LED Lights

[jesus]

I have been checking out LED grows at various other forums, including one site that is just about LEDs. It seems that LEDs have finally reached the point where they are worthwhile. Prawn is right about the UFOs. Nothing but bad reviews, but there are other commercially available units now that seem to be doing the trick. Right now I'm working on cab grow that will be lit by eight 42w CFLs then I'm going to start adding LEDs. I will be building the arrays and power supplies myself.

This I found pretty interesting:

Plants use blue light for certain regulatory processes and also for photosynthesis. Chlorophyll absorbs both blue and red light and uses the light's energy to power the complex process in which water and atmospheric carbon dioxide are converted to sugar and oxygen to gas. Blue light does not affect the regulation of flowering.
When blue light is turned on during the dark period, plants photosynthesize but their flowering isn't affected. This results in more growth as the plants produce more sugars. Before LED lights it was difficult to create pure blue light. Instead, most of the time other spectrums were filtered out, which can be an inconvenient process. Try using between 20 and 40 watts of mixed blue light per 1000 watts of regular light.

Skunk Mag (Vol 5 Issue 1)
by Ed Rosenthal

It wasnt but a week or two ago I gave the same response most people here gave about LEDs at a different forum. Then I decided I had better check on the status quo of LEDs and discovered that a lot of progress has been made in the last year or two. Not only has output power been increased but a new red LED was developed that emits at 660nm.

There are lots of new threads on this subject all over the web now, including grow shows. I think its probably time to start re-evaluating their potential. Like Prawn said stay away from the UFOs. They use low power LEDs and not quite the right spectrums if I remember right. Lots of bad reviews. But there are lots of good reviews on other arrays. You're looking at spending a fortune if you dont build your own though.

[ben ttech]

When blue light is turned on during the dark period, plants photosynthesize but their flowering isn't affected. This results in more growth as the plants produce more sugars

sounds better that co2...

[PGs GossipGrrl™]

Say, what happened to Prawn? Benji?....Heh-sue-sss?

Look who's got a vendor forum of their own on ICMag now:

1512W LED Perpetual Harvest Aeroponic Bloom Room!!!
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=145384

LEDGrrl sez the website will be providing measures of micromoles/sqft at various distances for their grow lights soon.

Good, but what armchair expert here can tell me why that's not enough?

I mean come on, if ya selling $5k lighting setups to people, why don't you publish spectral output by wavelength, in narrow bands...maybe because like Sporto, ya don't really know wtf yer talking about with LED lighting, or botanical light spectrum analysis as it pertains to photosynthesis or perhaps the complex relationship between light and cannabinoid/terpine production? Yeah, I thought so. Maybe I should reg a handle over there on ICMag, and see how fast I get banned for making these points over there :D

Spectroradiometers can be had for <$5k. I've seen a less accurate one, but far more useful measure than those $300 Quantum PAR meters, selling for just over $1k.

She's going to do a grow that hits MJ's "saturation" point, yet admits she doesn't know what that point is, and she'll just go by a tomato...no links to the reference that specifies saturation point intensity measures for tomatoes either.

Kinda silly too, what equatorial sativa has the same light intensity requirements or 'saturation' point as a rudi/northern indie cross? :D

Claims the 120 deg. angle LED's don't have good penetration. Guess she doesn't do any of the R&D for that company, lol.

Look at those great LED fixtures, can she tell me why the LED's are grouped into smaller 'pods' instead of logically evenly distributed over the surface. I'll bet in 5 or more years, those type of arrangements will not be seen. Evenly spaced, likely with inexpensive plastic optical lens will provide greater 'penetration' focusing *more* of the available light being output by any angle bare LED, meaning a more efficient utilization of the light being output = few LED's needed = lower cost fixtures.

$5k for her setup, and she says they are getting a customer per week dropping such huge coin? Who are these people?

Not blue, not red, not specific frequency of red that LEDGrrrl *claims* is necessary for the superior blooming her companies' lights produce......

