My Lighting Project - Will a Custom LED Panel Work?

Yeah I wrote that post a while ago

oh! hehe.

Sorry for being an ass! I still want to try one of your lights. I got a little overwhelmed with all the research into LEDs that I was doing... there just doesn't seem to be a good way to judge or compare them (except for lumens, which we all know isn't ... what we want) but for you brainiacs that can do the math... nice!

I also have to suggest more red, and more specfically the deep red, for flowering (basically for veg too--just throw in some blue for the phototropism) especially around 680nm. The published research using deep red exceeds those with normal. Some of it has to do with reflected light--it ends up being reflected at a lower wavelenth (normal red) which can be absorbed by leaves further down... thus helping penetration. There is also a stretch response plants have to relflected light, which this helps minimize. If I ever end up building the LED array I want.. I will probably use deep red only. Anyway, just some food for thougt.

Yeah I'm wondering about deep red myself.

I'm wondering, mainly, if its deep enough to be far red.

And the test for that is easy. Run em' 24 hours with 12/12 with some "normal" spectrums, and see if it keeps it out of flower.

I have this assumption that the far red isn't as important in terms of mass as the nearer, normal red which will keep a plant out of flower.

It seems natural to me because when a plant is tripped into flowering hardest, its nightime. Not absorbing anything, except for the little amounts still bouncing around the surface of the plant, radiating out of the ground and such, bouncing around an shit. it goes everywhere.

(go search for squ1rrely 's post entitled experiments at the cutting edge)

Which is why I think the 650- range is best, which is pretty much the upper bound of the range which the dees I have put out...

I hope!

we'll see, flowering eventually.

Originally Posted by Shrike

Excellent design you have there for the LED's and looks like a heck of a lot of work...but hopefully well worth it. I'm kind of in the same boat as far as no money right now among other reasons to have to wait to start the grows. But having people like you and StinkBud, SoG, Earl and others on this board gives us all a tremendous amount of knowledge and experimentation that serves everyone well in the end. Like you, when I start, I'll be ready as hell.

Very cool, Shrike, thanks for the compliments. I look forward to putting it to the test... who knows what will happen. Maybe I'm nuts, and I really need the high power LEDs. If that's the case, at least I've learned an incredible amount about light. Designing a new light will be a breeze.

Originally Posted by repvip

Treeth: I happen to agree with most everything you say about LEDs, especially the part about avoiding 3 and 5mm!

Cuttings2Colas: I say go for it! Maybe an array of this type will work just as well or better (at 1" above canopy) than the others. Obviously there is so much bullshit info about LEDs and not enough proof... it's hard to have a good discussion on this board.

ps - I've kept mine at 12" and haven't seen any slow growth. They are doing very well.

You may be right about the 3/5mm thing... if I need to design a new high-powered LED light, I will. As I mentioned in the last post, it'll be cake the second time around.

12" sounds fine, though I wonder how much stronger the light intensity would be closer... one day (when I can afford it), I'll just make 3 identical LED lights and space them at 3 different distances to see what kind of reaction the plants give. It's funny; I'm 33% excited about the final product (MJ), 33% excited about designing everything, and another 33% excited to do a bunch of experiments once I have a nice sea of green going. Fine tune everything with actual research.

Originally Posted by repvip

I also have to suggest more red, and more specfically the deep red, for flowering (basically for veg too--just throw in some blue for the phototropism) especially around 680nm. The published research using deep red exceeds those with normal. Some of it has to do with reflected light--it ends up being reflected at a lower wavelenth (normal red) which can be absorbed by leaves further down... thus helping penetration. There is also a stretch response plants have to relflected light, which this helps minimize. If I ever end up building the LED array I want.. I will probably use deep red only. Anyway, just some food for thougt.

I agree with you 100% on more deep red. I really wanted to fill out the deep red portion of the spectrum, but those 680nm LEDs are SOOOO expensive. Over $1 each, whereas my second most expensive LEDs are 13 cents. It'll have to be one of those experiments I do one day when I'm rich.

