Mars-Hydro LED Grow Light Discussion

Enr0n · Nov 15, 2020

bluter said:
watch for bleaching. there is a specific type of led damage that occurs as well. expresses more like a mutation.

led fixture heat is about 60 / 40 emitters / drivers. larger rigs will be closer to 70 / 30. the heatsinks should pull most of it away from the emitters, and slowly release it. drivers should hit a more or less a constant temp and stay there. the cases are part of the heat sinking in most aluminum case drivers.

good rule of thumb : you should be able to rest your hand on the top side of your fixture / heatsink, and on top of the driver(s), without it being uncomfortable or burning with the rig running at the max.

if you have to pull your hand away cause it is too hot - then there is a problem. either insufficient heatsinking / air exchange / inadequate drivers / poor chipsets or chipset mounts. most times it's combination of factors.

Thanks and I have tested the temp of the light on the top and it is comfortable enough that I used the ballast to help germinate seeds.

bluter · Nov 15, 2020

Enr0n said:
Thanks and I have tested the temp of the light on the top and it is comfortable enough that I used the ballast to help germinate seeds.

just to be clear : the bleaching and led damage occurs in the absence of any heat as well.

TorturedSoul · Nov 15, 2020

bluter said:
just to be clear : the bleaching and led damage occurs in the absence of any heat as well.

Thank you, bluter. I should have mentioned bleaching when I posted my comment earlier. To those in the audience who are wondering: It's called that because that's pretty much what it looks like. It's not a result of high temperature - it's caused by too much / intense light-energy. Causes the leaves closest to the light that's causing it to begin losing chlorophyll and, eventually, they'll have lost their green coloration. I do not specifically recall, but I would guess that it would occur sooner to an indica-leaning plant than a sativa. The latter have already evolved in an environment that is more harsh (in regards to level of light-energy), which is why their leaves are shaped somewhat differently and, generally speaking, are a lighter green. But it can affect them, too, if the level is intense enough.

The above is one reason why a light with an significant "hot spot" (vis-à-vis light-energy) directly under the center is often unwelcome; raising the product up high enough to lessen it might cause the footprint to become too large and diffuse. Sometimes, however, with a product that consists of many individual LEDs, the gardener ends up raising the light anyway, to ensure that the light-energy from those separate sources of light can mix well. Also, due to the nature of the things, it may be necessary to raise the device a bit in order to properly illuminate the perimeter area of the light footprint. It is important for product manufacturers to understand how the things they produce actually work. It is also important for them to publish accurate coverage maps (and at multiple heights) so that the end-user can have some idea about the optimum distance from the product to the plant, the size/shape of the product's coverage area, et cetera. In a perfect world, we'd each have an Apogee MQ-500 (or better) to help us measure the amount of photosynthetically-active radiation hitting our plants. But that kind of money can buy another light

- so few of us actually have such a device in our toolkit.

Jack420 · Nov 15, 2020

Purple lemonade grown under ts3000 and sp150

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Jack420
Nov 14, 2020

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Jack420
Nov 14, 2020

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Jack420
Nov 14, 2020

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Jack420
Nov 14, 2020

Also current girls few weeks into flower gelato, sweet zombi, purple queen