New lights, new spectra and some High Light strips

Grow Lights Australia said:

Sorry to hear mate. Do you want to email me? I might be be able to find a demo or repaired board I could send you as a free replacement if you are happy to pay for postage. If you send your broken board back, we can fix it here, so an exchange is possible.

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All good bloody heatsinks to low my fault in a rush... need to up grade soon anyway, and will also sort a replacement Gen 1 board as well( still goes really well ....

Scuzzman said:

All good bloody heatsinks to low my fault in a rush... need to up grade soon anyway, and will also sort a replacement Gen 1 board as well( still goes really well ....

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Mate we can work in with you. We understand accidents happen and we can repair boards here, so we see no reason to throw things out or put up with broken diodes if we can find a cheap solution. We occassionally have repaired and demo boards that we usually sell cheap, so we can do a straight exchange if you're interested. We just ask that you pay for shipping, which is fair.

Grow Lights Australia said:

Mate we can work in with you. We understand accidents happen and we can repair boards here, so we see no reason to throw things out or put up with broken diodes if we can find a cheap solution. We occassionally have repaired and demo boards that we usually sell cheap, so we can do a straight exchange if you're interested. We just ask that you pay for shipping, which is fair.

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agree 100% dude, no issues there, will wait for a month as need to sort the farm

How do the boards compare with the older 420’s at 430nm? I’m only curious as I brought the original highlights as they were the only ones that covered 430nm and last year brought 10x 420 boards to improve efficiency and spectrum. It looks like the 405nm covers it well but I suspect your data will tell more than me looking at pictures.

Speedtriplebbc said:

How do the boards compare with the older 420’s at 430nm? I’m only curious as I brought the original highlights as they were the only ones that covered 430nm and last year brought 10x 420 boards to improve efficiency and spectrum. It looks like the 405nm covers it well but I suspect your data will tell more than me looking at pictures.

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There is a gap at 430nm and we will get a proper reading as soon as LED Teknik puts the new spectra on the goniometer. The hand-held Lighting Passport reads every 8nm, whereas the goniometer reads every 1nm, so what the hand-held spectrometers do is blend all the peaks and trough. You can see this by comparing the old 420 board spectrographs.





Compared to the new 3000K spectrum below, which is very close to the original 420 spectrum except for that nice UV peak and some more Deep Red and Far Red between 680nm and 730nm.


I suspect the new spectrum will be down on 430nm by a very small amount, but it is still there courtesy of the overlap from the Nichia 405nm UV diode and the 5000K CRI 70. Have a look at the raw diode data.

Nichia 405nm



Nichia 5000K CRI70. There are other diodes in the mix but this shows how the 450nm peak spills over into 430.



And finally the Chlorophyll A and B absorption peaks. Notice how the A peak still has a lot of absorption between 400nm and 430nm – we believe the Nichia 405 fills this gap. Also at the other end of the scale there is plenty of Deep Red in the new spectrum to target the secondary absorption peak around 660-680nm. We have also targeted Chlorophyll B at both ends of the spectrum.

This is why I’m a big fan of what you and LED Teknik do for us, massive detail laid out in a way we can understand. Before the 420 boards I was planning a complicated custom build of different Led’s to achieve something like the 420 boards, it would have been more costly and time consuming although more flexibility. I spoke with LED Teknik about 430nm and at that time the most efficient way seemed to be the pc blue. I probably overthink a lot of stuff to be honest, so if you say there’s enough 430nm I should listen lol. Are the pc blue buddies still in the pipeline? I understand there’s been a lot of problems for LED Teknik but wasn’t sure if that’s a delay or cancellation?

Grow Lights Australia said:

There is a gap at 430nm and we will get a proper reading as soon as LED Teknik puts the new spectra on the goniometer. The hand-held Lighting Passport reads every 8nm, whereas the goniometer reads every 1nm, so what the hand-held spectrometers do is blend all the peaks and trough. You can see this by comparing the old 420 board spectrographs.

