PICO's DIY Thread - Advise, Ideas and Technology - NO PANEL REPS!

[PICOGRAV]

One thing I don't like about the Lux's is how they rate their efficiency per watt. @3.1a [don't have the datasheet in front of me] but don't they list them down around 100-105/lu-w? and their intensity is crazy at that current.
Should lumen efficiency count as just a baseline to compare other models? Does it appear slightly dimmer at that higher current? Is that all that is meant by "lumens per watt efficiency"?

I think the 3 and 4k together make a veg and bloom light. I mulled it over for hours last night. The 5k seems a little too blue around 400-450nm.


There are also some threads out there on Peltier's and LED cooling. For me the biggest drawback for them is their high power usage, but they are cheap as hell, as big as you would need for these COB's, but the smallest use 50-75 watts. But at quick retail they are $5.

.....article too somewheres about DARPA [fuckheads] using thermoplastic heatsinks with blowers to increase LED efficiency. It's out there.....so there are thermoplastic heatsink designs out there as well.


I think water cooling has its place, especially for high power growing in enclosed spaces. No doubt about it. The water blocks seem to be made for COB's and I don't think its that complicated to form up an enclosure to keep water away from electro and vice versa.

Then there are those heatsinks with the little air pump built right into the sink itself [Sold at Futurelighting solutions?]

When you look at these data sheets, yes it can get confusing and everyone seems to show ratings in a different way. 3.1 amps is around the highest you would want to drive the vero 29 with standard cooling. Going well below 25C junction temperatures possibly would allow you to go higher and higher with your amperage but then the cost of cooling starts to be impractical.

Bridgelux has a different approach with how they rated these arrays, they class them in available lumens and most of the vero 29s can give you over 10,000 if needed.

"Does it appear slightly dimmer at that higher current?" No, they will always be getting brighter the more current you pass through them, its just at one point they peak at a certain luman per watt, and will continue to get brighter but at less efficiency, so more of the power you add is turning into heat rather then DC Flux or lumen (Electromagnetic radiation), this is how we figure how much power is getting applied to the plant or grow area. A lot of people will say you should use PAR ratings but I still think lumen is a better measurement for our applications. Light has never actually been proven to be "Photons" and calculations from Electromagnetic radiation to Photon counts are unbelievably complex and don't really make all that sense. Light radiation has different adsorptions at different wave lengths, blue light can pass though more plant matter before the waves finally combine with the photo-reactive plant matter, red waves are larger and wont bounce around as much and cover the photo-reactive molecules more like a blanket (less penetration).

When people talk about Photons they see it as these tiny tiny particles are traveling from the light source into the plant. They believe that you can count them and then take a rating on how many you are getting per meter squared per second. This general way of calculating Photons this dose not factor in the different absorption rates of varying wave lengths of light and how say, the blue light will bounce around and change a little before is absorbed or reflected away compared to red light that is, in a way bigger and needs a different sized partial to react fully with.

I agree that the 5000K is too blue to flower on, but I still believe the 2700Ks should be the base or the bulk of the light you are throwing down. In the data sheets there are guides to actually calculate the heat these arrays will produce in watts but for an example if you running the 5000K at 100 watts about 78-85% of that would be heat you need to move away from the LED array, so a 100 watt heatsink would be OK.

Futurelighting solutions (http://www.futurelightingsolutions.com/) is a great resource and they are a Bridgelux suppler now and can supply products from a lot of the Bridgelux partners as well but you mostly have to buy in boxes or cases, so 10s or 100s of LEDs or heatsinks at a time. For a manufacture yes but DIYer like us I would still recommend http://www.newark.com/, you can buy as small as you want to.

 

[Abiqua]

What I am saying is lumens has no direct correlation with radiometric spectrum and its intensity, which i think is a more valuable measurement. Lumens by itself seems to still have very little correlation with the plant world. They aren't human eyes, I guess, that's what I keep coming back to.


Great post Pico, thanks.

Involved in some heavy reading today!

 

[PICOGRAV]

What I am saying is lumens has no direct correlation with radiometric spectrum and its intensity, which i think is a more valuable measurement. Lumens by itself seems to still have very little correlation with the plant world. They aren't human eyes, I guess, that's what I keep coming back to.


