Jonhhybhydro
420 Member
Just wow so much information my head hurts
LEDs, Lumes & LUX
- Thread starter Blazer420
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Cvalleylevel
420 Member
Lots of information, what about clw ss440 units and what about the uvb supplementation on this unit.
Whole lot of info , communicated with InTheShed and I decided that I would use the lux /foot candle for a reference. If I’m at 20,000 lux I can move inches away or closer as to not burn the plants. I always use reference as a number I can record!
I’d recommend building your own (if you like DIY), and looking online for used gear (depending where you are). Building your own is not too hard and you’ll get a very high quality product. Advanced LED make a good product, and I recently built my own COB/UV/IR from Rapid LED. Keep in mind you can get UV COB/T5 bulbs/etc. separately, so don’t feel like you need a single light with everything in it. I recommend whatever you do, find a light that has dimmers for red/ blue. Its amazing how you can work with your plants when you have the ability to adjust the spectrums and their power.
Ikea do very good grow lights. See VÄXER LED bulb for cultivation PAR30 E27.
Getting very good results with these.
Getting very good results with these.
SteveJasmine
Well-Known Member
Hey guys, I'm old school which is not always smart school. I use hps and am wanting to make the shift into LEDs. I have zero experience with them and I am hoping someone can give me a very simple breakdown on how to use them. Can someone please help me! I grow in a combination soil medium and I basically want to know how to veg and flower with them. Are there different spectrums etc
RichieRich6988
Well-Known Member
Great Info I have been using a 1500 watt full spectrum and a 1000 watt full spectrum in my flower room (My Attic lol) and have had great results from changing from HID's. I am also using some LED dominate color Flood lamps, I have 2 green which I use in veg area ( Garage) and 2 yellows i use with flowers they are 60 watt each but work great on areas that the light can not penetrate the canopy. I wish They had these 30 yrs ago!!!
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Sinbad91
Well-Known Member
Hi Med Mike,
Firstly I recommend taking the time to penetrate the mass of info out there. Well worth your time as it is easy to make a mistake when purchasing.
If not, allow me to provide some helpfull tips:
1. Rule of thumb: LED uses 40% less power than HID lighting. eg: if you currently use a 600W HPS, find a 400W LED.
2. Lots of LED's are advertised incorrectly in terms of their power. Some will say: '400W LED' but then only draw 150W. These guys are full of crap. They do this because they are trying to tell you that their light is equivalent to a 400W HPS. Don't listen to them. Make sure that the wattage figure you are reading is the actual consumption of the light
3. Do yourself a favour and make sure that your LED light has some full spectrum in it. Green light is known to stimulate photosynthesis deeper within the leaves rather than just the surface like blue and red (as much as 85% of blue and red is absorbed on the surface) as well as support Photosynthesis in lower canopy leaves.
This does not mean that an LED with Red and blue chips are all bad. Lots of great LED's have Full spectrum, red, and blue chips.
5. Here's a brief summary of what wavelengths do what in plant growth:
Blue: Good for short internodal spacing - good to have in Vegetating plants as it tends to stack those nodes up nicely. In flowering, blue increases terpine and trichome production.
Red: Promotes growth throughout lifecycle. In flowering, Red contributes significantly to bud growth and density.
General rule of thumb: The more red, the bigger your buds. The more Blue, the danker the buds. Find a balance.
Green as stated above.
This is just a summary, but it's a decent starting point for you. With this you shouldn't end up buying the wrong junk light.
Hope this helped.
Bigjake8
Well-Known Member
Finishing these under a 315 for last 2 weeks wasn't getting much frost under the hps so I swapped rooms and there frosting up now
this was a problem run had pH pen issues and took a while to figure out once I chop these I'm doing a dirt run in there see what happens
So much mis information out there the LEDs I been looking at to replace my 1k I need 1k of wall draw to equal so I don't know how that's saving money but cmh I have seen the difference
Tenacious XTracts
420 Member
Nice job bro ! good read , Im using Next Lighting a Total Happy with them!!I have been putting some time into researching LED light options. They are not cheap, so I am taking my time. I found this piece that I think distills down some of the terminology and how to compare/contrast output.
Introduction
LEDs are widely accepted as a low energy light source for illumination of living spaces and many questions have been raised by individuals attempting to understand how much light is produced by a High Brightness (HB) LED when compared to an incandescent light bulb. HB LEDs are characterized by luminous intensity, usually in millicandelas, candela, or Lumen (mcd, cd, lm) in an LED specification, while most incandescent bulbs are rated in watts and lumens. How can you compare them?
