Induction Lights? The newest (supposedly) technology in Induction Grow Lights

Mr. Outdoors

Mr. Outdoors

Well-Known Member
One thing I would like to add is that I live in and average two story 3 bedroom house. I have a hottub I run all year. I have 3 tents. 3 T5's, and the 4 Ibeams, fans, Co2, etc. I HAVE YET TO HAVE AN ELECTRIC BILL THAT HAS REACHED $200.00. My friend lives in a slightly smaller house, no hottub. He runs 2Mh, and a 1000W HPS. His electric bill is always $325.00++.
 
Kite High

Kite High

Well-Known Member
Beefbisquit said:
Lumens are how much light is visible by the human eye, measuring light energy for plants using lumens is even far more useless than PAR. Green light is most visible to the human eye, so having 150,000 lumens and attempting to equate that to energy a plant can use, is as useless as tits on a turnip.

You could literally have zero red and blue light, and just crank out green and have high lumens. Completely useless in terms of plants.
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ok ...so you are saying that hps cant grow a plant as it is mostly yellow light...and its intensity means nothing....

if you READ what I wrote BOTH are inaccurate and without knowing the spectrum distribution they BOTH indicate nothing...but WITH the spectrum output data they BOTH indicate intensity...you just feel like arguing with me or what?

Ok simply put BOTH read 400-700 nm, the visible light band one is narrowly centered in the middle ie ftc, the other broadens the scope to give more emphasis to the farther less centralized frequencies and moreso the blue as it carries more "ENERGY", par... but BOTH are inaccurate without spectral data...even the sun puts out more yellow and green than any other bands...so I guess it is not good for growing plants either according to your statement

This leads me to another point I feel eludes alot of people...if you look at the spectrum of the Sun it has peak output in the middle of of the visible spectrum and lower the further from the center of the band...now if you look at the plant response curve it is the OPPOSITE with a dip in the middle and rise on the ends..now why would this be...well it is really quite simple actually...NATURE wastes NOTHING...the plants do not need to be as sensitive to the middle bands as the energy is the most abundant in this area but falls off on the ends so to be able to utilize ALL the light efficiently it is more sensitive to the outer bands...hence the error in LED design of red and blue only and the reason we are seeing the white leds now being utilized and outperforming the red blue only...the plants use all of the spectrum for a variety of purposes and yes even green as long as the red and blue are saturated...plants don't just use light to synthesize food in photosynthesis..they use light and the entire spectrum for a variety of things and is why full spectrum is the best route as it is what they have used for millions of years..
back to Liebig's Law of the Minimum ... It states that growth is controlled not by the total amount of resources available, but by the scarcest resource...so if you leave part of it out even in light you have limited the plant's potential...study some botany and think...dont just regurgitate what you read...before your love affair with the PAR readings how do you think lights were measured for growing? in ftc as there was no par algorithm available and plenty bountiful crops were grown indoors before PAR was even in existence..so I again reiterate that NEITHER are much good without spectral output data but both are useful for intensity indication with the spectral data

I do not have a par meter but I have an NIST certified ftc meter that goes to 40000...a red light spectrum meter, a blue light spectrum meter and a uvb meter and I assure you that they together are much more accurate and telling than any par meter

Read what I wrote..its apparent from this and you always stating that I grow one big cola demonstrates either that you do not read, do not grasp photographs accurately or assuming things in the worse light possible to negate what I say
 
Kite High

Kite High

Well-Known Member
chazbolin said:
We're on a complex topic, lighting and it's measurement, that does not warrant one or two sentence responses. But I'm going to try and keep it as simple as possible for anyone who is new to this.

Any band pass type light meter is simply reading a net photon energy level.

A quantum meter is typically calibrated for sunlight and is not corrected for human vision sensitivity. It measures whatever net light energy is sensed and converts it to the calibrated numerical value between 400-700nm. It has no idea where it is landing in that range. I can actually take a PAR reading of a monochromatic green emission at a peak of 555nm and still read a high PAR value. A quantum meter does not utilize an algorithm that would avoid this region (if this is what Kite meant I take exception and if not forgive me as this is what I interpreted your statement to mean) and weight the PAR measurement more towards the red or blue bandwidths. A quantum meter will measure the blue spectrum's in higher PAR energy values than red spectrum's as the blue regions pack 1.5x the energy as the red regions. This relationship is defined in Planck's Constant as a quantum of action in quantum mechanics whereby, for example, a 400nm photon has 1.5X the energy of a 600nm photon. The quantum or PAR meter will read this value as such. It's just measuring the photon energy at the sensor.

