LED Lighting

[Vbkid]

For anyone who fallows Andreas Wistuba's photos on the facebook might have seen how he recently converted a lot of fluorescent into LED's instead.
Doing some quick internet research on what might need to be purchased, I realized that most LEDs I've found are sold by the part and not by a full system.
I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with LED's both in growing and in suggesting what lights/parts would be needed to make some plus in strips with a good spectrum!

 

[mato]

This should give you an idea of the parts you'd need to get the lights set up: http://www.contractorlighting.com/led-neon-flex-rope-lighting-c-288.html

Wistuba uses SMD 5050 LEDs with something like a 3:1 red to blue ratio, with a few white bulbs scattered in there. Seems to work well for him, but remember that he's using them to save money on electricity and not so much for enhanced performance.

 

[JDW]

Kinda late reply but, my plants have been under LEDS for a year now. Mine are DIY and I first made a 24 bulb unit as practice before building a 54 bulb fixture for my reef aquarium. I used CREE leds, which are considered the best quality and bang for your buck, at least in the aquarium world. What area are you looking at covering? Doing a large area can get pretty expensive. My DIY light cost ~$200, that's buying used led stars from an aquarium forum, and not counting tools like a soldering iron and multimeter. My 24 bulb fixture lights a 3'x3' area and puts out enough light to flower cattleya orchids, though just barely. I'd like to add another 12 bulbs, or get a different driver that puts more electricity through and make the LEDs produce more light.

Since LEDs are so expensive why would you want to make one? Well my DIY fixture and a par38 bulb are enough to light my 6'x3' grow tent. The light from LEDs is more concentrated so plants can be placed further from the bulbs, my plants are three feet away, where if I had fluorescents they'd have to be less than a foot away. Lastly LEDs do use a lot less electricity, and you never have to replace bulbs. I haven't measured how much juice my LEDs use, but if ran at the max for my CREEs (mine run at 50% of max) my lights would only use 100 watts. That's as much as two 4' t5ho tubes. If you want to look into this further I can help answer questions, and you could take a look at these threads:
Very good step by step build thread with explanations
Huge thread all about LEDs for reefs, look for Thefishman65's summary
My grow chamber thread on orchid forum
My aquarium light build

And because it's so cool, the orchid I flowered

 

[nepaholic]

I switched to LED before a year and dont go back to usual lights. the perfomance is awesome.
I use the same lights as AW does because we did the research toghether... All my plants love it(helis,neps,vff,cephs). In my lab i also use them and plants grow very fast...

 

[Vbkid]

I switched to LED before a year and dont go back to usual lights. the perfomance is awesome.
I use the same lights as AW does because we did the research toghether... All my plants love it(helis,neps,vff,cephs). In my lab i also use them and plants grow very fast...

You wouldn't care to share the height/amount of light per shelf would you? I'm sure that could be pretty useful for people considering LEDs!

 

[nepaholic]

well i have started some threads with infos about it...
in my tc lab i use stripes like andreas. the important thing for me was to find something equal to T5 lights. The stripes with 5050 chipsets are great for this.
1m of LED strip equal 1m of t5 light.... in he lab i use 2:1:1 red, blue white stripes and they work fine. in my basement setup(for hardening plants) i use different kind of stripes for different species...

The big lights i use are also different. i use 90w and some 220w lights. about spectrum i have no idea right now(i´m at work) but it is like 2:1:1:1 red,blue,white,orange...
leds are expensive but also cutted my electricity bills in half...

 

[RL7836]

well i have started some threads with infos about it...

One of the things I 'discovered' about Terra & CPUK is that you cannot search for 3-letter words (tough to find LED & CO2 & ...)

I came across this LED article today. Philips is preparing a new LED for mass production that they claim produces 200 lumens per watt (which is apparently extremely efficient & a game changer).

 

[carbonetc]

Philips is preparing a new LED for mass production that they claim produces 200 lumens per watt (which is apparently extremely efficient & a game changer).

That's double what a HO T5 puts out. Count me in.

 

[asid61]

I'm using leds. Stevesleds.com sells Luxeon Rebel ES leds for about $3 each and mounts them on 3up stars for another $1. Priority mail shipping to boot.
The ES series is second only to luxeon M leds; he also sells royal blue M leds which are 5x the power at 4x the cost. No red M leds though.

I use his leds to light my terrarium. 44 gallon pentagon with the lights 12" from the plants, and 90w of red and blue leds grow and flower them fine. Cost me about $200 to set up, but it's way better than the ebay fixtures you can buy.

 

[krocky12]

For the aquarium people would a white and blue led D120 led light work on them also or no?

 

[SubRosa]

Ime a D120 can grow the most light demanding corals through over 2' of water. Although I've never used one to grow terrestrial plants, I think it would just be a matter of how large an area it can cover with the intensity you desire. You would probably lose quite a bit of the efficiency advantage of LEDS by running all those white emitters which produces a lot of light unusable to plants.