Bulb brightness in Lumens
A 100 watt Bulb is rated at approximately 1700 lumens
A 60 watt incandescent bulb is rated at approximately 800 lumens
A 40 watt bulb is rated at approximately 400 lumens
A 25 watt bulb is rated at approximately 180 lumens
A 4 watt night light bulb is rated at approximately 20 lumens
LED ratings of 25,000 mcd become conceptually difficult to understand when we are accustomed to light being expressed in terms of lumens. Published lumens represent the sum of all the light emitted by the bulb in all directions.
Light measurement basics
Both candela and candlepower correspond to the amount of light (i.e. the quantity of photons) produced by a standard light source. Originally, the standard light source was a real candle so it is also called candlepower. But like most measurement standards, it's now a theoretical construct having a specific wavelength of visible light at a specific power level. The good news is that the intensity of the standard candela is nearly identical to the original standard candle. All other quantitative measurements related to light are derived from the candela.
Candelas are a measure of the amount of light generated at a source. Lumens quantify how much total light flows away from the source. Foot-candles and LUX indicate how well the surface area of an object, wall or floor is illuminated at some distance away from the source (intensity of the light reflecting off objects like the floor, wall, or work-surface).
So what does this mean? If you have a light source of 1 candela, it's also 1 candlepower in intensity. If you measured the light on a 1 square foor surface, 1 foot away, it will have 1 foot-candle of illuminance over it's surface. In metric terms, if you measured the amount of light on a square meter that was 1 meter away, it will have 1 LUX of illuminance.So you could say that the light source is generating 1 Lumen in the direction of the 1 square meter that is 1 meter away. If the light source is in the middle of a sphere and generating light in all directions, you will find that the 1 cendella light source is generating 12.57 lumens as explained below.
Light Measurement Equivalents and Common Illumination Levels:
- 1 square meter (M2) = 10.7638 ft2
- 1 LUX is defined as 1 lumen/ M2 of a surface; thus 1 LUX= 0.0929 FC,
- 1 foot candle (FC) is 1 Lumen/ ft2 of a surface; thus 1 FC=10.7638 LUX
- There are 12.57 square meters on the surface of a 1 meter radius sphere.
In real life objects are illuminated and measured in LUX:
- Full Daylight is about 10,000 LUX (imagine 10,000 lumens each and every square meter!)
- Cloudy day is about 1,000 LUX
- A lighted parking lot at night is about 10 LUX (average)
- A full moon is about 0.1 LUX
OSHA Lighting Level Recommendations for Work Spaces:
- Public spaces with dark surroundings.................................30 LUX
- Simple orientation for short temporary visits........................50 LUX
- Working spaces where visual tasks are only occasionally performed...100 LUX
- Performance of visual tasks of high contrast or large scale.........300 LUX
- Performance of visual tasks of medium contrast or small size........500 LUX
- Performance of visual tasks of low contrast or very small size.....1000 LUX
In LED specifications:
- lm is lumens - total luminous flux flowing from the LED. mlm = millilumens.
- cd is candelas - the luminous intensity at a specific forward current. mcd = millicandela.
Cd or mcd units are usually expressed as a value relative to the viewing angle. The larger the viewing angle, the more light flows given the same intensity. In other words, 1000 mcd over 130° viewing angle is a lot brighter (more lumens) than 1000 mcd over 20° viewing angle. Lumens (lm or mlm) usually refers to the total light output of the device at the rated current.
Steradians - Solid Geometry Lessons Anyone?
By definition, 1 lumen is the amount of light produced by a 1 candela source radiating out through 1 steradian (a specific cone shaped solid unit angle of 65.54°) within an imaginary sphere surrounding the light source. One candela illuminates the entire surface of a 1 meter radius sphere at an average 1 lumen for each sq. meter of surface in the 360° sphere. There are 4 π, or 12.57 steradians in a sphere. Thus, the standard candle at 1 candela intensity produces 12.57 lumens of total visible light radiated in all directions. Lumens are the total quanty of light flowing out in all directions.
a steradian An LED specification sheet shows the luminous intensity (mcd) of the LED for a specific viewing angle of the LED. The viewing angle is the angle of the beam of light produced by the LED and lens. The angle is bounded by the edges where the intensity falls to 50% of the max intensity usually found at the optical center of the beam. Thus, a 25,000 mcd LED with a viewing angle of 20° can provide 25 Candelas of light intensity within the 20° viewing angle. The question most often posed is how many lumens do you get from this type of LED light?
