lighting LED Lighting

[Stormin]

I bought this unit for my Thai peppers and they are doing great.
From Ebay for $21.00.
http://cgi.ebay.com/BRIGHT-225-LED-...in_0?hash=item335589b926&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
It only draws 14 watts and doesn't get hot.

 

[wordwiz]

I think yo meant 14 watts!

Last year, I looked at a several types of lamps for seedlings. The trays were going to take up about 85 square feet of space and I did not plan on growing them to adults, at least inside. After looking at the cost of the lamps, coverage area, lumens, etc., I went with 105 watt CFL bulbs. Used nine of them, whereas I would have needed over 40 of those LED panels.

Mike

 

[Stormin]

I think yo meant 14 watts!

Last year, I looked at a several types of lamps for seedlings. The trays were going to take up about 85 square feet of space and I did not plan on growing them to adults, at least inside. After looking at the cost of the lamps, coverage area, lumens, etc., I went with 105 watt CFL bulbs. Used nine of them, whereas I would have needed over 40 of those LED panels.

Mike

Excuse me, I did indeed mean Watts.

And I am only growing 7 small Thai plants, so this is sufficient lighting.

 

[willard3]

You will not bring chile plants to fruiting with 14 watts.

It takes 30-50 watts/square foot to bring a chile to fruit.

 

[Stormin]

I use natural sunlight during the day and LED during the evening and early morning. They are starting to bear.

 

[Hinky]

While I'm not sold on the low-powered LEDs as a a sole light source for growing or even overwintering, I'm definitely intrigued by the high powered LEDs, particularly the use of blues for seedlings. Also, I've seen some really shitty reviews of the no-name generic low-powered LED plastic panels as sold on Ebay and Amazon- the quality control is less than desirable and you don't know what you're going to get until you plug it in. I'm going to be building my own frankenLED setup this winter but in the meantime I recently purchased two of these 3 watt LED bulbs to try out. I've only had them in use with some new seeds for about 2 weeks but so far the results are pretty impressive- the propagation tray is located 1 foot below 8 each 40 watt standard flouro tubes yet the new sprouts are growing sideways towards the 3 watt LEDs like the 320 watts of flouro aren't even there! I'm going to have to do something to reposition the LEDs directly over the top of the tray.

Used alone, they're pretty freaky looking- this is one of them I had directed at a young Bhut prior to moving the light to to the propagation tray-

 

[Stormin]

The only issue I have with the light I bought off of Ebay and posted above is the lack of a good mount. It has 4 holes in the frame which I passed some thin rope through and use the rope to hang the light.

My Thai peppers are doing well with it. Although I put them in the window for natural sunlight during the day, but they only get direct sun from about 1:30pm to 6:00pm.

 

[wordwiz]

I've only had them in use with some new seeds for about 2 weeks but so far the results are pretty impressive- the propagation tray is located 1 foot below 8 each 40 watt standard flouro tubes yet the new sprouts are growing sideways towards the 3 watt LEDs like the 320 watts of flouro aren't even there! I'm going to have to do something to reposition the LEDs directly over the top of the tray.

Hinky,

Last summer, in one of my experiments I had a seedling in a 3" container, one under a red panel, one under a blue panel and the other under a red/blue panel. They all were about two inches from the canopy. It was freaky to see one seedling bent at a 45 degree angle growing toward a blue bulb.

Mike