UV Suppliment Lighting

oldbeancounter

oldbeancounter

Well-Known Member
mauricem00

mauricem00

Well-Known Member
Randomblame said:
Yeah, I know, bro!
To reflect UV light it needs a metallic surface, plastic tent walls do not reflect it. Plastic absorbs it same like normal glass, clothes, aso. Even if its only a thin layer above a mylar foil or a glass coating on the reflector metal like on an adjust-a-wing.
So inside a tent it dissapears faster because of less reflection.
But you are right in a free space it behaves like normal light but if you look in a bulb from 6" or from 30" distance makes a big difference, no? At 30" the amount of UV hitting your eyes is much lower(same like the visible light) because its spread out much more. From a certain distance its not dangerous anymore even if the percentage is still the same.
Click to expand...
the tents I have and all the tents I have seen advertise are Mylar lined which does reflect UVA there is some reflector loss with both visible and UV light but growing SOG penetration is not a problem.
 
Randomblame

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
oldbeancounter said:
I do not know myself but found this chart helpful just in general.
I had no idea indoor lighting setup required so much experimentation(and money) to achieve a sun like spectrum.
Click to expand...

Actually you only need an efficient white light to get good results. You can try to improve the spectrum to make it more efficient and supplement the missing wavelengths on both ends of the spectrum. CRI90 adds for instance more deep and far-red and combined with an UVB reptile bulb you have already improved a lot. The more efficient red wavelength and the higher amount of far-red speed things up(for instance thru the emerson effect) so you can yield up to a week earlier and the UV light increase the over all quality of your endproduct.
The difference in electrical efficiency between CRI80 and 90 are much less important because their better spectrum can make up for the difference or do even better. I'm really keen on the new EBgen3 strips in CRI90 and will order a few as additional sidelights as soon as they are available. The effect on the lower areas was just awesome!
Shit, bro! My party cup champion ended up with 0 larf and only half as much leaf trim as usual. Every single bud was nice and compact, even the smallest ones and I've not used more watts because I've dimmed down the top light accordingly.

Currently I build 2 new 200w lights based on 2 CRI95 HL boards and an added reptile bulb and plan to add 10 vertical 5000°k/CRI90 EB strips(10w each) as sidelights mounted with 12" gaps between each strip.
 
Randomblame

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
oldbeancounter said:
these outta put some smoke on the water when they come out.
It appears high power UV grow lights are coming.
http://www.uvlco.com/HorticultureLamps.html
I would guess wielding mask and lead suit would be good idea when checking our garden with a 1000 watts HID UV light hanging nearby lol
these look interesting, too bad old technology and not LED
http://www.uvlco.com/AquariumT5.html
Click to expand...

I don't know when these LED UV bulbs hit the market but could be already this year. They also say the natural ratio is important and that plants need both UVB and UVA in the right ratio but read yourself..

https://www.agricultra.com/secondarymetabolite
 
oldbeancounter

oldbeancounter

Well-Known Member
Randomblame said:
Yeah, that's what I've mentioned. You want the Square series diodes soldered on strips.
The hyper-red/blue mix could already have the Square series because of the high difference but with no guarantee. Better contact them and ask them directly if they have strips with Osram Square. If not, ask them if they can do a certain amount of strips for you. They have own pick and place bots and its not a problem for them. They a very customer friendly.
They have created most of the grow modules they have because of customer wishes and then started to make own boards and strips with LM301b too. Before the LM301b came out they have just sold Nichia and Osram diodes but none of them was especially for growing. They only strips were 4" long with 6 deepreds or blue.
They profit a lot from the current situation on the LED market and can sell their LM301b strips at almost half the cost of a comparable H-influx L06 strips from Samsung and they use a better binning too.
Click to expand...
@Randomblame
I am going to go for those red square LED's later this year but for now I am going to go this route.
Get two drivers HLG 320H 48B as I will now have extra strips(4)
Add four of these below to one of the two lights I will make with the two drivers and 14 strips in 5000K I have plus 4 strips in 3000K to add some red to the mix fpr total of 18 strips of the LED MODULE LT-QB22A @450mA
https://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/SI-B8V201B20US/1510-2289-ND/7562247/?itemSeq=293583804
Only question I have is will it help to add those 3000k strips to the 5000k strips to veg plants or is 5000k better alone?
I can add them four 3000K strips for flower light if they serve no purpose with vegging.
If it appears I am on right track will order rest of things today
thanks for all your help
sorry for all these questions, it is quite hard for newb to understand this stuff.
I am sure after this build I will be able to then focus on other things more within my skill set like growing lol.
 
