Not Understanding LED Tape?

[SilverShaded]

It applies to white light at less than one metre away. Personally having used a variety of LEDs for several years, i dont find the coloured LEDs to be a great deal better than white LEDs. In fact i think white LEDs give healthier plants. Yes you lose some efficiency but not as much as people make out. I realise poeple may want to argue with that but theyll need to show evidence and not parrot what they've read elsewhere.

Kg5 was asking about how to reproduce full or half sun, for that you need a lot more than 70W of any colour.

Having grown sunloving plants under red/blue led, i would say it is slightly more effcient than flourescent but certainly not as mch as the sellers claim.

Most of the efficiency gains in reality are due to a more focused beam of light and no losses on reflectors etc.

In my experience white LEDs are not noticeably different to any coloured LEDs in efficiency.

[ALToronto]

I don't disagree with you about the small difference in efficiency. I'm not a fan of red/blue lights for orchids, and I think that with a more complete spectrum of white LEDs, they are a much better choice than limited spectrum lights such as red/blue LEDs or fluorescents of any kind.

I also don't think it's necessary to provide the same light intensity as full sunshine. Plants will do well with lower light levels.

[SilverShaded]

Originally Posted by ALToronto

I don't disagree with you about the small difference in efficiency. I'm not a fan of red/blue lights for orchids, and I think that with a more complete spectrum of white LEDs, they are a much better choice than limited spectrum lights such as red/blue LEDs or fluorescents of any kind.

I also don't think it's necessary to provide the same light intensity as full sunshine. Plants will do well with lower light levels.

Completely agree, photosynthesis is limited by many other things apart from the level of light.

Im really quite pleased with my 40/50 watt led corn bulbs at the moment, used them as a straight replacement for 200w envirolite (cfl). Plants are colouring up nicely.

[kg5]

It all started as we needed a fence because we have had no neighbour to the south of our house for 27 years. Now someone is building. So a fence turned into a Shade & Hot house. Why not we said. We are only able to do about 30 mins of work on it per most days. Measurement by measurement, day after day and it slowly grows just like an orchid.

At the bottom end near the wall is a shade spot 24/7/365 which is 3 feet or m in summer to 5 feet 1.6m in winter & about 6m long or 19 feet. Overall it is 15m x avg 4m. So I figure I have as many as 8 micro climates. There is another structure in min 6hrs full sun that will be going up for the larger lotus & water lilies but the miniatures for fish tanks I believe they should work under lights. Have learnt a lot about these water plants in resent times and am still learning. Yes! I will have a look at the pot growing forums. Makes a lot of sense. Would so like to get something working off solar panels.

[kg5]

Thank you ALToronto your info helped me heaps!

Starting to get the idea.

Will try the white led light strip.

The blue & red led strips are very hard on the eyes.

Will try orchids straight out of flasks & aquarium plants 1st to see what happens. Not too expensive to have a look.

[ALToronto]

Why are you so attached to strips? They're designed for decorative accent lighting, and don't put out a lot of light. Look for COB diodes, you can get them in much higher, more appropriate wattages for your application.

Look through past threads on LED lighting in this forum, members have posted links to very good quality lights (especially naoki). You can also get a lot of information on aliexpress.com, which is my go-to source for all things LED.

[naoki]

Is giant motorized mirrors attached near the roof (of the main house) a possibility? The angles of each mirror moves with the sun movement, and reflect into the shade house. Initial cost may be high, but the maintenance cost could be lower. If you are going to use artificial light for such a big area, you need to pay a lot of electricity. Since you are in warm region, it seems to be more economical to use the natural light source.

Alternatively, can you use light diffusing material as the roof? I don't know much about this topic, but here is a related topic:
Diffused light - Slippertalk Orchid Forum- The best slipper orchid forum for paph, phrag and other lady slipper orchid discussion!

If you want artificial light, isn't HPS better for this kind of application? Efficiency of HPS (in terms of photosynthesis) is similar to the top-end LEDs and higher than low-end LEDs. Here is the data:
PLOS ONE: Economic Analysis of Greenhouse Lighting: Light Emitting Diodes vs. High Intensity Discharge Fixtures

---------- Post added at 03:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:06 PM ----------

Originally Posted by SilverShaded

Im really quite pleased with my 40/50 watt led corn bulbs at the moment, used them as a straight replacement for 200w envirolite (cfl). Plants are colouring up nicely.

Which corn bulbs are you using, SilverShaded?

[kg5]

It is hard to understand the better threads on LED lights if you do not understand the specific terms of descriptions given.

LED strips is my starting point. We all had to start somewhere when it come to grow light knowledge. Strips happens to be mine. Wrong or right I have no idea this is why I am asking.

[Amateur_expert]

Hey man. It is understandable that a strip is appealing. It is already wired and almost a plug and play. The issue really is as everyone said - you will need a lot to make the proper intensity. And with that, you will need to make sure the k is in the correct range (K = Kelvin = color output of the LED).

I would urge you to look at something other that LED's for that setup. Yes, you could make something that would work with LED's but the problem is the initial price. You can run at least 80 red 700mA 40lm LEDs in series on a single ballast, but if youre going to buy the LEDs that's almost $6 each plus the $75 for that ballast, cooling fans/heatsinks and the wiring/solder to put it all together. Not to mention the thermal epoxy. So all in all I'd bet you would spend (if you could make it yourself) around $800 for the full length of that house and have a intense red/blue setup. But that's a lot of money.

I would be more inclined to get T12VHO fluorescents in 5,000K and make the ballast sections. Then I would go through a lot of effort to permenantly affix mylar sheeting to all of the surfaces that do not let light pass in (wood beams, brick, behind the light fixtures etc). The mylar will allow the light you produce and the regular albeit shaded light to bounce around everywhere instead of stopping at the first hit.

Just a though....

[kg5]

I do very much appreciate the help. I will get it just be patient with me.

So I am now going into the area of:

Grow Light T5 series for Propagation Light Hydroponics and General use.

+ T5 54w 6500K High Output Fluorescent Grow Light Lamp Tube Globe Bulb.

Still in the looser area?