Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomzhawaii
Sqwibb,
I think that I read your thread a few times last year. Then followed again recently. My LED progression is very similar to yours. The freebie lights and mcguyvers were ok for awhile, but just did not make the cut. I decided on 4-4'ft sunblazers LED Units & 1- 2bulb 2ft LED unit. One thing that is not well known about LED lights is that the light goes basically in a straight line. Meaning not much array or wide dispersment. The reflectors on these units are mostly behind or next to the LED's not doing much at all. So this explains the above readings to a tee. Cheers and Aloha
Tom
|
Yeah, I love to tinker but there does come a point where you want to up your game.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around a lot of this LED stuff, veg, bloom and all the other crap.
For the average person doing seedlings and indoor greens A few fluorescent tubes and you're covered.
Since I want to go with fruiting vegetables, I had to make changes.
One thing I really like about the Led's, even the semi-cheapos, is how far you can keep them from the canopy with awesome results. This makes managing everything much easier.
what a difference.
One nice thing about the old lights over the Led's is you can monitor the plants better from a visual standpoint (true color), but I'm working on that.
Every Led array and setup is unique to the way it is setup, I dont have any way to test light output or whatever they do but did find one tip that I have been using.
I test the leaves with an IR thermometer and if they are at the same temp and /or lower than the ambient temp, I should be at the right height.
I also have a fan that is on the entire time the lights are on.
Thermal energy exchange includes convection (air temperature), conduction (substrate temperature), absorption of radiation (light intensity), and evaporative cooling (transpiration).
.