100 x 3w prolight leds for growlight help need for power and pulsing

[motobroker]

led-GL,
  On one of the forums there is a string by a guy growing in a 16 square foot area with 3 Procyons.
There is also a fairly interesting one on another forum with another guy growing with 5mms and CFLS, where he has been gradually replacing the CFLs. He has been getting the best results so far. The guy in Holland with the YouTube link seems to be doing ok, but I do not agree with his set up.

The immediate problem I see with the screw in lights is that you cannot get them close enough together to be effective.  Also my take is that their is a lot of stuff coming out of China that does not spec out like they claim.
Like BV stated high power 660nm of known quality are down right expensive. 

Here is the issue with any commericial LED horticulture lights currnently available: With LEDs you have a trade off between lumens/watt and lumens/$$$ (or Euro). If someone made a light that was electrically efficient it would be too costly to market.
3 watt rated LEDs need to be driven at 1 watt max for decent efficiency. Procyon drives around 2 watts per led. The unit really should have twice as many LEDs. So your LED cost just doubled adding on another $125 to the material cost, not counting expensive of getting them mounted and wired.

Next you really should use top or at least second tier binned emmitters. These can run as much as double and can be hard to obtain in smaller quantities.

About the only shot at currently making LEDS work is with well-engineered home-made units and lots of development cycles.

[motobroker]

BV,
 I am going to have to going along with your view on the importance of the 660nms. I have had that opinion for a while. That is why I am using Luxeons K2s since their red led has the broadest spectrum.  I will be biting the bullet next payday for some of the dark red LEDENGIN's that you made me aware of. At least they are a better deal the then Roither-Lasers from Europe.

[BVnursery]

MB.... Ill keep my eye out for your email.

Roither-Lasers is locked in the laser world. They may have good parts but their pricing is beyond belief.  If I remember right I was quoted $4.40 ea on 660nm parts. Low output and narrow view angle.

LEDENGIN is actually focusing on plant needs in one section.  From my conversation its not the highest priority section but at least it exists.

[LED Growlights]

i found a test for the Procyon
loads of pics to see ,good read too
http://www.greenpinelane.com/hgl_procyon_test.aspx

i also found a better graph


this website has lots of data
good read too
http://www.greenpinelane.com/lights_apr15.aspx

[LED Growlights]

looking at this graph
400nm-525nm
and
600nm-675nm
would cover most of the spectrum

Phycocyanin absorbs orange and red light, particularly near 620 nm (depending on which specific type it is), and emits fluorescence at about 650 nm

How the Sunlight Effects Plant Growth

200 - 280 nm UVC ultraviolet range which is extremely harmful to plants because it is highly toxic.
280 - 315 nm Includes harmful UVB ultraviolet light which causes plants colors to fade.
315 - 380 nm Range of UVA ultraviolet light which is neither harmful nor beneficial to plant growth.
380 - 400 nm Start of visible light spectrum. Process of chlorophyll absorption begins. UV protected plastics ideally block out any light below this range.
400 - 520 nm This range includes violet, blue, and green bands. Peak absorption by chlorophyll occurs, and a strong influence on photosynthesis. (promotes vegetative growth)
520 - 610 nm This range includes the green, yellow, and orange bands and has less absorption by pigments.
610 - 720 nm This is the red band. Large amount of absorption by chlorophyll occurs, and most significant influence on photosynthesis. (promotes flowering and budding)
720 - 1000 nm There is little absorption by chlorophyll here. Flowering and germination is influenced. At the high end of the band is infrared, which is heat.
1000+ nm

The ratios of Red to Blue are very important. Not enough blue vs red in early stages doesn't work. I think the next good step to add is dimming capability to control these ratios as the plants grow
Oh and did i mentioned that in China they developed a single 200w led that is 2 inches in length and emits 200,000 lumen! But it's a long way from production, 10 years most likely...

Llynx - Dedicated commercial grow lighting coming from the SolarOasis research laboratory in 2008...

[BVnursery]

You will find that new types of leds are typically white with the next unit being 470nm or blue.   The needed sprectrums for growing are seldom available until an led series is quite mature.   Have you seen any even 1w leds in 430nm ??

[motobroker]

BV,
 I have never seen a high power blue that puts out any kind of power around 430nm. Cool whites seem to have more power in low 400 range.  I am using them for that reason.

[Rob]

This is a really great discussion, I'm content to mostly sit on the sidelines and observe, but I do want to interject one comment.

moto, you should be aware as you do calculations that lumens as a unit of measurement are weighted to the response of the human eye. Plants really don't see, so lumens are just not appropriate units of measurement for the work you're doing. Watts are dimensionally equivalent, but without the weighting function V(lambda) being applied. you should (must) work in watts, because you are dealing in radiant intensity for plants, not luminous intensity (for human eyeballs).

1 lumen of 470nm is 11 times more more watts than 1 lumen of 555nm (peak wavelength of human visual sensitivity). Get out of the visible spectrum, say 390nm, and arbitrarily large amounts of watts are 0 lumens. So it's just the wrong unit.

Added: I didn't go far enough when I picked 390nm for my example. According to the tables for the 1924 CIE response data, 1 lumen of 390nm would be 8300 times as many watts as 1 lumen of 555nm.

more reading on this:
http://forums.linear1.org/index.php/topic,216.msg1152.html#msg1152
http://forums.linear1.org/index.php/topic,207.0.html

carry on with the discussion.

[BVnursery]

The balancing chart is very 'eye' opening if you will excuse the pun.

Imagine how I felt getting 250mcd 700nm leds delivered !

From http://cvrl.ucl.ac.uk/database/data/lum/vl1924e_1.txt

700nm 0.0041020000000