Ideal lighting system

Hi
I am an ambitious newbie looking for information on lighting.

Firstly thanks for all the info posted on the forum, tremendous amounts of data is available.

I am trying to find information to narrow down the elements (spectrum + amount of light) the ideal lighting requirements for growing and would appreciate some advice.

So far I have gathered the following :
-sun light/outdoor is best
in the different stages of plant life different types of light is required with blue and red wave lenghts being the most important.
I have some information on how the "best" lighting combination can be achieved using different types of lights.
Also found lots of interestingt discussion regarding the importance / effects of (different kinds of) UV light + which lights to buy to get the UV I want if I decide its important.

However I am going try and build my own lights from scartch with a friend, as sort of a science project, based completely on what the plants need to grow best and so I would appreciate advice on that.

I would be happy to post results here once the lights are built. I am not a grower myself, but a techhie nerd and would test the lights with a few friends who are experienced growers. (I am just an uneducated consumer with no grow-how knowledge)

The forum has a lot of info but as I have no practical experience I cant decide on the specs to try and achieve with the new system I want to build. If anyone has any advice to offer we could talk about the requirements for optimal lighting of a 30x30cm are for example. Again info on which lights offer optimal quality light is great, but please inform me of why they are optimal as I am trying to build up, using any type of light or combination of lights that produces optimal results, with any combination of timing etc..

Educated advice would therefore be much appreciated and in a few months time I would share the info with any interested parties.

Thansk in advance

Sam

hid lighting is best due to the amount of lumens you get per watt. for instance a 1000w high pressure sodium light can give off 100,000 lumens no problem which is 100 lumens per watt, as apposed to floro's around 40 lumens per watt.

Hi dr.greenT and thanks for the reply.

What about all this that about those vawe lenghts that are invisible to human eye being the most important and so on.
I was sort of under the impression taht calculating just lumens isnt the optimal way.

Sami

mj only uses certain ranges of the kelvin scale for optimum growth. and the far lights that your talking about are out of that scale. so i would say stick with High pressure sodium to flower. Metal halide to Veg. or you could use florecents, but it takes alot more of them to equal the one hps or mh.

hi dr
thanks again for the answer.Its simply so much easier to understand things in a dialogue than just by reading up stuff.

Anyway, the thing is I am attempting to build a lighting system, and to provide ideal lighting. I am planninbg on using LED lights, and even I know they arent getting a lot of support, since I will build from scratch I will make sure the provide any and all kinds of lights (spectrum and lumens wise) that is useful. I will do this by including various different types of LED lights in 1 light, so that the range will include all the best ranges.
So thats the info I am looking for.
Thanks for the advice so fart anyway.

Sami