Translation Of LED Fluorescence Lights
 

Any comments on this selection of LED fluorescence lights would be very much appreciated. Tried to get as much info as I could.

I have ordered a single CREE LED 22w T8 Light tube lamp fluorescent replacement 120cm COOL WARM WHITE.
After I purchased the item "cool" was included in the description.

List:

18w-T8-1.2-Cool-Clear-6000/6500k-1800lm

18w-T8-1.2-Cool-Frosted

22w-T8-1.2-Cool-Clear-6000/6500k-2200lm

22w-T8-1.2-Cool-Frosted

22w-T8-1.2-Warm-Clear-3000/3500k-2200lm

22w-T8-1.2-Warm-Frosted

120w-High Bay-Cool

180w-High Bay-Cool

30w-T8-1.2-Cool-Clear

30w-T8-1.2-Cool-Frosted

Are you talking about this?

T8 Linear Lamps & LED T8 Tube Lights | Cree Lighting

If you click the Documentation tab, the first PDF (Data and Spec Sheet) has the explanation of how to decode the product number (if you can find the model number). It appears that the product you listed seems to be a bit different, but it could be due to the difference in AC voltage.

This is the kind which you lose the energy twice (due to ballast loss and due to the LED driver). But it gives moderate efficiency. Much better than the strip light you used to talk about. It is interesting that this Cree T8 series runs more efficiently (but less total output) with florescent ballasts with lower Ballast Factors.

Thank You naoki for a great link.

I still find searching a mystery tour!

Will the LED light that I have chosen be able to over winter some fresh tube stock in a large fish tank. Which is a single line of tubes?

Very abnormal cold spell here. It has dropped from 20c to 10c overnight. From one week to the next but things will warm again. The orchids are Grammatophyllums. I was hoping for much warmer weather for another 6 weeks.

Grammatophyllums are coping with the outdoors environment which includes full sun at present. It was a very gradual process to do this.

I am thinking of using the light 9pm to 9am for the coldest time of the day.

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by "fresh tube stock". Can you explain a bit more? Also how is the light related to over-wintering? Do you mean heat generated by LED?

Yes a very unclear question. Must be a bit to close to it all at present.

I had 2 flasks of Grammatophyllums orchids. They got very large looking inside the flasks so I potted them into tube size plant pots.

1st flask has hardened off really well and can see growth.

2nd flask was just to the stage where the potted orchids in tubes could take partial full sun. But a cold snap 6/8 weeks early and have not seen any growth in these orchids. This has me very worried as we are headed into winter, a mild one but winter.

I already had and used this gro-lite tube to help the orchids harden for an outside position. This light tube has stopped working.

So I looked at the said LED tube and was hoping to help some root growth with this light and hoping for a bit of heat as well to get some fertiliser into the orchids. But I know very little and have the the idea that heat mite be need to come from another source. I am still hopeful the tube light mite offer some heat.

I have a 4 foot aquarium and the 25 orchids potted in tubes and envisage them in a line directly under the light. The light should be hear tomorrow. The light has cost me less than transport cost to get to a light shop.

Thank You for asking naoki. I very much appreciate it!

Oh I see! But I don't have any experience with this group of orchids. I generally try to keep deflasked offspring at the optimum temperature for the first year or so (warm for warm orchids, and cool for cool orchids). If you enclose entire fixture in the aquarium tank, you might get some heat in it, but I don't think that 18W x 1 bulb will make a big difference. How about seedling heat pad or place the tank in a warmer room? Temp. influences many aspects of plant physiology, and 5C difference can sometime make big differences in some orchids as you probably know.

I like to keep recently deflasked seedlings in an aquarium with a raised panel of light grid over a few inches of water. By putting a submersible heater in the water I can keep them warmer than room temp and increase the humidity.

Very interesting answers.

I just happen to have a heap of 50w aquarium heaters.

I use them this time of year to get lotus plants to flower as sending the wrong colour lotus plant creates trouble and also helps to build a root system. So I can rig up 4 heaters in 4 corners with water and the rest of the aquarium dry for the plants.

So heating issue totally solved, Big Time Thank You! These orchids are warm growers. Seen them planted in the median strips in the middle of the road in Singapore and will probably be the only full sun orchids I will ever have. They are very strong chaps when it comes to getting them use to full sun. Quickest I have ever seen a plant harden off into sunlight from a, small but glass house.

I have ordered a single CREE LED 240v 22w T8 Light tube lamp fluorescent replacement 120cm COOL WARM WHITE.

My questions are:
Will this light have enough power for my orchids to over winter for their 1st year? Or should I have 2 or 3 lights the same? Or?

I have 25 small orchids potted that will be in a single line under the light tube. 13 orchids are very strong with growth and 12 orchids that are OK but doing nothing and looking vulnerable.

A single tube is probably not enough. 22 w over 120 cm might be ok for seedlings if you kept them about 20 cm below the tube. If you want to hang the fixture 40-50 cm above the plants, you will need more tubes.

As for ambient temperature, LED's love it when it's cold. Their biggest enemy is heat, so make sure you have plenty of ventilation in the summer. Once the temps go above 27-28 deg., their life span will be reduced. On the other hand, if you run them at -20, they will literally last forever.

Thank You Very Much To All!!!!

I now have a plan to over winter my seedlings.

Most winter days get 60f to 70f or 20c to 25c so can give them some outdoor time to help them along.

There is a time from about 5am to 8am where it get to its coldest. Mostly 50f to 55f or 10c to 15c in this time mentioned.

Need to get them outside, hot to get the fertiliser into them.

---------- Post added at 03:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:21 AM ----------

So what would happen if I put the CREE LED 240v 22w T8 Light tube fluorescent 120cm COOL WARM WHITE?

Tube 15 cm or 6 inch away from the seedlings?

Tube 10 cm or 4 inch away from the seedlings?

Very interesting!

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?

Two t8 tubes are maybe 40W total. For $120 from Sunway, you're likely getting over 100 W. Check out their 10-20 W lights, they're very reasonably priced. And contact them by email to see what they can do for you in terms of shipping.

But, your price for T8's is quite good. If these lights are adequate for your plants and setup, go for it.

You have been so kind to me thank you!

You have the patients of Job.

It is sinking in. I am a bit slow to learn but when I get it, it stays forever!

Nice to be able to do a quality search now I have that the watt is all important. That was the bit I was missing.

It is surprising how hot a Cree LED 240v 22w T8 light tube fluorescent 120cm Cool Warm White gets.

Batten came with no lead or power plug and had to return a faulty tube so the cost got a whole lot bigger.

My orchids have been under lights for 3 days now and looking good.

All the flask orchids that I took out of the flask have survived but the mature orchids out of a flask as the way they arrived, I have lost 5 out of 13 and 2 are looking very sad.

Two weeks later and the temperature inside the aquarium is nice and warm for the orchids. Putting aquarium heaters in the coffee jars has worked out really well.

Can see some growth but have to water every week.

Still waiting for my 2nd LED T8 fluro to arrive in the mail.

Have the seedling orchids about 150mm or 6" from the light now. Hoping to get the 2nd tube as it is time to move the orchids closer to the light again but adding a 2nd light is something I would prefer to do than to move the orchids closer to the light.

Sure have learnt alot....95% observation & 5% action.

Could not have done it without lots of help!