budderlvr Modular LED Project

[budderlvr]

veggii,

I know what you are saying, I should have thought about that post a bit more before I hit the post button. What would you say to 3 RED to 1 BLUE.

These are the RED lights I am looking at:
LZ1-00R205

These are the BLUE lights I am looking at:
LZ1-00B205
EDIT:
These are in Stock
LZ1-00DB05

budderlvr Reviewed by budderlvr on 08-25-2008. budderlvr Modular LED Project I am working on a new modular LED grow light. This thread will be a diary of my experience as I work through some of the many design problems. Currently I am at the circuit design phase. Although I do not want to reveal too much of my design at this point I will provide some information that has guided my decisions. The LEDs I will be using are from Lumiled. I am using the Luxeon K2s for the blue spectrum, and Luxeon IIIs for the red spectrum. The ratio of RED to BLUE (I will call Rating: 5

[SunnyD]

Please be patient with my questions in this thread as I am trying to ease myself into the world of LEDs.

Have you decided to go with LEDengin with both your red and blues? and if so did you say they're both rated at 661 nm?

[budderlvr]

SunnyD,

I think you are confused about what "661nm" means. 661nm is a particular wavelength of electromagnetic radiation. It happens to fall inside the visible light portion of the Electromagnetic Spectrum (Electromagnetic spectrum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Plants (any by plants I mean GREEN PLANTS) have a process known as photosynthesis that transforms electromagnetic radiation into energy for the plant. Studies have shown however that it is specific wavelengths of light that the plant uses. Until LED, there were few viable options to test this theory (putting filters on full spectrum lights would be an example). There have been a lot of other posts that describe what wavelengths the chemical chlorophyll (the primary chemical in photosynthesis) respond to most. If you don't want to do your research, there are basically two areas of the spectrum that chlorophyll responds to and they fall in the extreme blue visible and the extreme red visible. These colors appear to humans as deep red, and true blue.

I am sure if I don't say this someone will correct me. Plants also respond to other colors, including green. Blue and Red are the two that plants absorb the most. Colors near green and green itself are the least useful because they are mostly reflected, not absorbed.

I just re read your post before I put this up, and this may all be information that you already know. The BLUE LedEngin that I am looking at for my design emits light in a range from 445-475 nm, and the RED 655-670nm.(EDIT: I MAY STILL USE K2s for the BLUE, I need to sit down and do some serious math before I spend some serious cash)

[khronik]

On a slightly off-topic note, "Procyon" means "before the dog" in Greek, and is the scientific name for the raccoon. I wonder why they named their LED light after raccoons?

[SnSstealth]

On a slightly off-topic note, "Procyon" means "before the dog" in Greek, and is the scientific name for the raccoon. I wonder why they named their LED light after raccoons?

lol...i think it was named after the star, its one of the brightest in the sky.
sorry for the jack. keep up the good work though:thumbsup:

db:smokin:

[redline]

Word of caution on the LEDengin's. I couldn't find any binning info listed for the LEDengin offerings on the Mouser website. My guess would be that they are selling the lowest bin. The 660nms, I received seem to bear this out.

I would only use their 660nm since they are the only game in town. For everything else no reason not to consider Luxeons, especially since they are cheaper and you can hand solder the bare emitters.

I am also wondering how much better penetration you get with multi-die LEDs compared to singe die. What is better using 3 single die leds at 2 watts or a triple die LED at 6 watts?

[redline]

Notice on Mouser's part numbers they drop the last four digits which is the bin code? I wonder why?

[budderlvr]

I noticed the same thing today, but didn't really think anything of it until you mentioned it now. For those who don't know, LedEngin has multiple "bins" for each part, and some are better than others. Much like how intel used to use the inferior pentium dies to make celeron processors(or at least so the rumor was).

Multi die comes back to weather it is better to focus more light in one area or spread it out. With LED the advantage will be for situations like SCROG, where you can place the lights very close to the plant. In that case its really price as the limiting factor - how much are you willing to spend per light. If you could have an 8sqft array with all LedEngin multi die leds, that would be ideal. Then your limiting factor would be more about heat dissipation than anything else.

Has anyone tried a cluster type lighting system? Where you would have small clusters of n LEDs and then strategically placed in nodes around the SCROG. My thinking here is that the plants would cluster around points of light and be easier to manage when the screen is removed. I was thinking each cluster would be around 30 watts of leds (80% RED and 20% BLUE?). This would make the ATX power supply really easy to implement, and would solve some of the cooling issues by spreading out the heat.

[SunnyD]

I just re read your post before I put this up, and this may all be information that you already know. The BLUE LedEngin that I am looking at for my design emits light in a range from 445-475 nm, and the RED 655-670nm.(EDIT: I MAY STILL USE K2s for the BLUE, I need to sit down and do some serious math before I spend some serious cash)

Ha, don't worry about that one man, I knew all about the first two paragraphs you posted but it was good information to put out there nonetheless, YAY PHYSICS AND BIOLOGY CLASS! There's nothing wrong with recapping stuff!!

I guess I could have phrased my Q a little differently but no matter. What's the major differences between your LedEngin Blue's and your K2 blues? Maybe we can help you decide?...just a question

[redline]

Bud,
That is what I am building now, small light modules spread out over the grow. I have had most of the material for a couple months and am now just finding a few moments to get started on it. I got a seperate thread going that gives construction details.