LED Grow Light Forum

Hi!

If you have a light that exclusively consist of blue and red wavelenghts...
could you count the total amount that the light consumes (minus whatever transfers to heat) as "par watts"?

if this is all wrong ...is there any formula then that one could use,

Would like to know how powerful blue/red led lightsource it takes to equal the summer sun

regards

No, PAR is a different measurement, I believe. Different diodes will have a different PAR measurement. The total of all of the LED diodes gives you what I call LED watts. 20 5w diodes = 100 LED watts. The actual draw is what is left over.

There is no light, especially an LED light, that compares with Summer Sun that I know of. Also, PAR is pretty useless, even if you had an LED with the same PAR rating as the Sun it wouldn't grow plants the same as the Sun. PAR is a marketing tool, imho.

So what you say is , no matter how much money you would spend on growlight , there is no way to
to get the growth that the sun provides at summer?

krister wrote:So what you say is , no matter how much money you would spend on growlight , there is no way to
to get the growth that the sun provides at summer?

Correct, IMHO, even with several thousand watts of blue/red 5w LED diodes, with top and side lighting, the Sun would still do better.

You might be able to get closer by throwing a *lot* of watts at a plant, depending on the plants, but I don't think LED will beat the Sun since they can't even keep up with an equal sized HPS.

There might be odd exceptions, maybe algae, mushrooms or *some* other kind of plant would do as well but I'd still be surprised.

Well, i must say that i was a bit suprised and also a bit sad to hear that,

Would you care to explain in a short way what is the cause that the led lacks the penetrating power vs hid

Is is something about gamma rays or ir rays ?

And also , when you talk about penetration ... does that only benefit when light has to travel through thick leaves to reach the whole plant ?

or does that also let you raise the light higher above the plants

if you have a link to any site that describes the issue , please post it

krister wrote:Well, i must say that i was a bit suprised and also a bit sad to hear that,

Would you care to explain in a short way what is the cause that the led lacks the penetrating power vs hid

Is is something about gamma rays or ir rays ?

And also , when you talk about penetration ... does that only benefit when light has to travel through thick leaves to reach the whole plant ?

or does that also let you raise the light higher above the plants

if you have a link to any site that describes the issue , please post it

I've made a number of people (and LED light companies) sad by telling them that most of what you read from manufacturers is hype designed to sell more lights. Some companies are worse than others, of course, but that does seem to be a fact. Of course *what* you grow matters too.

It's the weak diodes for the most part. Even the more powerful 5w diodes just aren't powerful enough to keep up with big HID lights. Spectra has something to do with it too; red and/or blue just isn't enough. IR and UV plays a part in growth cycles too, as well as other visible colors. Gamma probably not unless the plants get mad.

It's more about canopy height and density, I'd say, than leaf thickness.

The more powerful the light the further it CAN be (look how far the Sun is ) but with indoor lighting it's also about heat management and spectra to a degree. With LED lighting, a more powerful 5w diode *can be* further away than a 1w or 3w diode but that doesn't mean you should keep it further away.

The closest link that I have is a comparison grow between 1000w HPS and a SS400w with the powerful 5w diodes and the HID won. beefxer's mmj grow test - SolarStorm 400w

Thank you for your answers so far ,and for the test link

It would be highly appreciated to hear your opinion of these 10w chips i attached.

Are they just a bunch of 1w chips packed tightly together in a motherchip ?

or could these be used in applications any higher above the plant compared to "normal" 1w single emitters

or are there penetration/reach just about same as 1w emitters?

Those are knows as LED arrays and I'm not a fan for a couple of reasons. They have had problems with overheating and you could put more individual diodes in the same space required for an array, I think. Individual diodes allow you to space them how you want too.

Yes, they're just a bunch of smaller diodes packaged and it costs more to do that.

Why would you want them further away from the plant? The further the light the less intense the light. They won't penetrate further. What we need is 10w+ individual diodes but they're not here/ready yet. Unless you're growing algae or wheatgrass type plants I'd skip the 1-3w diodes. Even then I might skip the weaker diodes.

The only reason that i want further away is that i then could build a smaller more compact armature? and still illuminate the same space as if i had a wide big armature ,

but if they dont have more power(reach) than 1w or 3w emitters ,than i that whole idea would fail , right?

That's one of the biggest problems with LED lighting, if you keep them close (because they're weak) then you have less of a footprint and you can't cover as much area but if you move them further away to increase the footprint you lose penetration/intensity. It's a catch-22 and the only real solution, that I can think of is more powerful diodes spread on a larger light.

This is exactly why, imho, HID is still better than LED and will stay that way at least until much more powerful diodes show up.