View attachment 5067371

View attachment 5067379

Compared to the new 3000K spectrum below, which is very close to the original 420 spectrum except for that nice UV peak and some more Deep Red and Far Red between 680nm and 730nm.
View attachment 5067381

I suspect the new spectrum will be down on 430nm by a very small amount, but it is still there courtesy of the overlap from the Nichia 405nm UV diode and the 5000K CRI 70. Have a look at the raw diode data.

Nichia 405nm
View attachment 5067387


Nichia 5000K CRI70. There are other diodes in the mix but this shows how the 450nm peak spills over into 430.
View attachment 5067388


And finally the Chlorophyll A and B absorption peaks. Notice how the A peak still has a lot of absorption between 400nm and 430nm – we believe the Nichia 405 fills this gap. Also at the other end of the scale there is plenty of Deep Red in the new spectrum to target the secondary absorption peak around 660-680nm. We have also targeted Chlorophyll B at both ends of the spectrum.
View attachment 5067389

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Great looking high performance light!
Wow!
Spread some Awesome Sauce!

Speedtriplebbc said:

This is why I’m a big fan of what you and LED Teknik do for us, massive detail laid out in a way we can understand. Before the 420 boards I was planning a complicated custom build of different Led’s to achieve something like the 420 boards, it would have been more costly and time consuming although more flexibility. I spoke with LED Teknik about 430nm and at that time the most efficient way seemed to be the pc blue. I probably overthink a lot of stuff to be honest, so if you say there’s enough 430nm I should listen lol. Are the pc blue buddies still in the pipeline? I understand there’s been a lot of problems for LED Teknik but wasn’t sure if that’s a delay or cancellation?

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Yes, Blue Buddies are on their way but supply chains post-Covid etc have delayed a lot of things. We've been working on the High Light strips for a long time now but things have just been slow.

430nm is an interesting wavelength because as you can see from the absorption chart above it is captured by both Chlorophyll A and B. But before I continue I need to point out that there is no real consensus on these types of charts as you can look at different sources that place the absorption peaks at different levels because of the way they measure it. Early tests used diethyl ethyl as a solvent to dissolve chlorophyll but it has been pointed out that plants are made up of water not solvents so there have been other tests using acetone and water and both had different results.

It is hard to quote actual numbers because of all the different sources but it seems to be generally accepted that peak absorption of Chlorophyll A is around 430nm and 660nm and Chlorophyl B is 450nm and 640nm. There is 3-4x as much Chlorophyll A as B, but this can change depending on the light source. In weaker light and in shade plant species there is more Chlorophyll B, so the ratio can be as low as 2x A to B. Interestingly the Max Planck Institute has published research claiming "true" Chlorophyll A peak absorption is at 372nm and 642nm and Chlorophyl B is at 392nm and 626nm, which is much bluer than traditionally thought.

Caratenoids are often overlooked, but they also help capture light for photosynthesis and they seem to favour the cyan range around 470nm. To confuse things even more, Chlorophylls C and D absorb outside the PAR range (400-700nm) and into the Far Red range as well as the blue and UV ranges.

Here is yet another chart from another source that is quite interesting. https://www.rseco.org/content/122-chlorophyll-absorption-and-photosynthetic-action-spectra.html


It really depends on which charts you believe but we do know that plants adapt to whatever light is available and we do know that the blue and red ends of the spectrum are most efficient. Traditionally Chlorophyll A was targeted at 430nm and 660nm and Chlorophyll B at 450nm and 640nm. Current LED technology means it is most efficient to target Chlorophyll A at 660nm and Chlorophyll B at 450nm. We do the same but have hedged our bets by producing a very broad Red and Blue spectrum as well as adding a large amount of Far Red light, which we know from research works very well.

What all this means is that we have to measure LED efficiency against photosynthetic efficiency. We can produce 660nm red light very efficiently using monochromatic 3535s. And we can produce 450nm very efficiently using white phosphor 3030s. But outside those two peaks other wavelengths require more energy. We can boost the red range using narrow band phosphor technology, which we do.