A photopic light meter is corrected for human vision sensitivity (photopically corrected) and gives measurements in lux or footcandle readings and will have been calibrated to a certain kelvin value. These values are based on the human vision luminosity function whereby the highest photopic value is 555nm and the scotopic value is 505nm. This chart represents the peak photopic and scotopic values and the various points on the curve where human visual perception decreases.

View attachment 2521848

If anything a value that does not exist today for plant lighting should be created that represents a something in a Par/Lumen value whereby the PAR/Lumen (I made this term up) value would take into account the weight of energy at a given point on the plant sensitivity curve. But since this value doesn't exist (akin to lumens but more in line with a composite lumen:CRI value) all you can do is look to the spectral distribution charts to see relative intensities that the lamp emits to determine if you're catching the wavelengths you're looking for. If you're going through all this and still considering purchasing lights or lamps from a manufacturer that refuses to publish their spectral distribution graphs because they claim their spectrum's are proprietary than I have a really good deal on a bridge for you. What these manufacturers are essentially telling you is to buy our product based on just our claims and not the essential data you should expect that is as a minimum necessary to make an informed decision of your own.

At the end of the day you still have to determine what these values represent to you as the end user. For example the lumen is quantity and the CRI is quality. Which is more important as the balance between these two is ultimately up to you to decide. In plant lighting striking this balance between energy and spectrum is of even of greater importance since it will spell the difference somewhere between crop success or failure.

Even when presented properly it's easy to get confused as this is a complex topic. If you take nothing else from all of this just remember; A PAR measurement will be better than a photopic value since these values are expressly meant to apply to human visual regions. But just a PAR value, as measured in how many uMole are striking the sensor at a given time, should not be used to determine if the light being emitted from a given light source has adequate broad spectrum blue - red to successfully take a garden to harvest. Therefore I use my quantum meter to determine if there is enough energy hitting the plants where I want the light and I use a historical reference from my previous grows to determine if the light being emitted is of proper bandwidth. This enables me to repeat grows successfully from veg through flower with a minimum amount of stress to either me or my garden. Lights/Lamps that regularly accomplish this and are energy efficient, stable spectrum, low heat and long life are likely going to find a spot in my garden.
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yep were are stating the same thing..yours much more eloquently I will add...but we agree here...completely...as in read my previous post
 
CurtisAintlow

CurtisAintlow

Member
Mr. Outdoors said:
My tent is 5, X9'. I had originally bought 3 I beams, I set them up spaced evenly in the tent, Turned them on, there was a noticeable diminishing of light between the fixtures unless they were lifted well above the tops of the plants. I try to keep the lights at 12" from the ladies, at that distance the light does not spread very wide. So I ran up and picked up another. The sales person at the hydro shop said 3 would be enough for the space I am running.
On that note I could be dead wrong and wasted money on the 4th light. I dont have light meters and this indoor world is all brand new to me, but just looking at the light and putting my hand under them I just didnt feel the light was even across the canopy. Some one suggested earlier that I might be better off not running them so close to the tops. Maybe they are correct, I dont know. Like I have posted earlier not alot of people ( or people without agendas) to really ask about these things. So for now I run trial and error and try to dial it in.
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i run my 200 and 420 inda-gros 2.5-3ft above when in veg and 1-1.5ft above during flower. this seems to be optimum with most of my strains. like you said it is trial and error when you first start. I do believe it does have a lot to do with your strains and what they best. experiment is the best. it does seem there's not too many are running these induction lights yet. time will tell but I'm overly happy with the results thus far after running through the gamete of most other lights.
 
