Somewhere in Amsterdam I am developing a system for growing Marijuana with LED's, it will be sold throughout the world. Now I test with just a few plants in a 60 Watt, 40 by 60 cm system, bigger set-ups will follow. I have got nice results from the first set-up's, but a lot of work is still needed to reach the goal;
Grow Marijuana with only 1/2 the electrical power usage of HPS.
I recommend to doubt the words of anybody who claims growing Marijuana with Led's is already available, ask for proof, only results count.
Don't buy the Ledpanels and other Ledstuff that is being sold on ebay etc, HPS is much better.
Please keep visiting these pages and see for yourself how LED's will make our plants grow!!
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9-1-2010, Finally an update, I am very bizzy with another product development project. The new Set-Up, with Cree-XP-E panels, is expected to start around 1 March. Please come back for more.
1-11-2009, At the moment I am investigating the Cree XP-E Leds, (left). On paper they look much better than the Rebel Led(right) which I have been using for the last set-ups. Specially the Red Led forward voltage is much lower; 2,1 Volt typical, versus 2,9 Volt for the Rebel, this would make them 1,4 times more efficient. Also the minimal Luminous Flux for both Red and Blue is 1,3 times better on paper. Added together the XP-E would put out 1,82 times more light at the same wattage, this could be the first true HPS beater!! It would probably mean my mission, growing with half the electrical power of HPS, would be accomplished. Big party with a giant LED-smoke!!
But.. I am testing the light output of the XP-E, and so far it has 10-20% less output than the Rebel :-(( I am communicating with engineers at Cree about this, they do not understand either. In a couple of weeks I hope to have an answer and I expect to have build new panels by then. Please come back for more.
26-10-2009, Amount of dry herb is a nice 53 grams, it is much better than before, because this time flowering took 9 weeks instead of 14 or more. However, I would love to have gotten 80 grams :-) Total energy consumption, including timer and power supplies, for vegging and flowering is 79,885 KWH. This means I got 0,66 grams per KWH. Please compare my result with this well known YouTube video about Led-growing: they got 0,36 grams/KWH with a UFO video
19-10-2009, Exactly on time, in a couple of days I will know the weight, but it certainly is a very nice amount for just 60 watt :-)
14-10-2009, 1 week to go, they will be exactly on time. Happy me :-)
5-10-2009, About 2,5 weeks to go, still going great. There are already quite a few red hairs, looks like they will be finishing exactly on time. Having no delayed flowering would be a very interesting development, I think it has to do with the half-power Farred's being switched On 12/24. (Next Set-up I will leave the Farreds Off and see if there is delayed flowering again.) The smell is fantastic; although I have a fresh carbon filter installed, I bet you guys can still smell them on your monitor.
27-9-2009, Almost 4 weeks to go. I think the picture tells all, it's a sea of bud.
20-9-2009, What can I say? I'm quite confident this Set-up will produce a great result, I think it will be better than ever. Almost 5 weeks to go.
13-9-2009, Everything is going fantastic, flowers are developing faster and bigger than before. There is almost 6 weeks to go, can't wait for the final result.
(please note I'm having some problems with the automatic email update service, you might miss 1 or 2 messages, or get messages twice, sorry)
6-9-2009, Sidevieuw of the healthy plants shows flowers are developing faster than with earlier Setups. Growth in length almost stopped. For the very first time, thanks to the side panels, there has been no stretching! Happy me :-) Sprayed against the spidermites once more, don't want to lose this one. Maybe I'll play a bit of Mozart for my beautiful Ladies tonight.
30-8-2009, Growth is fine and the developing flowers can be seen. For the past few days the middle plantrow stretched a bit, the outside rows did not, this was obviously because this row got less sidelight. To get them more even in height, I carefully bend the taller plants a little bit around the wire netting.
26-8-2009, Growth is fine and although they are already a week into flowering, there is hardly any stretching, lots of short internodes. After comparing to the earlier setup's, side panels seem to be the definite cure for the stretching issue. I raised the panels today to give the plants more headroom, tomorrow wire netting will be placed to support the plants.
19-8-2009, Sprayed against spider mites. After 11 days of vegging I switched to flowering, 12 hours of light. I also switched the lights to more Red and less Blue and turned On the Farred's. As you can see I added reflective foil from the bottom of the side panels onto the soil. I also put foil in between the plants to get as much light as possible reflected to them, my Magic Tunnel of Ledlight now looks like a spaceship, ready to take off :-) Do you want a Led-forum to be added to the site? If so, please use the form below.
18-8-2009, All plants started to grow very nicely, looks like they are already bushier than without the sidepanels. The Leds on the side panels have no reflectors or lenses, this is done because it gives a better mixture of the different light colors and a more evenly distribution of the light. In a couple of days I will switch to flowering, 12 hours of light every day. Do you want a Led-forum to be added to the site? If so, please use the form below.
8-8-2009, 11 New clones went into the "Magic Tunnel of Ledlight". Within a couple of months we will know how magical the new recipe turns out to be :-) But one thing is for damn shure; it looks fantastic!
7-8-2009, Finally ready to start the new set-up, I have rebuild the panels using new theories. Like I said, the thing I needed most of all is more light, this set-up gives an extra 60% more lumen than the last ones, and it is still only 60 watt! I used 2 major ways to achieve that:
Lowering the current per Led with 50% to 350 mA, for the Rebel Led this gives a measured efficiency improvement of a whopping 40%. Note: This is much higher than the theoretical 20% according to the datasheet, in the datasheet they keep the pad temperature at a constant 25 degrees Celsius, but in practical life pad temperature will rise together with the current.
Reducing the powerdissipation per panel with 50% by adding 2 side panels, therefore lowering the panel temperature with 15 degrees to 30 Celsius (86 F). This gives another measured efficiency improvement of 15%.
Added together the amount of light has grown 1,4 * 1,15 = 1,61 times. The side panels are also expected to give a considerable improvement of the stretching issue. All panels have switches to reduce the amount of Blue light and give extra Red light while in flowering position. The top panel now also has 4 White Leds to offer a complete spectrum to the plants and 8 half power (175 mA) Farred Leds that are used only for flowering. The new clones go in 8-8-2009.
