Hello! I'm thinking about doing an inside grow, but i'm really focused on efficiency and I 'm pretty sure LEDs are the way to go. Now I have good hand skillz lol (thats what she said). But I can build a led panel and thats what i plan on doing. Now i'm not totally sure on the Red to Blue ratio. Also if i need some white light involved. Also people say that LED's don't have much lumens but high power ones have some! Also I though Watts was the power comsumption ? THis > Red (627nm), 23mm Quad LED - 408 lm is a 627 Red, 4 LEDs that have 408 lumens at 700ma On my research i think these are the way to go, with my LED growing. My questions are, How many would you use of those quad lights? And what kind of blue to red ratio is needed? I heard people using orange. This site has all color's so getting white light or orange is no problem.
Add more then just red and blue. First gen LED makers all they did was 2 spectrums and it ended up in epic fail and its why everyone to this day bashes LEDs. Todays LEDs contain many spectrums..yellow, white, IR, UVB etc. They also have different parts of the red and blue spectrum to include Deep Red Deep blue. LUMENS is a terrible measure of a LED light. All lumens is is how bright something is realitive to a humans eye. PAR is the new standard. PAR measures the spectrum that a plant actually uses. You wont find any serious sellers of LEDs even bringing up PAR. I say serious since a good PAR meter can run you in the thousands of dollars. Watts on the LEDs you seen does not equal power consumption. There are two figures regarding that that they advertise. Watts...and actual watts used. A 3 watt LED is run at 1.5 watts. 2 watts tends to be 1 watt. Its a heat issue. There are 5 watt LED panels hitting the market and in the case of mine it shoots out a little over 4 since it has excellent heat management.
Okay So, I see you know your LEDs. Would these LED's be good to grow with? I mean, they seem to have a lot of power to them. I think they'd be good to grow with. Honestly from what i've read, these would be better than regular 5mm led's that i see in a lot of panel's.
Hi ExtremelyStiff, I´ve made a 50W led panel, with 20x deep red 660nm, 10x red 620nm, 10 royal blue 455nm, 7 cool white 4500k, 5 warm white 3000k. I think it´s doing good, but my plants are showing very short internode growth. I´m planing to upgrade the lights with more 660nm deep reds. But I really think the Warm Whites are best option. I will try WW with 420nm ultraviolets. For efficiency use 1W led stars only and don´t pass more than 320 / 350 mA through the led string. If you can, buy from Cree or OSRAM. Chinese products works, but not as efficient as first line company. Good Luck.
Man, i think you will waste a lot of money and end up with nothing if you're not really sure you know what your doing. Remember the rule. KISS= Keep It Simple, Stoner. As for LED's. Look up a model of LED panel you like and check it's specifications. Buy exactly the same number of leds and the same models it has and solder them yourself. You'll save yourself more than 50% of the panel's price. This way you are sure you're doing it right. My 2 cents.
Or if you have the cash just buy it. We all waste our money on all sorts of things, the beer we buy, the over priced food at a restaurant, iphones, ipads etc etc.
Yeah, ive decided to go with panels over at www.ledgrow.eu that dude has expirements and he makes his own panels, check out the site he's got a lot of test and whatnot.