natro.hydro

natro.hydro

Well-Known Member
Mr. Outdoors said:
The I Beams are 300 W.
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You thought about putting like 2 of those on movers instead of doubling your ballast amount, kind of stupid to mention now I know since you bought the 4th already right? Just mentioning it cuz most store owners won't because they would rather sell another lamp lol. They can be pretty shameless sometimes, will not mention the 100 dollar piece of equipment that will double your canopy coverage but just mentions the obvious way of doubling it by buying another light.... Splifferous is using some in his garden with his 420s and they seem to be working nicely, can not remember exact specs of his room but sounds about the same size and he just uses 2 420's on movers, but he also is not trying to sog if that is your thing.

are you implying some corporate sock puppet work is at play here cheez?
Oh and kite and chaz just want to say thanx for the time you have taken to explain this lighting stuff to me, doesn't seem like there should be this much to it lol, guess I got lucky when I bought my leds on a whim and they actually got me to harvest.
 
Beefbisquit

Beefbisquit

Well-Known Member
Kite High said:
ok ...so you are saying that hps cant grow a plant as it is mostly yellow light...and its intensity means nothing....
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No, that's not what I said. I said that lumen intensity is predominenty measured in green light. That's a fact. So, having high lumen count could be completely useless. You could run a 150,000 lumen green light during your night cycle and do nothing to your plants.

if you READ what I wrote BOTH are inaccurate and without knowing the spectrum distribution they BOTH indicate nothing...but WITH the spectrum output data they BOTH indicate intensity...you just feel like arguing with me or what?
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No, I feel like correcting information that's wrong. If you're only using red and blue LED's it's relatively easy to figure out the ratio and calculate the PAR in specific wavelengths. There's also a meter specifically for that, can't remember what it's called but it has the sphere sensor that can tell the differences in the wavelengths.

Ok simply put BOTH read 400-700 nm, the visible light band one is narrowly centered in the middle ie ftc,
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Not really. Lumens are measured mostly in the 520-570nm range. The range that's pretty much useless for plants.


the other broadens the scope to give more emphasis to the farther less centralized frequencies and moreso the blue as it carries more "ENERGY", par... but BOTH are inaccurate without spectral data...even the sun puts out more yellow and green than any other bands...so I guess it is not good for growing plants either according to your statement
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That's not even remotely what I said. The 520-570nm range of the sun isn't what makes plants grow, yet it's the main range measured in lumens. The sun also puts out a ton of blue and red light as well, it just doesn't cause the number of lumens to increase very much.

This leads me to another point I feel eludes alot of people...if you look at the spectrum of the Sun it has peak output in the middle of of the visible spectrum and lower the further from the center of the band...now if you look at the plant response curve it is the OPPOSITE with a dip in the middle and rise on the ends..now why would this be...well it is really quite simple actually...NATURE wastes NOTHING...the plants do not need to be as sensitive to the middle bands as the energy is the most abundant in this area but falls off on the ends so to be able to utilize ALL the light efficiently it is more sensitive to the outer bands...
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Ummm... leaves are green so they reflect green light, and absorb other colors. Violet light contains the most energy and as the wavelength gets longer, they yield less energy.


hence the error in LED design of red and blue only and the reason we are seeing the white leds now being utilized and outperforming the red blue only...the plants use all of the spectrum for a variety of purposes and yes even green as long as the red and blue are saturated...plants don't just use light to synthesize food in photosynthesis..they use light and the entire spectrum for a variety of things and is why full spectrum is the best route as it is what they have used for millions of years..
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Not saying it's bullshit, but I've never heard of plants using light for anything but photosynthesis. Links?

back to Liebig's Law of the Minimum ... It states that growth is controlled not by the total amount of resources available, but by the scarcest resource...so if you leave part of it out even in light you have limited the plant's potential...study some botany and think...dont just regurgitate what you read...before your love affair with the PAR readings how do you think lights were measured for growing? in ftc as there was no par algorithm available and plenty bountiful crops were grown indoors before PAR was even in existence..so I again reiterate that NEITHER are much good without spectral output data but both are useful for intensity indication with the spectral data
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I agree both are incomplete without spectral data, but PAR readings are substantially more indicative of potential plant energy than lumens are.

I do not have a par meter but I have an NIST certified ftc meter that goes to 40000...a red light spectrum meter, a blue light spectrum meter and a uvb meter and I assure you that they together are much more accurate and telling than any par meter
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Really wish I could remember the name of that device.... it's like $4000 or some shit, but it gives you the actual breakdown of what PAR is coming from where.