Randomblame

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
mauricem00 said:
the tents I have and all the tents I have seen advertise are Mylar lined which does reflect UVA there is some reflector loss with both visible and UV light but growing SOG penetration is not a problem.
Click to expand...
Yeah, when the mylar is not coated itself to protect it from getting rubbed off it reflects UV light cause its based on aluminum. But you're right, for a SOG with T5's and the usually used low distance there is anyway not much reflection/wall loss and so you have the same UVA penetration. Those bulbs have a much more diffuse light which travels much deeper inside the canopy.

The good thing with UVB is you only need it on the canopy. No need for penetration... When the UVR8 receptor signals the plant to switch in "protecting mode" it has an effect on the whole plant. So penetration is not so important with UVB. You need just as much to cause some stress but not enough to really cause a damage.
 
M

mr. childs

Well-Known Member
Randomblame said:
Yeah, when the mylar is not coated itself to protect it from getting rubbed off it reflects UV light cause its based on aluminum. But you're right, for a SOG with T5's and the usually used low distance there is anyway not much reflection/wall loss and so you have the same UVA penetration. Those bulbs have a much more diffuse light which travels much deeper inside the canopy.

The good thing with UVB is you only need it on the canopy. No need for penetration... When the UVR8 receptor signals the plant to switch in "protecting mode" it has an effect on the whole plant. So penetration is not so important with UVB. You need just as much to cause some stress but not enough to really cause a damage.
Click to expand...
when i started to use the pure uv bulb some years ago it was fine, strong but ok. last month i threw away the tent i initially started using it in, cheap tent from amazon, but the mylar had started to peel of a few years ago also, along with the threads becoming weak. the cob heatsinks developed a bronze tint to them also. i know uv deteriorates plastics, but it makes me wonder what the cob heatsinks were made of or coated with, because i still have the same reflector from years ago, and its fine.
 
SSGrower

SSGrower

Well-Known Member
Randomblame said:
Yeah, when the mylar is not coated itself to protect it from getting rubbed off it reflects UV light cause its based on aluminum. But you're right, for a SOG with T5's and the usually used low distance there is anyway not much reflection/wall loss and so you have the same UVA penetration. Those bulbs have a much more diffuse light which travels much deeper inside the canopy.

The good thing with UVB is you only need it on the canopy. No need for penetration... When the UVR8 receptor signals the plant to switch in "protecting mode" it has an effect on the whole plant. So penetration is not so important with UVB. You need just as much to cause some stress but not enough to really cause a damage.
Click to expand...
I am glad someone pointed this out. This is one reason why I dont like advising on such matrers over the forum. There is too much risk of miscommunications and too many variables. I take issue with the way you use dissappear, I belive you mean dissipate. To clairify it (uv) will not dissipate to zero. IDK if language or what but I cannot stress enough there is an amplified rusk to utilizing uv. We can do this safely, they use it in fast food restraunts to reduce dependancy on/over use of chemical cleaners.
 