We can find this out by understanding the relationship of candelas, steradians and spheres using the diagram below. Note that the sphere segment has a 1 meter radius.
Calculating Candelas and Lumens
A steradian is a solid cone having 1 square meter of surface area on a sphere having a 1 meter radius. There are 4π (12.57) steradians in a sphere. The light grey area is known as a spherical cap that we will illuminate with a point light source.
The surface area of a spherical cap is calculated using the formula S=2πRh where h, the height of the cap, is completely dependent on the viewing angle (apex of the cone). A smaller angle, results in a smaller area on the surface and a smaller height of the center of the cap.
LED Viewing Angle Calculation If you remember your trigonometry, we can calculate the height of the cap h, in a 20° cone (the viewing angle) by finding the length of a 10° right triangle. A 1 Meter radius simplifies the calculation and the height is found using the formula 1-Cos(10°). Notice we use half of the viewing angle for the calculation. LED specs will show either viewing angle or half angle so it is necessary to distinguish between the two when reading the spec. Viewing angle is denoted by "2∅" in most LED specs.
At 1 meter, a 25,000 mcd LED with a 20° viewing angle covers a spherical cap area of 2*π*1*0.015 = 0.095 square meters with 25 candelas of intensity. In order to determine total lumens flowing, we must determine how bright the intensity would be if the same amount of light flow were covering an entire 1 square meter area on the surface of that 1 meter radius sphere. We know that the 20° cone covers 0.095 M2 and multiplying that small area times the candela value tells us how many lumens the device delivers into a 1 M2 area. This half angle cosine formula 2 π*(1-Cos(∅))*25 Candelas yields [6.283*(1-cos(10°))*25] = 2.39 lumens.
Now that we've standardized our light output in lumens per square meter, the same LED die, when used with a wider beam lens (i.e. 40°), will have a lower candela value. Using the above calculation, a 25,000 mcd 20° viewing angle LED has the same luminous flux as a 6,250 mcd 40° viewing angle LED. This is the same LED die with a different lens. Recent LED specs have begun to include lumen values to help in this determination of total light output.
This mathematical method is a close approximation of lumens using the candela value and the viewing angle of the LED. Other factors in the construction of the LED can change the luminous flux relationship with the luminous intensity of the die. For example, some LEDs will have less light lost to the sides and rear of the die and reflect more of the intensity out through the lens.
LED Radiation Diagrams
A radiation diagram for a specific LED shows how the viewing angle is distinguished from all the other light emitted by the LED. The red arrows indicate the 60° half angle or 120° viewing angle where the light drops to 50% of max intensity. This is the forward radiation. Note that the most light is usually on the 0° X axis and this represents the maximum candela output. Note also that as the light spreads out across the viewing angle, the relative candela output drops to zero (in this particular case) at 90°.
Any light that is absorbed into the substrate of the LED base is not seen or measured. You can see why altering the construction of the LED to reduce light lost in other directions would cause a change in the lumen output.
When an LED spec sheet specifies the lumen output rather than candela or millicandela, the Total Luminous Flux (lm) number represents all the light that is emitted from the device as measured by an integration sphere. The radiation diagram is used to see what the relative level of light is as it radiates out in any given direction.
Comparing real bulbs to LEDs
Let's compare a standard 4-watt night light bulb with a high brightness white LED. The night light bulb is rated at about 20 total lumens. The difference between an LED light source and a free standing bulb is that the 20 lumens are radiated out in a 360° 3D space. We would need 10 LEDs rated at 2 lumens each to obtain the equivalent total luminous flux. An object in the room will receive only a portion of this flux. When the 4-watt, 20 lumen bulb is placed in the center of a 1 meter radius 360° sphere, the surface area receives 20 / 12.57 = 1.6 lumens per M2. At 1 meter, that is 1.6 lux.
An LED having a 20° viewing angle illuminates 0.095 M2 at a distance of 1 meter. The LED is required to have a luminous intensity of 1.6 lumens / 0.095 or 16.8 candelas to deliver 1.6 lumens over the entire square meter to equal the 4-watt bulb's light output. With luminous intensities ranging from 20 up to 40 candela, today's hi brightness LEDs can easily produce this light output.
