I have a outstanding question I am currently testing but wanted to toss out their. Anyone use or test a standard COB LED light bulbs? I have removed or cut the plastic cover on them before and it obvious they pump out some light. I mean compared to CFLs anyhow...
Yeah, I'm replacing the CFLs with clear led bulbs, 5k is the highest I can find right now, cree has them now at home Depot. Clearly for early vegging.
I couldn't find info about bulbs so I tested a grow with them. I used bulbs and the viparspectra reflector 450 side by side. They were comparable. I had 2 fixtures with 6 bulbs each.I used CFL for veg though. Each fixture had 2 Phillips and 2 GE @2700k, and 2 home depot 5000k. I want to say they were all 15 watts. The parts of the plants that were under GE LEDs produced better/denser bud. I kept them about a foot from the plants otherwise the plants started to bleach out.
Awesome! Yeah I'm pretty impressed with how well they work. Ever considered wiring them to a dimmer switch? That fixtures badass!
I didn't consider it. Because of the high number of diodes I thought they would be pretty weak. I was just wondering how well they would work. I was surprised how well they did. Maybe I was more surprised the viparspectra didn't do better in comparison.
The wide band spectrum of 2700 through 6500K+ cobs fill in all the gaps blue and red LEDs don't produce. I think that's the secret. Why people didn't realize this before I cannot say. People still use CFLs. Mind blowing? I have been tempted to get additional red only bulbs to combined with 5000K bulbs. I believe research has shown plants really dig the red light; but without any blue, green, yellow ect it cannot utilize it. Its really interesting stuff to read into.