These lights consist of 2 x (18 x 1watt) Blue dominant high-intensity LED light bars + 1 Power Supply.

Designed to give excellent growth for leaf crops such as salad greens.

Firstly this is a new range of lights, we believe they have much more flexibility and takes the whole concept of LED lighting to a new level, allowing you to tailor a solution to your specific needs.

Some features:-

ü    no fan i.e. silent operation.

ü    External power supply, easy to replace if a problem.

ü    Can be arranged in many many different configurations e.g. use 2 red strips and 2 blue/white strips for early-stage development of a tomato plant and then when flowering begins change the blue/white strips to red.

ü    Because the power supplies are external the lights are very light and can be easily arranged around your plant to give maximum coverage.

ü    They can be used with or without lenses.

ü    The lights themselves and the connectors are waterproof, meaning that they are okay for humid situations e.g. where misters are used.

They come in 2 types

1.     A Blue dominant White optimised for leaf development, 9 or 18W strip. Consisting predominantly of white LEDs which have most of their energy in the 460nm region, some warm white for 440nm blue and some orange and some red (630nm and 660nm).

2.     A Red dominant, 80%, optimised for flower and fruit development, 9 or 18W strip. Consisting predominantly of 660nm red along with some 630 nm red, and 460 nm blue, and some warm white, the main reason we included these was that, they give energy to the 440nm chlorophyll peak & a sprinkling of frequencies right across the light spectrum, including as you can see, in the orange part of the spectrum, that’s why they appear white, these frequencies appear to be like trace elements, as they are only needed in small amounts.

The pictures on the left

The 1st group of pictures on the left shows why we use the particular LED frequencies in our lights. The next group of pictures gives you an illustration of the extra intensity that you get if you use the lens option, in this picture they are using 60° lenses. This is very useful in situations where you have a plant that does not spread out much, in one of the pictures below we have a tomato plant that is spreading out quite a bit in this situation we are using a hanging frame that can be adjusted as the plant grows, so in this situation the lenses may not be as useful, it just depends on how high you want to train your tomato plant to grow.

In the bottom picture we see Indoor Vegetable Garden - Small, being set up to grow some rocket plants, here lenses aren't being used as there is a white wall at the back and a reflector panel at the front as seen in the next picture, or you could use the lenses which we will show in a later picture.

Lifespan

The lifespan of 50,000-100,000hrs (that you are probably seen on the web somewhere) refers to when the LEDs will begin to fail, what is more important is when they will lose enough intensity to no longer produce the results you require. And again this primarily depends on heat and duration of the on Time.

A realistic estimate for grow lights using 1W LEDs with good heat sinking design, would be to maintain above 80% intensity for 20,000 hours when operated in a room temperature of between 20 and 30°C for 10 hours per day, Which is just over 5 years. Of course they will keep working after this for a long time, again the advantages of using these modular strip lights is that you do not have to throw away your lights after 5 years just add new lights to top up your total light output.

1W vs 3W vs 5W

There are various LED wattage ratings, the most common used for grow lights are 1W, 3W and 5W diodes. The wattage of any LED is determined by the amount of amperage passing through it. 1W LED's for example, are operated at 350mA, while 3W LED's are operated at 700mA, and 5W LED's at 1000mA. Whenever amperage is increased, the extra energy is converted more into heat rather than increased light output, which consequently decreases LED efficiency.

For example, a 1W 630nm LED produces 50 lm/W, with minimal power loss to heat. In comparison, a 3W 630nm LED that produces only 35 lm/W (a little bit over half efficiency). 5W LEDs are even less efficient, producing only 21 lm/W! When the heat signature of a LED grow light increases above 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the longevity and output of the LEDs decreases rapidly over time, for a grow light that will burn out well before it's lifespan rating (50,000-100,000hrs). So although multiple wattage LEDs produce more output per LED (don't be confused with lumens per watt!), the key difference to consider is efficiency. True, higher wattage LEDs do produce more lumens per LED, but there is more power loss to heat.

In the meanwhile, grow lights using multiple watt LEDs cost less to manufacture because there are less materials involved. Many companies use multiple watt LEDs to give the illusion of a more powerful grow light, but they are actually tricking the consumers into buying a much less efficient, and a much cheaper to build product.

2W-2chip/3W-3chip LEDs

2W-2Chip and 3W-3Chip LEDs are classified in the "Multi-Chip Emitter" category. These LED's are not your traditional 2W or 3W LED, which function with a single emitting diode. Instead multi-chip LEDs use multiple 1W diodes under a single lens. Since 1W LED's are the most efficient of any LED in use, most people assume that these chips are just as efficient, if not more efficient because they utilize multiple 1W diodes. When you start to break down these LEDs however, and examine exactly how they are being used, higher efficiency is certainly not the case.

Due to heat restrictions, 2W-2Chip LED's are presently being driven at 400mA and 3W-3Chip LED's at 500mA. Now since each LED contains multiple 1W chips, the amperage being supplied must be divided by the # of chips to determine the amperage of each chip. For 2W-2Chip LED's this equates to 200mA per chip, and with 3W-3Chip this is just under 170 mA per chip. In relation to the amperage a 1W is supposed to be driven at (350mA), each of the chips in the 3W LED is receiving under half the rated amperage, with the 2W LEDs coming in slightly above half! So instead of using a single 1W LED at full brightness, many manufacturers are now using multiple 1W LED's at half brightness under 1 lens in order to create the illusion of more light! however, more light is most certainly not the case, and dimmed LEDs will never deliver the levels of penetration achieved with full brightness LEDs.

The reason why each chip is run at such a low amperage is because when the amperage to each chip is increased, the lifespan and output is greatly reduced, or the LEDs would burn out completely!

If you would like more information and are interested in purchasing these lights whether for retail or personal use please contact us at info01au#livingapartment  Note change the # to a @ and add .com (spam problems).

For international customers click on -> International Sales