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Old 10-20-2013, 05:52 AM
GpsFrontier GpsFrontier is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lake Havasu AZ.
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Hello TimeWasteing,
Quote:
Though I read lumen weren't key when it comes to led's? something about PAR/nm they give off.
The light output is always important, and a main factor for plant growth. PAR and NM are both the same thing as lumen's. Their all measurements of light output. The higher the par output, the higher the lumen and nm output will be. The higher the lumin output the higher the par output will be. And you can say the same thing for the measurement "candle power" The higher the candle power, the higher the lumen and par measurements will be. Candle power, par, nm, and lumen's are just different measurements for the same thing "light intensity." The same way you can choose to either measure something in feet and inches, or in centimeters and millimeters. It wont change the distance of something witch form of measuring choose to measure it with.

Quote:
So your saying I should get 400 watts (used) worth of led's/cfl? I'm not going for best possible growth just effective/worthwhile would 85led+78cfl (should be 140-150w~ used) do? I've seen others topic/video's were people have grown tomato's under 90-120~ watt's in a 3x3-4x4 area.
I used 400 watts as an example. I could have just as easily used 1000 watts or 200 watts in the example. The hype LED manufactures base their propaganda on is largely unfounded. They try and tell people that they can replace a 400 watt light with a 30 watt LED and get the same or better results using less energy. But it just doesn't work that way, and that's what I was trying to get across.

I know your not trying to win any blue ripens, but if you want effective/worthwhile producing plants, you should consider what makes them produce worthwhile produce. Fruiting plants need a lot more light to produce worthwhile fruit (2-3 times as much) than non fruiting plants like lettuce. I'm not sure what variety of tomato's and peppers your planing on growing. But even bush varieties of both can get 4-5 feet tall and just as wide given a good growing environment. And indeterminate types can grow tall as a house and 5-6 feet wide. And sure if you constantly trim your plants back so they don't get bigger than a foot or two tall and wide, sure a 100 watt MH/hps bulb should work fine. So a 90-120 watt LED is replacing a 100 watt bulb. Witch was my earlier point. Your not saving much if any energy.

Also to consider is the size of the grow box wont be the size of the plants. In your case a 6 foot tall space, you'd be lucky to get a 3 foot plant in it when you consider the space needed at the bottom for the hydroponic system, reservoir, root space, air circulation fans etc. not to mention the space needed at the top for the lights, and space between them so the foliage doesn't burn. Again I don't know what varieties your planing on growing, but you'll likely find that your plants will outgrow the space before you even get any fruit off of them.

YA, if you want those plants to produce you'll need good air circulation inside the box. Not blowing fresh air in, but circulation within the box to distribute the pollen from flower to flower. Blowing the air out of the box just blows the pollen away from the flowers you want pollinated. Also if you don't have good air circulation the humidity in the box could cause fungal problems on the plants. Air circulation is very important.
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Last edited by GpsFrontier; 10-20-2013 at 06:03 AM.
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