Cree announced recently a lab prototype LED that does 186lm/watt, at a lower K color than more typical 5k-8k blue white LED's. Time will tell if they put this into mass commercial production with in a year or two. What that means however, is that lower bins, the ones that cost much less, and are lower in efficiency; should make LED lighting much less expensive in the near future. So much so, that in just a few years, the lights the LEDGrrl is selling, will seem ridiculously overpriced in comparison. Kind of like how computer hardware improves in performance, and you get more 'bang for the buck' as time goes by.

http://www.cree.com/press/press_detail. ... 9701233981

Highest efficiency HPS HID on initial lumens is 150lm/watt....but it drops more over time than LED's that are properly designed (LED fixtures that are not properly designed, will lose more output overtime if the LED's are allowed to run too hot than even HID's). Yeah, for sure LED's run cooler/generate much less heat than HID's, but the notion (implied) that a 1512w LED setup doesn't generate heat is silly, and dishonest.

Hey check it out, LEDGrrl sez in her 1st post she's a legal MedMJ grower, doesn't advocate illegal growing...yet shows us her catus (peyote) growing under LED :D. Oh man, she's a hard-core experienced master grower, with mad skillz. Somebody should point UB to her threads

[PGs GossipGrrl™]

Cover Story
LED Lighting: The Fight for the Throne

Low-Priced Products Shake the Market; New Makers Vie with Old, Intensifying Competition

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HO ... 26/178024/


[Part 2: Technology]
Cheaper and Brighter: Innovations in Thermal Radiation, Chip Architecture and More

(I think Sporto & LEDGrrl ICMag vendor, probably missed this one vvv )

While I don't expect performance & price drops to match that of computer memory/hard drive/SSD's pace; I do expect within 5yrs or less, the only HID users will be those old farts here and on MJ forums. All other plant growers, mJ, indoor orchids, veggies, etc will have all gone over to LED's by then. There will of course be much hype and profiteering going on with LED grow lights on MJ forums between now and then :D. Maybe Sporto can make enough to retire on .

*note* I don't buy a 'deputy general manager' from a Bus div's 'should be possible' words, as if he was a knowledgeable scientist. 300lm/w is not likely, baring some impressive newer innovations in LED physics that don't currently exist. 200lm/w for sure, in that time frame.

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HO ... 26/178025/

The firm acquired the LED operation of Mitsubishi Cable Industries Ltd of Japan in 2008, and entered into a licensing agreement with Cree Inc of the US in Jan 2009 for m-plane GaN technology. The company plans to use the technology to supply white LEDs combining outstanding color characteristics with high emission efficiency, cooperating with lighting system manufacturers to make and market complete fixtures.

LED chips using m-plane GaN substrates use GaN crystal cut on the non-polar m-plane, with GaN layers grown on top. Engineers believe that it can provide performance superior to the sapphire substrate in common use now, according to Shin Kawana, deputy general manager, Business Planning Group, SSLD Department, Information and Electronics Div at the firm: "With m-plane GaN it should be possible to roughly triple emission efficiency, which means 200lm/W to 300lm/W."

The development of m-plane GaN substrate LEDs is under way at other companies, universities, etc, as well, but problems with poor productivity and high cost have been cited. Mitsubishi Chemical uses a relatively low-cost liquid-phase growth technique. The firm's Kawana revealed they hope to cut manufacturing cost to the level of blue LED chips by about 2015.

The company currently uses a conventional LED package, with a combination of blue LED and yellow phosphors (Fig 7). The next step will be to apply the firm's expertise in phosphors to combine red and green phosphors with the blue LED, creating an LED package with outstanding color characteristics. This type of package generally suffers from low emission efficiency, but the company hopes to boost that to 100lm/W by 2010 by enhancing the phosphors.

The m-plane GaN substrate is a good choice for future generations, too. Engineers are working on a package for high emission efficiency and good color characteristics by combining the substrate with a near-ultraviolet LED and red, green and blue phosphors. Sample-shipment is scheduled to begin before the end of fiscal 2009, with volume production slated for 2011.

[ganjahype84]

I know there is a guy doing a test at overgrow, i think. I belive that its possible, but more research needs to be done, something Advanced nutirents should look at.

[PGs GossipGrrl™]

http://www.cree.com/press/press_detail. ... 5232091259" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

HID lights will be dust in about 5yrs or LESS. Cheap(er) stealthy LED lighting is on it's way (maybe hav 2 DYI, the way the LED growlight whores are making $$$$ now).

[Old Yeller]

The technology isn't right there, and probably wont be for about ten more years.

[J.D.]

Do any of you have any experience with LED lighting? A friend of mine is considering buying one.