When a night light is plugged into a wall receptacle, typically half is directed into the room while the other half is reflected off the wall. Any reflection off the wall increases this with indirect lighting. A mirror would reflect nearly all of the light while a painted wall could reflect less than half depending on the color and surface finish. Absorption in the plastic decorative shade also reduces the total lumens of direct light delivered to the room.
Comparing LED Watts and Incandescant Lamp Watts
There seems to be a lot of confusion over this as many people want to compare LED watts with incandescant watts. The short answer is that they are not easily comparable! An incandescant light bulb consumes 40, 60 or 100 watts of POWER. Approximately 90% of power consumed is given off as heat and the rest given off as light. The term Luminous Efficacy is used to describe the ratio of the visible light energy emitted to the total power input to the lamp. This visible light is measured in lumens.
Incandescant lamps are full spectrum devices where LEDs are not. LED's will give off a specific range of wavelengths. The power consumed to do this is very little compared to incandescant lamps.
As an example, assume a 350 mA LED with a forward voltage drop of 3.2 Volts. Using Ohm's Law, (Power = current * voltage or P=IE)you can see that this LED will consume about 1.12 Watts. CREE has XLamp XR-E LEDs that can produce over 200 Lumens at this power. Comparing that to a 25 watt incandescant lamp (approximately 180 lumens) becomes difficult because the lamp consumes 25 times the power of the Cree LED but the LED has more visible light output. One must also consider the inefficiencies of converting AC to DC power, but even a 70% efficiency demonstrates that the LED is far superior to incandescant bulbs for illumination efficiency.
RichieRich6988
Well-Known Member
well most of the better LEDs have a switch for veg or flower on the unit. But they are mostly all full spectrum unless you get a flood light that is one color I have 4 of those to fill in where th upper lights cant hit. For Veg Blue and Green are key to the growth. for flower , usually it is red or yellow or purple and Ultra violet. But I will tell you it is way better than HIDs. the money you will save on eletricity will astound you. if there is anything I can help you with let me know.
Gazoo
Member
Here is a LUX to PPFD ON-LINE Converter that lets you choose the light source for a better more
accurate conversion
NOTE : You can USE the SPECTRUM Box to choose the TYPE of light you are converting from.
Using the last Option "Red + Blue + White LED 450 +650nm + 3500k" for my ViparSpectra vt600-S
I was able to convert it and get readings that were very close to there ADVERTISED readings
LUX to PPFD converter
SteveJasmine
Well-Known Member
Thanks heaps I'm using 4 1800watt cobs and I've now added 2 400watt hps to add some more red/yellow to the tent which has been great. It's warmed the room up a bit which was very much needed because of the very cold winter nights here. I'm going to save for some better quality LEDs that have the option to switch spectrum. The ones I have are okay but I would like more control.
greenfjhes
420 Member
Experts confirm that using regular incandescent lights will not help you grow strong or healthy plants. But, using full spectrum LED grow lights will help you to deliver the feature of light in a particular spectrum that a plant needs for growing in its full potential.
Full spectrum leds with added uvbs are amazing! They elevate terp profiles, ofcourse most of all the uvb increases potency. But high end full spectrum LEDS make a huge difference for canopy penetration. I'm working with 2000watts of full spectrum leds from california lightworks. My plants are huge! I couldn't ask for better light setup
They are cheap compared to the ones they run against.
They are cheap compared to the ones they run against.
Bchbudman
Well-Known Member
Question, I am getting an average 22,000 lux at the top of the seedling, approx. 10inches away, using a FSG-TEK 600w LED. I figure the output is not 600, more around 250w. Can someone please tell me what my lumin range will be, and if I need to purchase another LED to help out. Only have 2girls right now.
Bchbudman
Well-Known Member
Big J, I posted about lux reading, is 22,000 lux at the top of the seedling, with a 600w LED, going to produce enough output? I know it's not a true 600w, probably 150w - 250w. Will this work for 2 plants?
Bchbudman
Well-Known Member
I am pulling 770
I am pulling 770umol at the top of the seedlings is that enough for proper Veg, and flower?
StonerWunSimba
Well-Known Member
This is a question I have been dying to have answered!!! Glad I found this!!!
RichieRich6988
Well-Known Member
First of all how big of a space are you growing in? And to make sure I have enough light for the entire plant I actually have 4 other 15-30 watt led floodlights that work great for filling in spots where the big light does not penetrate. I have 2 yellow 1 green and 1 red led floods screwed into a fixture with a big clip so i can put them anywhere and they are a whole lot less expensive than getting a whole new over head set up
