Lighting for young Paph's

I am contemplating setting up a 4x8 shelving unit to raise flasks and compots of various Paph species. Essentially four shelves with lighting about 12-14" above. Regarding lighting... what would your suggestions be? I am leaning towards LED for cost efficacy to run, but am open to suggestions and thoughts.

Thanks
Jake

You will need a little more headroom on each shelf. Whatever the lightsource. Think 16-20" minimum from bulb to top rim of the pot or leaves. I made the mistake of not enough headroom...which led to light intensity a litlte much for flasklings and not enough room as plants get taller.

A single shoplight fixture of 2x4' T8 fluoros 20" above the leaves on for 12 hours per day would do.

Justin
Thank you. Good point and lesson.
Cost effective wise... though the T-8's are relatively inexpensive to buy, comparatively don't you think that LEDs would be cheaper running cost, don't have to replace bulbs every 6 months, and are cooler running?
And while we are on the subject why T-8's in lieu of T-5's?

Thanks
Jake

I have not tried LEDs so will let someone else answer.

I have not researched lately but i believe T8 is cheaper ro replace and the efficiency is comparable.

T5's are higher intensity and you wouldn't need that for seedlings. Would need to raise too high over plants, and fixtures more expensive than others

No matter the light source if you *only had those shelves/spacing and no adjustment, you could put some diffraction between the bulbs and plants, even thin plastic might cut down light just enough. Shop lights with diffuser might be perfect (or just use weak/old bulbs that aren't putting out as much)


Elmer Nj

I'm using LED fixtures from Home Depot, my Paphs seem to love them i think they are a little too bright for Phrags. I posted in my Miscellaneous Stuff thread post #2005, #2006 and beyond. .
New LED light, 2 foot long, $80 from Home Depot, 24Watt, 1600 Lumen, at 3000K.

There is no difference between T'5s and T'8s the only difference being in that the T'8s are slightly bigger sized tubes,

Ed

As Justin said, T8 is probably better than T5HO. In terms of efficiency, T5 (not HO) > T8 > T5HO (the difference between the last 2 is very small and the relationship could be reversed depending on the temp.)

Many cheap LEDs have only slightly better efficacy than fluorescent. But if you choose carefully, you could save money in a long run (depends on the cost of electricity). Here is a summary of US Dept. of Energy CALiPER report (it is a little old, though):

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/caliper_21-4_t8.pdf

I don't know the quality of the following, but it has a decent number (4200 or 4500 lm, 105lm/W) for moderate price ($35.98):

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/4ft-le..._LS&siteID=je6NUbpObpQ-Psxda90OQkp0zh7smflq6g

I think I saw the same thing in Walmart, too.

This one also has moderate efficacy (122lm/W when you remove ballast, but not so high (100lm/W) if you don't):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...e&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_22&smid=A1VCN0ZD746TM9

If you need lots of them, you could import Sunritek (>140lm/W) T8LED, which is cheaper if you need 20 bulbs or more (detail here).

If you want to go with ballast-less T8 LED (better), you might want to attach the tomb-stones (the place where 2 pins of a florescent light bulb go in) on 1x2 lumber or plywood instead of getting cheap shop light as the fixture. In this way, you can minimize the hight of fixture. Also you can adjust the distance between the bulbs to get more even coverage.

If you already have shoplight fixtures with working ballasts, then HomeDepot has 123lm/W Phillips for $10 (I'm surprised how quickly the price went down). One thing I'm not sure is if they are considering the efficiency loss due to the ballast, but my guess is that they haven't included the loss. So the actual efficiency is lower than 123lm/W (depending on the quality of the ballast). If we assume 10% loss from the ballast, then its system efficacy is around 110lm/W (not bad).
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-4-ft-T8-17-Watt-Cool-White-Linear-LED-Light-Bulb-456590/206278131

I'm in agreement with phraggy

troy said:

I'm in agreement with phraggy

Click to expand...

Thanks Troy. Everyone and everything seems to get too complicated these days.

Ed

I have a couple of LED set ups in my greenhouse and have
tried other types of artificial lighting in the past. I'm sold
on the 50 watt LEDs.(thank you little frog Rob) They can be on all day and I can
still hold the bulbs in my hand...no heat output at all that
I can tell. My Phrags. in particular love the LEDs.

Abax,
I too have one of Rob's LED's for my terrarium. I agree, excellent. I have been debating about using his LED's or strip LED's on shelves for compots and little ones. Any input? I am guessing I would need two of his LED's to get an appropriate footprint on a 4x2 shelf.

Cheers
Jake