www.ledgrowlight.com > Hoax or Real?

[url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

Someone recently e-mailed me a link to this website. About a year ago I expressed interest in using LEDs as grow lamps here on the forum but was told by several individuals on this forum that the cost of full spectrum LEDs is fairly prohibitive. I was curious if maybe something had changed in the last year or if this was still the case.

Which leads me to my primary question, is this a hoax website intended to trick folks who don't know otherwise into spending money or is this legitimate?

Thanks,
Phil

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

That site doesn't work for me. I doubt it exists.

LED grow lamps are a silly idea. Grow lamps are usually HID, which is much more efficient. LED's are also nowhere near powerful enough. Remember that you're trying to simulate sunlight!

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

I saw a display at the UW Madison WI engineering Expo using LEDs for plant lights. Some if not all The plant growing experiments sent up in the shuttles used LEDs.

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

Plants don't use the entire spectrum; as I understand it, that's why they are yellow to green; the wavelengths past blue are the ones that get absorbed and power photosynthesis. Red-orange is also absorbed, while green and near-IR are all reflected. So you probably don't need full-spectrum.... but of course IANAB (I am not a botanist).

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

plants dont need green.
thats why the plant tubes are violet/purple

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

Plants generally need blue (around 470nm) for foliage (leaves), and red (around 660nm) for flowering. At least that's what I understand, anyway.
Fluorescent "grow lite" tubes are a purple color for this very reason; plants generally don't need green or yellow light, so these colors are deficient in a "grow lite" tube.

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

I would guess LED growlights would be a boon for those growing "herbs" indoors since law enforcement can spot indoor farms using helicopter-mounted IR gear to look for the heat put out by massive arrays of traditional growlites. Reduced power consumption is another plus, as I've heard more than one case where massive electricity bills were used in tracking down indoor farms.

Are UV LEDs soon to join the ranks of lithium batteries and cold medicine on the DOJ's list of terrorist paraphenalia?

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

Actually, several years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that aerial surveillance that used IR to randomly locate growers is illegal. The court ruled that this was a constitutionally forbidden search, since no other grounds for suspicion exist. This would not apply to investigations where other evidence (like sky-high utility bills) give reasonable cause for closer scrutiny.
Just to clarify... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

LED's are used by NASA as grow lights on the Space Station ( The lettus turns out a Dark Gray/Green!. Not only that, but it's now been discovered that certain Red LED arrays beamed at 2" from a healing would site, accelerate scar tissue regeneration by 4 times! When I get the links together & Pictures posted I'll send them on. In the meantime- Use Google to search on : LED + Therapy + "Grow Lights"

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

http://www.ledgrowlights.com/index.htm
Here is the site. Look like a S was forgotn.

Here is info on nasa stuff
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/light_farming_010926.html

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

But LED's are less efficient than fluorescent or HID lights, so they'll make even more heat.

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

[ QUOTE ]
paulr said:
But LED's are less efficient than fluorescent or HID lights, so they'll make even more heat.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is that true across the board? I think it's true for white LEDs, but if you only need a single wavelength, isn't an array of red (or a combination of red and blue/near UV) LEDs going to be more efficient for this use? Additionally, LEDs seem to becoming more efficient at a faster rate than either fluorescent or HID, so that advantage may not last much longer, either.

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

[ QUOTE ]
tylerdurden said:
Are UV LEDs soon to join the ranks of lithium batteries and cold medicine on the DOJ's list of terrorist paraphenalia?

[/ QUOTE ]
UV LEDs are very inefficient - about 10 times less output than red. They don't even make Luxeon UV's.

Cool, efficient flourescent would be the way to go, for umm growing herbs, that is. You could use propane for all of your other energy needs, and elctricity for flourescent lighting - no heat, no big utility bill.

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

The problem with flourescents is that their output drops dramatically with increases in distance from the light source. In practical terms, the tops of whatever plant you are growing end up being too near the tube if placed within the light's grow-zone. The heat from the tubes invariably damage the plants. HID's (like HPS or MH lamps) give off sufficient light energy to allow some distance between light source and plants, alleviating some of the radiant heat damage problems. With proper ventilation, the heat from HID's can be managed...it's how the pros do it.

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

Think the main thing to be noted here, is that hydroponics areas generally (well, large ones) use HPS lamps, either in the 250 or 400W varietys, and these things put out a LOT of heat. To the extent that managing the heat is a problem in a lot of applications (i.e. trying not to cook the plants as they're growing).

I'm assuming that we're talking about using LED's for a much smaller scale application of this, where the raw output of HPS lamps aren't required, so the efficiency drop isn't an issue really due to the fact that a HPS lamp would quite simply be overkill.

In case anyone was looking for a direct comparison of efficiencies of various sources, here is a very useful graph of them over the years.

Sodium vapour lamp page from <a href="http://www.lamptech.co.uk" target="_blank">www.lamptech.co.uk from where the graph is sourced.</a>

Excuse the size of it, I'm linking directly to the site, so can't resize it, if it's causing trouble, I'll remove the link.

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

The most common forms of high-intensity grow lights are HPS and MH. HPS emits a yellowish white light, while MH emits bluish white. (LPS emits a sickly yellow color that is adequate for outdoor security lighting, but poor for plant growth or human living spaces.)

Because of its higher efficiency, HPS is preferred for plants that bear fruit or that will be harvested. (Here, quantity of light is everything.) MH leads to more attractive growth patterns (stocky and compact, not tall and leggy like the growth that HPS promotes) and is therefore preferred for ornamental plants. I have a small MH light (100W) that I used to use for my carnivorous plants, but now I don't use it since I live in an apartment with a south-facing window and balcony.

Re: [url]www.ledgrowlight.com[/url] > Hoax or Real?

Carnivorous plants? Sounds interesting. Would you tell us more?