Custom 400 piece, 3w, led panel, help me choose led ratio

[Mars Hydro]

We do not have UVB in our light. we do not know where we can buy UVB.

Just stumbled onto an LED grow light seller that claims to use UVB LED's in their lights. Really? UVB? I am skeptical. If this light seller is ACTUALLY using UVB LED's in their full spectrum lights, they would need to provide some sort of control mechanism so the UVB's could be turned off until flowering and then controlled to expose plants for only short periods each day.

UVB inflicts stress on your plants which reduces above ground growth during vegetation which is why UVB is reserved for the flowering stage. When flowering, plant response to the stress of UVB is greater production of THC, but a reduced yield.

 

[SuperFunker]

SmokeSara...

The LED grow light seller to which I refer is anonymous and shall remain so. The point of my post is to urge potential LED consumers/shoppers to be vigilant in their quest to purchase a grow light.

We do not have UVB in our light. we do not know where we can buy UVB.

 

[Mars Hydro]

I just want to let others know we do not have UVB.

 

[SuperFunker]

Understood

I just want to let others know we do not have UVB.

 

[amercrutio]

Chinese company Twilight says it will build for me a light with the following specs. Don't understand the percentage he brings up. What about this light and the percentage(what help does this give me).

The brand of Chip is Epistar, and they are 3watt.

Of course we are make the lamp with 760nm, 740nm, 720nm, 660nm, 630nm, 615nm, 480nm, 460nm, 440nm, 415nm, 380nm. here is the suggestion of each part : UV380nm-3%, IR760nm-1%, IR740nm-1%, IR720nm-1%, BLUE440nm-10%,BLUE 460nm-10%, BLUE 480nm-5%, Blue-Violet415nm-4%, Orange615nm-5%, Red630nm-30%, Red660nm-30%. what do you think?

 

[Hosebomber]

According to their site, they only offer a 50 watt UFO panel with 6 spectrum. I'm guessing they are a new reseller :/

 

[SuperFunker]

From the research that ive done, 760, 740 and 720 is unnecessary. 5 to 10% 740 and get rid of the others. Also, any light builder that does not incorporate a white full spectrum, does not fully understand the limitations of targeting spectrums with specific LED's. I would keep shopping. There are better lights available.

 

[tsmit420]

Wow, there is soooo much to cover here. Without going too deep into my research and giving my IP away, I'll try to help you the best I can.

First, any wavelength range of more than a 20nm range is not a single LED or they are not giving you good specs. The specs from the .pdf seem much more logical.

Second, the far red added into the mix is called the Emerson effect. If you google that you will find a ton of studies that use that study but it is very hard to track down the original. The basics of the Emerson effect is that when you add ~10% Far red (730-740nm) you have a increase in light response from certain photo-receptors in plants that causes plant mass to increase and grow at better rates. The intent was to mimic sunrise and sunset by adding that light for the first 30 min and last 30 min of the light on cycle. Through later test they found that adding the far red light during any and all phases of the light on cycle produced this effect.

Third, the wavelengths listed from the .pdf are not UV (and technically, the 730nm is not IR... it is far red) UV C ends at 400nm, which is where violet begins.

Some companies claim that adding green (515-540nm) LEDs increases growth. From my personal experience and all studies I can find, green has little use and only in "deep penetration" portions of the leaf. This requires a large number of high intensity LEDs for very little return. Some companies like white LEDs and others use the claim that is waste energy just like MH and HPS by crossing spectra that are not used. 610nm is yellow. Some use but I still do not have any information on yellow LEDs mmj growth. 630nm is at the low range of the red spectra. Plant growth performs better with 660nm red LEDs but they are more expensive in most cases.

I'd love to have the exact info they sent you on their products to give you a better run down on their led quality and if their prices are reasonable. Does their build include a housing and drivers or just the leds and lenses.

Hose

Edit: Damn that is going to be a huge LED panal. That will be pulling close to 1000 watts.... I'm not sure there is a producer selling a unit that powerful.

It is now known that green does have benefit. by itself green does nothing because it is reflected away from phytochromes and therefore the plant cant even be awake. but when used with a full spectrum it it helps in the photosythesis of cartenoids and phycoerythin. it is all about the ratio ur best to try to include as many wavelengths as possible other then far infrared and uvc. some people say that using a full specctrum defeats the purpose and that u might as well use HID bulbs. but its the ratio that determines whether or not light is being wasted. also what many people dont know is that bridgelux and epistar do not make leds suitable for growlights. theese leds are actually manufactured by other unknown manufacturer using the interior dies pruduced by bridgelux and epistar they are the same incredibly cheap design ull find on ebay. there is nothing wrong with these chinese no name epistar based bridgelux based what ever you wanna call it there cheap and they work and you can get almost any spectrum they just typically do not last as long and sometimes more prone to failure. when buying led grow lights these leds can not be avoided even the top company hydrogrow uses these leds along with some legit crees. its simply bad bussiness practice to use high end leds like luxeon everlight led engin or osram( cree being the cheapest of them) they cost 10 times as much as getting them from china. which is why if you know the spectrum you want you should never buy from american brands cuz you can get the same performance ordering straight from china or on ebay.

