LED light -- will be doing install to test

[Rik Kretzinger]

I will be working with this LED light to determine how effective it is on a 5 square indoor aquaponic system .  I will start out with duck weed and see what happens.

[TCLynx]

Hay rick, are you perhaps having an issue with your firewall not allowing this site to run scrips and there fore not letting you type anything into the reply box?  You will probably need to add this site into the "safe list" of your firewall software.

[Rik Kretzinger]

TCLynx said:

Hay rick, are you perhaps having an issue with your firewall not allowing this site to run scrips and there fore not letting you type anything into the reply box?  You will probably need to add this site into the "safe list" of your firewall software.

TCLynx --

I did have a issue when first replying, but I think I resolved the issue.  It looks to me like the reply's are being listed.  Let me know if you can not read them and I will figure out what the next steps will be.  -- thx rik

[Rik Kretzinger]

Hi all just found this in my google reader -- think it will help figure all this out and add to lights we can use going forward.

 

http://urbanhydro.org/2011/02/50w-penetrator-vs-glow-panel-45-start/

50W Penetrator vs Glow Panel 45 Start

Posted by ProZachJ on Feb 11th, 2011 in Blog, Featured, Video, Zach's Garden | 4 Comments and 0 Reactions

Here we go! Our LED Panel grow off has begun. Two Hydro Grow LED 50W Penetrators VS Two Sunshine Systems Glow Panel 45s. Each panel is going to be growing one pepper plant. Each side of the tent has one Jalapeno (Jalapeno Gigante) and one Habenero (Caribbean Red). I have divided the tent with mylar and as you can see in the pictures below the color difference between the two lights is drastic. Thanks to a Super Cropper 36 these plants will be grown in the same system so the nutrient levels and root environments will be identical. I am also really exited about growing with my STG -Hail covered with a neoprene insert. This makes the system look super clean Currently the only nutrient in the system is General Hydroponics Floramato dry at 800PPM pH 5.8. Unlike the systems in my Fogponic VS Aeroponic Pepper grow the Super Cropper 36 will be running constantly during daylight hours. High/low temps 77/67. Relative humidity 50%/40%

[Burton]

I am going to cry, well not really, but ....

 

Just wrote a nice long post comparing the Hydrogrow 50w to the LGM5 and somehow I pressed a link and lost my post >./p>

 

Oh well ... LGM5 > Hydrogrow if you want the short end of the review lol

 

Went over foot candles per unit in the 660nm range, cost to run per year, the fact you need radiant light to grow indoor healthy plants (ie nasa study not quoted properly), how many years it would take to pay for itself in savings per year vs a 1000w HID system it was ment to replace, warranty (or lack there of) for each vender ...

 

ahhhhhh

 

Oh well ... If anyone is really interested I guess I can type it back out.

[TCLynx]

I hate it when that happens.  I guess that's why some people do their typing in some program on their computer and then cut and paste.

So do you have a conclusion?

[Burton]

I will rewrite it all tomorrow but basically here were the findings without any numbers I would have to recalculate

 

Hydrogrow 50w runs at 25w and has a 37mcd / sq in and about 21420 mcd total over the 2' x 2' at 9" above the grow bed (coverage listed on the site). it would cost 2678 to cover a 6' x 8' area with suggested grow area size on their page and pay for itself over 7.5 years in energy savings alone over a 1000w HID system. The warranty doesn't really exist as far as I can tell and I know its not made in china but not indication where it is made on the site.Claims for spectrums of light but should just claim "two" as the spectrums are very close and basically in blue and red only. Energy cost a year for the 6' x 8' bed would be 157.68 for the LED's and 79 for the HID or $236.68 per year at .09 / kW.

 

The LGM5 runs at 9w and has a 40723 mcd for the same grow area 20" above the grow bed as the hydrogrow and an average of 27.8mcd / sq in in the "secondary" grow area and a 127.9 mcd / sq in in the primary grow area (because it uses two view angles vs the one the H50w uses) It costs 2400ish to cover same 6' x 8' area and would pay for itself in 5.5ish years in energy savings alone over a 1000w HID system. (2.5yrs if you make the system yourself) 5 year warranty and is made in america. Has 6 spectrums and 17 years of research in developing the spectrum and their LED lights which are also patented. The spectrums are basically UV, Blue, Green, Orange, Red, and IR. Each peak where plants best use the frequency to grow.Runs $119 a year in energy cost including the HID for the 6' x 8' system.

 

Another note, the systems above for the 6' x 8' areas feature, each, a 600w HID system because the NASA study every "led grower" uses as evidence of using the blue / red spectrum only was enough for plant growth. The problem with the study is there were no blue LED's at the time so they used a florescent white bulb to fill the blue spectrum. So back to the HID use. If you only use LED's to grow plants where no other light source is available then they will have problems like not fruiting, having off tastes, not flowering, off colors, etc ... The guys who make the LGM5 have found this through a lot of research and suggest using the HID 600w system (for the size bed above) 4 hours a day and keep the LED's on the whole 16 hours each day while cycling the HID on every 3 hours for an hour. Hence why they were included in the above.

