Not an orchid, but I over wintered a Cephalotus about 5-7 cm from a Cree screw in with a single 9W emitter. Cephalotus tolerate full sun, and show better color under it, but they grow better with some shading. The plant grew nicely, and developed really nice coloration. I doubt that your plants could be hurt by your lights, given proper acclimation, unless they actually touch the unit.

Nice to have a plan to over winter my seedling orchids.

Winter is very early. It is now raining and very cold weather for us here. Looks like this type of weather will be here for some time.

It has been over 10 years since we have had an early winter. Normally we get at least another 6 weeks of good growing weather at this time of year.

Have put the orchids on top of the fridge and put an older type reading lamp next to them to add some heat around them. The fridge offers a bit of heat as well.

Have put 3 coffee jars in a 4 foot aquarium with aquarium heaters in each of them. Still waiting for my LED light to arrive....... Will start them with the light at 250mm or 10" from them and then slowly move the orchids closer to the light.

The seedling orchids are now a very dark green colour. Two weeks ago they all had a really nice light green colour about them. Just waiting for my light.

Coldest day like forever so the news tells me!

Two days ago the very cold rain started and I had to bring inside on the breakfast bar my 2 foot high warm loving Grammatophyllums orchid that lives in a home made wooden create type pot.

A low pressure system combined with upper level trough and they smashed us really bad last night. We are use to that sort of thing here but not the cold that came with this weather. It was the same as an upper level category 2 cyclone. In 1 hr last night we got over 250mm or 10" of rain. You could hear nothing but rain. Could not hear anyone, nothing.
The tinnie is upside down in the water. All up, we have had over 750mm or 30" of very cold rain in two days. No major branches down and we have power. The street and yards are covered with leaves and dead wood. The sun is shining and the there is no wind at all. It is just, so beautiful, so still, so silent.

Put my orchid outside into the most beautiful day. But I am still waiting for my light! lol

Hope someone is still looking here.

My light hood shorted out and I got a large boot from it. My hand was blown off the hood thankfully.

My new question is about using 2 x Cree LED 240v 22w T8 light tube fluorescent 120cm Cool Warm White. How does it change the distance from light to plant as the quote is about 1 light. It worked out better to buy a 2 tube hood with 1 tube.... Some help would be very nice.

You will need to get a light meter and measure. Adequate meters are available on Amazon for around $35 US. They're not as good as the ones Naoki uses, but they're better than smartphone apps. Smartphone apps are useful only for comparison, as in this is brighter than that. Sorry, no shortcuts here.

How did the fixture short out? Bad wiring from the factory, or did you put in an LED tube without removing the fluorescent ballast? You need to remove fluorescent ballasts, they're not compatible with LEDs.

On inspection the main lead into the light had a fault where the lead enters the batten. Very glad the back of my hand got hit.

The light and fish tank was given to me 12 months ago as it has a very small crack in the bottom.

After talking to the previous owner the light is over 25 years old.

Even an "in the trade" friend help me and checked it but I must of damaged it when I put it into place. He also helped me with an outside electrical system. Got all the near new stuff checked out specially the trip switch. Looks like I also need a trip switch into the fish tank as with flasks it is going to get a lot of use hopefully.

I will do what a horticulturist does when it comes to the lights and that is 95% observation and 5% action. Just hope my orchids understand this principal. lol

It has got to the point that I need to make a decision to go down the grow lights track or not.

I have put a lot of time into it all this light area but in a smaller area in the shade house I have decided that I will be using LED fluro lights.

I have become fascinated and would really like to get some full-on knowledge about growing under lights.

I also want to look into shade loving orchids as well.

But to nail the 8 or 9 micro climates I can see in our largish shade house. To have the right type of orchid growing in the right place is so very attractive and interesting. It real suits me as a plant lover!

I just purchsed a light meter and measure tool.

The journey begins........

If you're going to go LED and don't have existing fluorescent fixtures, don't buy tubes. They're the most expensive type of LED lights per watt, and they only make sense if you have fluorescent fixtures already, preferably with dead ballasts.

I've posted a link to Sunway LED in another thread. Their small work lights are the best deal I've seen, and if you look at their offerings through aliexpress, they offer some package deals with free shipping. Go to aliexpress.com and do a search for Sunway LED. They're not the only ones who make good lights, but they make the best lights I've bought that don't require soldering skills.

So what am I missing/off track?

I can buy a twin outdoor LED 1.2m batten and 2 T8 tubes in Aus for AU$55 that's US$38.

The Sunway LED quick search and I am looking at US$ 120/$150 that's AU$195 top end price mentioned.

Am I missing the watt comparison?