 

[tsmit420]

for spectrum the most succesfull company uses 4:1 there success may partially be do to the low coverage area and sharper angels wich means more penetration but also cuz of the fact that most blue leds have almost half the lumen output as red so a 4:1 will actually be more like 7:1 which is known as the best flowering ratio for cannabis( although there are many other ratios to take into account) 7:1 seems to be the spectrum most widely used which may be way some companies like hydrogrow seem to have better results then the rest. also the ratio of red:deep red needs to be taken into account. the emerson effect is actually created by having both red and far red. far redd being anything 660nm and more to start you may went to have equal amounts of far red(660 nm-740nm) as red/orange(610 nm-640nm) be sure to include violet(overr) 400nm not UVA any benefits of uva are likely from the violet end of it and can be better achevied with violet. many companies advertise UV alot even UVB even though there is no such thing as a UVB led unless ur talkin in microwatts. no uva is needed if u have violet exspecially if you also have UVB( thc wavelength). the best most efficient source of uvb are the narrowband uvb phototherappy bulbs they are well over 50 % uvb. you can have around 50-100 watts of uvb per ever 1000 watt of light used but should not be on anymore then 2 hours a day, id start off with a half hour in the middle and gradually increase. if uvb is to be on all day makesure u have a dimmer or use a small 10 watt bulb. as for green light , it does benefit when used in part of a full spectrum. the benfits of green light could be acheived by including far blue like 480-500 nm and yelllow over 550nm. if you want to get reall tricky you may want to try phytochrome manipulation these is done with infrared and should be a seperate light. you can usualluy get those companies to make a flood light with on 50w-100w intergraded led chip with wavelengths of 740nm and some 850nm 750-800nm would be best but they are very hard to find unless u build ur own out of multiple low power through hole leds. penetration isnt a big deal when it comes to infrared anyways. using a 50-50 mix of 740 and 850nm from 50-100w per 1000w turned on 15 minutes before lights out and turned off 15 minutes after and turned on 15 minute before lights on and off 15 minute after lights on. you could acheive flowering with only 8 hours of dark time with some plants. if stretch is seen you can reduce power or on time or reduce the 850 nm or reduce the near infrared(740 nm) used on your main light

 

[Hosebomber]

tsmit, I pointed this out before but you are using a lot of conjecture with little data. If you can find a single study that shows photo absorption with 850nm IR light I would love to see it. The only study that show any increased benefit from green lighting is the one where they over saturated the plant with white light and got deep cell conversion with additional green lighting beyond the saturation point. There are a number of other studies that show green light creates shade avoidance (aka causes stretching and increase internode length). I have link those articles in these forums before. The Emerson Effect has not been proven to happen with wavelengths below 710nm.

I covered the LED companies in another post so I won't go over that again, but Cree is far from the cheapest or lowest quality from any of those manufacturers you named.

 

[SuperFunker]

HB... Are 3 watt LED's with a secondary focus lens as powerful as 5 watt LED's with a single lens? Is there a reason why 5 watt LED's are not commonly used? Expense? Availability? Selection?

 

[Hosebomber]

It really depends on what 5 watt LED you are referring to to give exact information. Generally speaking, all tjhree of the reasons you listed have to do with why 5 watt LEDs are not used. However, there are trade offs when you use a secondary lenses such as a base lose of 10-15% intensity and at least 3% photon lose.

 

[Mars Hydro]

check this link.
Epistar- Solutions for LED lighting, LED Applications, Co-activation service
Epistar product, they do not have IR . there has a 720nm, but do not have product if you click in. the same as UV.the lowest on their website is 400nm .

Chinese company Twilight says it will build for me a light with the following specs. Don't understand the percentage he brings up. What about this light and the percentage(what help does this give me).

The brand of Chip is Epistar, and they are 3watt.

Of course we are make the lamp with 760nm, 740nm, 720nm, 660nm, 630nm, 615nm, 480nm, 460nm, 440nm, 415nm, 380nm. here is the suggestion of each part : UV380nm-3%, IR760nm-1%, IR740nm-1%, IR720nm-1%, BLUE440nm-10%,BLUE 460nm-10%, BLUE 480nm-5%, Blue-Violet415nm-4%, Orange615nm-5%, Red630nm-30%, Red660nm-30%. what do you think?

 

[Mars Hydro]

another thing, 660nm 630nmn, plants like 660nm better. but both 630nm and 660nm they use 30%. I do not know they are a led grow light manufacture in China even though I have known them for a longtime.

 

[SuperFunker]

HB: How's the experiment going? Are you seeing greater/superior/improved response from 660 & 630nm @ 3:1 or 2:1 respectively?

 

[Hosebomber]

My ratios are on a percentage basis and I use much more than just red and blue, and more than 1 wavelength in each of those as well. My current ratios are 7% 62% 31% and 6% 56% 38%. However those numbers don't reflect diodes directly as I use cool and warm whites that also enhance some of those wavelengths as well. I guess the best way to answer your question is roughly 3:2 with 730nm as well.

 

[SuperFunker]

The X2 lenses that are used in Apollo, HydroGrow, etc: Are all X2/2-stage/2-piece lenses the same? How much more PAR do they produce over typical 1-piece lenses? How efficient are 1-piece lenses? Who makes the X2/2-stage/2-piece lenses?

 

[Hosebomber]

They are called secondary lenses because the diode is placed on the base with a reflective back and has a built in viewing angle (generally of 120 degrees). So the primary lenses is the little plastic (resin) bubble you see on the top of the actual diode.

 

[SuperFunker]

does adding a secondary lens improve PAR?

 

[Hosebomber]

No, it only increases penetration depth. Everything else is reduced. How much depends on the quality of the lenses. Typically, you lose 7-15% of all photons. It also reduces the coverage footprint. However more photons are going into a useful direction than without the secondary lenses. It's a trade off and generally worth it if you are growing in any other style than screen of green.