LED spot lights

I wrote about Metal Halide spot lights some time ago, and those seen to do wonders. They are not very practical for small trees, so I have wondered could LED spot lights be used instead. So I tested it, ordered 20 pcs of 4W spots with 25 degree angle. First setup:



Second setup was more straight forward:



Now after about 6 weeks here is current situation for both (not sure you see much difference):





What I am now getting is much more compact growth and backbudding. Will give you an update after half a year or year.

Some specs. These are Brillight 4W LED spots with Phillips Luxeon leds. Angle is very narrow, and because of that, light levels are high. In hotspots light level is the same as in sunshine (100000 lux). I have tested 36 degrees too, and those seem to work also, if the lights are close enough. These are cool white, 5700K.

There is very little light outside of the trees canopy. This is why one does not need white walls of mylar to reflect light back to trees -  light is there already. This gives us the opportunity to use nice black or other neutral background. WAF is high - My wife said these pictures are lovely!

There is 10 lamps for each shohin sized trees. Setup number two has lamps like this:



For a mame 7 lamps could work:



I want to say, this is not about LEDs. LEDs are just one way of producing light. This is about spot lights, as compared to flood lights. LED spots would be impractical for bigger trees, because one would need literally dozens of them.

I have ordered different kind of spots, 10*5W Cree spots with 35degree angle, and 6*4w recessed Sharp lamps with 25degree beam. Will be nice to see how those work.

I used cool white lights here. According to THIS site, traditional grow light red-blue spectrum is not ideal to plants. Is is good only for very low light levels. If light levels are high, all visible spectrum works for plants. This is good news, we need not to suffer these horrible red-blue lights. Red and blue leds are a little more efficient, but you can ignore that, if you just have enough of light. I have now decided I will give my plants light levels of 60-100 kiloluxes. It really does not matter, how you do it. Cool white should produce little more compact growth than warm white.

What is the cost for these? How are they mounted/wired? Is each a separate plug or do you have to wire them up as a group?

Chris

LINK



5 dollars each before taxes and customs. Both GU10 and MR16 are available. MR16 (12V) bulbs need LED driver but are safer to install. Either way you either have to know how to do it or have someone to do it for you.

traditional red-blue spectrum is not at all necessary to plants

.... tell that to the plant . From what I understand full spectrum is needed for optimal growth/vigor, and the red-blue optimizes the two primary wave lengths utilized; all are used though. One might have been aware of such, not trying to nay say or be a snob at all, just conversation. -Jacob

Jacob, if I understand that article, red-blue lights are better only for very low light levels, for high light levels cool whites are actually better. Green for example has been considered not very usefull. That article says it is usefull because it penetrates inside the canopy, and is the only wavelength available for inner leaves. This means inner leaves will not drop so easily.

For low intensity grow lights it may well be red-blues are still better.

Such a GREAT LED setup! best looking one i have seen to date.

I saw your latest post on the Facebook page, Great Stuff! how is the heat and humidity inside the Terrariums/Vivariums? i have had a similar setup in mind for some time now since the plastic propagators i am using are basically falling apart, so all and any info and experiences you have gathered so far would be highly appreciated.

Hope it is ok that i shared the photo you posted on the IBC Facebook page in my LED thread?

Ty, Dreamcast, for your nice words. I have 3 terrariums, or are they vivariums, on top of each other. Temperatures were way too high for the spots, because they are in a narrow space. I bought several computer fans, that run on 12V too. Noctua 120 x 120 x 25mm NF-S12B redux-700 are very quiet. Fans blow warm air away from the system. I also placed a fan inside the terrarium, to move C02. Now temperatures are OK, less that 30 degrees at the top of the trees.

Humidity, I have ordered temperature and humidity meters, but those seem to take ages to arrive. Humidity is now 100%, and I want to test that, because Yvonne said its OK and good . Aerials are popping out everywhere.

In the long run, I want to adjust humidity to 90%, and test if that is OK.

I think that terrariums without the lower front "glass lip" and full covering doors are called vivariums, but i could be wrong.
From experience 100% humidity works great! i have not seen any fungus, mold or anything yet, and i have been running my setups for many months now, so the "Yvonne method" is very much validated, the key seam to be high temps, 25-30+ Celsius and things works great IMO.

I have like Yvonne standing water in the bottom of the setup to up humidity, but from what i understand your setup completely eliminates this and the possible algae growth and smell that comes with it and still you mentain 100% humidity.
I am now very much interested to get more in to detail of your setup so i can possible implement some of these ideas to my own new and improved setup that is to come.

