Plasma Lighting doesn't seem to be as great as they tout it to be...

I saw a plasma light grow vs a hps not to long ago.

These lights produce a similar spectrum curve to the sun. The plants seem to like the light a lot, however there is not real power savings to switch to these bulbs.

sso said:

there was a testrun of plasma over at gardenscure.

its a pretty good veg light, but fairly useless flowering light (they added some red led´s later, dunno how that went.)

so, basically its a 1200$ Mh with some improvements (sorta, the grow didnt look much better than mh grows, if at all, the one thing that did amaze people was the distance he kept the bulb from the plants (2x the normal distance(he did it because of the uv, protecting the plants, (it basically harms them if its too much) and the thing that made people most curious was all that uv output, but i seriously doubt many people bought plasma after seeing that thread..)

Click to expand...

yeah same thread

I have begun to notice that you can tell a pothead by how much they know about light bulbs...lol. I just keep learning about lights...I have gotten in lightbulb discussions...crazy

I'm going to try one of these LEPs out.

http://www.lightheadinnovations.com/

New gavita pro-series seems interesting too. Just read about it in new high times "advanced amsterdam" article.

http://www.gavita-holland.com/index.php/products/proline/item/gavita-pro-1000-de-eu.html

available soon through

http://hndistribution.com/

I would personally not waste my time with metal halide plasma, it is a vey nice step in the right direction, but it lacks the red that it should have. I'm told the newer metal halide plasma is better, but I can't confirm. Basically anything based on the Luxim light engine is cool, but not exactly the be all end all.


If you really want to get into new technology look up sulfur plasma. Thats a full spectrum light that will offer a very strong competation to any light system.

The site to look at is plasma-I.com plasma international.


They have a publicly available (in the us) sulfur plasma unit that runs 1600$. I believe that light is around 300w.
They are gearing their production of their main competitor which is not yet certified for use in the us, (UL i think). Once certified the light will begin mass production. It is adjustable between 500 and 1300 watts. Right now the cost is around 7k, but that is the price for handmade test units, keep in mind price will drop once the light enters production. Expect the larger light to hit the market around 1-2years, though i cannot assure anything obviously as i am just an entheusiest myself.

If you are unfamiliar with sulfur plasma, hit up google, tons will pop up.


Also we all need to stop grouping lights so loosely. Plasma really denotes a group of things, but they are all a lot different. The Luxim engine argon filled glass solid state metal halide plasma is a whole different species than the spinning bulb and magnetron based setup of the average sulfur plasma.