LED grow lights... input please.

[Wh173]

okay,

What strength MDC LEDs are you using?

I using LEDs:
RED 500mcd / 110° / 660nm
Blue 1400mcd / 60° / 470
I thing priority is degree of led biggest is better(minimum is 30 - 60°) 1500mcd/60° is same like 500mcd/110°. But 500mcd is cheaper.

How many volts/amps (or milliamps) does your system require or use?

about 20mA on 1,75V each LED

Water clear or coloured LEDs?

it's same

How many LEDs and how do you have them set up?

My system have 720pcs of red and 56pcs of blue LEDs, now. I want 3 times more
I can buy 2000pcs of red for 100USD

Ratio of blue to red LEDs (if any)

I thing best is from 16:1 to 8:1, maybe more.

Mini LED box by Hogi - its in czech, but nice photos - https://grower.cz/forum/showthread.p...&pagenumber=10

Wh173 Reviewed by Wh173 on 09-01-2006. LED grow lights... input please. Hello guys, I'm exchanging eMails with a representative from a LED company. I asked him if they could produce a custom light for growing, and here's what he told me: Our options are as follow: 940nm, 850nm, 660nm, 630nm, 610nm, 590nm 570nm, 530nm, 510nm, 470nm, 460nm, 400nm and a total of 64 LEDs in the bulb. Rating: 5

[evan1]

Hmm... I'm wondering if I should start a new thread or just put this here? Here seems to be a good a place as any.

I would like to hear from those who are growing with or assembling LED grows and lights about the following information:

What strength MDC LEDs are you using?
How many volts/amps (or milliamps) does your system require or use?
Water clear or coloured LEDs?
How many LEDs and how do you have them set up?
Ratio of blue to red LEDs (if any)
Any other experiences or experiments that you have done.

That being said, on with my own experiments.

Inspired by this thread and science, two weeks ago I purchaced a handful of 5000mcd red LEDs and a couple 5000mcd blue LEDs. I pulled out some breadboard, resistors and soldering iron. After 2 good reminders on how hot a soldering iron can get I had completed my experimental module.

22 red LEDs and 3 blue LEDs made up my module (I stuck to the 10:1 ratio of red:blue LEDs, as you can see, my math sucks LOL!). Totalling 125000mcd of power. This tiny monster drew an astounding 250ma at 12 volts for a total power consumption of 3 watts.

I had a leftover, unused vegbox which I quickly stripped down and installed my new light. One of my favourite test subjects was then introduced. Cat grass. What a great experimental tool. Cheap. Easy to grow. My cats love it too!

The cat grass was placed in the box and subjected to no other light and within 6 days I had a healthy viable pot of cat grass. The cats approved and chewed away on it. I am impressed. Now onto phase 2, larger light with more LEDs and more experimenting.

While wandering through my local electronics store I stumbled across a dream. I found a 60000mcd water clear red LED. Yes, sixty thousand is correct! Qiuck math (which apparently in my head is not always accurate) shocked me to find out that my entire phase one grow light could be replaced by just over 2 LEDs. I just about fell over.

The downside. These puppies are expensive. $2.25 each with tax. My 100 light set up with the 5000mcd LEDs was going to cost me under $25. 500000mcd. Nine 60000mcd LEDs would give me 540000mcd at $20.25, just for the LEDs.

So now I ponder and design with my money and math.

And now for something completely different:

I would love to see this thread edited. It takes far too long to go through the "You can't grow with LEDs" "LEDs will never compare to HID lighting" to get to the information you need.

Now an exercise in futility.

As consideration to those of us that are experimenting with LEDs and are benifitting from the open exchange of information, is it possible for the narrow or close minded posters to keep their thoughts to themselves and not fill up the tread with crap?

Everyday I walk down the street and see stupid people. I resist the tempatation to tell them that they are stupid. I smile to myself and keep my mouth shut. I'm just asking the non-believers to smile.

When we have something good we will post it.

In all this you never mentioned what (NM)nanometer they are. That makes all the difference in the world. Can't just use red and blue.

[Old_as_Dirt]

http://www.growwithleds.com/uofmstudy.htm

[Tokudai]

That study is worthless - Why would you put a 400 Watt HPS Lamp ~ 6 feet away from the tops? 6 FEET?

Has ANYONE ever gotten an LED setup to (through) flower and compared the (only relevant calculation for us) grams/watt? I'm still waiting for that one..

[Wh173]

That study is worthless - Why would you put a 400 Watt HPS Lamp ~ 6 feet away from the tops? 6 FEET?

Has ANYONE ever gotten an LED setup to (through) flower and compared the (only relevant calculation for us) grams/watt? I'm still waiting for that one..

my friend have in second experiment 0.5g/W

[PearlJamFan]

Here is an some photos of a test I started. These are 2 clones taken from a plant started oustide, it is bag weed to boot. The pics were taken 2 days after transplanting from a peat pellet to the square container. They were under approx. 75w of CFL during rooting. There are 6 other sisters under a 400w mh. I will post comparisons as I get time to do so.

Here you go.

[PearlJamFan]

A couple of more pics.

[PearlJamFan]

Here are some photos taken just minutes ago. This will be day 5 under the LED's. In the last 2 photos are for comparison. The 2 on the left are the LED ones, the 3 on the right are the 400w MH ones.

[roadrunner]

Hi folks,

I'm new in LED growing and got only basic growing knowledge, so maybe I can get some helpful comments here.

History:

- First I started with 54 High-Power LED's (6 UV, 30 Red and 18 Royal Blue) in a little growroom (enough space for Bonsai ;-) ; only as an experiment).
Result: The plant growing speed was very slow :| . My reference plant on my balcony grows faster and higher.

- In the second step I've added some Luxeon LED's
Result: Wow - the growing speed increases potentially. The mass of the plant is now greater as them of my reference plant. Additionally it got more and bigger bastard brachnes!

- Now in my third step I use pulsed light (since two days). My current problem is primilary the temperature. With the non-pulsed Luxeons it was 28 degrees, now only 22. Will this be a problem? Without the fan (used to cool the Luxeons, which isn't needed with my pulse frequence) the tempereature is 26 degreed (optimal), but the humidness is about 70-80 per cent (50 with fan).

Have anyone made experience with pulsed lights. Are there really better results in growing? What frequencies and pulse-on/off times are you using?

What are you thinking about the healthiness of my plant (see attached pictures)?

What are you thinking about my project?

Do I really need a CO2-reactor to speed up growing?

In my opinion, growing with LED's is really possible, but you need a lot of them or Luxeons, but you can save a lot of costs for electricity. And the life time of LED's is much longer then of HID's, especially if you are using pulsed light (not overdrived).

[phytokind]

These homemade LED arrays are awesome, like Disco Star Trek or something, but why don't you just use the SolarOasis LEDs? They seem to have figured it all out already, the only problem might be the high cost.