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LED's
Feb 11, 2008 22:47:25 GMT -5
Post by lloyd on Feb 11, 2008 22:47:25 GMT -5
I've been trying to find the old posts on various aspects of lighting. I'm thinking of trying a homemade LED setup. The Luxeon K2's are super powerful, about 4 Watts per LED. They need to be mounted on a heat sink with special power supplies.
I've done a little bit of research. It seems that you need light of 650 nm (reddish) and 450 nm (blueish) peaks for chlorophyll A + B. So two colours of LEDS. How many lumens, einsteins, watts? How many red LED's to blue LED's? How far away? Etc., etc.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
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LED's
Feb 12, 2008 9:21:38 GMT -5
Post by simon on Feb 12, 2008 9:21:38 GMT -5
I think you should take a look a this tread: ocps.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=generalplantdiscussion&action=display&thread=1199128709Lenynero seems to be doing great with those high power LED. I bought five luxeon 3 650nm 3W from ebay and they cost me 6$. I also bought a driver (power supply with constant output at 700 ma) from futureelectronics (17$ and can drive up to 6 leds) For the blue spectrum i will use some 10 mm leds i already have (i'll just put more of those). All i need now is some seed to test it... My capensis has flowers so... I'll let you guys know what will be the results. I do i know when it is time to collect the seed from my capensis?
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LED's
Feb 12, 2008 9:40:35 GMT -5
Post by lenynero on Feb 12, 2008 9:40:35 GMT -5
I have found.. as well as a few other folks that Blue LEDs need to be used very sparingly on tropical plants and flowers. They seem to do much better with alot of RED. The blues tend to burn them. Heres an interesting page from grotek... although I would never buy thier product the info here is a good start.... www.gro-tek.com/Leny
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LED's
Feb 12, 2008 12:29:29 GMT -5
Post by Rick Hillier on Feb 12, 2008 12:29:29 GMT -5
I've been thinking of replacing all of my lighting (plants and aquariums) with LED lighting at some point in time, as my hydro bill is killing me. I would be looking to replace two 400W metal halides over my plants and to build a new lighting canopy over what is left of my reef aquarium (after the ballasts died on the lighting units) which would need to cover a 6 x 2 foot area. The old canopy held three 175W metal halides and two VHO 160-watt actinic fluorescents, but I would like to upgrade it to have the equivalent of three 400W metal halides. The link below is an example of what I am looking at: www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/store_pages/details/l-led.php?product_ID=pfo-s67115It doesn't have to be fancy, as this unit is around $3800 plus taxes - it would just need to work. My problem is that I know nothing about this stuff and don't know where to start. I'm not very good at building things either Any advice would be appreciated. >>> Rick <<<
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LED's
Feb 12, 2008 21:02:16 GMT -5
Post by lloyd on Feb 12, 2008 21:02:16 GMT -5
Thanks guys. Information overload. Any details on the LED part numbers and sources would be useful. Also information on heat sinks, drivers, lenses etc.
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LED's
Mar 9, 2008 15:42:36 GMT -5
Post by calorchis on Mar 9, 2008 15:42:36 GMT -5
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LED's
Mar 9, 2008 18:58:17 GMT -5
Post by lloyd on Mar 9, 2008 18:58:17 GMT -5
Thanks for the link, Calorchis. Here's a quote from it.
There are many LEDs out there in wavelengths of 400-420nm, 460nm, 640nm and 660nm which are perfect in terms of color.
From Wikipedia:
In diethylether, chlorophyll a has approximate absorbance maxima of 430 nm and 662 nm, while chlorophyll b has approximate maxima of 453 nm and 642 nm.[7] The absorption peaks of Chlorophyll a are at 665 nm and 465 nm. Chlorophyll a fluoresces at 673 nm.
The absorption maxima of chlorophyll a are lambda= 430 and lambda= 662 nm, that of chlorophyll b are at 453 and 642 nm.
So it looks like 430 & 662 nm. are the wavelenghts to aim for. More research........