We have 430nm and 470nm mono LEDs that could be used to fill in the 430 and 470 (cyan) gaps, but neither of those LEDs is very efficient. We can boost cyan using certain white phosphor LEDs (Vitasolis), which we do, so then it boils down to what else do we target? We knew that the original High Light 420 spectrum worked so well because we had the Red end of the spectrum so well covered, including Far Red, with a complete balance of Blue light all the way down to 400nm.

So we looked outside photosynthesis at photomorphogenesis because when you target flowering plants it's not just about photosynthesis but flowering structure, development and production of secondary metabolites such as cannabinoids. For that we decided to bump the UV and include a highly efficient 405nm diode (72% efficient Nichia 3535) that covered the UV range but also spilled over into the 420-430nm range. What we ended up with was a Gen2 spectrum that was very similar to the original High Light 420 spectrum but with more UV, a little bit more Far Red and about the same amount of 430nm. We basically just swapped out a 660 for 405 and boosted the rest of the range with a blend of different Nichia and narrow band phosphor LEDs.

Great information there, I suppose with all the advancements in the last few years it’s still relatively new with trial and error still going on. Add to all this that there’s a lot more variables like strains, grow style and environment alongside what each individual wants so ideally I’d have looked at some flexibility. But overall it’s still the only boards I’ll buy and I’m a picky over thinker. I had originally planned to build something at 3500/4000k with uv on one channel creating a similar spectrum to plasma/CMH at around 20w per square foot and pop the reds on a separate channel for flower, but my highlight 420 boards dimmed with the 4000k buddies are doing a great job in veg with limited height and a love for more sativa leaning strains. I keep looking at all my unused led strips and thinking of building my next light but those strips would be so much better… lol

Some interesting THC results comparing the original High Light 420 boards with the Gen2s here: https://www.rollitup.org/t/latest-uva-vs-uvb-cannabinoid-test-results.1052083/page-2#post-16762776

There’s probably no perfect spectrum start to finish and there’s going to be a compromise somewhere, I’m still tempted to run my gen1 420 boards and have a blue/uv boost for veg with the boards dimmed and boost it again for the last few weeks? I actually found an eu supplier of Seoul sunlike strips that I almost brought for this but hesitated over the low efficiency and then the highlight 420 boards took my money lol

Speedtriplebbc said:

There’s probably no perfect spectrum start to finish and there’s going to be a compromise somewhere, I’m still tempted to run my gen1 420 boards and have a blue/uv boost for veg with the boards dimmed and boost it again for the last few weeks? I actually found an eu supplier of Seoul sunlike strips that I almost brought for this but hesitated over the low efficiency and then the highlight 420 boards took my money lol

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We don't think blue/UV boosts vegetative growth at all. It has the opposite effect and actually slows growth compared to having a heavy red spectrum with lots of far red. And that happens through all stages of growth. Red is still the most efficient photosynthetic spectrum, especially combined with far red light. Blue light certainly drives photosynthesis but it is more energy intensive and also causes photomorphogenic responses such as reduced internode length and smaller, thicker leaves giving the appearance of leafier plants. Smaller leaves cannot capture as many photons as larger leaves that are promoted by far red light (part of the shade avoidance response) and thicker growth tends to shade other areas of the plant, preventing light penetration. UV light is known to stunt growth. We've seen better vegetative growth under our 3000K High Light 420s than just about anything else and we attribute that to the heavy red (over 40%) and far red (10%) in the spectrum.

The main reason we have designed and manufactured a 3500K version this time around is for commercial leafy green growers and propagators. While UV can stunt growth, small amounts can promote root growth as well as harden off seedlings that are eventually going to be put out into the sun (UV thickens the epidermis of leaves). Leafy green growers (for example lettuce) do not necessarily want large, thin leaves. They also tend to want shorter internode length with tighter leaf formation. These things are usually counter to photosynthesis because tight internode spacing shades leaves and branches and does not let as much light through to the mid and lower canopy. Far red light actually passes through some leaves to drive photosynthesis in the lower canopy. It also maintains internode length in the presence of UV and blue light (they counter each other) but does appear to produce larger leaves at the same time, which can capture more light.