I haven't heard the part about reflected light dropping on the nm scale... interesting. I do plan to make smaller versions of these lights and post them around the walls of the tight little grow room. Screw light penetration, I'll just add more lights. Woo!

Originally Posted by Treeth

Yeah I'm wondering about deep red myself.

I'm wondering, mainly, if its deep enough to be far red.

And the test for that is easy. Run em' 24 hours with 12/12 with some "normal" spectrums, and see if it keeps it out of flower.

I have this assumption that the far red isn't as important in terms of mass as the nearer, normal red which will keep a plant out of flower.

It seems natural to me because when a plant is tripped into flowering hardest, its nightime. Not absorbing anything, except for the little amounts still bouncing around the surface of the plant, radiating out of the ground and such, bouncing around an shit. it goes everywhere.

(go search for squ1rrely 's post entitled experiments at the cutting edge)

Which is why I think the 650- range is best, which is pretty much the upper bound of the range which the dees I have put out...

I hope!

we'll see, flowering eventually.

I have a feeling that everything you wrote will make more sense once I read Squ1rrely's post. That'll have to be for another day. Off to hang with some friends. G'night everyone, and happy growing!

Originally Posted by Cuttings2Colas

You may be right about the 3/5mm thing... if I need to design a new high-powered LED light, I will. As I mentioned in the last post, it'll be cake the second time around.

12" sounds fine, though I wonder how much stronger the light intensity would be closer... one day (when I can afford it), I'll just make 3 identical LED lights and space them at 3 different distances to see what kind of reaction the plants give. It's funny; I'm 33% excited about the final product (MJ), 33% excited about designing everything, and another 33% excited to do a bunch of experiments once I have a nice sea of green going. Fine tune everything with actual research.

I agree with you 100% on more deep red. I really wanted to fill out the deep red portion of the spectrum, but those 680nm LEDs are SOOOO expensive. Over $1 each, whereas my second most expensive LEDs are 13 cents. It'll have to be one of those experiments I do one day when I'm rich.

I haven't heard the part about reflected light dropping on the nm scale... interesting. I do plan to make smaller versions of these lights and post them around the walls of the tight little grow room. Screw light penetration, I'll just add more lights. Woo!

That would be a sweet experiment! This is the kind of work that needs to be done.

I do a lot of journal reading for my job and subsequently have access to a lot of journals. The deep red LED article was an experiment published fairly recently in a horticulture journal (I'm not sure which.. I stumbled upon it... though I'm sure I could find it again, eventually). It was a good one though--they had LED fixtures with normal red:blue, deep red:blue, normal red:white:blue and normal redrange:blue. The deep red:blue outperformed all, with redrange:blue and red:white:blue about even and red:blue just behind that. I can't even remember what plant they were growing--I just wanted the results haha

That article made me question the "why white leds" and also mentioned results that other authors have had with different, more optimized spectrums that are plant-dependent. Some studies are suggesting that plants would have a specfic spectrum that works best for them. I don't see any way to predict except to try different combinations, or just go for the cure-all and make a full-spectrum panel, or as much as possible. Which basically answers the why white question. There is probably a killer spectrum for ultimate trichome production!

Maybe I'm crazy, but when my LEDs are about 8" from the plant they start to burn... the plants that is.. they will have brown burn areas in the leaves.. maybe hot spot or something? I don't know. With the light mover it is no longer an issue... In fact I've never had better looking plants! They look so healthy and dark green. I love LEDs.

Cool, I'm subscribed.

I starting planning out a DIY led system but it got one step above my head and I decided it wasn't worth saving $40 over just buying a premade from HTG.

ESP because I couldn't find much info on this and I didn't really want to waste a bunch of time and money.

@vip:

Yea, it sucks that theres no single stat that you can compare all LED lights with...