THE END OF H.I.Ds?? Sulphur plama technology

right i recieved my copy of urban garden magazine today and was just flicking thru wen i stumbled upon this. Please take a moment to read a few snippets from the article and say what u think. The sulphur lamp is a golf ball sized 3mm thick quartz sphere filled with argon gas and a small amount of sulphur, the lamp spins at 600rpm at the end of a glass stick driven by a fan cooled motor, as it spins it is bombarded with microwave energy focused by a magnetron,microwaves excite the sulphur in the lamp to the fourth state of matter - plasma, thus producing an extremely bright light very close to sunlight! The sulphur lamp produces a full spectrum of light with an efficiency far greater than any other light source, there are no gaps or spikes in the spectral distribution. Sp lamps produce far less IR light than any other grow lamp technology, this is immediately realisable because so much less heat means many more applications. Full and continuous spectrum is very close to sunlight so it feels like sun to all life forms including humans plants and fish. Light output and colour doesnt degrade over time and the light is also dimmable!! The lamps last ten years and because there is no electrodes to degrade or burn out the lamps efficiency drops from 100% to 95% in the first 100 hours of use, there is no degradation after this point so thats 95% efficiency for 10 years! Now for the exciting bit... In 2006, 400.000 lumens was measured from a 1340w sp lamp at the amsterdam horticulture show, in 2007, 570.000 lumens again from a 1340w sp lamp at jana university, germany. And in 2008 600.000 lumens were measured at the volkswagon factory Germany(witnessed by Roland Loosli of growbox.ch)They are available now only for carefully chosen experimental projects, but in october 2008 a commercial supply is planned to commence in the uk with the first units retailing around GBP1500. Now for the piccy's sorry if theyre not that clear im takin pics of the pics in the mag, first two pics are the lamp itself, the third pic is a diagram showin how it works forth pic u can see in the chart how close the spectrum is to the suns spectum illustrated by the red line compared with mh.... Wow. im amazed....

so would they need ballasts?

duh sorry the title should say sulphur plasma not sulphur plama! Tut stoopid.

Wordz said:

so would they need ballasts?

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it doesnt mention ballasts, but there would b no need for one

I just noticed the price though. sure it lasts 10 years but that is a ton of money to lay down on a light

here we go this shit is interesting man


YouTube - Sulphur Plasma 1st in Switzerland



and the creators site WATCH the vid

PLASMA INTERNATIONAL - SULPHUR PLASMA LIGHTING SYSTEMS

look at the fucking tube lights those are wicked you should correct your spelling error on this title and this thread should be stickied for upcoming news on these lights all info shows they are better than any other lights around

this is promising news! but i think we are still a couple years away from commercial use.

WHo cares about the money. eventually they will drop in price. This means you can run 1300 watts and pull 2-4 times as much plant matter using the same amount of electricity. This is great news. Got to love scientists, physicists and engineerings

Lol, the name sounds dangerous. I wouldn't want any of the inner materials to escape.

Shredder111 said:

Lol, the name sounds dangerous. I wouldn't want any of the inner materials to escape.

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the lamp itself is only filled with argon gas and a tiny amount of sulphur, sounds pretty harmless to me... And all units have swedish control units which switch microwave power off automatically and instantly should the be any malfunction, explosion is highly unlikely and wont be powerful enough to penetrate the 3mm hardened quartz sphere used as a cover...

Price will drop, but still would be expensive compared to a normal bulb compared to other grow lights due to the complexity of the design. I wouldn't expect much from these for a few years but in 5+ years it would not surprise me to see hardcore growers using these. (Their price would of course have to drop a great deal for them to actual be any more efficient then typical grow lights economically)

Vizion420 said:

look at the fucking tube lights those are wicked you should correct your spelling error on this title and this thread should be stickied for upcoming news on these lights all info shows they are better than any other lights around

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indeed, how do i rectify my stoopid spelling mistake in the title?

stucklikechuck said:

this is promising news! but i think we are still a couple years away from commercial use.

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"third millenium technology and fabrication techniques will allow the removal of the faraday cage from around the lamp(like a microwave oven door it keeps the microwaves inside) and a non-rotating lamp which utilises tesla induction methods will be key components of the second generation of sulphur plasma systems"

AquafinaOrbit said:

Price will drop, but still would be expensive compared to a normal bulb compared to other grow lights due to the complexity of the design. I wouldn't expect much from these for a few years but in 5+ years it would not surprise me to see hardcore growers using these. (Their price would of course have to drop a great deal for them to actual be any more efficient then typical grow lights economically)

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"Eventually the unit cost will reduce to a price little more than a domestic microwave oven. When this happens it will surely be the end of HIDs as we know them"

There's loads of pooTube vids. have a look at this one:

YouTube - Plasma Light Bulb

interesting..

i couldnt see the pics so cant comment on them. 1500quid for a light though.. no chance. and the amount of the elec bills....

i can see them being top notch further down the line as they are small, so u could probably use 2 of them. ud get great results and maybe faster results.

I'll take ten - you would be able to actually watch your plants grow! have a look at this for some more info:

nlite SULPHUR PLASMA LIGHT

smokeh said:

interesting..

i couldnt see the pics so cant comment on them. 1500quid for a light though.. no chance. and the amount of the elec bills....
.

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Producing 600.000 lumens i would imagine u would only need one 1340w sp lamp to light up quite a large growroom, as opposed to say 6x600w hps or halide using 3.6kw, the cost of buying 6 hps systems and replacing 6 lamps every 6-9months(as u should) with only a fraction of the suns spectrum from over 3kw of electricity vs buying one lamp system giving u the closest possible colour spectral distribution to the sun from any grow light, over half a million lumens from just 1340w and replacing yr single lamp every 10years, i think this somewhat justifies the high price and prices will only drop when they become mass produced. LG Electronics produce 500 700 and 1000w versions already!