I’m awaiting photometric details about the LEDs from Welldone – should be able to tell more then…

@samerahmen Why? – have you seen a review of this product? I’m thinking of the Shenzhen Welldone Tech and Industry Co. Ltd. growlight on eBay , there are many growlight LED panels out there – but very little feedback from the people who use them. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270557720378&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_3641wt_939 There’s no bad feedback for this product and the [...]

The LED grow light I’m looking at is14 Watts, it’s a panel 12 x 12 inch and has 225 LEDs, cost £27($40) – which I think is about 40p/month (60 cents/month) if it’s on for 8 hours a day

Red incandescent 40W lamp equals 8-12W of filtered light (figures based on theatrical lighting gels 20-30% transmission) usually it’s not even tinted glass (too expensive!) but rather lacquer which peels off after a few months. A red LED is red light only – they usually come in clear encapsulation these days – and no infra-red [...]

@Owen – I find the photochemistry of plants very confusing, there seem to be several photo-active chemicals a & b Chlorophyll, b Carotene, Phycoerithrin.. each with one or two spectral peaks. I notice the professional LED grow lights now have 2 colours of red, 2 blue and an orange. It’s hard to find out how important [...]

Thanks Owen, have you used these successfully yet?

Lorne, Green? Naaah.. there is a green light in the kitchen though – so everything we eat is green food! Samenrahmen, yes putting it there to start with – to see how well it does, it will have a dedicated blue LED light on 18hrs/day eventually. Owen, yes small stuff herbs (it is the kitchen!) [...]

kitchen foil- total blackout – reflects heat too…

I second that! (HardwareJunkie)

Hey – the planet needs us nerds!

Owen – Re Leaves+foil – that’s interesting – do you say this from personal experience? It sounds like some sort of electrolysis although there is no obvious earth return?

The foil is to reflect “solar gain” heating (as well as to totally shield light – white paint/paper/tape won’t do that)- I suspect some of the windowfarms that have black painted bottles WILL boil their roots when they are in the sun for hours on end. One thing I’ve found from hydroponics is that hot [...]

Excellent, (if a bit nerdy!) I have been experimenting with a narrower pipe (6mm.) which has the advantage of being black (it’s irrigation tubing) but it changes the way the air lift works, and if fact makes things harder, I’ve tried various air lift designs, angles, depths and all of them seem to suffer from [...]