Using watts to rate an LED panel means nothing,just how fast your meter sins(was going to SP check but I like the pun). LOL
Good for seeing what your bills gonna be,not good for figuring out how much light it puts out - it's usefulnes.
Usefull for a Lumen per watt thing but only if you have a light meter that only red and blue doesn't mess up it's readings.
I like LEDs a lot.
I make my own pannels.
I have 14hrs a day,7 days a week to kill(work) with basically nothing to do.
Soldering , drilling ,wiring etc. a ton of LEDs isn't a problem for me.
Soldering a gazillion LEDs just helped me not get bored at dark thirty AM at work.
So far NONE of the commercially made pannels I've seen are worth buying.
Yes,there are a lot of things you need to know about LEDs before trying them out.
I think the most important thing the snake oil salesmen neglect to tell people is that the angle of the beam put out by an Led makes a BIG difference,BIG difference.
A 30 dgree angle 100lm. led will put out the 100lm at a farther distance away than a 125 degree one at the same distance.
LEDs are mini spotlights.The wider the angle of the beam the less brighter the target area is.You are spreading the same amount of lms over a bigger area.
Another thing is WATTS is Voltage times amps.Has nothing to do with light output.
Like saying my car has a 10 gal. gas tank,it can go 0-60 in the blink of an eye...so a ten gallon gas tank in a car is better...
I have 1 watt LEDs that put out anywhere from 35LM. to 200LM.
Some run on 3 volts,300MA,others on 2 volts,350ma.
I have 3 watt LEDs that use 3.5 volts,750 ma. and put out only 50 lm.
In reality,if the 1 watters have a smaller angle they might be putting out more lm. on the plant at the same distance as a 125 degree angles higher lm. 3 watter.
Also,comparing a halide or whatever by using lumens isn't fair either.
Sure a lot of light sources put out a gazillion lumens of light per watt.
How much of that light isn't plant usable?
At the same time,just because an led is rated at 660nm ,thats only it's main output wavelength.
Probably varies from company to company,batch to batch...at least it's in the ballpark though-thats important.
I think too many people try a bunk LED pannel and read what a lot of bs from salesmen and when dissapointed in results decide all leds are junk.
The plants I have under LEDs out do my other plants easily.
But,LEDS have to be used according to that bulbs specs.
Wide beems = about the same distance away from your plants as fluoros -/+.
Yes,a lot more lumins in the same coverage area but that equals less sq. ft per pannel.
For instance I use 3 shop lights per shelf-6 bulbs of fluoros.
I use 3 LED star pannels that are 16 x 16 in place of the fluoros on another shelf.
Sheves are 18X4ft.
Thats about 200 (180 actually)star LEDs in several wavelengths of blue and red.
I get a lot more lumens from the LEDs.I have to turn them off or I see spots when I leave the room.
I have the LEDs 19-21 inches permanently mounted above my sprouts-no raising etc. as plants grow or when I water.
I also put all my previous experimental stuff vertically on the 3 sides of the shelf.
They are 5 and 10 mm LED pannels in about 12 wavelengths of plant usable light.
I get branching at 3 -4 nodes in sprouts in general.
Different plants like more red in certain wavelengths than others-Pubescens really like a lot of red in 660nm and 625nm in a 2 to 1 mix.660nm being the 2.
It also seems that 470nm blue in the same ratio-(2 to 1 to) 430-440 blue is good for most other Pepper plants.
I seem to end up with a 6 to 1 mix of red to blue in my pannels due to my power requirements for the stars I used.
I use 12 volt supplies and strings of stars are usually 5 or 6 reds per string or 3 or 4 per string for blue.
Speaking of power/watts.
If you have 3 350ma LEDs in a string they don't add up to 1.5 watts.The string is 350ma.
Snake oil salesmen add each LED up as if it uses a bunch of watts because each LED is rated at 350ma or whatever.You'd need a driver for each LED to get 1.5 amps out of 3 stars rated at 350ma.
Since they are into $ you know they are using drivers that run as many LEDs as it will run.
