Hello guys,

I'm exchanging eMails with a representative from a LED company. I asked him if they could produce a custom light for growing, and here's what he told me:

Our options are as follow:
940nm, 850nm, 660nm, 630nm, 610nm, 590nm
570nm, 530nm, 510nm, 470nm, 460nm, 400nm
and a total of 64 LEDs in the bulb.

http://www.hebeiltd.com.cn/?p=led.diode

I've got in my grow notebook the following quote from a post:::
<<<<<<<<<<<<<
for good growing you need blue, red and deep red spectrum. for clorophile A you need 400-430nm of blue and 650-670 nm of red. for clorophile B you need 420-470 nm of blue and 620-650 nm of red.
peak absorbtions are at A: 425 and 660 nm, and at B: 450 and 630.
the power of spectrum should be stronger in red spectrum (arround 85-90%), others arround 5% of each. i did some test grows, but i only used 470 and 630 spectrum and the plants looked just fine. if you give them all the spectrum (for A and B type), they will grow even better.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What do you guys think? I think this is great oportunity, they're offering to build a couple of prototypes so we can test them out. At the very least, we're all going to win from this.

There are two threads I'm following on the boards of Overgrow.com about LED lights, but it's just a mess in those boards. I preffer to discuss this here with you guys.

As to the power, the anlges of the LEDs, the soldering, voltage, amperages, etc. I'm pretty sure we'll hammer that out with the company engineers.

What I'm looking in this thread is some solid advice on what would be our best trial run... what LEDs to use?

I don't know what you think, but initially, I'm thinking we should try two types of bulbs: One for vegetative growth (blue). The other for flowering (red).
Suggestions?

Thanks,

-turtle420

LED...

as in .. light emitting diodes?

That would make no sense...

Looking into it Turtle..

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helps to checkout the link first i guess..

Bulbs composed of LED's.. interesting.... extremely interesting..

for those who don't really know what LED's are.. they're in pretty much every electronic device now.. anything with a green,red or blue little light. (ie.keyboard,monitor,printer,tv..etc)

Keep us updated man.. very interesting

I could see the use.. but the logistics of it are beyond me.

__________________
As we live...a life of ease. Everyone of us...has all we need. Sky of Blue...and Sea of Green. In our Yellow Submarine.
Bob's CannabisButter Recipe!
Everything in Moderation...

Actually, it would...

LEDs are shitload more efficient than incandescent bulbs... and CFLs... and HPS... and MH...

BobBong,
This would be a big panel with 64 LEDs... not some small thing with 3 or 4 LEDs...

Among the adantages of LEDs:
-Very little heat (CFLs are pretty hot, compared to LEDs)
-very efficient (if have 400W of LEDs... Jesus! You'll have a mini-sun!)
-They produce narrow frequencies of light, instead of many colors of light

Thanks for the input Bob! Here's a link you might find interesting:
http://www.ledgrowlights.com/GrowlightKits.htm
But again, we're looking to make something better than what these guys have.

Keep those brains turning!

Hey, if it will help the plants grow better Im all for it. Im not very smart with all of that technical stuff but I am an experianced grower. I would love to test the light. Anything better that my MH and HPS I would love to try out.Peace out and keep us updated.

BudMan, BobBong,

Excellent! I'm waiting on the input from growers with more technical knowledge (Zandor!!!) to give us some input.

All the updates should be here, as it's from here that I'll be taking the information to send over to the LED company.

Thanks guys,

-turtle420

Bumpity bump? Please, this could be good... Some input, please.

Which LED wavelengths would you pick?

from what i understand and have read, it`s not been researched enough to give dependable results, it all sounds good on paper, sounds like it would work, but i havent seen anything that proves it to be better yet. i`m sure it will and that they would cost an arm and a leg to aquire.
as far as your experience goes turtle, dont get your First grow all confused up with all these new ways, they may all be good ways, but keep it simple the first time around and as your experience grows, so will your actual growing knowledge, reading up on that stuff is real good to do(it seems like you have done alot of that)but there aint nothing like actual hands on experience.
good luck on your future grows

NotaNovice,

Thanks for the suggestion

I'm not aiming to use these LEDs in this 1st grow of mine... What I was thinking is that we can try and come up with the best wavelength solution, then order up three or four bulbs... Then, some of us, try this as a side-experiment.

No, you're right... I wouldn't (and won't) replace my HPS/MH with these LEDs for this grow... but if I get my hands on them? Ufff... I'll build another cabinet in one day! Not so much airflow needed... etc. etc. etc...

Thanks for the input Nota!

some of these new taillights (red) in color put out alot of light, and they are already built into a reflective base, worth a shot.

Yeah, definitely...

I think that our advantage here is that we can build a custom light. There are various wavelengths of red (nm), ... the company I'm speaking with has LEDs that are able to produce the ones listed at the top of this thread.

I don't think people in these boards actually are understanding the situation:
Yes, it's new stuff, un-proven... BUT, the company is on OUR side... They're willing to go the extra mile (making custom bulbs!!!) for us... they know, and we know, it's a win/win situation.