 Ahhh brainwaves spiralling round and round
So, leaving my mind to buffer. I have no lighting other than regular house bulbs. I notice a lot of debate over different type, colours and spectrum ranges all that hypercapaciter conduit things..
Im unfamiliure with bonsai, and lighting? lol here is what I found googlings-
Tungsten, Fluorescent, Metal halide lights , HID, LED, HP (yum)
I was finding the more I read on the less I knew lol. So cheated and browed for 'indoor plant lighting' such as

14W SMD LED Lighting thingy

Heliospectra LightBar is a high intensity, fixed spectrum LED grow light (My fave, its just a lightsaber!)

LED Strip  Lights for Plants

125W CFL Growth Bulb

It goes on and on and more confuzzling for my inside head muscle lol.
Can anyone sum up the core principles and requirements absolutely essential to using artificial lighting for the average budget say no more than $100?
Or even better recommend one that works for you?  

Thanks for everyone contributing to this site. I want to learn more about this topic soon, its somewhere on my list..
Cheers Jaimie

Believe me, Bonsai Jay, I hear you. Its been a long road for me. When I started, I had no artificial light and a north facing window, no sun ever. Some of those poor creatures are still with me, but not many. I will give my current opinions on this, and I truly believe this is the truth, but I have had that opinion before, and had things totally different at the time.

We should not talk about leds or fluorescents or metal halides as a solution to anything. All these work. Period. What we need to talk about is the necessary light levels and overall conditions.

First the overall conditions. Plants need light, humidity and warmth. Indoors temperature is fine. Humid air is better than dry air. I'll leave that to that, but not because humidity is not important. It is. Plants can not use any light, if air is dry. That is because their little respiratory holes are closed to prevent drying out, there will be no gas exchange, and plants can not photosynthesize. (So I didn't leave it at that).

About light. It makes little sense to talk about light fixture wattages as a measurement of light. All plants are from outside, and the only light source there is sun. Light meters are inexpensive, like 5-20 dollars on ebay. When you buy a meter, you dont need to guess anything. Just decide, what light level you want, and check how close you need to put the lamp. Dont buy meter that only has scale for in 50 000 lux. Sunshine is over 100 000 lux. My current opinion is, that 80 000 lux is very good for bonsai, producing short internodes and small leaves.

If you take led strip light and measure how close you will have to get to get 80K luxes, I woud guess that is like 2 sentimeters. Not practical at all. 14W led thingy you mentioned is a rip off. You would have put those all around a tree to get any light levels at all. 125W CFL is much better, and certainly works, if you put it close enough. I would guess there is 80K lux at about 10-15 cm distance. These are all flood lights. Standard Metal Halide lamp fixtures are also flood lights.

Nowadays I believe in spot lights. These are capable of producing 80K lux easily, but only to very limited area. That is exactly what we want, actually, because our trees are small. Only illuminate the tree.

100$ is not much. I deliberately misunderstand you here, and believe you meant 100$ per tree . Once chinese New Year is over, seller adengsolo on ebay will once again have these: CREE 5W spots. I would now choose 4000K version or natural white color. By default those are 60 degrees, but you will get 35 degrees if you ask. 60 degrees is flood light.

Then you need a led driver, 12V /70W would be great. Cheap chinese sockets, nice little junction box, spring connectors and the rest, 100$ seems like enough.

These spots have genuine Cree leds. (I opened one, of course Chinese can also spell Cree, and print it to the led chip, but I believe this seller has the real thing.) They are made by Brillight. They are very efficient bulbs, you could illuminate one 30cm diameter tree with 10 them, or 2 shohin, 15-20cm diameter. Just put them close enough, like 10-15cm from the tree. Intensity will be like sunlight.

I don't believe you will be happy at all with this answer, but thats one way of doing it.

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If JWT agrees? i would like to redirect at least all further LED, or possibly even all artificial light discussions/questions to the "LED Thread" in the Top Thread Section of the Forum, just so its easier for the members that are interested in the subject to keep track of all artificial light related talk.

sorry lol

Dreamcast wrote:If JWT agrees? i would like to redirect at least all further LED, or possibly even all artificial light discussions/questions to the "LED Thread" in the Top Thread Section of the Forum, just so its easier for the members that are interested in the subject to keep track of all artificial light related talk.

Agreed.

I will close this thread to replies and JWT has already copied some of it to the other thread.