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LED's
Mar 10, 2008 22:32:04 GMT -5
Post by lenynero on Mar 10, 2008 22:32:04 GMT -5
Hi, I thought I would pipe in here... I have built 3 arrays of my own design and 4 arrays from kits. They all work great .. especially for peppers.. odd but I can grow any pepper i want with LEDS. My hero over at greenpinelane.com has a message forum that is invaluable if you want to build your own .. here is the link 71.232.180.176/yaf/yaf_topics19_Build-Your-Own.aspxNow if you want a kit.. I have bought 4 14 watt kits from this vendor... homegrownlights.com/14wled.htmlI have been to many websites with lights but this is the only vendor that has done his homework. He will be releasing a new 10 watt kit soon... and his 100watt procyan rocks but at 600 bucks is a little steep for my taste.. hence my 47 and 27 watt arrays homemades ;-). There is nothing like building your own.. and watching all your plants flourish under like 27 watts of power.... super cheap.. low heat (less then flouro) and a funky 3d goggle colour to boot ;-) P.S. on the forum at greenpine he is making a variable resitor knob that controls the light intesity to facilitate different growth cycles with plants... umm great idea but it only needs to be done with the blue LEDS ... they are the traffic cop when it comes to growth cycles... just a little bit of info I picked up along the way Leny ;D
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LED's
Mar 11, 2008 16:49:03 GMT -5
Post by lloyd on Mar 11, 2008 16:49:03 GMT -5
Thanks for those links. Could you show me a close up of the kits, front & back? I'd like to get an idea of the circuitry involved. Also I wonder if it's worth buying 430 & 660 nm LED's to get really close to the Chlorophyll A peaks.
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LED's
Mar 11, 2008 19:58:36 GMT -5
Post by briar on Mar 11, 2008 19:58:36 GMT -5
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LED's
Mar 13, 2008 22:01:48 GMT -5
Post by lloyd on Mar 13, 2008 22:01:48 GMT -5
I've been looking all over for LED's that peak at 430 and 660 which are very close to the maximum absorption of plants (and Chlorophyll A). I've found some cheap 660 nm. 0.5 mm. ones for around $38/1000. The blue ones at 430 nm. are more about 6 times more expensive but you only need 1/5 as many. Does anybody know if the illumination angle matters? The cheaper blue ones have a pretty narrow light beam of 20 degrees. That would illuminate a circle of diameter 4" at 1' away.
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LED's
Mar 14, 2008 0:39:12 GMT -5
Post by dvg on Mar 14, 2008 0:39:12 GMT -5
15 degree beam angles are 8 times more effective at light transmission than LED's with 30 degree beam angles, at least in regards to the orange/red spectrum. www.freepatentsonline.com/6921182.html
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LED's
Mar 15, 2008 14:23:59 GMT -5
Post by lloyd on Mar 15, 2008 14:23:59 GMT -5
The last link dvg sent is really interesting. It recommends a grouping of 465, 612, 660 nm at 15 & 30 deg. viewing angles. I may be making a large order from the USA soon of the 5 mm. LED's with leads. If anybody is interested. the more you order the cheaper they are, so pm me about a group order.
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LED's
Mar 15, 2008 15:16:02 GMT -5
Post by jonnybee7 on Mar 15, 2008 15:16:02 GMT -5
Very interesting indeed. Could you send me the link to the LEDs you're interesting in lloyd. I'd like to check out the specs on them if they're listed.
Thanks
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LED's
Mar 15, 2008 22:15:46 GMT -5
Post by lloyd on Mar 15, 2008 22:15:46 GMT -5
www.freepatentsonline.com/6921182.html This is the link dvg posted yesterday. It gives details on a grouping of 38 LED's (~100mW, 5mm, bullet shaped with leads): Wavelength (nm) Viewing Angle (degrees) Number of LED's 660 30 12 660 15 12 612 30 6 612 15 6 465 30 2 The writers did a lot of research to arrive at this pattern of lights. I was thinking of ordering enough to make 17 lights to take advantage of high volume discount. I couldn't find the exact matches so I came up with these: 604-WP7113MBD 466 30 755-SLI-343DU3F 611 40 859-LTL2H3VFKNT 611 15 604-L7113SRC/DV 660 20 696-LX5093SRC/DV 660 30 These are from www.mouser.com. This is the best site I could find by far.
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