Things to Know About Lighting

born2killspam said:

Its a suppliment, not a replacement.. There is a thread on it in the advanced forum.. Ppl seem to like the results, but its pretty anecdotal as of yet.. I'd jump on the band wagon since I'm a fan of flowering with HPS&MH together as far as bud quality goes..

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HPS/MH does give out a fair amount of UVB, mostly the HPS and if you've gotten a horticultural bulb it won't likely have the required UV filters.

For any fluorescent grower UV supplements will be a must.

There are a couple of particular studies that prove UVB radiation is a major factor in THC production. One I remember from the '80s and then another I've linked below.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UEaTaDYGl2UC&oi=fnd&pg=PA21&dq=Cannabis+sativa+Canabinoid+alkaloids+++Lydon+et+al.+1987&ots=Svml77CR0F&sig=g3XnFqd3UTz15ryFKVIDRLkypW4#PPA28,M1

You might find that some interesting reading.

Where did you read that about lack of UVB in HID?

born2killspam said:

Where did you read that about lack of UVB in HID?

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When Mercury Vapor lights first came out, they were used as primary lighting in warehouses. People kept getting sunburned from the lamps so eventually they were required to have UV filter glass for the surrounding glass to shield people from the UV emitted from the fused quartz gas bulb in the center.

That may not hold totally true today with cheaply manufactured overseas stuff, but any bulb made in the USA you don't touch for two reasons - oils screw with the glass, and the oils cause solarization of the glass which makes it lose even more UV output over time over what the filter already eliminates, diminshing light quality overall.

I think the UV requirement is only for HID used in a non-horticultural work environment.

those lights r for growing leafs and getting ur plant to the size u want it but we dont get stoned off the leafs and stems..add a uvb bulb or 2, it will produce more resin glands which is the only part off the plant containing thc...watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPcpt3Be28o "THC, UVB and ME"on YOUTUBE

You can try out the new LED set ups, they are supposed to be 3 times more powerful now... i dunno i just thought of it just now.

Yea most ppl don't have good luck with those at all come flowering, but I bet you could pull 5lb with one yourself..

Na that would be impossible to do thank you very much; but in the future LEDs will be the way to go i believe, like 5 years from now but i dont care about talkin bout that right now.

AK47StEvY said:

Na that would be impossible to do thank you very much; but in the future LEDs will be the way to go i believe, like 5 years from now but i dont care about talkin bout that right now.

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Except the claim that a given technology "Will be here in 5-10 years" is made every 5-10 years and almost never happens.

Problem is LEDs, just like incandescents, are basically a wire of a material that gives off light when heated by electrical current. That's it. Same tech, tinier package. There's only so far you can go with a metal wire.

Now if they were to figure out a way to make a super-micro HID light, that would be awesome. If they could just make HID more efficient at lower wattages, LEDs wouldn't even be thought about.

So true my man of the hour. The technological advancement of today we could very well see something that will be much better, im not gonna say that we will see anything; im just day dreamin. I dont want to pay an extra 60-100bucks a month because of my lights. I would never use LEDs until I knew that they were almost as good as a 400watt hps bulb, but likely to never happen.

Problem is LEDs, just like incandescents, are basically a wire of a material that gives off light when heated by electrical current. That's it. Same tech, tinier package. There's only so far you can go with a metal wire

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You apparently know alot more about growing than you do about semiconductors..
LED's will definately improve/cheapen to the point of feasibility by todays standards, over the next few years.. The only question, is will something come around between now and then that totally steals the show..
The computer industry is filled with that.. I remember a class trip to 3M where they showed us 16MB floppy disks in the late 80's (btw, at the time my hdd was only 30MB) , but said they would never see market because of current stock surpluses, and more current technology that surpassed it.. Maybe someday something along these lines will end up in grow rooms.. http://members.misty.com/don/sulfbulb.html

nice info on lighting.

the sun gives varying light spectrums throughout the day, correct?

