Color/Intensity-changing lights?

tstick

tstick

Well-Known Member
Are there any grow lights that can be programmed to come on with a gradual "sunrise" that not only slowly increases the intensity of the light, but also changes the spectrum? Morning light often appears more blue-white, for example. Midday Sun is hot and full of UV. Late day Sun is reddish/orange/yellow.

I wonder if plants have a "better" response to that type of light as opposed to most indoor grow lights that come on at full intensity and run all day at that same intensity and color and then suddenly shut off to pitch-black.

Now that lighting systems are becoming completely programmable, I'm wondering if anyone is designing (or has designed) a light to mimic, not only the "best" spectrum, but also the increase and decrease of intensity over the course of a "day".

Another thing that occurred to me was in regard to those color-changing LED party light bulbs.... They can be programmed to pulsate through the entire spectrum of visible light -repeating the cycle indefinitely. Or, they can be programmed to be whatever color you want. I realize they are inefficient. But I wonder if the same idea could be implemented with a high-quality grow light -where the lights are, say, programmed to run a cycles including UVA, blue and red, etc., instead of party bulb colors.
 
Hollatchaboy

Hollatchaboy

Well-Known Member
tstick said:
Are there any grow lights that can be programmed to come on with a gradual "sunrise" that not only slowly increases the intensity of the light, but also changes the spectrum? Morning light often appears more blue-white, for example. Midday Sun is hot and full of UV. Late day Sun is reddish/orange/yellow.

I wonder if plants have a "better" response to that type of light as opposed to most indoor grow lights that come on at full intensity and run all day at that same intensity and color and then suddenly shut off to pitch-black.

Now that lighting systems are becoming completely programmable, I'm wondering if anyone is designing (or has designed) a light to mimic, not only the "best" spectrum, but also the increase and decrease of intensity over the course of a "day".

Another thing that occurred to me was in regard to those color-changing LED party light bulbs.... They can be programmed to pulsate through the entire spectrum of visible light -repeating the cycle indefinitely. Or, they can be programmed to be whatever color you want. I realize they are inefficient. But I wonder if the same idea could be implemented with a high-quality grow light -where the lights are, say, programmed to run a cycles including UVA, blue and red, etc., instead of party bulb colors.
Click to expand...
Chilled led used to have a light w/ a controller that would simulate sunrise, sunset. I'm not sure if the color temp changed, but I would imagine it changes with intensity, no?
 
Kassiopeija

Kassiopeija

Well-Known Member
tstick said:
I wonder if plants have a "better" response to that type of light as opposed to most indoor grow lights that come on at full intensity and run all day at that same intensity and color and then suddenly shut off to pitch-black.
Click to expand...
yeah definitely.

Stomatas for example, they need ~20mins to open. At full light cytosolic CO2 in leaf will be depleted after 2-3mins. After that, RuBisCO accepts O2 to build a toxic wasteproduct, that needs to get respired. For Cannabis as a C3-C4 plant - no problem though, it can handle that.
Still, 20mins UVA/blue light at much reduced strength - or any type of white light, except excessive FR - will do the trick.

Then, reduction of irradiance after ~~10h (that number should vary greatly) would also be warranted. Plants cannot metabolize light infinitely, they got vacuoles, sap etc which are usually depleted in the mourning but after some time after light-on, these are full again and photosynthesis rate sinks by much.
Just 3 days ago read a study on 20 species on a chinese plateau on this - photosynthesis rate outside is sometimes highest at the middle, or the bottom of plants, while throttled or suppressed at the tops. The tops are usually done by midday.

Regarding UVB - at the end of day would be best to circumvent UV-B chlorophyll damage.
Moderate to low UVA - always, it's beneficial in many ways
 
Kassiopeija

Kassiopeija

Well-Known Member
btw few years ago a scientific group started an international cell workgroup to test an AI to set light regimes. many plants tested with much better growth and vitamins etc
it works rather empirical and delivers no answer to "why" but shows plants can definitely benefit from finetuning - which may even go against their natural circumstances
 
M

MedicinalMyA$$

Well-Known Member
tstick said:
Are there any grow lights that can be programmed to come on with a gradual "sunrise" that not only slowly increases the intensity of the light, but also changes the spectrum? Morning light often appears more blue-white, for example. Midday Sun is hot and full of UV. Late day Sun is reddish/orange/yellow.

I wonder if plants have a "better" response to that type of light as opposed to most indoor grow lights that come on at full intensity and run all day at that same intensity and color and then suddenly shut off to pitch-black.

Now that lighting systems are becoming completely programmable, I'm wondering if anyone is designing (or has designed) a light to mimic, not only the "best" spectrum, but also the increase and decrease of intensity over the course of a "day".

