Traelman, Thanks for that explanation. Now, how does your LED lighting stack up to the lumens when compared to the fluorescent lighting, or maybe even the MH lighting?
Building My LED Light
- Thread starter traelman
- Start date
I'm not really sure of the Lumen rating of my particular bulb, but I have been doing some research to find out. This is one site that I ran across.
My setup will yield around 105-110 lumens per LED. That would give me a total of 630-660 lumens. This is one site that I ran across.
I think alot of the high end bulbs will give you the lumen rating. But in my opinion, you have to balance the lumen rating with the color spectrm output of the bulb also.
So how would that compute to say something like 10,000K at 55 watt? I'm not in to electronics to the degree you are.
Heck, my mind is already on overload! I swore I would never take on the task of building another electronic device after attempting to build some controllers for my CNC milling machine. :grinyes:
Never mind the football, how do you find time away from the HONEY-DO list? I have a very hard time doing that.
good luck with it, i started to read this thread expecting to see the finished project
It's in the works!
Actually, a number of things.
First, a pinkish type light is better for plants than something in the 6500K range, Thats because plants use both blue and red, and when you mix the colors, you get pink.
Second, Lumens means nothing. My 3w Mag Lite probably has at max 160 lm, a single 23w CFL bulb puts out 10 times that, but put 10 of those lights and you probably have at least 3-5 times the amount of light. Also the quality of LED light is much better than that of PC and T5s, thus watt for watt, LED is going to tar any flourescent setup.
and Cam, don't forget my thread, I'm working on it as well, right now I'm working on a new canopy, then I plan to install them within a few short weeks (I hope). I'm getting ready to order the resistors and secondary 12v source and fans and other goodies today as well as finish a more professional looking diagram.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165345
First, a pinkish type light is better for plants than something in the 6500K range, Thats because plants use both blue and red, and when you mix the colors, you get pink.
Second, Lumens means nothing. My 3w Mag Lite probably has at max 160 lm, a single 23w CFL bulb puts out 10 times that, but put 10 of those lights and you probably have at least 3-5 times the amount of light. Also the quality of LED light is much better than that of PC and T5s, thus watt for watt, LED is going to tar any flourescent setup.
and Cam, don't forget my thread, I'm working on it as well, right now I'm working on a new canopy, then I plan to install them within a few short weeks (I hope). I'm getting ready to order the resistors and secondary 12v source and fans and other goodies today as well as finish a more professional looking diagram.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165345