So your 125 Watt pannel might really be using only 60 watts or whatever.
Shoots the 125 watt LED thing all to heck as far as their add goes.
Most people aren't going to check out/take apart their pannels to see the guts anyway.
You can add up each LEDs output in a pannel to get a general value for lumens per pannel but then your back to the angle of the beam thing...How far away from the target your pannel is.
The closer the higher the Lumen,same with any other Light source.
I run 2 of my 60 star pannels on a 12 volt 13.5 amp. supply.Thats 162 watts.
On paper I can run all 3 on the same supply without stressing it,close though to it's max output.
I'm going up to a FREE 13.5 volt 60 amp.supply I just got.
I have to watch out though.All my stuff is set up for 12 volts.I have to run a bunch of stuff before it drops down to 12 volts.It's heavy duty for charging RV batteries that draw a lot of juice...
Thats 170+/- strings of stars at 350ma a sting.
Min. of 850 LEDs depending on power requirements of my strings etc.
At 35 Lm thats 3675 lm to 2 or 3 times that at above 35 lm per star.
35 lumen is the lowest star I use but most are 50-200lm.
I'm lowballing this because I use cheep china stuff that the stats they give are for the majority of them not all of them.Quality control I hear sucks.
So far after 2 or 3 seasons none have fried so the rumor about them being junk so far,for me is BS.
I think that people buy panels with LEDs driven to the max. from these companies and assume the LEDs are junk where in fact the same LED would run forever if it was run at a lower(typical power)power.
Also since you can pulse an LED at 2X+ it's rated power needs and get 3x+ the lumens some companies pulse their LEDs to get better stats on paper for sales purposes.
The thing is,Plants can't use the pulsed light.
Light causes a chemical reaction in leaves and a pulse doesn't last long enough to be usable to a plant.
Pulsed light ends up equal to no light at all-so I've read.
I only grow non bell peppers and my post might be totally wrong for other plants light needs.
I am only using them for sprouts mostly but have a couple plants growing very happily on them too if I could only control a mite infestation.
Long post,worth EXACTLY what you paid for it.
Good for seeing what your bills gonna be,not good for figuring out how much light it puts out - it's usefulnes.
Usefull for a Lumen per watt thing but only if you have a light meter that only red and blue doesn't mess up it's readings.
I like LEDs a lot.
I make my own pannels.
I have 14hrs a day,7 days a week to kill(work) with basically nothing to do.
Soldering , drilling ,wiring etc. a ton of LEDs isn't a problem for me.
Soldering a gazillion LEDs just helped me not get bored at dark thirty AM at work.
So far NONE of the commercially made pannels I've seen are worth buying.
Yes,there are a lot of things you need to know about LEDs before trying them out.
I think the most important thing the snake oil salesmen neglect to tell people is that the angle of the beam put out by an Led makes a BIG difference,BIG difference.
A 30 dgree angle 100lm. led will put out the 100lm at a farther distance away than a 125 degree one at the same distance.
LEDs are mini spotlights.The wider the angle of the beam the less brighter the target area is.You are spreading the same amount of lms over a bigger area.
Another thing is WATTS is Voltage times amps.Has nothing to do with light output.
Like saying my car has a 10 gal. gas tank,it can go 0-60 in the blink of an eye...so a ten gallon gas tank in a car is better...
I have 1 watt LEDs that put out anywhere from 35LM. to 200LM.
Some run on 3 volts,300MA,others on 2 volts,350ma.
I have 3 watt LEDs that use 3.5 volts,750 ma. and put out only 50 lm.
In reality,if the 1 watters have a smaller angle they might be putting out more lm. on the plant at the same distance as a 125 degree angles higher lm. 3 watter.
Also,comparing a halide or whatever by using lumens isn't fair either.
Sure a lot of light sources put out a gazillion lumens of light per watt.
How much of that light isn't plant usable?
At the same time,just because an led is rated at 660nm ,thats only it's main output wavelength.
Probably varies from company to company,batch to batch...at least it's in the ballpark though-thats important.