The other reason to produce a 3500K panel is for those who wish to prioritise secondary metabolite production (cannabinoids) over maximum growth. We've done quite a few tests now looking at different levels of blue, violet and UV light and there is a distinct correlation between higher quality and lower yields. Quality is also sometimes defined as tighter, heavier bud structure but this can also diminish overall dry-weight yields. So now we offer two spectra: one we believe optimises growth with quality, the other that prioritise quality and targets different plant species.

Grow Lights Australia said:

We don't think blue/UV boosts vegetative growth at all. It has the opposite effect and actually slows growth compared to having a heavy red spectrum with lots of far red. And that happens through all stages of growth. Red is still the most efficient photosynthetic spectrum, especially combined with far red light. Blue light certainly drives photosynthesis but it is more energy intensive and also causes photomorphogenic responses such as reduced internode length and smaller, thicker leaves giving the appearance of leafier plants. Smaller leaves cannot capture as many photons as larger leaves that are promoted by far red light (part of the shade avoidance response) and thicker growth tends to shade other areas of the plant, preventing light penetration. UV light is known to stunt growth. We've seen better vegetative growth under our 3000K High Light 420s than just about anything else and we attribute that to the heavy red (over 40%) and far red (10%) in the spectrum.

The main reason we have designed and manufactured a 3500K version this time around is for commercial leafy green growers and propagators. While UV can stunt growth, small amounts can promote root growth as well as harden off seedlings that are eventually going to be put out into the sun (UV thickens the epidermis of leaves). Leafy green growers (for example lettuce) do not necessarily want large, thin leaves. They also tend to want shorter internode length with tighter leaf formation. These things are usually counter to photosynthesis because tight internode spacing shades leaves and branches and does not let as much light through to the mid and lower canopy. Far red light actually passes through some leaves to drive photosynthesis in the lower canopy. It also maintains internode length in the presence of UV and blue light (they counter each other) but does appear to produce larger leaves at the same time, which can capture more light.

The other reason to produce a 3500K panel is for those who wish to prioritise secondary metabolite production (cannabinoids) over maximum growth. We've done quite a few tests now looking at different levels of blue, violet and UV light and there is a distinct correlation between higher quality and lower yields. Quality is also sometimes defined as tighter, heavier bud structure but this can also diminish overall dry-weight yields. So now we offer two spectra: one we believe optimises growth with quality, the other that prioritise quality and targets different plant species.

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This probably explains why I don’t yield as much as one of my friends as I’m always looking at quality over quantity. Let’s face it, we find our balance as I certainly want a decent yield too. I suppose years of HPS growing meant a decent veg and finish spectrum were essential for quality and exactly why I was raving about CMH when I first used it alongside my old plasma that’s a brilliant add on for quality but only about 1.3 umol/j. Great to see the hard work you guys are doing for all this, I’d rather buy off someone genuinely helpful towards my results than buy any top brand or cheap products without the enthusiasm.

Yes, the old "blue for veg myth" was born from old-skool growers who pioneered indoor growing and sadly the myth just won't go away! Because many of the early strains contained a lot of sativa genetics they would stretch indoors. Growers discovered that by vegging under Metal Halide lights, which had a lot of blue and some UV, they could reduce stretch and make growing indoors more manageable. However they also discovered that HPS produced better flowering yields due to the extra red and far red light. Many growers also rationalised that there was more blue light in summer when plants vegged outside than in autumn when they flowered. But this is only really true when you grow away from the equator, which does not see as much change in the seasons. And sativas are an equatorial variety. It is believed that all cannabis was equatorial but evolved as it was transported to different parts of the world

What was really happening was that HPS provided faster growth but MH provided better quality mainly due to the UV component but also because if you have less vegetative mass, then the same amount of cannabinoids become more concentrated within that mass. Some early growers would switch from MH in veg to HPS after the second week of flower and then back to MH in the last two weeks to improve the quality of their flowers. Other growers wanted the best of both worlds so would mix MH and HPS bulbs to provide a good mix of red, far red and UV light. CMH bulbs came along and also provided a better mix of light. But HPS still outyielded CMH.