Great post Pico, thanks.

Involved in some heavy reading today!

So more reading if you are up to it:

https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/lumens-are-for-people-par-is-for-plants-and-a-lot-of-other-lighting-spectrum-info.37783/

 

[PetFlora]

Pico, feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding of CRI has to do with percentage of color accuracy, which is not that important for plants

If I am right then an 80% CRI @ 5000K MIGHT be better than a 95% CRI @ 5000K, as 80% should mean a broader range ~ 4500-5500K. I'll take that, and, it will cost less $$$$.

I am proving (in my led grows) that you can grow some damn fine meds with 'sub-standard' engines, as long as they cover the all important 450-630 range with sufficient intensity (umols/m^). So in that light, let's say an 80% CRI daylight= 80% perfect day light COMPARED TO 90%+ PERFECT LIGHT. To a commercial grower that means $$$$, but to those growing for personal use, not so much

Honestly, I don't think my plants care that much, but we, as humans tend to

 

[tags420]

So more reading if you are up to it:

https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/lumens-are-for-people-par-is-for-plants-and-a-lot-of-other-lighting-spectrum-info.37783/

It's about time you learned about par. Lumens are for humans.

So why do you always boast about the lumens if you know what is really important?

 

[Bumping Spheda]

CRI is less important than the R9 value, imo. Arguably, CRI is more important the more you rely on low CCT White light for flowering. Simply put, the R9 value -and by extension somewhat, CRI- tells me how well the light source covers the 630-650nm waveband which also happens to be the photosynthetic absorption peak of many higher land plants. The higher the R9 value the more Red, Deep Red and IR light there is. Take that and any photo morphological effects how you want.

 

[Abiqua]

My take is that CRI is the comparison of the light rendering of the source in comparison to the how the colors of the sun are used to illuminate the eyeball.

So if it is usuable as a comparison:

Higher CRI seems to be, like stated, hits peaks more specifically, while a lower CRI will hit a broader spectrum outside of the define max peak. With a higher tuned frequency of the high CRI, seems like a red wavelength [a well defined red] could throw off a PAR meter, especially based on the algorithm used to calculate the "sun" profile used to base everything off of, [Does this then throw-off the shorter more powerful wavelengths as well?]

That said, the real difference in my mind is measuring the radiation, a broader spectrum may account for increased radiant intensity, while a well defined spectrum is more analogous with the peaks, but lacks the radiant intensity per watt.

Today made me think about "red" spectrums needing more power to be able to focuse or gain more "intensity", this seems like the only area where a reflector makes sense, when needing to concentrate intensity into an area, not just a PAR rating.

 

[Bumping Spheda]

The Sun[edit]

The Sun closely approximates a black body radiator. The effective temperature, defined by the total radiative power per square unit, is about 5,780 K.[SUP][5][/SUP] The color temperature of sunlight above the atmosphere is about 5,900 K.[SUP][6][/SUP]
As the Sun crosses the sky, it may appear to be red, orange, yellow or white depending on its position. The changing color of the sun over the course of the day is mainly a result of scattering of light, and is not due to changes in black body radiation. The blue color of the sky is caused by Rayleigh scattering of the sunlight from the atmosphere, which tends to scatter blue light more than red light.
Daylight has a spectrum similar to that of a black body with a correlated color temperature of 6,500 K (D65 viewing standard) or 5,500 K (daylight-balanced photographic film standard).

So due to atmospheric scattering, not even sunlight is an "ideal" light source, it's simply very close to one (of varying CCT depending on time of day, the date, and latitudinal degree). You are correct, human sensitivity is taken into account with CRI (UV and IR do not play very substantial roles), however, it has to be said that the closer a light source's SPD (human sensitivity not accounted for) follows that of a blackbody radiator (and not just at peaks, across the entire visible spectrum) of any CCT, the higher it will score in a CRI test. It's not a perfect system, but it gives you a good idea on what's going on.

