New lights for seedlings.

[Worth1]

What ever you do you dont need green light for plants, they dont even see it.
Another thing is if the lights are powerful enough you will need to wear protective glasses from what I have heard.
The other is the LED has to give off the red and blue light it cant just be a coated lens.
Worth

[murihikukid]

Worth ..You have really helped ...I certainly never thought of "coated" lens ...but then I wonder how one can check that .......Re normal light do you prefer the cool white at 6500K for young plants as against the warm light which as i understand is better for the older plant producing fruit..

Thanks Ron

[Worth1]

65K and I have had blooms show up on plants with it just fine.
Never grown to full fruit in the house.
I honestly dont buy into the red light spectrum later in growth.
Worth

[murihikukid]

Worth ..You have really helped ...I certainly never thought of "coated" lens ...but then I wonder how one can check that .......Re normal light do you prefer the cool white at 6500K for young plants as against the warm light which as i understand is better for the older plant producing fruit..

Thanks Ron

[dmforcier]

Ron, forget about the "warm light" nonsense!

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Worth1

65K and I have had blooms show up on plants with it just fine.
Never grown to full fruit in the house.
I honestly dont buy into the red light spectrum later in growth.
Worth

Originally Posted by murihikukid

Worth ..You have really helped ...I certainly never thought of "coated" lens ...but then I wonder how one can check that .......Re normal light do you prefer the cool white at 6500K for young plants as against the warm light which as i understand is better for the older plant producing fruit..

Thanks Ron

Ron I answered you right above your post.

Originally Posted by dmforcier

Ron, forget about the "warm light" nonsense!

Right

[frankcar1965]

Be careful of the lights on ebay, they never really pull the watts that are listed. I seems like they are about 20% less than they claim.

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

I use these http://www.lowes.com/pd_420866-43921...hop+lights#img with T8 bulbs. They have always done great. I think if you go LEDs you could grow stuff year round but I just need to get my seedlings ready for the GH.

I used those same lights for 10 years, 24 of them.

I just tried switching 4 of them them to LED T-8 replacements and the ballast in those Lowe's lamp holders are unusual and the LED for florescent fixtures did not work. I ended up putting those 10 LLD bulbs in my garage.

Now I am converting those Lowe's fixtures in my basement seed starting venue to 115 Vac LED lamps. So far I have replaced 4 of the fixtures with these LED bulbs. It is a pain for the conversion but it works very well.

[dmforcier]

Do you have a feel for how much power you're saving with the LED lights?

[chrismmitchell]

I use T8s in my setup and they work great!

[Keen101]

I haven't read the beginning of this thread yet, but i recently got a few of these. They are working fantastic for me and my seedlings. Way better than anything i had before. My tomato seedlings actually look dark green and lush this time as opposed to yellow and leggy. The LEDS are indeed bright when you first get it, but it's actually not too bad tucked away in a corner on a rollaway shelf. I have two currently connected to an Arduino controlled timer with a relay controlled power outlet.

The item say's it's 100W, but a few comments say that in reality it's about 50W. Still plenty good for me even at 50W!

http://www.banggood.com/100W-1131-Re...p-1020547.html



There is an interesting thread over on the OpenAg forum about COB LEDS. Basically a COB LED is just one giant LED instead of a bunch of tiny led's in series and parallel. It's up to you to decide which method is better if going the LED route. (http://forum.openag.media.mit.edu/t/...d-lighting/966)

[Fritz77]

Am I the only one here who doesn't use lights to germinate seeds? Forgive me for my ignorance, but I thought the only thing you need is the right temperature in the room and I even read somewhere that light isn't really necessary before your seeds have germinated....
Plus I don't get it...since they don't heat up like old light bulbs, what are led/neon lights supposed to do the seeds? Or do you use them only to provide extralight once the seedlings have already sprouted?

[clkeiper]

fritz... I think it depends on where you live. I live in one of the cloudiest areas of our country ( I think) and there is definitely a need for lights.

[dmforcier]

No, you don't need lights to germinate seeds. (Heat helps up to a point.)

But you need to apply light to the little beasties as soon as they poke up above ground. Their internal food packet runs out shortly after the cotyledons deploy, so they need the food made by the green bits.

[Worth1]

The title of the thread is new lights for seedlings not seeds.
Since a seed is in the soil it wont see light anyway.
But it needs to see light in at leas a few hours after sprouting.
I wait till the first seed sprouts and the lights go on.
Worth