LED lights?

[notanovice]

thank you for the inovative imformation. i did not mean to say, never bother, it was meant to be, dont bother til imformation is available to back up the economical, and heat, and usefulness of L.E.D.`s. for i am one of those who have tried everyway known to propagate and grow. i am one who welcomes new ways. my mind is open, and i learn new things everyday.

P.S.
i am originally from southern ontario
between chatham and tilbury
a very small town called Merlin
take care and have a great day

[DR. Science]

I'm currently in contact with a distributor of Led lights. I have a project in the planing phase to grow plants using wavelength specific lights to ensure that maxmum energy is be transformed from electrical energy to useful light energy to the pant, and, ultimately, by easing the growth of the plant by using advanced hydroponics techniques, to usable energy to the plant cells. I will report on my progress as it develops.

[notanovice]

i am very interested in those findings.
please keep us posted

[sy9942]

If you've got an account on overgrow you might recognize my username. I'm one of the first people who gave LEDs a shot, and I must say that for 99.999% of people, it's a waste of time. I'm not trying to be a pessimist, I'm just... Well, here, let's simply put it in perspective.

Do you take a HPS lamp and plug it directly into the wall? No, you don't, you plug it into a piece of fancy electronic equipment called a Ballast. Well, similarly with LEDs, connecting them directly to a power source without any driver circuitry will not get you the kind of plant growth you're looking for.

So the key problem is the ballast. Ballasts for LED lighting of plants don't actually exist, so you have to build one. This is why for 99.999% of people, it's a waste of time. You need to be an armchair electrical engineer in order to throw together something that will give you results.

If you want to build your own ballast (pulsed DC, PWM), here are my suggestions:
- variable frequency from 2kHz to 20kHz (honestly, a set 20kHz would be fine)
- variable pulse width from 1% to 10% (this is required, as hopefully you'll have the ballast long enough that you'll be able to use it with different types of LEDs, which may have different tolerances to high current pulsing. Being able to back down the pulse width will keep you from frying your LEDs)
- selectable constant current in multiples of 20 mA, from 20mA to 500mA.
- multiple "channels" which can have their pulse width and frequency adjusted independently.
- A very accessible on/off switch, just in case.

The best way that I've encountered to do this type of thing is by basing it around a PIC microcontroller. The easiest of course is the PICAXE ( www.picaxe.co.uk ) which can be programmed in BASIC and doesn't require special programming hardware to use. You use the microcontroller to take care of frequency and pulse width, you use JFET transistors configured as current regulators (see here) in order to handle current regulation.

So if you're the EE type, by all means. Get some 730nm, 660nm and 430nm LEDs and get crackin' on that ballast. (note: 470nm and 640nm could be added as well)

[Shadow Smoke]

i wander how many freggn les you would need! i might give it a shot with some other kind of plant maybe a pea plant. but thats gonna have to wait till i have money

[Shadow Smoke]

hey i got an idea from this post and looked into it


ITS ALREADY BEEN DONE!! you can grow plants with LEDs!

problum is that inorder to grow a very small -plant you need about 300 lights riged up in a very small area so its not yet practical.

BUT i think maybe with the advancement in fiber optic tec. and the use of sound waves it might be possible to grow useing less power than it takes to run a wrist watch!

most of this info is hear say.. but just think about that for a while maybe some day we can grow more plants in less space than ever before : )

but yes you can grow a healty plant with LED!

[stra8outtaWeed]

here are my leds and i get great production!! took me a while to find a light i was happy with but i do everything fromm clone to finish under LED's :smokin:

[jakester]

Yeah, that conversation was from 2004. I doubt you will have to do much convincing around here nowadays!

Nice grow!

[stra8outtaWeed]

Yeah, that conversation was from 2004. I doubt you will have to do much convincing around here nowadays!

Nice grow!

thanks :jointsmile:

i did not look at the date....ooops! been awhile since i have been on a grow forum...gotta retrain!

ostexcuseme:

[GodBud]

[QUOTE= took me a while to find a light i was happy with[/QUOTE]



What is the model you are using there?

Thanks :thumbsup: