A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Induction Grow Lamps

Just saw this company highlighted on the PGTA Facebook page - http://www.inda-gro.com/. These induction grow lamps seem to give you the optimal growth of an HID without the power draw and heat. What do you guys think?

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Permalink Reply by Burton on March 28, 2011 at 12:07pm

Ok I have to post on this

There are several problems I see right away with this products claims.

1) Most Lumens per Watt ... are they kidding there is no way they can compete with LEDs in this department and traditional induction lights can't even complete with T5's

2) 95% par light ... The problem I see is their graphs, the line they use to represent par is not accurate as par is a % of light absorbed by plants and thus only has a % based scale. If they were smart they would have put an intensity graph up of the sun versus their product. But there is the other problem, their scale has no units! Never trust a graph without units.

3) Life expectancy graphs dont include "non-high intensity" LED's if they did it would be a close tie to a loss as they degrade slower than any light on the market.

4) The induction based lighting uses existing Fluorescent technology with the coils over it, thus there is mercury in these bulbs (if you care at all)

5) These lights work off of induction, meaning EMF waves, meaning electrical interference ... have a pacemaker? might not want to get close to these lights ... have a brain? might not want to get close to these lights lol

Graphs below were achieved based on combining all the graphs present on the Indagrow site, since they use the same scale, into one document and overlaid. I then found one of my many graphs with a scale and a similar light to overlay the extra graphs you see. The "Plant Action Spectrum" was found in the patent for the SolarOasis Ruby to give perspective on how plants react to different "intensity counts" of lights. The scale on the left is in 1000's of intensity counts, the bottom of course in nm wavelengths.

You will see the original scale in light grey, and the new scale with units in white. This was overlaid by finding a graph with these units and a similar light on the indagrow graphs to gain perspective. The birght RED is always shown and is the indagrow light, the dark GREEN is the plant action spectrum (scientifically proven response rate for plant growth), then you will find alternative lighting sources graphed in comparison, one per graph.

Enhanced HPS

Enhanced Bloom HID

Enhanced Fluorescent

Enhanced CF

SolarOasis Ruby 1st Gen

2800K

3500K

5000K

6000K

Metal Halide

HPS

Permalink Reply by Burton on March 28, 2011 at 12:31pm

I should note the EMF while true this device does "comply" with the FCC and runs at VLF 250KHz which is in the "radio" spectrum of frequency.

Also I found another graph, again without any indication of scale, where they show the par, human eye range, and their product. What I find interesting is the product has UV before 380 and has IR after 750 ... both very damaging to plants.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on March 28, 2011 at 12:45pm

Hum, looks interesting. I wonder if the EM field causes much RF issues?

Permalink Reply by Burton on March 28, 2011 at 12:52pm

They have stated they are "shielded" but if you wanted to have a little fun you could get another induction based incandescent bulb and get it close to the coil to see what it does. I know induction based pads will light a incandescent bulb starting around a foot.

Or you could just get a fancy EMF digital meter :)

These work on RF frequencies as well, radio is 0 - 300KHz ... But I don't expect it to be too big of a problem, however I would love to test one with a EMF meter versus say a high power line in the house that is not shielded well.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on March 28, 2011 at 1:05pm

I remember as a kid we used to tape a small florescent bulb to a cb radio antenna and light it up of course that would reduce your radio range but it worked.

Permalink Reply by AJ Grottke on March 28, 2011 at 2:10pm

This is a very interesting concept. I would be very interested to see some side-by-side tests with these. I find it odd that companies of new lighting technology dont do this, and put the results on their website. If you going through all the trouble to build and design a new grow light, doing a side-by-side test should be very easy. With that being said, i would love to do these tests, but im too broke right now. Maybe someday. I would make the information as transparent as possible. If these lights do works so much better it is surprising this data isnt already on their website.

I am really worried about the electromagnetic waves. I am not sure i want to be around that stuff any more than i have too.