Read what I wrote..its apparent from this and you always stating that I grow one big cola demonstrates either that you do not read, do not grasp photographs accurately or assuming things in the worse light possible to negate what I say
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You claim anyone who grows LED grows small plants (argument from ignorance), the basis of which was a pic you posted of you holding one giant cola. You proceeded to act like a horses-ass posting your stupid 'Hulk' clips and talking out your ass about LED's.... which I can guarantee you have no experience with.
 
Kite High

Kite High

Well-Known Member
Beefbisquit said:
No, that's not what I said. I said that lumen intensity is predominenty measured in green light. That's a fact. So, having high lumen count could be completely useless. You could run a 150,000 lumen green light during your night cycle and do nothing to your plants.



No, I feel like correcting information that's wrong. If you're only using red and blue LED's it's relatively easy to figure out the ratio and calculate the PAR in specific wavelengths. There's also a meter specifically for that, can't remember what it's called but it has the sphere sensor that can tell the differences in the wavelengths.


Not really. Lumens are measured mostly in the 520-570nm range. The range that's pretty much useless for plants.




That's not even remotely what I said. The 520-570nm range of the sun isn't what makes plants grow, yet it's the main range measured in lumens. The sun also puts out a ton of blue and red light as well, it just doesn't cause the number of lumens to increase very much.



Ummm... leaves are green so they reflect green light, and absorb other colors. Violet light contains the most energy and as the wavelength gets longer, they yield less energy.




Not saying it's bullshit, but I've never heard of plants using light for anything but photosynthesis. Links?



I agree both are incomplete without spectral data, but PAR readings are substantially more indicative of potential plant energy than lumens are.



Really wish I could remember the name of that device.... it's like $4000 or some shit, but it gives you the actual breakdown of what PAR is coming from where.



You claim anyone who grows LED grows small plants (argument from ignorance), the basis of which was a pic you posted of you holding one giant cola. You proceeded to act like a horses-ass posting your stupid 'Hulk' clips and talking out your ass about LED's.... which I can guarantee you have no experience with.
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yep you like to argue...

here you go



yep according to this graph from a government funded university botanical study plants use ALL of the spectrum

http://www.opticsinfobase.org/view_article.cfm?gotourl=http://www.opticsinfobase.org/DirectPDFAccess/28665898-A25D-35E7-75EFEE063AAFBCA2_13623/ao-4-1-11.pdf?da=1&id=13623&seq=0&mobile=no&org=

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC540339/pdf/plntphys00397-0150.pdf

and As I recall it was you who posted pics to somehow prove your point and I said your plants were small..and they are...I dropped the cynicism long ago but seems it is all you desire...I have even complemented you on your growing skills as you do have a grasp on it and the plants while small are beautiful and well grown...so why this constant need to attack? Your above rant did not invalidate a thing I stated. I provided no falsehood in any of these statements. Again it appears you like to argue.


And until the leds catch up I will not have experience with them til I see quite a number of grows that show they can do WHAT I WANT THEM TO WITH MY SETUP AND TYPE OF GROW.

And what types of grows have you experience with? i have grown outdoors, indoors, with cfls, fluorescents, mv, mh, hps, cmh...for about 30 years....as stated before I do expect a source...and most probably LED as that is where all the $$$ are going in R&D to do so as hid did to fluorescents...but it has NOT occurred as of yet...but I am watching and once it does repeatedly AND the pricing struture comes into par with reality I will in all likelihood make the move to LED or whatever ends up the best

See I have and continue to study Botany...didn't stop when I finished college

ps-thats my son holding one of 4 colas from that plant btw.
 
guod

guod

Well-Known Member
yep according to this graph from a government funded university botanical study plants use ALL of the spectrum

for landplants, the spectrum is wrong...

Phycoerythrin can only be found in Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) and red algae (red accessory pigment of photosynthesis.)

null points.
 
Loonquawl

Loonquawl

Well-Known Member
ChesusRice said:
Yet they Hyped the indagro website
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One mention in six posts is Hyped?

I'm new to the community so maybe you can answer this question. Did IGrow or I Beam or any other company selling induction lamps for growing plants have a web site that they could have sent someone to in order to check them out in May 2010?
 
