Any Advice for How to Choose CFL/LED Lights?
 

Hi y'all,

I've been looking for information on how to choose lights on this forum and several others and well...it's making my head spin! lol

The only thing I know for sure is that I don't want to use HID lights because of the heat given off. So I know I'm going to use either LED or CFLs, but that's where I'm getting lost.

There are so many options on LEDs, do any of y'all use them? And if so types/brand names & what plants and what distance?

For CFLs...what types do y'all use for your set-up?

Right now I have a large unobstructed east facing window with oncidiums, phalaenopsis, and some others, but I'd like to grow catteleyas, brassias, and vandas if I can supplement the light enough. I know this is a bit off topic, but I would really like to have enough light to grow a very small tomato plant, basically as bright as possible so I that I can grow whatever I want (at least as far the light variable is concerned).

As of right now, I have 4 T8 flourescent tubes screwed in vertically on one of the side walls of my east facing bay window, with my cattleya about 4in or so away.

I've heard that the giant 200w or so CFLs break on arrival, don't last long, etc. I've seen youtube videos DIY cfl fixtures, but I'm really trying to avoid a DIY set-up because I enjoy watering plants much more lol. Also worried about burning down the house.

So I'm slightly leaning towards these 2 options of LEDs...what do you think?

OPTION 1
I'd really have to save for this one, has anyone had experience with this one? I figure one might be enough to grow plenty high light orchids along with my 4 T8's? Or no?

NEW - Diamond Series LEDs - Extreme 3w LED Technology - Advanced LED Grow Lights


OPTION 2:

Then on another forum someone suggested getting PAR38 LED floodlights 250w equivalent:

https://www.1000bulbs.com/category/l...38-250w-equal/

I'm guess I would need at least 2 of these, one at 6500 and one at 2700k. This would be considerably less expensive so I could therefore get it sooner, but not sure what the pros and cons would be between the two of these?

Lastly, if there are any resources, ebooks, books, youtube channel, websites, etc that y'all would recommend for growing under lights I would SUPER appreciate it! I'm trying really hard to learn everything I can but most of what I've read is either very very basic ("plants need red and blue light wavelengths") or way too technical for me to hope to understand.

I have these:

Amazon.com : EnviroGro FLT44 4-Ft, 4-Tube Fixture, T5 Bulbs Included : Plant Growing Light Fixtures : Patio, Lawn & Garden

I used S-hooks to hang them on the underside of shelves on a wire shelving unit.

I also have this, bought second hand:

Amazon.com : Sun Blaze 960290 120-volt T5 High Output Fluorescent Lighting Fixture, 2-Feet, 2 Lamps : Plant Growing Light Fixtures : Patio, Lawn & Garden

---------- Post added at 05:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:31 PM ----------

I started this thread last year when I had decided to try lights for the first time. Maybe it will help. :)

Orchid Forum Orchid Care

Thanks Leafmite!

Any pros or cons that you've noticed with the t5s? What are you growing under them? What distance from the plants?

Advanced LED uses "old" technology (in the quickly moving LED world), and I wouldn't pay that much money for it (if you care about the efficiency). The PAR38 is only 97 lumen/watt, which was OK (better than T5HO or T8 florescent light (around 90 lm/W). CFL is worse than linear fluorescent in general. I haven't seen a PAR38 LED with decent efficiency (this is partly due to the design limitation where the heat can't be released efficiency).

If you are tight in budget, there is this option (105lm/W):
4-foot LED Shoplight - Sam's Club

If you can find 12W version of Philip InstantFit T8LED from Home Depot, you can get 133lm/W. But they seem to be discontinued or something, and replaced with less efficient models.

With LED, it is either you pay more in the beginning, or later to the electricity (due to lower efficiency). Here are a couple options with good efficiency (could be considered expensive, but fairly reasonable):

Home / Area 51 LED
Full Spectrum LED Plant Grow Lights | BML Horticulture

In this page, I have links to the 2 other company which uses similar COB technology as Area 51 (see the 2nd paragraph). If you are a little handy, DIY is the way to go (you said that you don't want to). You can make something similar to A51 in 1/2-1/3 of the cost.

Under the Sun Blaze:
Gardenias, coffee, small figs, citrus trio, a camellia and a Piper nigrum...and the large Oncidium that doesn't fit anywhere else (my windows are pretty full and it is too large to fit under the lights).

Under the Envirogros are most of my orchid collection as well as the Butterworts. Off to the side of the shelf are the Phals, Den Microchip and the Pleuros (low light orchids). Directly under the lights are all the high to medium light orchids (smaller Cattleyas, Angraecums, some Dendrobiums, Neos, etc. (I collected fragrant orchids for a time). The first year, I had the lights too close to the plants and I didn't water often enough so I lost a few. I moved the shelves while the plants were outside for the summer.
I still have plenty of plants and a few orchids in the windows.

