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Old January 25, 2018   #2
Worth1
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Join Date: Feb 2006
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It is in the right direction but there is a drawback to using human lights for plant lights.
Human lights are measured in lumens in the spectrum we see not the plant.

What we need to look for is spectrum and wattage, the lumens just happen to be along for the free ride for us to see as bright light.
So the higher the wattage the more lumens.

If you look at the graph for plants you see red and blue.
Red and blue make purple.
That is why grow LED lights put out that color.

And yes you can use wattage because it is a measurement of transfer of energy that just happens to be what the power company uses to charge you.
Light is energy and the watts can be used to measuer the amount of light for our use.

The electrical energy goes through the meter that measures watts, it comes out the bulb as light.

This is why like to put somewhere around 100 watts of light per square foot up close.
The higher the watts per square foot the farther away from the plant you can go.


I know there are more scientific ways of measuring light but the method I use works and isn't complicated.

This is also why the T 5 lights are better and why I use high wattage CFL lights in the 6500k range.
You can cram a lot close to each other.

The problem with the CFL and LED lights are the energy consumption is different than standard light bulbs.
For the home owner to get some sort of idea of what they need or want some companies put down the equivalent wattage for a standard bulb.

In other words 27 watts consumption equal to a standard 100 watt bulb.

But there is no standard across the board and they are for people vision so they put out lumens.


I just had this discussion with my boss.
He swapped out florescent lights in his kitchen for LED lights.
He said the place lit up like a UFO they were so bright.
That is when I told him about the kelvin rating and how we see it.
If person doesn't like the color of light these or florescent or LED's put out they are getting the wrong ones.
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