Defying The Inverse Square Law

[Budsbunny]

First light fixture with the “household” LED bulbs is done. I did not use the sockets as this dresser is VERY low, I wanted to create as much height for grow as possible.

• 6x LED 9W 5000K 800 lm ($1.00 ea)
• 3x LED 9W 2700K 800 lm ($1.20 ea)
• 2 mtr aluminum profile $4.00

Total cost $13.60 for 81W (I did not count the burger that I took on my way….)
Clearly you can see the density impact with a shorter distance.

Note, the 2 Romaine lettuce on the left are the same age and they had the same size when they went into the “grow dresser”. They get the same nutrients but the one on the left grows on a wick and the one on the right is in the bubbleponic system.

 

[Budsbunny]

Here are the same 2 images, but inverted. Now all light is shown as black. You can see the light intensity “fade away” to the bottom in the image where the lights are placed high, it gets less strong half way, getting into the grey instead of black.

 

[Spitz]

Keep grinding! Maybe you’ll perfect laser technology!

 

[Budsbunny]

Keep grinding! Maybe you’ll perfect laser technology!

It is not a matter of new technology or inventing something new, it’s about efficiency of the simple, something that a lot of people might be interested in. It is easy for others who are not interested in that to buy an existing light like a BLED or so. And I respect that.

 

[Budsbunny]

I have put 2 test plants under the new lights. The one on the left is a clone that I took back out of the garbage, it was in a small rock wool cube that got overheated (my bad) and the stem got all soft and mushy. So I shorten the stem, it was only 2” after that and put it in water on the window sill. After 10 days it got small roots and I put it in coco coir with a wick and it starts to grow slowly now. For nutrients, I use Masterblend for all my plants. The one on the right is a seedling from seed, both are Harlequin strain.

If the above goes really well, I might consider changing the light system in my DIY rotating garden. In it are 3 Gorilla Glue’s, they grow, but for my feeling growth is lagging. I have some ideas but it is a lot of work so I want to be sure it would be an improvement. The drum has to be empty for doing the change so I might go from 18/6 to 12/12 soon.

I think I will do the updates in the post of the rotating garden.

 

[Budsbunny]

Just come back from shopping, all on clearance….

• 5000K bulbs $1.00 each
• 2700K bulbs $1.20 each

All Canadian $$$$$$ (hehehehe)

I have a good feeling about these bulbs and how I am using them, LOL, I think I will get some more, as at this price it is a real steal.....

 

[Budsbunny]

This is the small panel that I am building to do new and better testing, hopefully I can do that this weekend. Depending of my first impression I will try to get a (real) light meter, if not, not sure if I want to use a phone app.

Anyways, there are 81 watts on 2.18 ft2 or 37.16 watt/ft2. (the latter for the believers, I don’t share that believe so much… )

• 7x 5000K - 9W
• 2x 3000K - 9 W

 

[Budsbunny]

I’ve done some testing this morning and the results are shown in the picture. I used the Galactica LUX app for Iphone, I know what a lot of you will say, but I have nothing else and this is just to get a feeling for the intensity at different distances.

Light panel:

• 7x - 9W – 5000K led bulb. (800 lm)
• 2x – 9W – 2700K led bulb. (800 lm)

The outcome with the different distances are shown in the picture. There was very little difference in reading moving the light meter horizontally.

I did a long search on how much plants need, see if I could recalculate to PPFD and everyone had different outcomes but there was an (average) consensus in a certain bandwidth, recalculated to LUX. (in this spectrum)

• Clones and seedlings: 5,000–7,000 lux (5000K spectrum)
• Vegetative growth: 15,000–50,000 lux (5000K – 6500K spectrum)
• Flowering: 45,000–65,000 lux (2700K – 3000K spectrum)

So with these outcomes in this situation, I think I am not in a bad spot. I know that these bulbs don’t have high quality LED's in them but it will be nice to see what kind of growth come out of this. And yes, for flower I would put in a similar panel with 2700K & 3000K bulbs.

 

[Budsbunny]

So below is where the “bending” of the Inverse Square Law is happening. Now I have put the light from above in a closet with white reflective sides. The light that wants to go to the side is now bounced away to the other side until it reaches the bottom and increases the total intensity.

In color you will see my measurements, in black below the numbers from the Inverse Square Law. Notice that my numbers (in color) are significantly higher. One can say that it is not accurate and that might be so, but everyone can understand that there will be more light at the different distances.

 

[Budsbunny]

February 14, 2020
Since the test above, I have put a small clone and seedling under these lights, just to see if I can see difference, look for yourself.
Thinking about phase 2 now to optimize the intensity of the lights but in a way that I can undo that easily.

 

[Budsbunny]

I’ve done a new test this morning, I made some cones from nursery pots and lined them on the inside with 99% reflective film. These cones I can take off easily if necessary.

The results are above the results of the first test, in the yellow area.
I know now where I am going with this but it will take some time.

 

[Dutchiedog]

Jumping in, very interested in this.
Have recently been coming to understand certain growing dynamics of my own contraption. A store bought version of your Army chest build.
Not only that but...
YOU CAN DO THAT WITH GROCERY STORE BOUGHT LED BULBS?
Talk about a pea-brain, it took several viewings before I realized you'd beheaded those little buggers.
Thank you, I think you just saved some mistakenly planted Auto-Jack seeds.

