Phlizon LED Grow Light Valentine's Day Giveaway

[Trump]

IMO, the DLI charts are more a guideline than anything else. Each cultivar will be different in how they handle light intensity and volume.

This last run I really pushed the VPD and DLI to levels, to what some would say, are extreme levels but I was vigilant in watching plant reaction. This is where I would tell newbs to be extra careful with when using these tools. Once you have a good grasp of plant reaction these tools will be even more useful to your tweaking the environment to their liking.

I like to push my plants right to the edge of where they are comfortable. This lets me know what the plants limits are and I can adjust accordingly.

 

[Smokey0418]

I will agree that people can have great looking flowers at 26 DLI . Heck the florescent tubes I started with back in the 90s gave me nice looking flowers now granted they were like 2 inches away lol . Those plants didn't produce a lot of bud due to the light. I should go pick up a fixture i used two footers and put might light meter under it and do the math ..i would bet the dli would probably be like 10 lol . The biggest problem that you can run into not understanding DLI is giving your plants more light than they will use in a day which you can easily do with LED lights and that is just a waste of electricity and added heat.

Led lamps have come along way there are some out there even for small tents that would require you to run co2 to use all the light you are getting from it at recommended distances ...this is way different than going and buying an hps or hid buld and looking at the box and going hell yeah this puts out 60,000 lumens .

Looking at your DLI gives you the opportunity to increase your harvest weight for the particular strain you are running , the same way hid and hps lamps did when people moved from fluorescent's to them.

Note that this is the first time I have ever put DLI into my grow equation and When it comes to DLI my Focus is to hit 60 DLI since I'm running co2 at 1200 ppm in the room as well as vpd to get everything I can out of my girls and OH My is it working ..Its working so good that its scary . Thats one of the reasons I shared ..to help

Actually great flower is ok.

But I’m more interested in seeing better results than I am now with way less.

This is just a hobby for me and certainly I can grow way more than I could ever consume.

So Co2 would just be an added cost not needed.

I would like to use much less for more.

Kind of like most employers, lol.

 

[OGpapa]

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Micromole per Joule​

The industry standard for measuring grow light efficiency is micromole per joule (sometimes written as umol/j, μmol/j, umolj-1 or PPF/W). That means that for every joule of electrical energy (joule = watt * second) a certain number of photon micromoles are produced. One micromole = 602,000,000,000,000,000. That’s a dizzyingly large amount of photons!

Highly efficient LED grow light range from 1.5 μmol/j and up (this number is constantly improving). Many of the most efficient LED grow lights are low power and, as a buyer, you may have to weigh out whether you are looking for efficiency or intensity, because at times one can be at the sacrifice of the other. Top brand HPS (high pressure sodium) lights are around 1.7 μmol/j.

Wall Plug Efficiency​

Another measurement relevant to DIY LED grow light enthusiasts is wall plug efficiency (WPE). This is a ratio of the amount of energy put in and the amount of light produced. This can be expressed as a percentage, such as 60% “wall plug efficiency,” which means that 60% of the electricity that goes through the light gets converted into light. The rest gets turned into heat that will need to be dealt with in the grow light itself as well as the room that houses the light.
It’s not typical to rate a grow light’s wall plug efficiency, but high-quality diodes made specifically for horticulture occasionally have this listed. For instance, high quality blue LEDs at 450nm can reach wall plug efficiencies of 60%, red LEDs at 660nm with 50% WPE, and green 530nm with 25% WPE. Wall plug efficiency can be calculated using a diode’s radiant flux (not luminous flux, which is a measure of how bright a light appears to the human eye and not how many photons it is producing) divided by the total wattage of electricity the diode uses. Remember to convert between milliwatt and watt, as necessary (1000 milliwatts = 1 watt).

Achieving High Efficiency​

Brands increase their efficiency by having high quality diodes, running them at low energy, having excellent heat management, and using a high percent of the most efficient diode wavelengths. While some LED companies market themselves as having many different color LEDs, this can often be at sacrificed efficiency, since each color of LED has a different efficiency at producing light. For instance, 450nm, 660nm, and high kelvin white (white LEDs are 450nm with a phosphor coating) are very efficient, while green LEDs are not very efficient.

Intensity​

While there are no doubt that grow light spectrum is important, some studies suggest that even more important than spectrum is light intensity. There are a number of ways of measuring the intensity of a grow light – some good and others bad.

Wattage ​

This is the most common measure of grow light intensity and is a measure of electricity (watt = amp x volt). This measure can be misleading, though. Some manufacturers (the better ones) give the actual wattage the unit uses – the wall plug wattage. Others, typically lesser brands, will give you the max wattage rating of the LED diodes. To use a simple example, a grow light could call itself 90 watt if it has thirty 3 watt LED’s, however, it is common practice to run LED’s at half wattage to reduce heat production (and therefore heatsink cost) and increase efficiency. So, what was called a 90w grow light could really be 45w (or less!).
Bottom line, you want actual power draw, not LED wattage rating. It can be good to be suspicious of overly round numbers – you are likely getting the diode rating and not the actual power draw. Knowing the wattage of the diodes isn’t useless, though. You will get a heck of a lot more light out of a 3 watt diode run at 1 watt than a 1 watt diode run at 1 watt.

PPF ​

PPF (Photosynthetic Photon Flux) measures the total amount of light produced by a grow light in terms of micromoles of photons produced per second (often written as umol/s or μmol/s). This is an important number because unlike PPFD (which will be explained below) it can’t be manipulated and tells you the full amount of light coming from the LED grow light.