Also, the sun's light quality has little to do with why we want high CRI/R9, though. If we were to compare it to anything we'd be attempting to recreate the light that a plant would see on a planet in a ~2700K star solar system, right? Regardless, R9 tells me how much Red I can expect for a given CCT. So two values (CCT and R9) together roughly tells me two things: its stand-alone flowering potential, and its inefficiency due to Red phosphor conversion.

 

[PICOGRAV]

Pico, feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding of CRI has to do with percentage of color accuracy, which is not that important for plants

If I am right then an 80% CRI @ 5000K MIGHT be better than a 95% CRI @ 5000K, as 80% should mean a broader range ~ 4500-5500K. I'll take that, and, it will cost less $$$$.

I am proving (in my led grows) that you can grow some damn fine meds with 'sub-standard' engines, as long as they cover the all important 450-630 range with sufficient intensity (umols/m^). So in that light, let's say an 80% CRI daylight= 80% perfect day light COMPARED TO 90%+ PERFECT LIGHT. To a commercial grower that means $$$$, but to those growing for personal use, not so much

Honestly, I don't think my plants care that much, but we, as humans tend to

Pet, I believe in some ways, these plants and anything that is alive for that matter is far more complex then we can even imagine. The real engine is what is happening inside these plants, there are almost an un-measurable amount of factors determining how they grow and develop.

I will continue to study photo reactive molecules for a while now and the one thing I cant shake is that for as long as these plants used to live, there was only ever perfectly rendered sunlight every year. You have a point that producing the most natural wave lengths of light might not matter and actually giving the plant more light where we observe it being used the most might be better.

This is only the small picture, these plants use the quality and quantity of light to make countless biological changes everyday. The real interesting parts are how we can grow such nice plants with incredibly altered light! I am a partial believer of selective DNA activation in living organisms, I believe have specific environmental influences on an organism or plant or even humans for that matter can activate dormant DNA also allowing that DNA to be passed down the line when reproduction takes place.

One could grow from the same seeds two separate bunches of plants, one bunch would be give optimal conditions, the other, not so good conditions. Then you could germinate the best plants from the good bunch and the worst plants form the bad bunch. Would there be a difference in these seeds? Would the better plant seeds have passed down unlocked DNA to utilize these better conditions, would the other seeds have picked up more survival DNA to push through the hard times?

"Color temperature and Color Rendering Index (CRI) are the standards for measuring light. There is no technical definition of "full-spectrum" so it cannot be measured. To compare "full-spectrum" sources requires direct comparison of spectral distributions."

 

[PICOGRAV]

CRI is less important than the R9 value, imo. Arguably, CRI is more important the more you rely on low CCT White light for flowering. Simply put, the R9 value -and by extension somewhat, CRI- tells me how well the light source covers the 630-650nm waveband which also happens to be the photosynthetic absorption peak of many higher land plants. The higher the R9 value the more Red, Deep Red and IR light there is. Take that and any photo morphological effects how you want.

Bumping, you might appreciate this a little, I replied to some one on my other thread and mentioned this'

"ts really hard to say, but if you wanted to do a run with just two of the 2700K, 80 CRI LEDs, you might be surprised, they have a much much higher CRI then the HPS bulbs, lots of people including the film and photography industry are having a hard time adopting LED lighting. They say, even using LED lights with high CRI will produce prints way outside the color parameters they wanted to get. I think the main problem they are having, as well as growers using LED lights, is the multiple point sources of the actual light. People make these LED lights for growing, with 100s of little LEDs, I think all the individual light sources mingling with each other is fuking it all up. Its the same sort of thing you see in pro sound, those huge line arrays they use at large venues have to be finally tuned, so all the speakers are working together, or you would have large areas in the crowd where it would be either, too loud, not loud enough or just sound like mud. "

 

[lax123]

I agree with you.
I dont get all this "sun is the best/copy the sun" thingy...

Look at nature, every creature is pefectly adapted to its Environment, simply said it kills and gets killed.
Then you take that creature in a new Environment. Suddenly all its (e.g. poison resistant) natural enemies are not there.
It will exterminate any other species that lacks its prolific abilites or its aggressiveness and will conquer and spread...

or I could relate to Nutrition,
in nature a cat is skinny...but "at home" People might feed it too much and it gets really "fat"
-translated to light and mj, in that case i want a really fat cat...not that "in Balance with nature" skinny cat

partial believer of selective DNA activation in living organisms

Why? Its called epigenetics, nothing to be "partial" about...