Randomblame

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
oldbeancounter said:
@Randomblame
I am going to go for those red square LED's later this year but for now I am going to go this route.
Get two drivers HLG 320H 48B as I will now have extra strips(4)
Add four of these below to one of the two lights I will make with the two drivers and 14 strips in 5000K I have plus 4 strips in 3000K to add some red to the mix fpr total of 18 strips of the LED MODULE LT-QB22A @450mA
https://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/SI-B8V201B20US/1510-2289-ND/7562247/?itemSeq=293583804
Only question I have is will it help to add those 3000k strips to the 5000k strips to veg plants or is 5000k better alone?
I can add them four 3000K strips for flower light if they serve no purpose with vegging.
If it appears I am on right track will order rest of things today
thanks for all your help
sorry for all these questions, it is quite hard for newb to understand this stuff.
I am sure after this build I will be able to then focus on other things more within my skill set like growing lol.
Click to expand...
Yeah, more red is always a good idea! Red wavelength are the most efficient and drive PS the best.
In theory you only need around 15-20% blue/green light to cause compact growth. The whole range from UVA to green light has a signaling effect on plants (phytochromes, flavonoids and crytochromes and carotenoids).
One effect of this signals is to stay short and grow bushy. It tells the plant there is no shade and no plants next to them and there is no reason to stretch out.
Far-red does exact the opposite and when a plant gets too much far-red they "think" they are in the shade, the shade avoidance syndrome gets triggered and the plants stretch out like crazy and start to fight with their neighbors for more light. But good news, it needs a lot of far-red to cause SAS. Actually more like red!
You need only to be careful when using far-red as flowering initiator. More like 5 minutes after lights off can cause serious stretch but those flowering triggers are usually only used in the flowering tent.

End of the story is you could use just 10% blue, 5% green and the rest could be red, deep- and far-red and you would still get compact growth as well as healthy and fast growth.
50% 4000°k/CRI80 + 45% red and deepred + 5% far-red would create a pretty good and efficient spectrum but discrete 3w diodes are much more expensive. For this reason the most blurples use still cheap chinese Epistar diodes.
 
Randomblame

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
SSGrower said:
I am glad someone pointed this out. This is one reason why I dont like advising on such matrers over the forum. There is too much risk of miscommunications and too many variables. I take issue with the way you use dissappear, I belive you mean dissipate. To clairify it (uv) will not dissipate to zero. IDK if language or what but I cannot stress enough there is an amplified rusk to utilizing uv. We can do this safely, they use it in fast food restraunts to reduce dependancy on/over use of chemical cleaners.
Click to expand...
Yeah, there is still a language barrier and often enough its not 100% exact. Often I miss the right words and I describe it rather cumbersome or incorrect. UV light can be used safely if one keeps a few things in mind. More and more commercial greenhouse growers use it also to make there products last longer and kill spores and mold.

And because of the bronze heat sink .. Is it anodized aluminum? I could imagine it has a effect on the anodizing because its a surface treatment. But that's just a guess..
 
Randomblame

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
oldbeancounter said:
400-410 nm seems to be a missed spectrum in a lot of lighting products.
Click to expand...
It really makes sense to supplement the right wavelength. The green of the plant can be used as an indicator for an efficient spectrum(at least when you keep the plants healthy). When you supplement deep blue/purple and/or cyan light for instance you will see a darker green in general and later the plants become more colorful too. Even a higher portion of red/deepred has an effect on the colors. In short, the better the spectrum the better look the plants.
 
Moflow

Moflow

Well-Known Member
mr. childs said:
when i started to use the pure uv bulb some years ago it was fine, strong but ok. last month i threw away the tent i initially started using it in, cheap tent from amazon, but the mylar had started to peel of a few years ago also, along with the threads becoming weak. the cob heatsinks developed a bronze tint to them also. i know uv deteriorates plastics, but it makes me wonder what the cob heatsinks were made of or coated with, because i still have the same reflector from years ago, and its fine.
Click to expand...
I have a black adonized heatsink from HLG that turned that bronze colour too and this was before I'd any uv in the room. Strange, can't think what caused it. Heat, humidity, light?
 
SSGrower

SSGrower

Well-Known Member
Randomblame said:
Yeah, there is still a language barrier and often enough its not 100% exact. Often I miss the right words and I describe it rather cumbersome or incorrect. UV light can be used safely if one keeps a few things in mind. More and more commercial greenhouse growers use it also to make there products last longer and kill spores and mold.

And because of the bronze heat sink .. Is it anodized aluminum? I could imagine it has a effect on the anodizing because its a surface treatment. But that's just a guess..
Click to expand...
To one degree or another radiation will both reflect from and absorb into a surface. I am not sure what heatsinks you are talking about, maybe the reflectors on flourescent tubes?
 
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