I think I'm going to pick some wavelengths to the best of my abilities, and ask the company for a price quote on that prototype. Once I've got that, if it isn't too much $$$, I'll fork it over to them, and as soon as I receive the bulb, I'll do a controlled-setup grow to see how it turns out.

One thing I'm thinking, from a marketing success point of view, is that we shouldn't ask the company to cram both vegetative and flowering wavelengths into ONE bulb. Growers nowadays are acustomed to having bulbs for veg and bulbs for flowering... Even if it's better, I would preffer to have one bulb for veg (blue) and one bulb for flowering (red).

Now, I'm thinking:
VEGETATIVE bulb --->
................90% blue nm
................10% red nm
..........nm....# LEDs
..........630...2
..........660...2
..........400...30
..........460...30

FLOWERING bulb --->
................90% red nm
................10% blue nm
..........nm....# LEDs
..........630...30
..........660...30
..........400...2
..........460...2

Any and all input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

-turtle420

ok I have looked into this and the perception is its a 2 to 1

shit... anyway the perception is its a 2 to 1 ratio in favor of the red lights. Now im not sure if you get the different colored lights because the glass is that color or the bulbs themselves are of a different spectrum of light any idea's? they have some on ebay right now only from 1 person though for 85 bucks for blues and 119 for reds (ouch) I think I like my idea better and build it out of one of those reflective tail lights. my car actually has those exact same kind of led lights, and they are bright as fuck. you can replace each of those little lights (theres hundreds) with any color you care too (still wondering about the spectrum though).

in fact I have seen those same damm lights on the back of trucks they look like red reflectors but they have the bright led dots all over them when they turn on there lights you seen those? those would be cheap and commercially available.

Seedbare,

Yeah man... I know the tailights that you're talking about... Mercedes Benz have started using them for about 3-4 years (I think). And I've seen since about 2 years ago many retrofit bulbs made out of LEDs but for the normal bulbs' sockets. I've seen those especially in the tailights of public transport buses... they've replaced their normal bulbs with those LED paneled lights... And I've also seen them on traffic lights... Instead of that HUGE 10/12" incandescent bulb, now they've got a circular panel of LEDs... they look prettier...

Anyways, back to our point:
They make the different colors depending on the materials they use for the LED themselves. Those are n-type and p-type semiconductors with a special mix in the middle... when they vary different elements in that "special mix", they get different colors. Of course, they also color the plastic housings to 'give' more color to the, um, color.

I don't know if we're looking at the same eBay lights, but yeah, $$$ !!!

Your ratio of 2:1, I think, is right on. But we can by-pass that by using different bulbs: one for vegetative (blue) and one for flowering (red). That's why I picked the 90%/10% ratios on our hypothetical bulbs above. I would imagine that during flowering, the plants need at least some blue light... Same as during vegetative, the plants need some red light.

I don't know SeedBare... please keep on thinking about this. I'd really like to come up with some sort of 'bulb' specifications to send this company... They build the bulbs, we test them out.

Looking forward to you opinion SeedBare...

-turtle420

I also have another crazy idea i have seen led christmas lights (without a colored lens) in dollar stores I say get about a dozen of these strings of lights arrange them in a circle tie with some duct tape and wala a perfectly useable grow light, im sure they sell them in reds and blues.. I would want to confirm they can grow plants....

the big advantage to these bulbs is they claim they grow plants as well as hid lighting, they are very energy effiecient 10watts instead of 1000watts they are cool (no airconditioning, fans) which means no helicoptors picking up heat signatures, now they do make uv led lights I wonder if that's what there using??? they dont depend upon lumens but upon the wavelength of light (they claim 100% usage of wavelength) now this all sounds well and good but the real test would be growing with them.

Seedbare,

What bulbs/systems are you looking @ that claim 100% usage of wavelength?

Can you provide a link? Are we talking about the ones @ eBay?

it could have been the ebay site on there store at ebay they have some stuff on them Ill look and come back and tell you, Ive been looking at alot of sites though.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache...g+plants&hl=en

hey turtle420 I found some really cheap led bulbs that fit standard 120v socket (are you in the states?) in red and blues (these people have got to be selling them for this purpose) anyway they range from 7 to 23 bucks, I can email you the link if youd like. so I dont believe it will be necessary to have something created and its cheaper this way anyway.

SeedBare,

Very very usefull... interesting... reading it right now...

As to sending me he link, yes please; ineedit06 at
Yeah, I'm in the states.

Reading right now... I'll re-post in a little while...

We're on to something seedbare! I tell you! We're on to something!

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...i?product=MR16

some of those bulbs you use with the 12vdc thing you plug into the wall, but some of them use standard 120vdc not all of the bulbs are the right ones just the ones in which you can choose the color (hate to point out the obvious but hey)

On that site it says "We do not offer anything bright enough for general household lighting. LED bulbs are used for accent and other low light applications." They can't be appropriate for growing.

__________________
"And though we'd eliminated the threat of the enemy flying planes into buildings, no-one was prepared for terrorists flying two buildings into the sides of planes. No-one was killed but a lot of people were surprised." -Time Trumpet, Episode 3

growing with led's has nothing to do with lumens or brightness. it has to do with wavelength.