Another thing that occurred to me was in regard to those color-changing LED party light bulbs.... They can be programmed to pulsate through the entire spectrum of visible light -repeating the cycle indefinitely. Or, they can be programmed to be whatever color you want. I realize they are inefficient. But I wonder if the same idea could be implemented with a high-quality grow light -where the lights are, say, programmed to run a cycles including UVA, blue and red, etc., instead of party bulb colors.
Click to expand...
SCYNCE LED
 
Rocket Soul

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
Kassiopeija said:
yeah definitely.

Stomatas for example, they need ~20mins to open. At full light cytosolic CO2 in leaf will be depleted after 2-3mins. After that, RuBisCO accepts O2 to build a toxic wasteproduct, that needs to get respired. For Cannabis as a C3-C4 plant - no problem though, it can handle that.
Still, 20mins UVA/blue light at much reduced strength - or any type of white light, except excessive FR - will do the trick.

Then, reduction of irradiance after ~~10h (that number should vary greatly) would also be warranted. Plants cannot metabolize light infinitely, they got vacuoles, sap etc which are usually depleted in the mourning but after some time after light-on, these are full again and photosynthesis rate sinks by much.
Just 3 days ago read a study on 20 species on a chinese plateau on this - photosynthesis rate outside is sometimes highest at the middle, or the bottom of plants, while throttled or suppressed at the tops. The tops are usually done by midday.

Regarding UVB - at the end of day would be best to circumvent UV-B chlorophyll damage.
Moderate to low UVA - always, it's beneficial in many ways
Click to expand...
Why end of the day for uvb? I dont have too much idea of how id use it, either in short pulses (making them longer as i go along) or just a bit at midday to simulate nature.
Im intrigued on why uvb later in the day.
 
Kassiopeija

Kassiopeija

Well-Known Member
Rocket Soul said:
Why end of the day for uvb? I dont have too much idea of how id use it, either in short pulses (making them longer as i go along) or just a bit at midday to simulate nature.
Im intrigued on why uvb later in the day.
Click to expand...
UVB can damage the photosynthetic apparatus at the core so severe, that the whole complex becomes dyfunctional because no excitons will be conserved chemically anymore. It's like several hundred chlorophylls will then just harvest these photons but turn them into heat only

Over night can be repaired, some newer tests I've seen even puts it only every 2nd day on to mitigate this issue.

But not confusing it to integrate into FR-EOD, that is separate (+later)
 
PSUAGRO.

PSUAGRO.

Well-Known Member
Lumigro, heliospectra, are a few that can be customized through app/controller. I think valoya too? but I'm not sure
 
tstick

tstick

Well-Known Member
Fardsnarp said:
Lots of folks use on/off with spectacular results. Don't overthink this.
Click to expand...
I agree with you but I also just enjoy experimenting with new ideas and tools as they come up. Growing is a fun activity for me and I'm always hoping to stumble onto some spectacular new thing to try. I used to get good results from MH and HPS lights when that was the best that we had and when we couldn't dare discuss growing weed techniques with anyone other than a family member for fear of going to prison!
 
K

Kgrim

Well-Known Member
Chilled LED will be releasing their "Guardian" system on 4-20, with the supplemental bars, you'll be able to adjust the light spectrum to mimic the sun. Quite a few controllers have a sunset, sunrise mode, but nothing like you'll be able to do with the Guardian system and a Chilled LED light.
 
C

calyxico

Active Member
Kgrim said:
Chilled LED will be releasing their "Guardian" system on 4-20, with the supplemental bars, you'll be able to adjust the light spectrum to mimic the sun. Quite a few controllers have a sunset, sunrise mode, but nothing like you'll be able to do with the Guardian system and a Chilled LED light.
Click to expand...
Vitaly from Chilled actually holds a patent that color-shifts throughout the day. I take it that he is still interested.

I built an several Arduino systems that works like this. Harnessing the system has taken alot of work so far. If you have a GPS location and can calculate the current solar angle, you can start with 730nm and approximate how Rayleigh scatter will filter out the shorter frequencies as you move toward solar noon. So what happens is that you can move through the frequencies (730, 660, 630, 590, 530, 470, 450, 390, then a reptile bulb) and slowly increase the intensity by multiplying the solar angle by a constant (so that you slowly get closer to 255 when your solar angle is 90 deg., the pwm dimming max.) Multiple dimming drivers are necessary.
Maybe a smarter way to do this is only move between 3000k to 5000k and add 730nm sunsets during flower.

BTW, my locations were Invercargill, NZ and Kabul, AF.
Next I want to use OpenWeather API to recreate the weather for these locations. But that will need to run on a Raspberry Pi.

The other side benefit is that power is cheaper at night here in the states. So if you tie your clock to somewhere on the other side of the world, you save alot of money. My power bills are lower than my non-growing neighbors.
The other thing is that they are shaped like outdoor plants (pretty tall) which is not generally desirable indoors. They do finish a week or two sooner than typical indoor plants however. But because of their shape, the light generally makes it all the way to the bottom. So they are definitely larf heavy to be sure. Heavy in the fall colors at harvest too. Not massive pornographic buds, but a fulfilling journey nonetheless.
 
