LED experiments begin

A snake, a pond, and full of orchids...wow, that's pretty much the coolest set-up I've seen! Bravo.

I'm headed more toward a pure growing application so spotlighting with highpower LEDs is probably not the way I am going. My LED guy is leaning toward 90 LEDs, yes 90, on a 6X6...all 5w bulbs. Apparently it is so bright that it shouldn't be looked at with the naked eye.

Thank you guys for the comments I can see now that the pics look a bit under exposed, but had I made the lighting correct on the terrarium in general, the lightsources would have been totally over wxposed

Mrobert:
Sounds good! If ti is 5W, then it is highpower LEDs. Please post a pic when you have a prototype!
Do you know the specs. on eache of those 5W LEDs? And how are you going to get sufficient cooling for so many on such a relatively small space??

If the lumen/W on those LEDs are the same or close to the ratio on mine, that is going to be almost equivalent of sun light in strenght at 3 feet or something

Christian

Designs are at the board builder...no ETA on when the boards will be delivered, but early next week is a good bet. Then just some wiring and the prototype should be on its way to Carmel (from Maine).

sniff, sniff.... I want my shop!!!!!

I agree, Korxi's setup is WAY cool. Don't worry about the exposure, it is the HUGE difference in light that is the important part of the setup to notice. VERY nice.

__________________
Steven

In Flower/Bud:
Phal Aurelia Franklin peloric, Paph Magic Lantern, Paph philippinense, Phal Leopard Prince x Brother Danseuse

and a few others too.

Low Bud/spike?

Update: We tried sent a board company designs made on a cad program but the cost of custom boards is very high. We're going to use gereric boards.

How are you going to ensure sufficient cooling on just a board?
If you really are going to put 90 5W highpower LEDs close together you are going to need a very very large heatsink IMO. I hope you've got this in your considerations - it will be a heavy "bulb" if you use standard heatsinks

I'm really looking forward to seeing the prototype and the light intensity readings!

Christian

I'm really putting a lot of trust in my engineer; he has many years of experience with LEDs and comes highly recommended, but that said he's never done a project like this.

The newest design is going to use multiple boards with 9x4 LEDs (36 bulbs per board). This way we'll be able to do more experimentation without trashing expensive custom boards. I'm not sure what bulbs we are going to use. I sent my engineer the information you (Christian) posted on the board but he felt these bulbs were not a good choice give my request for a rugged design. I'm not 100% sure what bulbs we're going to use, once I know, I'll post it.

Next big update will be after Thanksgiving. By then we should have all the boards soldered-up and ready to go.

Sounds good I'm thinking that your engineer will be using the normal 5mm LEDs, a regular board just wouldn't do for the highpower ones
Are you going to be using combinations of different colored LEDs, or variations of white LEDs?

Christian

Btw. I have heard of one company producing LED plant lights, I believe the company was named LEDtronics or something. Try and google that with plant light and you should be able to find something, unless you already know about it

I'm not concerned with how the orchids look under the lights so we'll be using the appropriate photosynthetic wavelengths (blues and reds). Again, this is just for the firsst board. In the future I plan on experimenting with more exotic bulbs. The true-light LEDs interest me, but I'm not read up on them yet...

I felt that the commercially available setups were way overpriced, I'd rather have a custom setup for less cost (of course); and who knows what they're research was like. Plus, its always fun to experiment!

The boards will be done in mid-December. They are going to be 42-blub arrays powered by either 12v or 13.8v (can probably be wired for either). I was planning on AC power to begin with but DC will be easier (technically) and think of all the options. Arrays could be placed where you don't have AC power or where you can't/don't want to run a cord. I already have some slick one-off mount ideas, integrated lights and power, and its "portable". OK but back on topic...Is anyone interested in helping me test???

As I mentioned in previous posts I plan on testing various LED combinations to determine an optimal pattern and wavelength balance. It will be far faster to have several people test different set-ups and I'll also be able to glean more data. If you're interested let me know in this thread.