C

ChesusRice

Well-Known Member
Loonquawl said:
I'm new to the community so maybe you can answer this question. Did IGrow or I Beam or any other company selling induction lamps for growing plants have a web site that they could have sent someone to in order to check them out in May 2010?
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Probably
So they decided to put in a word for indagro instead
Is that what you are suggesting?
 
Loonquawl

Loonquawl

Well-Known Member
ChesusRice said:
Probably
So they decided to put in a word for indagro instead
Is that what you are suggesting?
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What I was trying to say was, if I thought induction lighting was a new and better way to grow and there was a company that had a web page that explained why, I would reference that web page instead of retyping everything. But Im lazy and don't need people to think I'm smarter than the average person.

If they were working for Inda-Gro, then the company was marketing the wrong way and should be called out. If they were just referencing the only web page they could find at the time, how are they sock puppets? I don't know either way.

Like I said, I am new to this community and I never even considered growing until my wife got a medical card a few months ago. I like my grow room and the lights I bought, but I know nothing different to reference it too.

I think you are making a charge that you have very little proof to back up. Nothing more than that. You are very entitled to your opinion and even more entitled to voice it the way you want.
 
Beefbisquit

Beefbisquit

Well-Known Member
Kite High said:
yep you like to argue...

here you go



yep according to this graph from a government funded university botanical study plants use ALL of the spectrum

http://www.opticsinfobase.org/view_article.cfm?gotourl=http://www.opticsinfobase.org/DirectPDFAccess/28665898-A25D-35E7-75EFEE063AAFBCA2_13623/ao-4-1-11.pdf?da=1&id=13623&seq=0&mobile=no&org=

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC540339/pdf/plntphys00397-0150.pdf

and As I recall it was you who posted pics to somehow prove your point and I said your plants were small..and they are...I dropped the cynicism long ago but seems it is all you desire...I have even complemented you on your growing skills as you do have a grasp on it and the plants while small are beautiful and well grown...so why this constant need to attack? Your above rant did not invalidate a thing I stated. I provided no falsehood in any of these statements. Again it appears you like to argue.


And until the leds catch up I will not have experience with them til I see quite a number of grows that show they can do WHAT I WANT THEM TO WITH MY SETUP AND TYPE OF GROW.

And what types of grows have you experience with? i have grown outdoors, indoors, with cfls, fluorescents, mv, mh, hps, cmh...for about 30 years....as stated before I do expect a source...and most probably LED as that is where all the $$$ are going in R&D to do so as hid did to fluorescents...but it has NOT occurred as of yet...but I am watching and once it does repeatedly AND the pricing struture comes into par with reality I will in all likelihood make the move to LED or whatever ends up the best

See I have and continue to study Botany...didn't stop when I finished college

ps-thats my son holding one of 4 colas from that plant btw.
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The first link is broken and the second link neither mentions phycocyanin, or phycoerythrin. They are accessory pigments, and they still peak and fall at similar places on the graph compared to chlorophyll A and B. Notice the lull where green is? That's the pigment we see easiest.

Just by looking at a graph without the accessory pigments you can see that some absorption takes place throughout the entire visible spectrum, but not a significant amount, hence using green lights while the plants are sleeping. It's not enough to activate any type of photosynthesis.

Go back and read your post if you want to know why I responded why I did. You claim to have 'dropped the cynicism' but you certainly love putting words into my mouth, making strawman arguments, beating them up and claiming victory.

The ONLY god damn thing I'm saying is that lumens are a unit designed to measure how bright something is to the human eye. We seen green easiest, in other words, green light is brightest to us. Plants use very little green light in photosynthesis, therefore lumens is an incredibly inaccurate way of measuring the amount of energy being given to a plant that it can use. Nothing about the sun, or any other shit. That's all you pally boy.

For some one who's been growing for 30+ years, and has kids you act like a brat sometimes.
 
Kite High

Kite High

Well-Known Member
have a good one beef...

“Do not argue with an idiot they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”




― Mark Twain

I will not engage you again
 
chazbolin

chazbolin

Well-Known Member
really wish I could remember the name of that device.... it's like $4000 or some shit, but it gives you the actual breakdown of what PAR is coming from where.
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You may be thinking of spectraradiometer
 
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