LED Without LEDs -My First T5 Grow

Lucius Vorenus said:
Wouldnt a 12 bulb Badboy and a 600wt HPS light use about the same amount of electricity? The only advantage to the T5 would be the lower heat. RIGHT?
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The math on the T5's add up to about 650W so yes on the power. As far as heat I'm not so sure its that much different. I know 500W of T8's gets thr room temp whole lot hotter than a 400W HPS. It looks to me that the big advantage of the T5's is the ability to mix and match light spectrum.
 
pr0fesseur said:
T5 gives you the best coverage and heres why.. the light from a single point disperses so that a plant 2' from the light recieves 1/4 of the light that a plant 1' from lthe light does.... thus the inverse square law. now the law still applies to T5 BUT ALL the light comes from MORE Surface AREA! thus is more efficient.
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How is it true that all the light is comming from more surface area? A 4 foot T5 is something like 5k lumens, so 12 is 60k, but that is spread over about 8 sq ft. If a plant is centered under the lights, 3" from the light then the light it is getting from the far end of the tube (which is more than 24" away) 1/32 as intense as the light directly overhead. I don't see how that plant could be getting as much light from the 12 tube 650W T5 light fixture (~60k lumens) as it would get from a 600W HPS light (~90k lumens). Does that make sense or is my brain not functioning properly?
 
The sun gives off about 10,000 lumens per sqft the ho T5 bulbs will give you 5000 lumens per sqft that can be put right next to the plant provising maximum usage of the lumens. A 600 watt will provide 7500 lumens per sqft at 12". Most people don't grow that close and surround the light also the fixture is 4' so if the HID light was in the middle the foliage 2' away would be getting much less lumens than the T5 will provide.
It's late.... my 2 cents anyway.
~ucdwc

P.S. Also Plants do most of there photosynthesis in the red and blue spectrum, Hid lights put off about 10% of there lumens in the P.A.R range. A T5 fixture with these bulbs = 100% P.A.R with 90% efficiency.
 
silasraven said:
yeah but the CFL's have to be full spectrum right?
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These are not cfl's, we are talking about T5 fluorescent tubes (Although the professeur is looking to bring specific Nm cfl's into this thread later) . The combination of the bulbs gives you a very wide lighting spectrum tailored specifically for plant growth.
 
Kinda.

If this is the case why in the world do large grow ops with main concern of yield NOT run things like t5's for flowering?

I'm trying to get my head around it and REALLY like the idea of growing with the T5's permanently.

How many plants realistically could you flower under a 12 bulb Badboy?


pr0fesseur said:
YES same amount of electricity
YES Lower heat
NO not the only advantage.
MORE PAR=MORE USABLE LIGHT the plant receives more light that it can use to drive growth. its like octane in fuel sure a gallon is a gallon.. BUT 89 octane and kerosene have very different burn patterns! 89 octane will run a car just fine but kerosene is what you NEED for aircraft....... get it?
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MelloKitty sent me the Spectral Graph of the Quantum bulbs. The Grow is pretty decent, though only 6500K. It might be a suitable replacement for the Fijis. If someone can tell me how to post it- it is a Word document. I just checked their site, they still haven't posted them!




 

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Psytranceorgy said:
Can you save the image in the Word document as a .jpg or whatever and then upload it?
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I saved it in my library, when I open the library I see the doc, but when I try to load it from" my computer" it doesn't show up. Very frustrating. Maybe because it appears in my library as a word doc, not an image, though when I click on it there, it opens.

I looked at Save Options but do not see jpeg, gif, etc
 
PetFlora said:
I saved it in my library, when I open the library I see the doc, but when I try to load it from" my computer" it doesn't show up. Very frustrating. Maybe because it appears in my library as a word doc, not an image, though when I click on it there, it opens.

I looked at Save Options but do not see jpeg, gif, etc
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Try opening the Word document, selecting the image, right click the image and "copy" and then open up Microsoft Paint (Start/Programs/Accessories) and "paste"... Then in Paint you can "save as" a .jpg...
 
Psytranceorgy said:
Try opening the Word document, selecting the image, right click the image and "copy" and then open up Microsoft Paint (Start/Programs/Accessories) and "paste"... Then in Paint you can "save as" a .jpg...
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No can do. I will PM someone if you think you can convert it though.
 
Just got shipping info from Aquarium Specialty, so they now have the Red Suns in.

Can't wait to see how the Coral Wave does, pr0fesseur!
 
Just a note about PAR values to the fellow non-scientists...PAR value essentially shows how much of the light spectrum plants need is given by the light source. So for 2 bulbs, both 54 watts, one might put all of its spectrum @ 454, so the PAR value for that bulb would be 100%. Another 54 watt bulb might have all of its spectrum at 550, its PAR value would be close to 0. This is just a ridiculous example, but the PAR value is the measurement of choice.

The various bulbs the pr0fesseur has listed have very high PAR values, thus they are the most efficient at giving the plants the light that they want to "see".
 
well, my ATI purple plus should be here tomorrow, it says that it replaced the ATI procolor.
I also looked for the biotropic 25k but out of stock at the only place i could find, which i was the link above. I also ordered fiji purples from another site because i'm going to pick up a 2nd waterfarm 8lamp fixture tomorrow.
 
What we are seeing here is the actual source of the mysterious, amazing, and completely unavailable KZ Fiji Purple spectrum (OMGZ!) that has been the topic of much discussion in this thread, and many, many others all over the Internet... Why do I say unavailable? Because, as it turns out, this is NOT the KZ Fiji Purple spectrum at all! It is the nlite PURple (or Bio Tropic 25K) spectrum, and these bulbs are not available...

Here is another link where they talk about this spectrum on the nlite site: http://www.nlites.co.uk/photoponics.htm

The actual KZ Fiji Purple spectrum is a closely guarded company secret, and has not been released to the public. This is what I have been told repeatedly in emails from Thomas Pohl @ Korallen Zucht.
 
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