SolarStormFan wrote:Suggestions are always welcome!
Without neither confirming nor denying my identity, let me try to address the lens angle question
With any grow light, you care about 2 things:
1- Coverage area
2- Light intensity
There is an inverse correlation between these 2 metrics; the higher the coverage area, the lower the intensity and vice versa.
You can control these metrics by either changing the height of your light above the conopy or (in case of LEDs) by changing the lens angle of your LEDs. The closer you have your light to the plant, the higher the intensity, the smaller the coverage area. The narrower the beam angle of your LEDs (given a constant height), the higher the intensity, the smaller the coverage area.
If you are trying to bloom certain sun loving plants (tomatoes for example), you need high intesity, say 1,000 uMoles/m-2/s. You cannot achieve this intensity with 1W diodes unless you use narrow beam angles (90 degrees or smaller) or get really close to the plant (within a few inches.) A 3W diode does a better job from a distance. But with a set of 5W diodes you can easily achieve this intensity from a distance of 18" even with a 120 degree lens. In fact, any narrower than this is overkill. And you'll have great coverage area at 18" with a 120 degree lens.
Bottom line: With low power diodes, narrow lens angles are critical to achieve high intensity. But with high power 5W diodes, 120 degree is the way to go.
SisterMaryElephant wrote:My biggest suggestion is to add an option for adding air-cooling flanges and sealing the electronics area so that growers can use an external fan to remove the heat from the grow area. This allows the grow area to be cooler and, if they use CO2, it won't remove that while trying to keep the grow area cool.
YMMV...
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