DISCLAIMER- IF ANYONE DISAGREES WITH ANY OF THIS INFORMATION, THEN YOU CAN KISS MY.... JUST KIDDING I MADE THIS POST TO EDUCATE TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY. IF ANYONE HAS INFORMATION TO SHARE OR CONTRADICT ME, PLEASE POST. I WANT TO BE CORRECTED. I WANT THIS POST TO BE FULL OF USEFUL INFORMATION.

These are the best LED's I've found for someone to build a LED light as a primary source or supplemental for a large area. I think the evidence I've seen is that the smaller 10mm High Output LEDs are okay for supplemental light in a small box like mine, but I haven't quite decided yet. These are all powerful, at least 1 watt. Also, with leds close to 440 and 660, its nearly useless to use lumens to measure output other than comparing leds of the same frequency, since human eyes don't pick up on deep red frequencies very well. It would be like trying to chose a UV led based on the luminous output. TRUE UV would be invisible to the human eye- a high-lumen UV LED would be a farce (unless maybe its scotoptic lumens rather than optical lumens, and that would take a page itself to explain, not that i even understand it completely, anyway.)

First, I will decode the fluff and try to educate you, the potential buyer:
If I built the light to my specifications,
I could make these true statements:

REVOLUTIONARY 6-BAND LED LIGHT

SUPPLIES ALL KNOWN FREQUENCIES FOR EFFECIENT PLANT GROWTH AND POTENCY

AVOIDS TRIGGERING SHADE AVOIDANCE

MAKES FULL USE OF THE EMMERSON EFFECT

GOOD PENETRATION EVEN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE CANOPY

EFFECIENT COLOR MIXING

HIGH WATTAGE (ex. 400w, 600w, 1000w)

These really don't mean that much if you know what they mean-
(not to say I won't advertise these exact phrases)
Statements Decoded:

X Band LED system
Its easy to add frequencies that would, indeed, trigger growth-
Nearly any frequency would trigger growth- I could be the first to market a 29-BAND LED LIGHT! Of course, even green light triggers a growth response in plants, and lettuce has shown to produce more mass when supplemented with green light from LEDs. Of course, thats because green triggers stretching and leaf growth- great for lettuce, not to much for other crops...


SUPPLIES ALL KNOWN FREQUENCIES FOR EFFECTIVE GROWTH AND POTENCY
The key word there is known frequency- Not all growth responses and wavelengths have been researched- researchers tend to compare the already common frequencies, like comparing 625 to 660. not neccesarily testing the values of unresearched frequencies like 529. Most of the evidence that they use was using colored stage filters that definately weren't 100% efficient at filtering colors. Even when they were accurate, different plants will have slightly different requirements, but LEDs usually have half-peaks about 20-40nm wide, so just getting close will usually be adequate.


AVOIDS TRIGGERING SHADE AVOIDANCE
This statement should mean that there was a lot of research put into it, and there usually is, but basically it means having enough blue light, and not too much Green, Infrared, and near Infrared. Shade Avoidance is what the plants use in nature to recognize if there are other plants nearby that threaten to grow taller and shade it. The main wavelengths that are reflected by leaves are the frequencies that I mentioned- green, IR, and NIR. So don't provide too much, and provide enough blue, and you should have a room full of plants that are comfortable and think they're all alone. If the leaves look black under the LED lights, and there aren't any IR sources, its possible to have a room full of plants that think they're all alone.

QUOTE from RESEARCH for a PATENT-
if a portion of a plant receives sufficient blue light at 470 nm, undesired stem elongation is inhibited for the entire plant.



MAKES FULL USE OF THE EMERSON EFFECT-
Sounds impressive right? Unfortunately, the very first LED lamps that came out that were strictly red/blue, also made full use of the emerson effect. The emerson effect basically just says that the growth or photosynthesis rate when under red and blue, will be greater than the sum of red and blue individually.



GOOD PENETRATION TO THE BOTTOM OF THE CANOPY
Basically, there are two options. A Powerful light source will penetrate well, and reds penetrate well. With LEDs, the narrower the beam angle, the higher the penetration. Half the LEDs should have a beam half as narrow.

QUOTE FROM PATENT OFFICE RESEARCH
we found that a quantum light sensor placed below the leaf registered 10% light transmission for the 30° LEDs, and 80% light transmission for the 15° LEDs. Using our fully functional protoype described above, we found that fully 50% of the orange/red spectrum, primarily used for photosynthesis, was transmitted through the upper leaf canopy, making it available to support photosynthesis in leaves below.
NOTE- if your lamp is designed to be just a few inches away, then you can increase the degrees to 1/2 90 degree and 1/2 180 degree. The 15/30 is for about 10 inches away.


EFFECIENT COLOR MIXING
This is tricky because its hard to prove. The only things I can think of to improve color mixing, are:
Use enough wide angle leds so they ALL overlap
place the led panel on a light mover or a way to make it spin in place
instead of using a lens on each led to narrow the beam, use a large lens over all the leds. Since the lens won't be 100% effecient, some will be lost, but the colors will be mixed.
Don't point the panel directly at the plants, but aim the panel at a highly reflective surface. If you line them up just right, it might do just the trick.


