Lights April 15th

Current lights -    April 15th

This is not to say I'm at a final version of lights by any means, but closer to the real thing so far than anything I've tried yet. Of course the quest for better lights will continue and I'm working on some Luxeon designs which I hope to start trying as soon as possible. Won't be real quick as their are lots of technicals to work out, but the high power stuff is coming down in price. Power requirements, heat sinking and lens focus needs to be correct which is the time consuming research area for me.

Red lights - What I'm using now is the 12 inch (10 inch LED board) Electro-Tech salvaged traffic lights with 420 Red LEDs each, 630NM that I bought on Ebay. They are older 2001-2003 models. I haven't seen any newer models of these, but the $70-80 price tag is a little too steep for me to pay. The older models are giving me good results. I have some PLASMALED Reds and Groovygrow Reds also, that I play around with occasionally. I don't feel the PLASMALED Red nor Groovygrow Red is quite bright enough (sse chart on main lighting menu page).

Blue lights - I'm using mostly PLASMALEDs right now mostly because of their smaller size. I'm not happy with the quality of the PLASMALED blue. I've had a total of four burn out. PLASMALED did send two replacements out to me after quite a few emails, the last one being nasty. I've had two more go out since and wondering if I'll even bother to go through the hassle to get them replaced. Too bad, you would think after all the bulbs I bought from PLASMALED that I'd at least get a little customer service. Doug Boner who is heavily into using LED lights also has had troubles and the same bad service. The real reason I like them is because my electro-tech reds are so big, the PLASMALED blue fit in with them well in the space left. The groovygrow blue and the proto-type blue are actually just as good if not better. However, larger in size. Note on the prototyep blue. They work and they are powerful. There were some initial quality problems I encountered with the internal wiring coming loose in shipping. I did resolder them and they are working fine. They run cool and don't seem they will burn up soon. The guy who shipped these to me mentioned a while ago that he'll be working on the quality and also try to come out with some bigger Reds and Blues. I emailed him today to see what the status is as I haven't heard from him for a while.

One modification I would like to add is a separate switch for each individual light. The blues I can unscrew to turn off. I'll be adding a switch to each individual Red LED. I would like to be able to turn off some reds in the earlier stages. However, for the peppers and tomatoes the two reds and two blues on each seem about right. By my crude meter, I guesstimate that I'm about 60/40 Red to Blue on the left and right upper chambers and a lot of fruiting is happening. I may be a little too bright on the red as in the future I want to have more growth before budding stage as this cycle the buds came just a bit too fast on the peppers. Tomato was about just right. All lights (except the nursery and lower left chamber where the broccoli is growing) hang by chains so they can be raised and lowered. I use my light meter at the top of the leaf canopy and lower them until max LUX.

Below are some shots of my different chambers. I think another thing to look for is the angle of the lights themselves. I removed the Electro-Tech boards from the cases and mounted them like a ceiling. The lights are tilted slightly on a 12 1/2 degree angle. This seems to penetrate the leaf canopy better than straight down. Even the leaves at the bottom of my most bushy tomato plant are staying healthy. Everybody says LEDs don't penetrate. I say they do if angled correctly.