Efficient Sunritek T8-style LED

[Lightguy]

Is there any LED lights that I can just buy and use right out of the box without having to go through all this work?
It might be nothing for some, but for me, it is too much hassle to go through.]

I came across this forum while searching the Sunritek tubes. I sell LED lights and was pleased to see you guys interested in them. I'm not sure why you are looking at the regular LED tubes when much research (with a lot more still needed) has already been done with LED grow lights. I have a power point if anyone would want me to email it to them.

In addition to long life, being cooler, and more efficient, the led tubes will not break like fluorescent tubes and they do not have any mercury vapor or lead in them. LED's are a directional light source rather than omnidirectional like the T5's, T8's and therefore don't really need a fixture to reflect the light. A remote driver will give you the longest life and coolest tube. All others will have a driver of some sort built into the tube. LED's are great for Solar applications.

To answer Happypaphy7--yes, there are systems you can purchase and use out of the box.

Some more information below if I can figure out how to post it. Thanks for allowing me to add some input. I know a guy that left the electrical business 20 years ago and has been making a living selling Orchids since then.

"Fixture Wavelength Mix; Examples
(Vegetation e.g. Deep Red 66%, Blue 16.6%, White 16.6%) (Flowering e.g. Deep Red 35.7%, Red 21.4% Blue 21.4%, White 14.2%, IR 7.1%)

Custom Facility Lighting Solutions
Our Grow Light Rods (GLRs) are the modular building blocks of our custom solutions that are outlined in this file. Beyond delivering fixtures, we engineer tailored systems to cover massive growth areas. The wavelength mix matches the needs of the plants and the wire suspension system of the thin GLRs maximizes natural light by day and PPFD by night.

1’ to 8’ GLR modular building blocks (tubes)

 

[TyroneGenade]

No offense Lightguy but those grow lamps make our eyes hurt and the plants look ugly. We like looking at our plants. We like the idea of the Sunritek lamps because they produce lighting that is aesthetically pleasing. People interested in Planted Aquaria also want aesthetically pleasing lighting.

 

[naoki]

Lightguy, many people are interested in white light as Tyrone said, but some people including me prefer whatever the most efficient. What kind of efficiency does it have in terms of PAR micromol/J? Any link to the product?

 

[Happypaphy7]

Thanks, Naoki.

Now I have found a place that I really like, but it has northwestern exposure (windows), the worst exposure possible for growing plants.
I will definitely have to build light set up. Three big ones.

Now the big problem is I have some dendrobiums that are over 2' tall.
They have leaves all along the cane.
Do I have to let go of them or is it possible to grow such tall plants under light?
If yes, what kind of light? Would I need HID sort??
I'm thinking only the top portion ( perhaps like 1/3 of the plant ) might get enough light under light?

I'm sad to think that I can no longer grow certain orchids that I enjoy.
I mean I will be happy with more Paphs, but you know.


Light guy- Thanks, but as Tyrone says most people do not like such LED for aesthetic reason. The plants under these lights simply look horrifying. No offense, just honest opinion. I have a small set up with these creepy LED bulbs in my kitchen. I have no desire to take it with me to my new place. lol

 

[Linus_Cello]

Now the big problem is I have some dendrobiums that are over 2' tall.
They have leaves all along the cane.
Do I have to let go of them or is it possible to grow such tall plants under light?
If yes, what kind of light? Would I need HID sort??
I'm thinking only the top portion ( perhaps like 1/3 of the plant ) might get enough light under light?

Maybe you could mount the light fixture flush with the wall for your dendrobiums?

 

[Happypaphy7]

I don't understand what you mean by flush?

Install multiple light bulbs on vertical layers along the wall??

 

[troy]

Thank you naoki!!! Very informative!!!! You are an asset to the orchid growing community!!!

 

[naoki]

I think Linus is suggesting side lighting, which might work.

Yes, tall plant could be a problem with a wide angle light source. Since the intensity of light follows an inverse-square law, 2 feet of plant height makes a big difference when the light source is close to the plant. The sun is far away, so it doesn't create so much difference in the intensity between the top and bottom leaves of the plants (if the bottom leaf is not shadowed by top leaves). So to avoid this problem, you can use light with narrow beam angle, and place it far from the plants. This approach does have an issue that the bottom leaves could be shadowed by the top leaves.

I'm not sure what would be a good option for non-DIY. Cree does have a house-hold PAR38 Spot (27 degree), but it's not so efficient. I haven't looked into this type of LEDs for a long time, but I haven't found any efficient white LED PAR38.

 

[TyroneGenade]

Good reflectors, with the lamps sitting deep in them, will cancel out a great deal of the inverse square law. With normal t8 lamps, reflectors can increase the PPFD almost 3 times.

 

[Brabantia]

I wish to add some additional light to my orchids during this winter. I found on this online sales company (Ali...ess) a T8 which like the one you described: Can you assure me that it is indeed an equivalent to the Sunritek tubes about which you speak?
Ref: Here.
Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[naoki]

Brabantia, the one you linked has quite a bit lower efficacy (100lm/W vs 140lm/W). This is because the linked model uses only 54 LEDs (Epistar SMD2835) for 12W while Sunritek uses 120pcs for 12W. So when each LED is driven harder, the efficacy goes down. Manufacturers want reduce the cost of production, so some companies use less diodes and sacrifice the efficiency, others use more diodes to get high efficiency, but the price will goes up. This is the reason why we have to carefully shop LEDs.