C

calyxico

Active Member
Kassiopeija said:
btw few years ago a scientific group started an international cell workgroup to test an AI to set light regimes. many plants tested with much better growth and vitamins etc
it works rather empirical and delivers no answer to "why" but shows plants can definitely benefit from finetuning - which may even go against their natural circumstances
Click to expand...
I would be very interested in reading this. I you come across it again, please post!
 
Kassiopeija

Kassiopeija

Well-Known Member
calyxico said:
I would be very interested in reading this. I you come across it again, please post!
Click to expand...
hey, I found it
but their forum is down. that actually held all the info on how to use their software

not really sure if they are still progressing but they have been contributing to some studies
journals.plos.org

Flavor-cyber-agriculture: Optimization of plant metabolites in an open-source control environment through surrogate modeling

Food production in conventional agriculture faces numerous challenges such as reducing waste, meeting demand, maintaining flavor, and providing nutrition. Contained environments under artificial climate control, or cyber-agriculture, could in principle be used to meet many of these challenges...
journals.plos.org journals.plos.org

I visited them back then when we had a discussion here about 24/0 light regiment
 
K

Kgrim

Well-Known Member
Autodoctor said:
Put the plants in a larger room and set up light on a grow light rail. Not sure how beneficial it would be.
Click to expand...
Way back, many many moons ago, we used a light rail. The concept is that it balances out the edges with the center, so that the plants get an equal amount of light. Our "clandestine" grow area wasn't wide, but long, and illegal as all hell. The rail worked very well for us. It balanced out the amount of light that the plants were getting, and the plants on the outer edges were no longer small, they were just as big and filled out as the plants in the center. It was an "investment" back then, and paid for itself in the 1st harvest.
Times have changed, PAR maps, PPFD readings, VPD, etc. weren't around back then, and indoor growing was a "hush hush" deal. Hell, We had to travel 150 miles to find a "hydro" store.
Times have changed, and technology has made leaps and bounds for indoor growing from when I 1st learned how to grow indoors. It's hard not to get a successful grow indoors now with all the info and tech that's available.
 
K

Kgrim

Well-Known Member
calyxico said:
Vitaly from Chilled actually holds a patent that color-shifts throughout the day. I take it that he is still interested.

I built an several Arduino systems that works like this. Harnessing the system has taken alot of work so far. If you have a GPS location and can calculate the current solar angle, you can start with 730nm and approximate how Rayleigh scatter will filter out the shorter frequencies as you move toward solar noon. So what happens is that you can move through the frequencies (730, 660, 630, 590, 530, 470, 450, 390, then a reptile bulb) and slowly increase the intensity by multiplying the solar angle by a constant (so that you slowly get closer to 255 when your solar angle is 90 deg., the pwm dimming max.) Multiple dimming drivers are necessary.
Maybe a smarter way to do this is only move between 3000k to 5000k and add 730nm sunsets during flower.

BTW, my locations were Invercargill, NZ and Kabul, AF.
Next I want to use OpenWeather API to recreate the weather for these locations. But that will need to run on a Raspberry Pi.

The other side benefit is that power is cheaper at night here in the states. So if you tie your clock to somewhere on the other side of the world, you save alot of money. My power bills are lower than my non-growing neighbors.
The other thing is that they are shaped like outdoor plants (pretty tall) which is not generally desirable indoors. They do finish a week or two sooner than typical indoor plants however. But because of their shape, the light generally makes it all the way to the bottom. So they are definitely larf heavy to be sure. Heavy in the fall colors at harvest too. Not massive pornographic buds, but a fulfilling journey nonetheless.
Click to expand...
Nice!!!!!! I wish I had the patience and knowledge to attempt something like this. Sounds like your definitely onto something worthy. The ability to adjust light spectrum is definitely a different aspect to indoor growing that's just starting to come to fruition. Like LED's to HPS/MH were a long time ago.
I'm just biding my time until Chilled releases their Guardian system next month.
I think it's gonna be very interesting to see the results of being able to "fine tune" the light spectrum to your growing environment.
 
tstick

tstick

Well-Known Member
LOL! Get this.....I picked up a couple of the novelty color-changing LED bulbs and I'm using them for my clones! I don't think it will make a bit of difference one way or another to be honest, but it sure is fun. These bulbs are a riot! You can set them to a specific static color. Or, you can have them cycle through the entire spectrum over and over again. The static color settings kind of remind me of those old Kessle fixtures that everyone used to rave aboutI Remember them? That's how people were adding specific reds, blues and purples to their light mixes, years ago.


Sounds like Vitaly has a new secret weapon coming out soon. I can't wait! That guy....phew! Man! I remember when he and Gromau5 teamed up for awhile. I was expecting some kind of fission-light device or something from them. But I guess it didn't work out for them together. By the way, does anyone know whatever happened to Gromau5? I remember he was FAR ahead of the game on a few of his own homebuilt lights when he showed them, here.
 
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