If you're starting out with lights you really should investigate LED further and use that. You can burn plants with incandescent and T5 lights; this is not likely with the others. Look at it this way: Cannabis growers are switching over to LED lights, and they are very focused on getting the most money for their investment.

Thanks y'all!

Naoki...what about this? Is this the "old" LED technology as well?
It's the earthled LED that fits in a regular socket:

https://www.earthled.com/collections...grow-led-light

I looked into that options you suggested, I saw the BML horticulture light bars...but not sure how much buying just one of them would cover? Or if I would need multiples of them? I'll probably call them but I know their goal is to sell so not sure how objective the info is.

For the area 51...they are sold out of everything/don't seem to have much info on their products...

Nice find! That one from Lighting Science group (LSG) is really good. LSG is the company which makes the top rated LED fixture in this independent test. The broad spectrum model produces 21.70 micromol/s from 13W (= 1.67 micromol/J). So this is at the top end in terms of efficiency. It is fairly expensive, but it is a good one if you can afford it.

It appears that they are having a black friday sale for this ($99 for 4) today:
https://www.lsgc.com/products/black-...ant=8978702661

It is 40 degree beam angle. So you'll need quite a bit of distance. At 24", it gives 150micomol/m^2/s, so it is pretty decent for Cattleya level (I would go a little closer, but it may be enough). The diameter of the covered area is around 16" at this distance. For Phal level, between 2-3' is good.

Sweet! Wow you know so much thanks Naoki! Where did you learn all this stuff? If you wrote a "growing under lights" ebook I would totally buy it.

I didn't see that deal thanks for pointing that out... hmmm this is quite tempting...

How close do you think the light would need to be to grow a Vanda or Encyclia or other really high light orchid? Or do they need the same light as Cattleya? What about a tomato plant or cactus?

I've been learning about it from books, scientific literature, and MJ forums. I'm a professional biologist (plant physiology is not my field, though), so maybe I have a little advantage in understanding the primary literatures! With the forum, you need to filter out the noise from the signals, but a lot of knowledgeable people in this forum.

I've never grown Vanda, but maybe slightly less than 24" (leaf-to-light) may be a good start. I have only 1 species of Encyclia, and it's growing well under the Cattleya condition. It's a large genus (and I'm not so familiar with them), so hopefully others probably can make a recommendation.

Full sun at the noon time is about 2000micromol/m^2/s of PPFD. I'm guessing that you want close to 700 micromol/m^2/s. So I have a feeling that this light is not so appropriate for tomatoes or cacti. If you use 2-4 of these light to cover 1 sq.ft or so, it may be possible. But for those, I'm guessing that HPS or DIY Chip-on-board (COB) LED (something similar to the one described in my blog link I gave you earlier) is much more economical since you'll need lots of power.

Okay awesome I will be digging into that forum!!!

I did see your blog article, but I don't have that giant table drill that you have, do you think a regular drill would work? Did the project end up being around $100 total? Even though I'd have no problem spending that much on a light, since I've never made LEDs before, I would probably want to practice on some very cheap projects so I have some room to fail and try again. I'll be looking through that forum a lot so I can find some good newbie projects.

Drilling and tapping is the trickiest part. I did break the drill bits and taps before. Other than that, there is a little chance of failing (for people with common sense), I think. You can probably drill with the hand held drill. Maybe you can first drill a piece of small wood block, and use it as a guide to keep the drill bit perpendicular. The drill bit is skinny, so it is easy to break if you wobble. If you don't want to buy a tap, you can also use something called self-tapping screw.

Some people don't drill holes (I personally wouldn't do this). They attach the LED with the thermal grease (pretty sticky), and use Kapton tape as an insurance.

To make 1x CXB3070, I think it costs $80 or so (including shipping) if you need to get all parts. But if you make more at a time, it becomes cheaper per unit. There is a cheaper place to get the LED (and LED holder) direct from China (KingBrite). CXB3070 is $32.50 and older CXA3070 is $22.50, shipping is $10.

It's good to absorb information from the riu forum (it is probably a bit tough to understand at first, though). Most people there use Cree CXB3590, CX(A/B)3070, or Bridgelux Vero 29. You could practice with Chinese 100W COB LEDs (around $5), but you still need the other components. It is difficult to screw up the connection of LED part, though (so I don't see the point of wasting money on these inefficient Chinese COB).

This project with XF-3535L is very easy. No drill, and you only need to cut the aluminum U-channel with a hack saw. For a given amount of light, it is more expensive, but it has high efficiency.

I bought from a reputable US company, BRIDGELUX Décor 3000K CRI 97, Made in China.
It depends where you buy but is much folklore that produced in China is junk.