However, 100lm/W is better than T8 or T5HO, and it is better than the previous generation which had less than 90lm/W. The total output (1200 lm) is at a bit low end. 32W T8 fluorescent produces initially about 3000 lumen (but it decays quite a bit with the use). But T8 is emitting the light to 360 degree, so quite a bit of light is wasted unless really good reflectors are used (Tyrone has posted about these reflector issues here before). So I think if you can get >1500lm or so from directional T8 LED, you probably get the similar output as 32W fluorescent bulb in terms of PAR.

If you can use lots of them (20 or more bulbs) or if you can do a group order, then Sunritek can give you 40% more light with the same energy consumption. I converted lots of old T12 and T8 in our house to Sunritek. If interested, I can PM you the contact info.

If you need a smaller quantity, can you get Philips InstaFit like this one in Belgium? This assume that your florescent ballast is working, but it has a pretty good efficacy (133lm/W, total output of 1600lm per bulb). For people in the US, they may want to check local home depot. Ours had this Philips on Clearance section (not a lot of discount, I believe it was around $20 per bulb).

 

[gego]

Wow, I lot of excitement here.

I was using the T8 Philips Naoki mentioned, got them from Home Depo. It really works for me as an additional light. There is also a Cree version, same store, It has more output than Philips. I'm using them now. I flowered my helenaes under these lights.

Yes, they are uni-directional so if you have tall plants and short plants together, you can use a side mount or an angle mount.

I played with LED bulbs before where I have three timers to control one angled light from one side (morning light), top light (midday light) and one opposite side light (afternoon light). It's kind of fun.

On a healthy plant, these lights could provide more than enough for the plants to grow, they will need the food. So don't let them starve.

 

[Brabantia]

Thank you naoky and gego for your fast responses. I will see if I can find more efficient T8. About the length of the tube I am limited at 60 cm (23") and my goal is to added some light to the natural light the dark and rainy days which occurs some time during the winter.

 

[naoki]

gego, does Cree has a new T8-LED? Last time I checked, their efficacy was pretty low.

Brabantia, I believe Sunritek comes in 24" version. Is Philips XF-3535L too much trouble? Here is the step-by-step I posted long time ago:
http://orchidborealis.blogspot.com/2015/09/easy-diy-led-philips-xf-3535l.html
It is pretty easy and takes only slightly more time than T8-LED conversion. One of this can replace 1-2 T5HO in terms of PAR. So it is pretty cost effective.

 

[gego]

naoki, Cree has a 1700 Lumens, 18.5W T8. I also bought a Phillips, 2100 Lumens, 17W T8. This one is priced only for $10. I had doubts but I bought two anyways.

I compared this to my Cree and the output in terms of PAR are indentical.
So it's a good buy. But why so cheap?
I asked one guy there if there was a mistake and he just shook his head, confused because the 1600 Lumens version, 14W is priced for $21

Anyways if you're buying in quantities, it should be worth it.

 

[naoki]

Thank you naoky and gego for your fast responses. I will see if I can find more efficient T8. About the length of the tube I am limited at 60 cm (23") and my goal is to added some light to the natural light the dark and rainy days which occurs some time during the winter.

Oops, you are right, the aliexpress link was for 60cm bulb. So a lot of things I said in the previous reply was wrong. Sorry.

So 1200 lumen is very good total output. If you are using it for supplement and not using it all the time, you can probably sacrifice the efficacy. Just for comparison, Sunritek 2ft (60cm) model is ST-DTA06-9W, the version with 120-140lm/W costs $7 (wholesale).

 

[naoki]

naoki, Cree has a 1700 Lumens, 18.5W T8. I also bought a Phillips, 2100 Lumens, 17W T8. This one is priced only for $10. I had doubts but I bought two anyways.

I compared this to my Cree and the output in terms of PAR are indentical.
So it's a good buy. But why so cheap?
I asked one guy there if there was a mistake and he just shook his head, confused because the 1600 Lumens version, 14W is priced for $21

Anyways if you're buying in quantities, it should be worth it.

OK, so the cree is the one I looked up which has pretty low efficacy. With their technology, I don't know why they can't make better T8LED. 12W Philips has higher efficacy than 17W, but 17W philips has decent efficacy (123.5lm/W), so it is a great deal for $10!

The similar PAR between the Cree and Phllips is probably from the different beam pattern?

If you still have the PPFD measurement from your Cree and 17W Phlips, I'd love to see the numbers (just for curiosity).

 

[gego]

naoki,

1700 Lumens Cree measured at 40.8 PPFD.
2100 Lumens Phillips measured at 39.6 PPFD

I am using an Apogee sensor probably not as good as Li-Cor. Taken 12" (perpendicular) from the bulb.

I don't think you should trust those numbers they posted. Between Cree and Phillips, I would trust Cree.

But for that price, I would get more of those now. But then you'll never know, technology is moving fast. Cree is looking at using GAN. The price will eventually drop with higher efficiency.

 

[naoki]

Thank you for the info, gego! It is pretty similar to Sunritek which is around 1700-1800 lumen.

With white light, Apogee is very good. I think the error rate is within 5%.

 

[naoki]

I've been using at least 50 bulbs of Sunritek T8-LED bulbs to grow carnivorous plants and orchids for 2 years. I used more bulbs for the household fixtures, but they are not used for a long hours like grow light. Some of them are in high humidity grow tents, but none of them has failed, and I'm pretty happy with this. Now it is not the top efficiency. But compared to T8-LED bulbs or LED shop light commonly available from Lowes etc, it is still at least 20% more efficient.

Anyway, I didn't have any more fixtures/shoplights to convert, so I made a frame with left-over lumber. It's nothing fancy, but I thought that some of you might get some ideas from it.

Here is the link to my Orchid Borealis blog post about this. Instead of adding this info to the original blog post, I made a separate entry.