pr0fesseur
Well-Known Member
"Two photons cannot ever collide.In fact light is quantized only when interaction with matter."
I will be nice and point you in the right direction....Sorry if this is mentioned in here somewhere... do we know how much lumens worth (or whatever measurement I should be talking about) is being "wasted" into the wrong spectrum? As far as HPS goes? Or MH for that matter (for Veg). I'm trying to get some kind of an idea when I look at one deep red bulb's lumens how many of them it would take to stack up to the HPS bulb's red spectra that it puts out. I'll go digging through this again and delete this if I find it
Hope you know what I'm getting at? (Warning, I don't know the math) If people knew that 70% or some crazy amount of their current bulb setup was creating useless light, wasting power, and extra heat... causing them to keep the plants far away from the bulb to lose even more effect... out of the 50,000 lumens hitting their plant only 15000 lumens were actually helping it flower... then they'd probably consider buying 40,000 lumens worth of T5 that they could hold practically on top of the plants, hehe
Alright. Tell me if I'm completely off?I will be nice and point you in the right direction....
These are standard and enhanced horticulture bulbs.
Along the graphs you will notice that the light "peaks". that is where the light is actually produced and the body of the peak is the "intensity" of that light.. the higher the peak the more light is produced @ that frequency as a total percentage of light output... Whew
now youll notice that the "large majority of light is produced between 540nm and 620nm most of that light is wasted because the plant is not very sensitive to that wavelength..
now using this reference is like filling a bathtub full of muddy water, sure you can drink it but theres a shit ton of crap in the water you have to remove...
once you remove all the mud you may be left with very little potable water to use...
now if i use distilled water and fill the tub i can drink all of it with no waste..
read about PAR values and PUR values..
100W of 100% PAR = 1000W of 10% PAR and this is what im trying to achieve.. (let the flaming begin..)
now my bulbs are approx 90% PAR on average
now most companies use the SUN to measure PAR or PUR values against but that theory is a fart in a windstorm..
plants DONT use all the visible spectrum... but a very narrow band of 380nm to 450nm and 580 to 660nm and 750nm FAR red
any light produced out of that band is "less" effective
sure 1000W bulbs produce an abundance of light... but not in the photosynthesis action curveView attachment 1711599
View attachment 1711580View attachment 1711581View attachment 1711582View attachment 1711583
your trying to quantify 3 different scales which CANT be done... you cant measure speed and distance @ the same time.. laws of physics demand you only measure one @ a time because both are relative to the observer...Alright. Tell me if I'm completely off?
The point or question I'm trying to pose, at least I think "Is there a way we can put some different numbers on the table to spell out what is equivalent?". I think if we can that'd help well... me at least! Probably many others. Lets say you're delivering 70k lumens at a plant from your 1k watt HPS, at optimal range. The spectral range of around 620nm looks to be fairly important for the plant (I assume for flowering?), only about 30% of your bulbs lumens are applying because it just doesn't deliver this range in a high concentration. So we can say "This HPS is delivering 21k lumens around the 620nm mark". When you get down to 660-700nm it's more like 10% effective, perhaps we can say "At 660-700nm the HPS delivers 7000 lumens to this range".
So now people can look at this 660-700nm range, see how important it is (looks high on the importance scale) and try to find better T5 bulbs to hit that range. If a T5 bulb can put out 5000+ lumens at this range at a cost of 55 watts lets say... seems like a great option to at least supplement the HPS with a very deep red T5 bulb? As for totally replacing an HPS bulb, if I saw something like what I'm writing below.. I'd think more people would try the experiment (I'm making these numbers up, I hope the ones above or somewhat realistic)
T5 bulb A produces 7000 lumens for 55 watts, 5000 lumens hits 660-720nm, with a peak of 5500 lumens hitting 690-700nm
T5 bulb B produces 5000 lumens for 42 watts, 4000 lumens hits 420nm-500nm, with a peak of 45000 lumens at 450nm
Your HPS bulb produces 70k lumens for 1000 watts, as far as flowering goes though, 20k lumens are hitting x range
(And if it's possible) Combination A of T5 bulbs produces 40k lumens, x of which hits the deep red range, x of which hits your orange range at a cost of x watts, time to throw out your HPS bulb and try this.
Now if T5 bulbs capable of efficiently covering the entirety of the flowering ranges exist or not, I wouldn't know To me though, it seems like that deep red range is barely even being touched on by HPS.
EDIT: Or actually, (I've re-read your PUR and PAR statements) if you put up a setup that's say 70% PUR and another that's 80% PAR @ x lumens and x watts it puts you in a situation where you can compare that "This HPS however is is 20% PUR, delivering x effective lumens at x watts"
Sorry I'm pretty confused myself at what I wrote LOL
use the setup i have outlined in this forum as far as bulb layout and selection.. dont go craxy plants dont need light @ the base of the plant but near the top!hi there prof great info!
I am currently using a LightWave T5 LW 44-HO .
This is in an area 43cm * 130cm. There are currently 4 * 6500K 865 54w tubes in the unit. Could you give me some advice on how to achieve your effect in such a limited space. I am mainly concerned with flowering at the moment though your thoughts on vegging would be much appreciated. Perhaps using some tubes lighting from the base of the plants up ?
many thanks any help greatly appreciated.
but with only four bulbs is this possible ?use the setup i have outlined in this forum as far as bulb layout and selection.. dont go craxy plants dont need light @ the base of the plant but near the top!