I was doing some reading about the most effective grow lights that offer the most spectrum, and this is some information I came across. Plasma International, a British/German company, has developed a grow light based on sulfur plasma technology. The lamp and magnetron unit is an electrode-less lamp that includes an evacuated quartz bulb partly backfilled with argon and with a little sulfur, plus a source of microwave power, a magnetron, for exciting a ball of plasma within the bulb. The lamps themselves are manufactured in Germany and can be powered by any 400W to 1400W Plasma Lighting System. The lamp produces almost no ultraviolet light and just a little infrared. It delivers a full and continuous spectrum (which means there are no troughs or missing/lacking color content). Full spectrum lighting is regarded as crucial for healthy plant development because it’s what plants have evolved for millions of years to exploit. Wageningen University in the Netherlands has been using Plasma International’s Sulfur Plasma lamp to research simulating daylight in an indoor environment. Researchers had to shine the incredibly powerful light indirectly at cucumber cuttings through mirrors and filters. The tests, conducted in a climate-controlled room, showed that young cucumber plants grew much better then under HPS. Researchers believe this is due to the color of the light and its ability to influence the shape of the plant. At the right light color, the young plant captures light energy far more easily. The cucumber plants grew more than 60% faster than those grown under HPS, and more than 120% better than those grown under compact fluorescents! There was also a marked increase in branching and larger leaves. The first results (released September 2009) also showed that the specially-created artificial sunlight spectrum made the young cucumber plants 64% heavier than those grown under HPS (SON-T) light, at equal light strength. Plasma International’s lamp draws 1300W from the mains and delivers 1000W to the bulb. It is dimmable down to between 10-40% depending on which bulb is being used. The moving parts inside the lamp are guaranteed for 100,000 hours of use – this movement, the manufacturers claim, gives greater control over the plasmoid. They also claim that they can quite easily alter the mix of the bulb and adjust the spectral output to specific applications. To date, Plasma International has developed one lamp for vegetative growth and another for flowering. The lamps produce less than half the infrared heat per watt compared to HPS or Metal Halide.
Would be nice to have an affordable version of these types of lights Probably another 4-6 years maybe more depending if they catch on I am guessing They say you get what you pay for but I'd rather throw that money on a down payment for a car then a grow light
Hmm...done a fair amout of research on plasma lighting...but your charts...they make me wonder if Xenon bulbs could be somewhat useful aswell depending on temp.
Only thing I Hate about these new lighting systems LED and Plasma are their price points they are HORRIBLE. You would love to jump in on the front end but 5 years from now I have a feeling plasma and LED will be slugging it out. For instance This was kinda my issue with Most HPS look how modular this is get a frame together you can stack up 4 or 5 with a common exhaust vent. The potential is there the slope of the spectrum when compared to the sun is convincing enough.
This will really give LEDs a hell of a run for it's money. This product produces an amazing spectrum, but whats the lumens per watt rating on this, did it mention?
What bulbs do they use in projectors, dont know anything about lights or growing but would they work?
Yes, they work. Youtube it. plenty of people use them in the large scale agricultural industry, which is one of the 3 main "legitimate" applications of the technology: indoor/outdoor large scale lighting (think museums and night time exterior lights for bridges) large scale agriculture (think 3-4 acre greenhouses for growing tomatoes in the off season) projector and scientific instruments. think HID lighting for a DLP TV or something similar. The upsides have been the spectrum and efficiency, the downsides have been cost, complexity and reliability. Luxim's only real contribution has been the development of a solid state microwave driver. they have not innovated on the actual materials used in the bulbs, which an chemical engineer, chemist, or materials scientist could have essentially "predicted" from long-known materials properties.