 

[PetFlora]

Unlike the house cat, plants are not gluttons. They take what they need and leave the rest

Plenty of growers have proven you can grow excellent meds with only r/b. Why? Plants adapt to survive.

An interesting test would be to put plants where they could grow toward the light prefer. My $$$$ is on NW over R/B

 

[Positivity]

I just try to achieve the suns effects because so far the sun has produced the best results to me. So far no indoor bud I have tried has been able to match the potency and terpene expression of a properly grown bud near the equator. So far I've noticed the broader the spectrum the better the end product. Something along the lines of uv for potency, red for fattening, white for overall health and vigor, and far red for shorter flowering time.

Not to say I haven't had killer indoor bud. But it was never from a strictly red and blue led grow light. outdoor equator bud = knock you on your ass......red and blue bud = bud light....in my experience.

 

[Beefbisquit]

I've grown good bud using only R/B, never killer though....

 

[bicit]

Pico, do you think one of these would be able to adequately cool a vero 29?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Glacier-KB-1-CPU-Water-Cooling-Copper-Block-Liquid-Cooler-Intel-AMD-/321179169633?_trksid=p2054897.l4276

 

[PICOGRAV]

Pico, do you think one of these would be able to adequately cool a vero 29?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Glacier-KB-1-CPU-Water-Cooling-Copper-Block-Liquid-Cooler-Intel-AMD-/321179169633?_trksid=p2054897.l4276

I sure do, its got a nice thick copper base, it looks relatively low flow, I would be careful about cooling a few in series but one or two would work quite well, the base looks just thick enough to drill the mounting holes, but its going to be tricky, you might be able to use a clamp system, saving you from possibly breaching the flow chamber.

 

[Abiqua]

To be clear: I was referencing the fact that PAR meters base their measurements off an ideal light source, usually a "copy" of the sun, additionally, I thought that was how CRI was calculated and I was dead wrong.

"Is the Sun the perfect candidate to emulate for an artifical light model" would be a separate argument. And I am not trying to make that argument.


R9 is certainly the linear progression of the CRI, but why not tabulate all R values? CRI2 put out by the CIE is another method, but it is criticized too, lol.

If it would just be based strictly on the ability of the the source to create that "nth" nanometer at such intensity, seems like it would work wonders, of course, I am putting my hand in the chainsaw and not accounting for something probably.

EDIT: CRI or whatever future derivative is agreed upon in the future has great potential to be a fair indicator of what kind of light source your are getting. Kind of a symbolic gap between, the "don't give a shit" layman, just wants to grow and the techie, who want's to run a micrometer and FLuke over every sq. inch of the muthafucka.

Maybe it has potential similar to PC chip ratings. Ratings were far incomplete when rated by clock speed [GHz] but when you started to add in your bus speeds plus multiple cache's, you started to develop a better overall idea of what the cpu was capable of. But clock speed was enough to satisfy the first glance of everyone from noob to pro, for the most part and then people who cared, followed up.

Is that a fair comparison? I guess something would have to be combined with CRI in that comparision to make sense, however there are many.

 

[PICOGRAV]

It's about time you learned about par. Lumens are for humans.

So why do you always boast about the lumens if you know what is really important?

Tags, I know everything already, I just don't "know" it yet.

 

[tags420]

Tags, I know everything already, I just don't "know" it yet.

Wow...
You remind me of this, "Now days the smartest person in the room is not the smartest or most knowledgable on the subject. They are just the first person to google it on their phone."

Ignorance is bliss, keep living in your world.

 

[PICOGRAV]

Wow...
You remind me of this, "Now days the smartest person in the room is not the smartest or most knowledgable on the subject. They are just the first person to google it on their phone."

Ignorance is bliss, keep living in your world.

Thank you again for the insight into your own little world, I do have my own but I am apart of many, how many times a day do you leave yours?