Many perpetual growers did not miss the extra speed of growth under a red spectrum when vegging because they were typically only vegging for a few weeks or more but were flowering for 8+ weeks, so they had plenty of time to grow their plants to a good size while they waiting for their flowering plants to finish.

Grow Lights Australia said:

Yes, the old "blue for veg myth" was born from old-skool growers who pioneered indoor growing and sadly the myth just won't go away! Because many of the early strains contained a lot of sativa genetics they would stretch indoors. Growers discovered that by vegging under Metal Halide lights, which had a lot of blue and some UV, they could reduce stretch and make growing indoors more manageable. However they also discovered that HPS produced better flowering yields due to the extra red and far red light. Many growers also rationalised that there was more blue light in summer when plants vegged outside than in autumn when they flowered. But this is only really true when you grow away from the equator, which does not see as much change in the seasons. And sativas are an equatorial variety. It is believed that all cannabis was equatorial but evolved as it was transported to different parts of the world

What was really happening was that HPS provided faster growth but MH provided better quality mainly due to the UV component but also because if you have less vegetative mass, then the same amount of cannabinoids become more concentrated within that mass. Some early growers would switch from MH in veg to HPS after the second week of flower and then back to MH in the last two weeks to improve the quality of their flowers. Other growers wanted the best of both worlds so would mix MH and HPS bulbs to provide a good mix of red, far red and UV light. CMH bulbs came along and also provided a better mix of light. But HPS still outyielded CMH.

Many perpetual growers did not miss the extra speed of growth under a red spectrum when vegging because they were typically only vegging for a few weeks or more but were flowering for 8+ weeks, so they had plenty of time to grow their plants to a good size while they waiting for their flowering plants to finish.

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I’m very glad to see all this information now as I had planned to build what I thought would be a perfect veg light for my mother/clone room with some original highlights and 660nm buddies I have to occasionally throw in some autos or use as a flower room if I need to. It was going to be around 5000k but from a spread of blue/violet instead of the 450nm peak.
Basically I did a ton of research for my flower rooms and then you brought out the gen1 420 boards and I shoved my ideas aside after your board’s were so good without any hassle of mixing different strips and spectrum, then to only be able to guess how the spectrum looks. Now it seems I should’ve just waited on my research for building the perfect veg light too, lol. Pretty sure that 3500k with some 660nm buddies on a separate driver could actually be as flexible as I need for a veg and flower light. All these strips I’ve got gathering dust might be on eBay soon lol

I saw the website has been updated, tempting to save for the 3500k and upgrade my mother/clone room and maybe a couple more in my second flower room just to get the 4+ discount, got a few 660/730nm buddies to throw in there. Or stick to the flower boards alongside the 4000k Samsung f series I already use. I’ll probably have time to decide as I’m saving my money. Both choices look good and the website looks great!

Just had an extra thought on this, it’s more for my setup but I’m sure others might benefit the details. I have some uva strips that I was using before I got the highlight 420 boards and I kept them in that room. My concern is they’re totalling 16-18w (if I remember correctly) alongside 440w of highlight 420 and 100w in the canopy. The strips are a mix of 385/395/405 and would be adding 3% uva on top of the gen 1 highlights, this now seems like too much uva, especially with already having the pc blue in the 420 boards. From your experience and research, would this be detrimental or within a comfortable range of uva? Or do I overthink everything, probably.

how did you learn to make this light? did you have to go to school for a special degree? its fascinating. nice light!!

Dr.Amber Trichome said:

how did you learn to make this light? did you have to go to school for a special degree? its fascinating. nice light!!

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Honestly, these guys know lights better than anyone. I’m a really fussy over thinker about spectrum and efficiency, I was in the middle of building a complicated light with various different strips and diodes to get what I wanted. After owning the predecessors, looking at the gen 1 boards and asking a few questions, I brought a load of boards and never finished my original build. Enthusiastic and experimental growers combined with LED Teknik seems a great combination. If there’s a degree in this field, they should be teaching it!

Pretty curious about these strips.