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derek420colorado said:
Impromtu BW interview whoooo hooo! @PlatinumLEDTom how do your LED lights compare to LEC lighting PAR wise?
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What's happening @derek420colorado? Great question about how our lights compare to LEC (Ceramic Metal Halide) lamps in terms of PAR. You have to keep in mind that the specific photometrics of the reflector used will have a great effect on the PAR output with a LEC (CMH) lamp. I'm pretty familiar with a reflector used by our friend over at Cycloptics, who make a 315w kit with a focus of PAR uniformity over a 1.75' x 1.75' footprint. This recommended footprint is quite a bit smaller than some of Cycloptics competitors, but their focus is providing a uniform coverage area using multiple fixtures.
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I've read that the recommended footprints for the Phantom 315w and the Sunlight Supply LEC are both 4' x 4' for Veg and 3' x 3' for Bloom. Some growers claim that the Phantom footprint is slightly larger than the SS LED. (Sunlight Supply does have a commercial fixture that has a larger footprint, with lower PAR, but that fixture is primarily used for supplemental lighting):
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So how does our line of LED units compare to LEC technology on the market? It really depends on a number of factors, which include wattage of the Platinum panel it's being compared to and the height that the PAR readings our measured. There are a number of other factors that will impact the PAR reading which include reflectivity of the walls, how close the walls are to the lights being tested, and if there are any other objects in the room. Growers house did an interesting study a few years ago comparing LED technology to the Sunlight Supply LEC. Here are their finding for the Sunlight Supply LEC fixture at 24" mounting height:
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As you can see the this fixture is getting decent PAR readings in a 3' x 3' footprint. The highest measurement like most fixtures would be the centerpoint reading of 520 umols. The PAR reads do drop off quite a bit when you get to the edges of the 4' x 4' footprint. For comparison purposes, I will compare the LEC to our P450 which has an input wattage of 255w with BLOOM and VEG switches turned on. The max coverage area of our p450 is 4.5' x 4 which is ideal for VEG and 3' x 2.5' which is ideal for Bloom. The centerpoint PAR readings of our p450 being at 943 umol at 24". Keep in mind our recommended height for this fixture for Bloom is 18" so, the counterpoint reading at that height is 1385 umol. Like the LEC there is a drop off in PAR as you get to the 3' x 3' footprint and a 4' x 4' footprint, but the PAR readings are still quite a bit higher than the LEC at the edges of the 3' x 3' and 4' x 4' footprint. Platinum LED's do run quite a bit cooler than the CMH lamps, so you can have the lights much closer to the plant canopy.

As i mentioned in an earlier post. CMH has a really good spectrum and high CRI, which makes it close to the spectrum emitted by the sun. The only problems i've really experienced with the philips 315w is the proprietary lamp holder pgzx18. They are only available in lower wattages 315w (Eye Hortilux just released a higher wattage Ceramic HPS that looks interesting). They do however waste a lot of energy in the 510 nm to 580 nm range which has weak light absorption by chlorophyll and no morphogenetic effect. Our LED has a 12 band full spectrum that targets the majority of the energy to the nm ranges plants love. We even include UV and IR diodes that encourage healthy plant growth.

I hope this helps.
 
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