No experience, but the word on the street is "don't bother".

They're no better than CFLs in any respect and cost many, many times more.
I've seen lots of LED threads with various setups and without exception, they've been very unimpressive.

That is one of the most common lighting misperceptions.

LED’s work FANTASTIC if you purchase high quality LED’s and if you purchase enough of them and if you know how to use them. Remove one of the three needs and your results will make you say they are not any good but that won’t be because LED’s aren’t good, it will be because someone tried to do it cheap so they bought low quality LED’s and not enough LED’s and or did not know how to use them.

Research NASA’s use of LED’s and it will amaze you. NASA has had tremendous success growing various different types of plants on earth and in space using LED’s.

Before the original Cannabis World went down I followed a thread from germination to harvest that was all LED lighting and I have never seen a more impressive grow before.

The guy came into a bunch of money, which is needed, and he scrapped his HID lighting and went all LED. He had, if I remember right, two or three large panels above his plants and I do not remember how many but he had LED light bars that he attached to what I call portable posts, 4X4’s with a square plywood bottom. He circled his plants with the portable posts with LED’s and then put more LED light bars on all four sides of portable posts and put them between his plants. His plants were like Christmas trees, perfect shape and produced like mad from top to bottom, big dense heavy thick buds.

Not counting his initial layout, of course, it was much cheaper for him to grow. His electricity bill dropped a good bit, not only because the LED’s used less electricity but they put off so little heat that he was able to stop running his large fan for outside ventilation of heat. He also figured that he was safer because his two 1000-watt HID lights would create enough heat that he figured he had a noticeable heat signature, but not after switching to LED’s.

You just have to purchase the best, purchase enough of them and know how to use them and if you can do that, once you have you won’t use anything else ever again.

The thing is he is the only person I have ever run across on any cannabis growing site that went LED and did it right.

Most people I have seen bought one or two low quality LED’s and hung them above their plants and that was it and they were disappointed and would later say they are junk or say they would be ok to supplement other forms of lighting but not able to be used alone.

They would blame the LED’s for their mistakes and people would believe what they said was true but only because they had seen someone do it right before and don’t know what it takes and don’t know what mistakes most people make when they try to use LED’s.

[Dick Hertz]

Very interesting.
Do you happen to recall what his total wattage was?

[J.D.]

Very interesting.
Do you happen to recall what his total wattage was?

I really don’t remember what the total wattage was. I do remember the member saying how much his electricity bill dropped but I do not remember the figures for that either but that would make me have to believe that even with as many LED’s as he was using the total wattage used was still considerably less than he was using with HID lighting. Some of the savings he attributed to his not having to run his A/C at as low of a temperature but how much that might have accounted for I could not guess. He just figured that was part of it along with the difference in needed ventilation.

Until about a year and a half ago I had pictures of his grow stored on my computer but I lost them, along with EVERYTHING else when my hard drive died. If I still had them I would be more than glad to post them. Some were of the setup before the grow began and the rest, making up most of them, were the grow and final results.

The figure I wish I could remember was his total lighting cost. It was a LARGE AMOUNT so I am sure that few people would go that route, unless they had more money to burn on lighting than money to burn on electricity.

That is the biggest drawback in LED’s today. True high quality ones do not come cheap so doing it right will always cost someone a LARGE AMOUNT more up front when they start out or to make the conversion. But the lights will more than do the trick if they are quality lights and if there are enough of them and if they are properly used/positioned.

About the same time as the thread, or shortly after, I read something about LED lighting, not grow lights but LED lighting in general, and a scientist that was working at either Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab or Los Alamos Nat. Lab made some major breakthrough and built an LED light that was roughly the same size as an average handheld mirror, like women use to check the back of their hair. I do not recall the stats on the light but the piece said it put out more light than a spotlight and then made the comparison. The spotlight was not a tiny one like you might plug into a car cigarette lighter, it was a large high powered one.

The problem is the technology used/involved is so expensive that until the cost of it comes way down no one will ever use it and manufacture lights. If and when they do then someone will not need as many lights as the person whose thread I mentioned used. If and when that technology does drop in price enough to make it marketable it will be the death of HID lighting, in all uses. A single smaller LED light will be capable of matching or out producing HID lights and use far less energy in the process.

That might be a year away and it might be twenty years away but the technology exists today. It just has to drop in price before we will see it marketed.