led lighting design

[Surfer Joe]

I was wondering if a bunch of led strips set in an open cage type frame that surrounded the plant on the top and three sides would make a good distribution to ensure that all buds got light rather than just from above.
The frame would fit into the size tent being used and be about 1M tall to surround the canopy and 3 sides, leaving the front open so you can access the tent door. As the plant got taller, the frame could be raised to follow it up.
I was wondering how many leds/strips you would need to get a similar light intensity to say a 600W HPS light in a 1x1x2M tent, and what sort of spacing would be good for giving each bud branch enough light.
Here's a little pic of the idea.

 

[WeedHopper]

That would be cool.
I bet if the spectrum and power is right even the lower buds would be bigger.

 

[yooper420]

I do not think that the LED strip lights would be powerful enough to grow plants with. I grow with 4 / 200 watt LED's and am adding 3 / 100 watt red spectrum LED's in a 3' X 7' area. IMO.

 

[Surfer Joe]

I do not think that the LED strip lights would be powerful enough to grow plants with. I grow with 4 / 200 watt LED's and am adding 3 / 100 watt red spectrum LED's in a 3' X 7' area. IMO.

Couldn't they be arranged in strips? And couldn't several strips be used in a cage around the plant? Why group them all in one box that hangs from above like a regular light? That limits the light to the lower buds and side branches.

 

[Surfer Joe]

I saw this online for growing plants. You could arrange 4 of them into a cage to surround the plant. It does cost about £700 each but maybe that's because they are very powerful and lesser arrays could be used if they are surrounding the plant rather than just placed above. Or maybe the strips they are made of could be designed into a cage array more economically. The second pic is just a diagram that should allow for any number in an array.
I don't know anything about led lights for growing but it seems that surrounding your plants in a cone of light would be ideal.

 

[cardgenius]

Strips would definitley work, just depends on what you go with.

I’ve heard great things about the Samsung H and F Series strips as lots of people use them to build DIY fixtures like the Lumatek one above. Paired with a driver from Mean Well or Inventronics and I think you’d have a quality setup.

I’ve played around with side lighting(in a tent) and it works great but it’s easy to light bleach or burn the plant cause the lights are so much closer. I’d build a dual-channel setup so you can control your top and side lighting independently.

Arrow Electronics carries the Samsung strips and others so that could be a good place to check.

 

[Surfer Joe]

Thanks. That sounds like a good idea about separating the controls.
What I'm not sure of is how much light to surround a plant with, say in a 1x1M tent.
Outdoors, I checked the light hitting a plant I did outside, and the meter read about 110k lumens hitting every bud site from top to bottom on sunny days and even 60K lumens on cloudy days. The whole plant was rich and green. I love the sun.
In the tent, a 400W MH measures about 40K lumens about a foot below the light and it drops off dramatically from there down, and a 600W HPS measures about 90K lumens at the same distances. Tent plants have underdeveloped pale buds and leaves the lower down you go.
I wonder if having lots of tiny lights all around might mean that any one bud site is getting just a small amount of light and unable to develop its full potential.
This would defeat the purpose of surrounding a plant with light.
Perhaps the only effective way to grow in a tent is to create a flat canopy and ignore the undeveloped undergrowth.
You probably can't mimic the sun.