New Induction Grow light

[knna]

Hi, bubbas,

thank you for enlighting us a little more about these lamps. You data seems unbeatable. Its being difficult for me to believe that induction fluorescent lamps gets 133lm/W with 300W and 150lm/W at 400W of power. As those fluorescent spectrums emits less lm per PAR light output, it would mean that they are surpassing HPS in energy efficiency by a large margin. But it fall into what is possible technically, and I would love to confirm it.

The 300 and 400W includes all the power that the lamps burns, or just the consuption of the bulb? Meaning, those lm/W figures I have calculated based on your data, are wall plug efficiencies?

In that case, its an amazing perfomance!

Lm emission figures are backed with some measurement, or are they just what the manufacturer says that they emits? The graph posted by Rackitman seems to be extracted from an integrated sphere's measurement. If so, it surely will confirm those figures.

2000 micromols of photons/sq meter at 3ft is an overkill figure for sure. It was measured on an small cab using refflective walls? Because if its on a open room, it would be too much. Cannabis gets photosynthetically saturated between 1800-2000uE/m2 on the usual temperature ranges. So it would mean that the lamp must be used 3ft away from plants, and I dont think this is correct.

Please, may you detail a bit further irradiance figures from the quantum meter? How is possible that they peaks away from the bulb? I think im missing something here.

Sorry if I do so many questions, but it seem a very interesting lamp and I would like to confirm its not due to marketing hype but due it actually an excelent lamp.

How hot it runs? It would be possible to put it between plants? Letting some distance, of course. Im thinking on vertical setups. But probably built in reflector must be attached to the bulb, as it contains the induction engine. Is this correct?


Anyway, Id love to see a journal or something like that about tests in course. You prove movement by walking. Is it being avalaible somewhere?

[bubbas]

Hi Knna,
The figures for the output is from the manufacturer. I contact them to verify the figures and my mistake, the listed lumin output was Plm/w. The efficiency is actually 95lm/w. I don't know what plm/w differs from lm/w from what i gather it stands for pupil lumin so i think it has something to do with visable light. As for the PAR light, i used a quantum light meter and started off about 4 ft. away and moved closer until the meter peaked and also measured lux output with a second meter. i'm used to measuring and determining light out for commercial applcations and have limited experience with plant lighting having said that i do understand what plant lighting requirments are. The ballast for these lights draw about 25 watts so the actual wattage for these lights are the wattage of the bulb only.The ballast are not really ballast they are a frequency generator because this type of bulb is electrodless and works by frequency to excite the phosphours to produce light.
your question about the heat output, i have no actual data on what they produce. I can tell you that you can touch them without getting a burn. They do run pretty warm though. You can only hold them for 5-10 seconds before it gets uncomfortable. So you question about running them vertically is yes you can as long as there about at least 10 inches away.
My test will be finnished in about a month. i will post pictures as soon as i get them.
Induction lights are not anything new. I ran across them about ten years ago at a lighting fair in Hong Kong. They have been in use in Asia and europe for a long time for steet lights and other applications. I don't know why us North Amercans are so slow at adopting new technolgy.
As a side note. We have found a supplier of microwave sulphur plasma lights.We hope to test them too for horticulture applications. If you are not familar with them these are also an electrodless lighting system that uses a megatron to produce micowaves to excite the gasses to produce light. These are the most effiecient lights available (130LM/W) and produce the closest light spectrum to sunlight than any other artificial light source. Up until now these lights where very expensive running around $3000 and up each! We hope to bring the price down closer to $1500. There is an interesting article on them an experiment on growing cucumbers. They compared 1- 1000 watt MSP lamp to six 400 watt MH bulbs. In 14 days the MPS plants were more than twice as big! I am bringing one in to test. stay tuned.

[knna]

Thanks again for clarifying it, bubbas.

95 lm/W for a 2700K spectrum is more reasonable for the efficiencies of induction fluorescents actually running. It may be realistic, as its a little better than other models running, but no for a large margin. I tend to take with a grain of salt large improvements on efficacy when they arnt backed with measurements :wtf:

That improvement (from the 75-85 lm/W of most induction light Im aware of) maybe due to use a high wattage unit. Maybe manufacturer is exaggerating a little.

There is no any definition of plants lm, so its an unmeangliful figure. It would depend on what "plant sensibility" curve is used.

25W for the ballast is very reasonable for a 300-400W unit. Some electrodeless lamps, as Luxims ones, have a problem with the ballast efficiency, at least at medium wattages. Including it, the 300W units drops to a total wall plug efficiency of 87lm/W, which is still good, on the level of HO T5's. But its clear that these 300 or 400W units achieves way higher intensities than T5s can provide.

I have a sheet of the measurement of a 6450K induction fluorescent lamp of 300W (actually, 312W, but as its in chinese, I dont know if its the bare bulb or it includes the RF ballast), I dont know if its of this lamp or one very similar, the lamp is coded ZX-HX 300W. It gets 23881.5 lm (76.5lm/W) and 80.9 PAR Watts, about 337 micromols of PAR photons per second.

What still surprises me is the quantum meter with 2000uE/m2 max peaking at 3ft from the bulb. With a similar quantum output than the HPS lamp, they shouldnt peak at very different distances. But from 1.5 to 3ft is a very large difference. 2000uE/m2 is about 125000lux of sunlight (and 170Klux of HPS), a very high figure that obligues to wear sunglasses.

Perhaps was it due by very different reflector shapes? It would point up to the induction unit concentrating light below the bulb a lot more than the HPS does. At first view, the induction reflector not seems to concentrate the light so much. But sometimes reflectors do different to one may think just by a visual inspection.

Did you measure how was the light distribution along an horizontal plane below the lamp? It would be very useful to know how the reflector is distributing the light, and will provide context to the measurement on the vertical plane.

Looking forward for pics of the test :thumbsup:

[JackdaWack]

What prices would one be looking at to purchase a 300watt?

[bubbas]

Hey Jackdewack,
Our 300 watters are available in 2700K, 6400K or the purple full spectrum. All are 120 Volt and are $480
Thanks

[Gamblorman]

how many effective square feet does one unit cover? I'm looking to cover 9 to 16 square feet.

[dextr0]

Hey, I did the same thing you did :thumbsup: and ordered these lamps.

Some companies have induction lights especially for flowering, that have for example been tested here (in Dutch, but the pictures are very clear).
But any company can produce them if you order enough. They just play with phosphor-mixtures till they find the right one.

You should be able to get 300 watt complete for less than $ 150,= FOB Shanghai.

how did this light turn out grow wise??

[squarepush3r]

really interested in this stuff, would like to hear more updates or grow reports.

[squarepush3r]

bump, is 400W model available?

[bubbas]

Hi Guys,
Finnally got some pics.
As i expected the purple spectrum did not do as good as the 2700K. The purple vegged very nice and kept up with the 6400K, but when it went to bud it fell way short. The first pic is a side by side, the second is the purple Mland. bud and the ones in the yellow light is the 2700K. We vegged with 6400K and budded with 2700K VS. veg and bud with purple Mland.
As you can see the yield is no where near the 2700K. Both set ups where 300 watt induction. We believe the 400 watter will keep up with a 1000HPS as the 300's are just shy compared to 1000hps. Stay tuned.
Anyone interested in them contact me, i'll be placing an order soon as we are all sold out. these pics are only at about 7 weeks. I'll be posting more pics when complete with yield numbers