LED grow lights... input please.

[turtle420]

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.



I've got in my grow notebook the following quote from a post:::
<<<<<<<<<<<<<
for good growing you need blue, red and deep red spectrum. for clorophile A you need 400-430nm of blue and 650-670 nm of red. for clorophile B you need 420-470 nm of blue and 620-650 nm of red.
peak absorbtions are at A: 425 and 660 nm, and at B: 450 and 630.
the power of spectrum should be stronger in red spectrum (arround 85-90%), others arround 5% of each. i did some test grows, but i only used 470 and 630 spectrum and the plants looked just fine. if you give them all the spectrum (for A and B type), they will grow even better.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What do you guys think? I think this is great oportunity, they're offering to build a couple of prototypes so we can test them out. At the very least, we're all going to win from this.

There are two threads I'm following on the boards of Overgrow.com about LED lights, but it's just a mess in those boards. I preffer to discuss this here with you guys.

As to the power, the anlges of the LEDs, the soldering, voltage, amperages, etc. I'm pretty sure we'll hammer that out with the company engineers.

What I'm looking in this thread is some solid advice on what would be our best trial run... what LEDs to use?

I don't know what you think, but initially, I'm thinking we should try two types of bulbs: One for vegetative growth (blue). The other for flowering (red).
Suggestions?

Thanks,

-turtle420

turtle420 Reviewed by turtle420 on 10-12-2005. 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

[BobBong]

LED...

as in .. light emitting diodes?

That would make no sense...

Looking into it Turtle..

[BobBong]

helps to checkout the link first i guess..

Bulbs composed of LED's.. interesting.... extremely interesting..

for those who don't really know what LED's are.. they're in pretty much every electronic device now.. anything with a green,red or blue little light. (ie.keyboard,monitor,printer,tv..etc)

Keep us updated man.. very interesting

I could see the use.. but the logistics of it are beyond me.

[turtle420]

Actually, it would...

LEDs are shitload more efficient than incandescent bulbs... and CFLs... and HPS... and MH...

BobBong,
This would be a big panel with 64 LEDs... not some small thing with 3 or 4 LEDs...

Among the adantages of LEDs:
-Very little heat (CFLs are pretty hot, compared to LEDs)
-very efficient (if have 400W of LEDs... Jesus! You'll have a mini-sun!)
-They produce narrow frequencies of light, instead of many colors of light

Thanks for the input Bob! Here's a link you might find interesting:
http://www.ledgrowlights.com/GrowlightKits.htm
But again, we're looking to make something better than what these guys have.

Keep those brains turning!

[budman2000]

Hey, if it will help the plants grow better Im all for it. Im not very smart with all of that technical stuff but I am an experianced grower. I would love to test the light. Anything better that my MH and HPS I would love to try out.Peace out and keep us updated.

[turtle420]

BudMan, BobBong,

Excellent! I'm waiting on the input from growers with more technical knowledge (Zandor!!!) to give us some input.

All the updates should be here, as it's from here that I'll be taking the information to send over to the LED company.

Thanks guys,

-turtle420

[turtle420]

Bumpity bump? Please, this could be good... Some input, please.

Which LED wavelengths would you pick?

[notanovice]

from what i understand and have read, it`s not been researched enough to give dependable results, it all sounds good on paper, sounds like it would work, but i havent seen anything that proves it to be better yet. i`m sure it will and that they would cost an arm and a leg to aquire.
as far as your experience goes turtle, dont get your First grow all confused up with all these new ways, they may all be good ways, but keep it simple the first time around and as your experience grows, so will your actual growing knowledge, reading up on that stuff is real good to do(it seems like you have done alot of that)but there aint nothing like actual hands on experience.
good luck on your future grows

[turtle420]

NotaNovice,

Thanks for the suggestion

I'm not aiming to use these LEDs in this 1st grow of mine... What I was thinking is that we can try and come up with the best wavelength solution, then order up three or four bulbs... Then, some of us, try this as a side-experiment.

No, you're right... I wouldn't (and won't) replace my HPS/MH with these LEDs for this grow... but if I get my hands on them? Ufff... I'll build another cabinet in one day! Not so much airflow needed... etc. etc. etc...

Thanks for the input Nota!

[seedbare]

some of these new taillights (red) in color put out alot of light, and they are already built into a reflective base, worth a shot.