 

[Budsbunny]

Jumping in, very interested in this.
Have recently been coming to understand certain growing dynamics of my own contraption. A store bought version of your Army chest build.
Not only that but...
YOU CAN DO THAT WITH GROCERY STORE BOUGHT LED BULBS?
Talk about a pea-brain, it took several viewings before I realized you'd beheaded those little buggers.
Thank you, I think you just saved some mistakenly planted Auto-Jack seeds.

Yes you can grow with these bulbs but let me start to say that this is NOT the holy grail…I am sure that the diodes in these bulbs do not match up with the grow diodes nowadays available in the market but with some modifications you can come very far in my opinion and I know some people will have a big smirk reading this.

I don’t pretend to be an expert but grow lights, self-made or bought, all have 2 things in common, and they might differ from each other but still.

• Spectrum, the color temperatures, wavelength, one can easily adjust to a certain extend with choosing 2700K, 3000K, 5000K or 6500K bulbs in my way.
• Intensity, call it whatever you want, PPF, umol/s, LUX or Lumens…basically all these things are connected in some way as you can re-calculate from one to another. So I measure in LUX, more LUX is more Lumens is more PPF under the same circumstances. No LUX is no lumens is no PPF, simple as that. Most grow lights have much more output than the simple led bulbs that I have used and that is where this original post comes in, I try to make these bulbs MUCH more efficient.

I don’t pretend that my way is better, but I am flexible, can change color temperature and it is rather cheap and fun to do.
If you want to see some serious growth with these bulbs, you should read this post:

Mechanic's Log: WW, AK-47, FFof Soil, Screw-In LEDs

His post let me start my own journey.

 

[Scottylikesbud]

Very informative post, enjoyed toking and reading this

 

[Dutchiedog]

@Budsbunny
At this moment you are still muh hero.
Here's the situation I find myself in.
I pick up 2x5 packs of a very dated set of Jack Herrer seeds. I have a lot of outdoor experience so I figure I'll put them in veg for a long while, create little thanksgiving turkeys out of them. Just let them sit get fat and happy then pop them into the garden come summer.
Long story short, 6 of 10 germinated and now they're going into flower. A better reading of the fine print on the pack showed them up for Auto seeds.
At this point I have Northern Lights in my germination tank and a set of White Widow just gone 12/12 in a cabinet grow.
I've just moved and haven't so much as set up a proper grow room yet, as a matter of fact most of my stuff is in Amazon back-order limbo, mind you I did get my small transplant pots finally.
And here you are showing me the grow light MacGyver of the century!!!
That's HERO shyte right there, that is!
Seriously though, thanks.
I don't know what to expect if anything but it beats binning the skinny things.
Correct me if I've got the wrong end of the stick, the way I see it I've rigged two 800 lumen x 5000k bulbs. this should give me a tight centre of 1600 lumen at 5000k. Essentially daylight, minus some of the colours in the spectrum?

Wish me luck.
Off to read the link

 

[Budsbunny]

@Budsbunny
Correct me if I've got the wrong end of the stick, the way I see it I've rigged two 800 lumen x 5000k bulbs. this should give me a tight centre of 1600 lumen at 5000k. Essentially daylight, minus some of the colours in the spectrum?

I don't think you can grow on only 2 bulbs. My clone and seedling receive 19000 LUX and are 2 ft under the light. (9 bulbs)
Just download Galactica app for measuring LUX on your phone and you will see the amount of LUX. I guess you will have around 1000 LUX depending the distance.

 

[Dutchiedog]

I'm tight in with the lights. But I think you're right at this point the whole thing is hail mary play, looking at the mechanic's design has given me a re-think though. I'm thinking it's a great future idea for my veg room.

 

[Budsbunny]

I did a typo with the intensity of light these 2 are receiving, they are under 11000 LUX, not 19000, sorry about that. Nevertheless, it seems they like it.

It seems I have a color/spectrum "sort of histogram" on my camera and video camera, will see how to get that on the little screen and perhaps I can take a picture of it.

 

[Budsbunny]

February 16, 2020

In my ongoing quest to increase the efficiency of household LED bulbs, I did some testing this morning.
Hope it is of any value to you.

First IMPRESSIONS

• The “lens” on the 7W bulb is clearly a concentrator and NOT a diffuser. With the lens in front the bulb gives DOUBLE the amount of LUX.
• The 7W bulb gets hotter, maybe I should say warmer, nothing to be afraid of but I thought I mention it.
• The 7W spot bulb is the clear winner when it comes to efficiency, it gives the same amount of intensity as the 9.5W + cone but with only 7W. And also, the cone on this spot was not a good fit as it was a bit too small, efficiency will probably be better with a cone that fits.
• Also…..the “winner” produces 500 Lumens versus 800 Lumens for the “loser” according to the print on the bulbs. That leaves the question if they give the lumens value WITHOUT the concentrator?

The “cone”

The cone is just a nursery pot with 99% reflective mirror film in it. Probably the shape of the cone is far from perfect but still has a big impact and it is easy and fast to make.

If you have comments/ideas/suggestions…..don’t hesitate to give them, everything is welcome! Most of the time the best results originate from initial bad ideas…..

 

[Budsbunny]

This is the last test for today as my girlfriend told me she wants some quality time…
VERY successful test, actually unbelievable what you can get out of a simple household bulb/spot.
Tomorrow to the Restore as I saw a bunch of these for $1.00/ea. AND I have to buy yogurt of course….