So beside it being a fun project, why do people spend 100s $ on LEDs that dont seem to work.
At least compared to any other light setup incl CFLs they dont work.
I supplement my MH and HPS lighting with LED's but not those silly panels with hundreds of 3.5mm and 5mm leds.
I use supplemental lighting with red and blue CREE
Xlamps (The same CREE XLAMPs that Procyon uses with that 56 CREE XLAMP 100watt fixture their
selling for $599
What I do is light my canopy with a 400w MH and a 400w HPS, then I take the CREE LED XLAMPS first add a small lightweight heatsink with Alumina adhesive , wire them in parralel to an AC/DC adapter that feeds them the 2.2 2.4volts @ 350ma. Once wired up, I affix them on florist wire and then wrap the florist wire to the plants bare stem (Once they are thick enough to hold the wire, if not I affix them to the wall with a longer wire. Reason I do this is the CREE XLAMP LED's are a whole hell of a lot brighter than the tinker toy normal LED panels people seem to buy on ebay, I then shine the CREE red and blue XLAMPS directly at the lowest parts of the plant that the HID lighting cannot penetrate. These lights get tepid and not hot, and can be placed an inch or less to the lightless area on the bottom canopy.
It's a win win as these CREE XLAMPS are about
$5 each shipped, red or blue. Both put out the red and blue spectrum beneficial to the plant.
I made a
post about this some time back, as my goal is to make a three sided wall similiar to the Procyon 100 but much better, my goal is to use at least 50 CREE XLAMP RED and BLUE LED emiiters per wall, then the HIDs on the top. My guess is that by the time I'm ready to make my CREE XLAMP walls, CREE will have even better RED and Blue emitters that produce light like the XR-E and Q5 white emitters.
When that day comes, they will really make making decisions tougher on buying lighting -HID, -Flouro and whatever else is on the market.