Yea, and plants are tuned into that via phytochrome..

born2killspam said:

You apparently know alot more about growing than you do about semiconductors..
LED's will definately improve/cheapen to the point of feasibility by todays standards, over the next few years.. The only question, is will something come around between now and then that totally steals the show..
The computer industry is filled with that.. I remember a class trip to 3M where they showed us 16MB floppy disks in the late 80's (btw, at the time my hdd was only 30MB) , but said they would never see market because of current stock surpluses, and more current technology that surpassed it.. Maybe someday something along these lines will end up in grow rooms.. http://members.misty.com/don/sulfbulb.html

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The basic form of an LED is a doped silicon carbide semiconductor wire. When electricity is introduced, electrons travelling 'fall' into electron 'holes' and give off energy as they fill in the gap.

The basic light bulb is a doped tungsten carbide semiconductor wire.

I made one of these for middle school science fair.

Blue LEDs are usually silicon carbide, it has band-gaps that corresponds to blue photons.. When electrons jump the band gap by falling into a hole created by the dopant, they release exactly the amount of energy as the band-gap spans as a photon with wavelength = h/E.. Thats a major difference.. LEDs are monochromatic.. They have no spectrum, they only emit photons at the wavelength that corresponds to their band-gap energy.. Doping in semiconductors is about altering the conductive properties of an intrinsic semiconductor to facilitate these transitions..
A light-bulb works on a black-body principle.. A filament is heated and random interactions cause it to radiate photons across the spectrum (even infintely out of the visible range, thus the low efficiency).. Even though the actual transitions are random, they average out to a predictable peak energy for a given temperature..
Tungsten is some tough ass shit.. Not many other metal strands can handle that kind power dissipation in imperfectly inert atmosphere.. The purpose of doping it in filaments has nothing to do with electrical characteristics, they need to dope it in order to weaken it and make it more ductile so they can manufacture filaments..

KaliKitsune said:

Except the claim that a given technology "Will be here in 5-10 years" is made every 5-10 years and almost never happens.

Problem is LEDs, just like incandescents, are basically a wire of a material that gives off light when heated by electrical current. That's it. Same tech, tinier package. There's only so far you can go with a metal wire.

Now if they were to figure out a way to make a super-micro HID light, that would be awesome. If they could just make HID more efficient at lower wattages, LEDs wouldn't even be thought about.

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As to your first point, I noticed you undermine your apparent position on the subject by your use of the word "almost." Very sneaky. I can't call you absolutely wrong, now.

Second point, about wires and their limits:
Ice cream has no bones. LED has no wires.

LED technology primer: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/led3.htm

Notice there are no wires, in other words, no "filament." It doesn't so much "glow" as it "spits photons" out of a magical gap when a current passes across the gap. In other words: different, tiny tech. HID is the tech that's limited. It still needs a gas to be superheated to the point it wants to burn, but can't, so it just gets hot and glows, and 10 percent of the electricity used to run this reaction, as a side effect, is given as PAR. Ninety percent of what you put into an HID light comes out as non-Photosynthetically Active Radiation, mostly resistive heat, hence all those fans.

Please, check my profile and albums for photos.

LED works better than HID, it's just more expensive. Not a reason to hate it. While it costs to buy, it saves in electrical usage and in maintenance costs.

GrowGreenGreen.

Figure below is a fine example of the resin production I get from CFLs and LED in my Organic Soil grow.

Except the claim that a given technology "Will be here in 5-10 years" is made every 5-10 years and almost never happens.

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I honestly have to agree with this.. My favorite example is video-phones, but hover-cars are definately up there..
It boils down to economic feasibility, the physics/engineering is out there for the application of alot of things, but cost/demand don't correlate to bring them..
HID is kind of a cross between incandescent and LED.. It does have bandgap spikes at specific wavelengths corresponding to electron transitions through the gas mixture, but the existence of the gas itself allows alot of heat to be created via molecular motion, where as an LED doesn't allow nearly as much heat production via motional interactions..

Ok, I heard this would be the best place for most my questions. I bought a sodium light today. The really big kind, 250 watt. Took it home and took it out of the box and theirs no way that was ganna fit into a my light socket. I talk to someone, about it and they said i needed a HPS ballast. I looked it up on the internet and their about $100. Any idea one wat to do from here? The plants im growing just finished germinating. Any help is appreciated.

Dood, just go onto to amazon or something and look up a 250 watt hps light fixture and you should be able to find some pretty cheap stuff.

Hi, just wanted to know what peoples experience was with useing the HPS and the fluorescent lights together? Like the HPS hanging up top and the t5 (t5 or t12, whats the best?) on the side of the walls so the center and side of the plants get more light?