 

I have been doing a ton of LED research the two weeks, and it seems the LGM5's are the way to go. So I did a cost anaylsis of how much it would take to build the same 8 strips used in the system above and its a lot cheaper. Granted I would have to wire up 1520 LED's >.<  I have even gone so far as to design the circuit, which I need to modify as I used 15 / 30 view angle LED's instead of 45/30 like the LGM5 use.

 

So yeah in short LGM5 > H50W ... I did start to spec out the differences between the HG350Pro vs the LGM5 till I realized you would need 5.3 (so 6) of them to cover the 6' x 8' area and that would cost $9150 ... lol

 

In case you are wondering about how I found the mcd numbers I used the inverse square law and the advertised mcd on the LEDs as advertised for the brightest I could find for each spec (.5w for the H50W and 36mW for the LGM5) and I also only tested the 660nm range over the coverage area assuming uniform coverage. So using the inverse square law at one foot as the base and adjusting to the height above the grow bed advertised for the test area I was able to find the coverage in mcd / sq in for each.

 

Wow having wrote that a while a go I remember a lot of it lol

[Burton]

Just realized some of these numbers are off for the LGM5 ... I dont know why but I was using 800mcd as the brightness of the 45 degree 660nm LED when I was really looking at the 612nm. The correct brightness of said LED is 280mcd.

So I created a spreadsheet and recalculated each of the lights above, because this uses more sig.figs. I will update H50W values as well

 

LGM5 

Total coverage of just the 660nm @ 45 degrees @ 20" from the grow bed  5544 mcd Average 9.79 mcd / sq in (2.84'x1.38')

Total coverage of just the 660nm @ 30 degrees @ 20" from the grow bed  28080 mcd Average 81.22 mcd / sq in (2.44'x0.98')

Total coverage = 33624 mcd

 

Because the LGM5 has two grow areas I will calculate the LGM5 primary grow area as versus the supplemental above

@28" the 660nm @ 45 degrees = 2828 mcd Average of 3 mcd / sq in (2.84' x 1.38')

@28" the 660nm @ 30 degrees = 14340 mcd Average of 25.31 mcd / sq in (3.39' x 1.93')

Total = 17168

 

H50W

Total coverage of just the 660nm @ 60 degrees @ 9" from the grow bed is 21,155 mcd Average 36.73 mcd / sq in

 

Discussion of findings

So this is kinda a surprising. While the H50W is not as bright overall it is brighter per square inch on average over the 2'x2' coverage area, this is because LGM5's use 30/45 degree LED's versus a single range. However the H50W needs to be at 9" above the plant bed to provide this coverage. Given that 40% passes through a canopy you could keep it 9" above the plants however the light would still be smaller than if you had a LGM5 at the same height if the plant was in the primary grow area.

 

Now what is more interesting is if you replace the the 45 degree LED's in the LGM5 with 30 degree. While you would have to keep the light at 31" above the grow bed you would get the same coverage with 22k mcd and 35 mcd / sq in average nearly the same light as the H50W in the 660nm spectrum. You wouldn't get the same penetration as the 45/30 combo from the original LGM5's and thus you would have short plants, more penetration = taller plants.

 

So for mcd / sq in average the H50W would win.

For height above grow bed and penetration into the canopy the LGM5 would win.

LGM5 would win in cost as well over the H50W as it uses only 9w versus 25w and pays itself off in a shorter time on energy savings alone over a 1000w HID system.

Easy to setup could be a tossup unless you only have one outlet with no power strip. The LGM5 can use 4 strips per power supply so two plugs needed + the HID plug, and the H50W (remember you need 12 for the 6' x 8' area) would require 13 outlets + fan outlets >.< given the 300w put off by the 12 H50W's 16 hours a day versus the 72W of the LGM5's

 

It should be noted that the LGM5 uses "33" degree LED's not 30 degree LED's but given I cannot find a single vender who sells 660nm 33 degree, or 612nm 33 degree lights, or 470, or ... well you get the point I calculated the above based on the 30 degree LED's I did find.

 

If you were to build your own LGM5 system, and this would be no easy task mind you, it would cost about $1000 for 8 bars, two power supplies, and tools required to assemble.

 

Very interesting results however ... kinda interested to see other "lower power" alternatives to the LGM5 but I have yet to find one which I can really compare to it outside the "knockoff" which only uses blue / red spectrum so no real comparison.

 

[Rik Kretzinger]

LED light installed --

 

Here is a link to other shots of the install:

https://picasaweb.google.com/rik.kretzinger/LEDLight?authkey=Gv1sRg...

 

[AJ Grottke]

Well LED's look cool!  Keep us updated on your grow, what plants you gonna put in there?

[Rik Kretzinger]

will be starting out with duckweed to see if it will grow.  I want to use this set-up to raise koi fry.   As I am running a 2' to 3" water cap on the grow bed.  I am set up to lower water level and do flood and drain should the fry thing not work.  Then I will move on to Cilantro of Thai sweet basal.

AJ Grottke said:

Well LED's look cool!  Keep us updated on your grow, what plants you gonna put in there?

[AJ Grottke]

Im almost positive duckweed will grow good.  Im interested to see how the thai basil would go :)

[Burton]

basil will grow in the dark it's so hearty lol