HIGH WATTAGE
I know this goes against everything anyone has ever said about LEDs, but WATTAGE is not as important as Luminus Flux or Luminus Intensity.
Wattage is only important if you know the bulbs, and they're usually not listed. Commercial Panels usually don't list a parts list for obvious reasons. Here's an example 625 is a common wavelength for red leds, so which one do you think would be better?
1W AVAGO LED- 625nm 1W 51.7 lumens
5W LEDENGIN LED 625nm 5W 91.0 lumens
So doesn't it make sense that five avago LEDs (5W, 258.5 lumens)
would be more effecient than 1 5w ledengin putting out less than 100 lumens?
Plus, LEDs can be pulsed- Just like a light pulsing at a high frequency appears to be on the whole time, LED lights pulsed properly can have the exact same effect on growth, for less electricity. Plus, if your using a LED grid that uses 1000W, then IMHO, you're wasting the LEDs. Just get two or three 400W HPS lights and use technology thats completely proven.




LEDS that would be appropriate for growth, and where to buy.
Frequency wattage mA volts output Price/Manufacturer
661nm 10 1000 11.6 1900mW $28.80/LEDENGIN
615-630nm 1 60 Lumens $3.15/EVERLIGHT
590nm 1 350 2.4 51.7 Lumens $2.70/AVAGO Tech
467nm 1 350 3.6 19 Lumens $3.94/AVAGO Tech.
458nm 1 350 3.2 23 Lumens $5.11/Kingbright
405nm(UV)* 1 20 mW $2.75/BIVAR
*Although it would be much better to use 440nm LEDs to produce the UV and the blue wavelengths together, 440nm (also known as Dental Blue) are prohibitively expensive. There are also some cheaper 5mm UV LEDs they call UV and Violet at SuperBrightLEDs.com, but since their UV lights are rated in mcds, I'm not sure how to compare it to mW output. Since the other LEDs on the site are not very bright, I have to assume the UVs have a pitiful output as well.
All of these are available at Mouser.com, but if anyone can find a cheaper price elsewhere, I'll give you a cookie.
According to my research, and the Diodes above, The ideal proportion would be something like-
4 10w Deep Red Diodes
5 1w Red Diodes
1 1W Orange Diode
2 467nm 1W Blue Diodes
2 458nm 1w Blue Diode
Experimenting would be needed to evaluate how many UV leds would be optimal. Many new LED lights add infrared and other spectrums, but just because they trigger a response that seems beneficial, like more mass or weight, that doesn't mean that its actually something you want. An example, would be bombarding a plant with Infra-Red. For Lettuce stretching is a good thing. Fruiting or flowering plants? Not so much.

PLEASE NOTE- THE PATENT RESEARCH IS FOR A SCREW-IN LED LIGHT. THEIR PATENT STATES THAT THEY ARE ACTUALLY PATENTING A SCREW-IN BULB, SO YOU CAN PROBABLY USE THEIR RESEARCH FOR A LIGHT PANEL, BUT IT WOULD BE INFRINGEMENT TO USE IT TO BUILD A COMPETETIVE SCREW-IN. Of course, a civil lawsuit would probably be the last thing on most peoples mind if a nonsecure person stumbled on their grow room.
(I plan on doing some research and building my own light, and maybe selling them. I'll give someone a quote if anyone is interested. I still have to find someone to assemble them and build me a prototype for research. If you had an idea that was provable AND profitable, wouldn't you sell it?)

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I am on this site because pot smokers are some of the most innovative people I know. I am an avid gardener, and am always looking for ways to improve my harvest of lettuce, cayenne peppers, basil, and chives.


---->You're braking the law if you don't pay taxes on your drugs...

wow. your the man! id buy off ya.

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This is all fake, like the matrix it does not count i dont actully do any of this stuff. ifi loadid a pic i ound it on the cyber inter web space.

interesting.. where did you happen to come up with this info?

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When the government fears the People, that is Liberty. When the People fear the Government, that is tyranny. ~Thomas Jefferson



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DUDE. You have got MY INTEREST.
Spill the beans buddy.
I use l.e.d.s for my veg grow and am always looking for current information on them. I'm going to totally check this out and thank you.

Its too bad so many people are misinformed about l.e.d. lights. .

I'm glad i came over here today

Great post! You should have titled the thread 'Grow LEDs: cutting through the manufacturer's BS' !!!

hey chaos420
This is a great post.
What I am wondering about is if you are trying to get a buyer to help finance this project OR did you post this info here just to try and help others interested in l.e.d.'s? It's a bit unclear but I just wanted to let you know that I know of several others who are doing the same type of thing as you have done here and perhaps you could all get together to share your thoughts and ideas. If this is way off base with your plans, then i apologize in advance but I did take your info from here and pass it on to these others for them to look over. Some of these people are also making their own schematics and building units already.
If you'd like to hook up with these people then please let me know.
Thanks
lacy

I hadn't had a chance to read this thread until now.

You have gathered up some rather obscure information and have made some insightful hypotheses. Good job! I wish you good luck.

A word of warning to anyone messing with UV light - it's VERY dangerous. So, be careful! I don't think anyone in the industry is using true UV, simply because of the potential liability. UV light kills living things. I used to have an aquarium filter that used UV to sterilize the water... way back in the early '80s. You should have seen the stack of warnings and disclaimers that came with it! It looked like a phone book!

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-Michael