Plasma lights anyone?

[labexperiment]

So I was in my local grow store talking to the guy about L.E.D. lights and he kept saying they are crap, so I asked him his opinion of what is the best out there and he replied "plasma". Does anyone have any experience with plasma?

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the input and discussion.

 

[JJ Bones]

I haven't seen too many plasma grows yet, it's pretty new. You can find more successful LED grows then Plasma.

I would ask that guy to show some pics of a plasma room.

 

[labexperiment]

If there are any sponsors selling plasma lights in the forums I will gladly sacrifice my time and energy to do a test/demo for you.

 

[CO Finest]

Plasma sucks if you live in a mile high city or higher. They like to over heat or burn boards out. Stick with LED they have already proven they work and last long

 

[PlanetJ]

There is an issue in the cannabis community regarding do's and dont's .. it's called progress, and taking it in.

Up till not too long ago, MH/HPS was the only way to go. Then CFL's started becomming more powerfull, and are a viable lightsource atm in small operations. Then LED's came along .. first a lil weak, but atm: busting MH/HPS setups, if I can believe the finished journals.

The owner of the coffeeshop here, is convinced that LED sucks .. he has to see it work with his own eyes before he believes it .. I'm about to point him to a few very succesfull grows. The growshop is not much better ... veg for 8 days is their advice ...

The car used to be slower then a horse. I'm glad we didnt stop developing them tho

 

[CO Finest]

You will always find all different kind of light hatters. I even sat here and was reading a CFL user talking how bad T5 lights are
(umm.. same thing) Chevy VR Ford thing. Just tell him to come over to my house and look at my plants. If you really want to get them all fired up have them compare nute company's lol. Best advise I can give is. What ever works and is in your budget and you are happy with, that is best light for you.

 

[JJ Bones]

T5 is highly under-rated, I think they work great.

 

[CO Finest]

I agree JJ. I use T5,T8,LED,MH,HPS and now some freaking CFL lol Needed lights real bad in back right corner in veg room and only had cfl laying around lol.

 

[Icemud]

I was looking at different lighting options over the past few years and plasma was one that came up, I researched and was like, ok, nah....

The reason I didn't consider plasma is this, even though the lights run pretty efficient for the wattage used, the spectrum is very similar to the sun... Now, not a bad thing, and probably would work better than a regular MH or HPS being that a lot of the peaks are in the Par region, however, plasma's, especially sulfur plasma's are very strong output in the green area....which as we all know, doesn't really benefit the plants much...Wasted light energy!

Now with lighting, especially LED, the goal is to give the plants the light spectrum, PAR, they want, (not much greens, heavy blue and red), so when compared to LED, I don't see plasma being an advantage.

 

[Icemud]

So I was in my local grow store talking to the guy about L.E.D. lights and he kept saying they are crap, so I asked him his opinion of what is the best out there and he replied "plasma". Does anyone have any experience with plasma?

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the input and discussion.

Keep in mind that local grow stores stay in business in profit margin, and with LED because of the already high price/cost of the products, to stay competitive there is very little margin. This is why a lot of grow stores don't even carry LED in my area in Socal because for the space they take up they don't make enough profit.. Not sure if this is the case with what you experienced, but a worthy note.

I've never used plasma, I did test out the gavita 300w plasma's with my PAR meter at a local grow shop and they output for the price and wattage was not impressive, however they do have an excellent spectrum. I think as auxillary lighting they would be great, but for a main light source, I couldn't see paying that price for the low PPFD they put out.

I would look into COB lighting that uses either Cree, Bridgelux Vero or CitizenLED. COB technology is very impressive and you can buy them either prebuilt, or you can do a DIY which is very popular.

Also a correction on my post from about 2 years ago above.... after further lighting research has been done, green is actually very useful in a spectrum and only is about 20% difference from red/blue in the amount of light that is absorbed... (constantly learning and new research has slightly changed my opinion from 2 years ago).

 

[thebeast27]

Id test any light. And i agree its anoying when u see a grower with a light sponsor not growing the plant to its full potential. Is a shame.and doesnt show the full potential of the lights for growers to see;?) there is lots of master growers here now on 420 mag i class myself as 1 for sure. and there is lots of master growers in the making in this community.keep up the good work every1 and happy growing every1