I think too many people try a bunk LED pannel and read what a lot of bs from salesmen and when dissapointed in results decide all leds are junk.
The plants I have under LEDs out do my other plants easily.
But,LEDS have to be used according to that bulbs specs.
Wide beems = about the same distance away from your plants as fluoros -/+.
Yes,a lot more lumins in the same coverage area but that equals less sq. ft per pannel.
For instance I use 3 shop lights per shelf-6 bulbs of fluoros.
I use 3 LED star pannels that are 16 x 16 in place of the fluoros on another shelf.
Sheves are 18X4ft.
Thats about 200 (180 actually)star LEDs in several wavelengths of blue and red.
I get a lot more lumens from the LEDs.I have to turn them off or I see spots when I leave the room.
I have the LEDs 19-21 inches permanently mounted above my sprouts-no raising etc. as plants grow or when I water.
I also put all my previous experimental stuff vertically on the 3 sides of the shelf.
They are 5 and 10 mm LED pannels in about 12 wavelengths of plant usable light.
I get branching at 3 -4 nodes in sprouts in general.
Different plants like more red in certain wavelengths than others-Pubescens really like a lot of red in 660nm and 625nm in a 2 to 1 mix.660nm being the 2.
It also seems that 470nm blue in the same ratio-(2 to 1 to) 430-440 blue is good for most other Pepper plants.
I seem to end up with a 6 to 1 mix of red to blue in my pannels due to my power requirements for the stars I used.
I use 12 volt supplies and strings of stars are usually 5 or 6 reds per string or 3 or 4 per string for blue.
Speaking of power/watts.
If you have 3 350ma LEDs in a string they don't add up to 1.5 watts.The string is 350ma.
Snake oil salesmen add each LED up as if it uses a bunch of watts because each LED is rated at 350ma or whatever.You'd need a driver for each LED to get 1.5 amps out of 3 stars rated at 350ma.
Since they are into $ you know they are using drivers that run as many LEDs as it will run.
So your 125 Watt pannel might really be using only 60 watts or whatever.
Shoots the 125 watt LED thing all to heck as far as their add goes.
Most people aren't going to check out/take apart their pannels to see the guts anyway.
You can add up each LEDs output in a pannel to get a general value for lumens per pannel but then your back to the angle of the beam thing...How far away from the target your pannel is.
The closer the higher the Lumen,same with any other Light source.
I run 2 of my 60 star pannels on a 12 volt 13.5 amp. supply.Thats 162 watts.
On paper I can run all 3 on the same supply without stressing it,close though to it's max output.
I'm going up to a FREE 13.5 volt 60 amp.supply I just got.
I have to watch out though.All my stuff is set up for 12 volts.I have to run a bunch of stuff before it drops down to 12 volts.It's heavy duty for charging RV batteries that draw a lot of juice...
Thats 170+/- strings of stars at 350ma a sting.
Min. of 850 LEDs depending on power requirements of my strings etc.
At 35 Lm thats 3675 lm to 2 or 3 times that at above 35 lm per star.
35 lumen is the lowest star I use but most are 50-200lm.
I'm lowballing this because I use cheep china stuff that the stats they give are for the majority of them not all of them.Quality control I hear sucks.
So far after 2 or 3 seasons none have fried so the rumor about them being junk so far,for me is BS.
I think that people buy panels with LEDs driven to the max. from these companies and assume the LEDs are junk where in fact the same LED would run forever if it was run at a lower(typical power)power.
Also since you can pulse an LED at 2X+ it's rated power needs and get 3x+ the lumens some companies pulse their LEDs to get better stats on paper for sales purposes.
The thing is,Plants can't use the pulsed light.
Light causes a chemical reaction in leaves and a pulse doesn't last long enough to be usable to a plant.
Pulsed light ends up equal to no light at all-so I've read.
I only grow non bell peppers and my post might be totally wrong for other plants light needs.
I am only using them for sprouts mostly but have a couple plants growing very happily on them too if I could only control a mite infestation.
Long post,worth EXACTLY what you paid for it.
