying to crap on your tech, I think it is interesting and delivering great results. I just wish you chose a different spectrum.

 

[PetFlora]

You guys need to chill out those lights do work. I've seen finished results. Don't have me talking about my lights. @PetFlora you known what I'm talking about. Amare is overpriced and I think is about the same price if we went watt for watt.

As you know, it's the power of the watts (umoles) not the amount of watts, but An Amare Tech SE 450 + UVB (450w) is $1145 ($2.54/w), or 2 SE 250 (no UVB) @ $745 ($2.98/w).

I do not personally find them "over priced" for a finely designed and executed product with a strong USA 5 year warranty vs Suncloaks $1879 to cover a 4 x 4 (add $90 for 4 ft tall columns= $1969). Their chart seems to say this unit is 400w= $4.92/w

Previously, I showed a pic of a fat bud that was well below the Amare SE 220 light, so how beneficial is vertical lighting?

 

[lumengineer]

Too bad you chose the wrong Phillips spectrum to emulate!

Thank your for the feedback...great information.

Please note CCT= 3100K LED (spectrum of light you recommended) can be purchased off the shelf...it falls within the tolerance of Warm White LEDs. Our prototype systems used 3000K Warm White LEDs. Side note when you add the IP65 water resistant coating to the LEDs (which is necessary when the light is located within the plant boundary) the CCT increases by about 100-200K dependent upon the thickness of coating.

The Suncloak grow system requires the grower to use approximately 2X the normal nutrients supply, because the entire plant (not just the top canopy) grows rapidly...almost too quickly. With the 3000-3200K LED we were getting to much stretch and the stalks were too skinny. With the <2200K spectrum the stretch was more controlled and the stalks were thicker, and properly supported the 4-5 foot plants. I am sorry but I can not explain why.

This does not mean that others will not have different experiences.

I realize that the results we are getting are counter to traditional methods, but our focus is to make the best quality and yield at the least cost and hassle. We want to prove that with our light system you do not have to be a master grower to produce high quality, high yield and most importantly highly profitable product.

 

[lumengineer]

So to the human eye the light is white yes? U mentioned 2200k?

I really appreciate you taking the time to ask these questions.

The LEDs are not white. To me they look similar in color to the sun. I have attached a picture of an isolated LED strip so that you can see the color.

Please forgive the picture iphones do not like the brightness of these LEDs.

I hope this information is helpful.

 

[timmur]

Thanks for sharing all of the technical info lumengineer. I have a friend that may be interested in one of your systems. I'll put him in touch with you guys.

 

[lumengineer]

It looks pretty cool. Do u think prices will drop? I assume u r trying to recoupe r&d costs?

Great question.

We do not have R&D costs in the price structure, man I wish there was room!

Let me explain the costs of the system compared to other products:

This discussion is relevant to a 4'x4' grow system with 9 plants and 48" Sunblades.

1) Qty-8 Meanwell (top quality) IP67 UL approved Constant Current Power Supplies with adjustable input 90-295 VAC.
2) Qty-8 Replaceable LED Half Sunblades (most other LED products do not allow the user to replace the LEDs)
3) Qty-4 Daisy Chain harnesses for connecting one power supply to another.
4) Qty-4 Daisy Chain Power Cords 15A rating
5) Qty-8 Ratchet Robes for hanging
6) Qty-12 Spacers for properly spacing Sunblades
7) Qty-16 DC connectors so that the user control on/off of LEDs on all sides of the Sunblades.
8) Waterproof Coating on all LEDs (because they hang within the plant)
9) 5120 LEDs (That is only $0.54 per LED)
10) Qty-4 Large Boxes with protection to handle UPS shipping.

Total Price $ 2796

A Retail Price of $0.54 per LED can help put the cost of the Suncloak System into perspective.

I hope this information is helpful.

 

[lumengineer]

Just got the lab results back from SC labs on a Bubba Kush grow by AAA Organics using the 16" on center 48" height Suncloak LED System on 4' x 8' tables with 18 plants per table.

Summary results:

Bubba Kush Strain
THC 19.3%
5.1 lbs on 4'x 8' Table
1200 watts
2.0 grams/watt

Please see attached for more detail. I hope this information is helpful.

 

[timmur]

Hey lumengineer nice results! Was that a six week veg?

 

[lumengineer]

Hey lumengineer nice results! Was that a six week veg?

It was 5 weeks veg under T-5. I agree, the location of the 6 on the graph makes that a little confusing.

Side note we completed an installation video that I should be able to post tomorrow.

Thank you for the question