Well, things got slow at work so on a whim I started looking
into what it would take to put together a test LED grow light system.
Lumex makes some nice surface mount LEDs of 1+ watt output. Samples
are on the way, enough to run one trial panel with a dozen mixed red
and blue LEDs that I can play some games with. Circuit board prototype
is already milled, using a Nomex polyamid board material for heat
transfer to a .125" thick Aluminum plate laminated with thermally
conductive epoxy adhesive. Yep, gonna seriously scope this out and see
if maybe I can power it all with an inexpensive switching power supply
that runs on any ac power from 90 to 264 volts and 50 or 60 hz so it
can be used anywhere in the world.
Got some great data off of NASA's website as to experiments they
have done...

On Feb 19, 8:51 pm, BudBurner hotmail.com> wrote:

On Feb 19, 5:51 pm, BudBurner hotmail.com> wrote:

Several things figured into my starting to look at this.
Primarily, I need to come up with a product that the place I work at
could mass produce and bring in some more business to keep us all
working. I was reading up about a lot of research NASA did with an eye
to growing edibles like lettuce and other short compact bushy plants
to provide fresh raw vegetables in space, plus a second payback having
the plants use the carbon dioxide the space station occupants produced
and turn it into oxygen. Their first choice was LED's because they are
so much more energy efficient and produce so little waste heat, the
very thing that growers so desperately need in this age of high energy
costs and snoopy LEO's with infrared viewing equipment. NASA is using
T 1 3/4 superbright LEDs (<1 watt) though and I think with the newer
SMT devices out there it can be improved upon.
So, driven by the urge to continue to receive a regular
paycheck, I did some more looking at what was available and decided
the time has come to take a stab at it. I'm going to make an array to
poke and prod and see how well the series/parallel arrangement will
work out with the thermal runaway protection I'm trying. These surface
mount LED's have a 110 degree dispersion pattern and are far brighter
than the superbrights are with about a 20 nanometer effective spectral ...

On Feb 20, 3:32 pm, Mycoloteur gmail.com> wrote:

My predictions were that the lighting color will be like
purplish crimson and the plants, since there is no green to reflect,
will look completely black except where there are white hairs and
trichomes when the LED lighting is on. Am I close?
Your results are encouraging news!
BudBurner

On Feb 20, 6:43 pm, BudBurner hotmail.com> wrote:

BudBurner hotmail.com> wrote in
news:63a2403c-7f55-4911-97bc-82ffcf8e8470@41g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:

On Feb 20, 7:19 pm, BudBurner hotmail.com> wrote:

eh... close. You have the flavor anyway.

On Feb 20, 7:44 pm, fanghorn wrote:

I can actually see this scenario happening:

Stoner #1: "Dude! Check out my new LED grow lights!". (Tips
light sideways and into friend's face).
Stoner #2: "Whoa bro! Holyfuk those are bright! Why the funky
colors?" (Blinking eyes rapidly).
Stoner #1: "Careful dude, you just ran into the wall! The door
is over here!"
Stoner #2: "Ow! Damn dude, that hurt! Oh, wow, if I close my
eyes now everything is green!"
Woof! Yip!
Stoner #1: "Whoa dude, you just fell over my dog!"

Seriously though, it is a concern and I really don't think
putting a hood or shade on it would help much because of the viewing
angle pretty much corresponding to exactly the right angle for any...