PPFD​

PPFD (Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density) measures the amount of micromoles of photons striking a square meter per second (often written as umol/m2/s, μmol/m2/s, or μmolm-2s-1).
Full daylight sun at noon in the summer is around 2000 μmol/m2/s. What your plants actually need, however, is likely to be much less than that. Infact, because the Sun’s intensity is only that bright for a small portion of the day and because the angle of that intensity changes throughout the day, providing that much light for an extended period of time would very likely be damaging to your plant. A ‘light response curve’ shows how effectively a plant utilizes light at differing intensities. Depending on the plant, at levels greater than 800-1000 μmol/m2/s the efficiency that a plant uses the light starts to slow. Meaning, you can provide your plant more light than this, but you might not see a huge change in outcome.
It’s worth noting that some LED companies can increase their PPFD numbers by measuring extremely close to the grow light or using spot-light like reflectors or lenses. An LED company should always report what distance their PPFD numbers were taken at (e.g., 24 in, etc.).

PAR ​

This is not a measurement at all, but instead, a type of light that can be absorbed by plants (and coincidentally seen by humans). It ranges from 400 to 700nm.

Lumens ​

This is a measure of the total apparent brightness of a light source and not how many photons are produced. As the cliche goes, “lumens are for humans.” You can think of it as the brightness of a single candle (although the real definition is more complex). By in large, lumens are not a useful measure of light intensity for plants since they overweight colors like green and underweight reds and blues. For instance, 1W of radiant flux at 550nm (green, which the human eye is very sensitive to) is 675 lumens. One watt of radiant flux at 660nm (deep red) is only 45 lumens. The red light will be more easily absorbed by your plant in photosynthesis than the green one, but your eye will see the green light as 15 times brighter than the red light!

Lux/Footcandle ​

These measure how much brightness is striking a unit of area. Contrast this with lumen which is the total amount of brightness coming from the light source in all directions. Lux = one lumen per meter squared. Footcandle = one lumen per foot squared.

Spectrum​

When choosing a spectrum of light for growing plants, two main factors should be weighed:

• Photosynthesis – You need to choose a light that caters to the energy production of your plants. The McCree curve and absorption peaks of photopigments are worth researching to learn more about this. Read here for more.
• Photomorphogenesis – ‘Photo’ means ‘light’, ‘morpho’ means ‘shape,’ ‘genesis’ can be translated as ‘creation of.’ So, it’s using light to create a certain plant shape. Light can do a lot more than just change the growth pattern of a plant, though. It can trigger or delay flowering and fruiting, change chemical composition, among other diverse reactions. Read more on this here.

Spectral terms relevant for white LEDs:

CRI​

CRI (color rendering index) describes how “full spectrum” a light is and is typically only used for white LEDs. This scale maxes out at 100. “High CRI” means that a light is producing an abundance of each color within the visible spectrum and therefore “renders” objects illuminated by the light as the color that they would appear under full daylight (which is 100 CRI). High CRI may sound more appealing, but there are instances where low CRI can be more desirable, since low CRI phosphors can be more efficient at producing light and run cooler (due to Stoke’s shift). What “high CRI” typically translates to is more red and cyan than “low CRI.” Not all light is created equal. Here’s some help on this topic.

CCT​

CCT (correlated color temperature) is a measure of how “warm” or “cool” a light source appears. The scale represents the appearance of a glowing object at different temperatures, measured in the temperature scale of Kelvin (a scale commonly used in physics and chemistry, abbreviated as ‘K’). For instance, if you were to place an iron rod within a furnace and heat it to 2700K its glow would have the same appearance as a 2700K lamp. Higher Kelvin lights produce more blue and lower Kelvin lights produce more yellow, orange, and red.

 

[OGpapa]

Actually great flower is ok.

But I’m more interested in seeing better results than I am now with way less.

This is just a hobby for me and certainly I can grow way more than I could ever consume.

So Co2 would just be an added cost not needed.

I would like to use much less for more.

Kind of like most employers, lol.

Co2 isn't needed. But when you look at a 30% possible gain if done right. Wouldn't it be worth it?

One of the most significant advantages of using CO2 is that it can lead to bigger yields, better quality, and faster growth. Cannabis plants that receive higher levels of CO2 can produce up to 30% more buds than those grown in normal atmospheric conditions. Additionally, the increased CO2 levels can help plants to stand higher temperatures, which can be beneficial in grow rooms that are warmer than optimal. Finally, CO2 enrichment is extremely effective when used in conjunction with HPS and LED grow lights, resulting in even faster growth rates and larger yields.

 

[OGpapa]

In nature the suns max summer veg is 950 PPFD and down to 550PPFD at end of flower in fall. That is a DLI of 61.5 veg steadily dropping to below 24 DLI by harvest. Most grower start by trying to get there indoor grow to emulate a natural outdoor grow. If you start fallowing the DLI chart first you are inversing nature and only part of the environment. The chart shows the last step, of an absolute max DLI, on a clinically perfected grow.

In a controlled environment, we control nature. Right? Wrong?

All the information presented shall be taken with a grain of salt. It's there for those who choose to perfect their growing abilities. There is no right or wrong.

Like the kiddie bumpers at the bowling alley.

 

[Sativa1970]

In a controlled environment, we control nature. Right? Wrong?

Yes, we can mount a dial to control any of the environmental factors. Those dials can nudge the plants natural ability. If you turn one dial 180deg opposite of the natural environment you need to turn all of the dials. It's just bio chemistry and you are trying for a balanced equation.

The perfect grow is simply how you enjoy growing. Organic, technical, yield, terpenes, whatever you enjoy.