optic fibre?

[WantDaChronic]

sounds like a fully awesome idea wouldnt mind a heap of em only problem i can see is that the light source is fairly concentrated from each fibre optic...probably need 15 light sources instead of the 9 and have them be a lil longer than the 1-1.5ft ones that were showing on the page...3 feet would be great + the price is a bitch but a year from now they would be lucky to get 50% of what they are charging now

[despinos]

Hi there,

 

I have reached this forum accidentally, looking on google for the topic "marihuana fiber optics". This means that I (as many others, I guess) just had the idea of using fiber optic cable to light plants.

I'd like to add that I grow orchids indoors, but I've been condidering experimenting with other vegetables (maria).

I'll expose now a possible array for indoors lighting (I don't dare to say that it's innovative as its seems that tehre¡s nothing new under the sun (or under the lamps!:-))

 

Light source: LEDs (light emmiting diodes)

Maybe they have already been treated on another topic, if so, my excuses...

What's good about LEDS:

 

They are produced to emit light in determined wavelength; this means you can choose from red, blue, yellow, white and green (and even infrarreds).

 

They are rather cold, and pose no overheating problems

They are cheap (from 0.10 USD to 1.5 USD per unit)

They have a loooong life (above 10000 hours)

They produce between 2000 and 15000 mcd (milicandelas)

 

My idea was...:

 

Making an array of LEDS (at least 200 units) and using them as light source.

The most complicated part would be wiring and giving power to these 200 LEDS.

This array could be set just a few cm from the plants. Thus, they would receibe most of the produced light.

 

An advanced design would use one aray of red LEDS and another of blue ones. You could use the red array for vegetative growth and the blue one for flowering (or maybe is the other way around :-). (the red and blue array has to do do with clorophyle wavelength absorption, that happens mainly in these colors).

 

Using single colored lihgt would mean that you need a lot less lumen, as you are not waisting watts producing greens and yellows).

 

And now comes the fiber optics (at last!).

Imagine an array of 200 "tinybulbs" (the leds), making a rectangle (or your favorite shape). Now, place beneath a "lawn" of fiber optics; Imagine that lawn of fiber optics as a rectangle covered (like hair) with short optic fibers (the results would be similar to a piece of football fileld). The fibers (many hundres) would guide the light to the plants.

 

And you may ask... what's the use of coupling LEDS with Fiber optics?. and the answer is:

The light coming out of a fiber optic doesn't "spread" as much with distance as light coming from any other source (except sunlight). This means that the square root attenuation with distance doesn't apply to light coming from a fiber optic (or maybe it does and I'm totally wrong.. :-). I guess that most "technical" growers know the advantages of this.

 

As light coming from the optic fiber doesn't attenuate greatly with distance, it means that as your plant grows and the plant-secondary light source (optic fiber) diminishes, the plant receibes a similar amount of light. Or more simply put, your plant will get the same light at 10 cm than at 15 cm from the light source.

 

If I had a NASA-like budget, I would couple collimators at the issue of the optic fibers (to reduce even more the squere root effect). I've looked at the cost of such devices. It would be cheaper to buy an small south american country and plant there! (anyway, wouldn't it be just cool to use collimated laser-like light to grow stuff?. Now, I bet that this would definitely impress Neo)

 

All these is rather arguable, as there will be other considerations, such as light-leaks in the LED-optic fibre couplings.

 

I have not tried any of these, as I have no budget for experiments. I would like to make some costs vs. efficiency calculations first.

 

mmm. Can't believe that you read this far.

 

I'd like to hear your comments on the use of LEDs and LEDs+fibre optic as light source,

 

Good night

 

ND: i was not high when I thought about this stuff

[Pure]

this is just my humble opinion but with the amount you spend setting up that system not to mention all the tedious soldering ect you are far better of with HPS or MH if your lookign to design somethign to efficently use light I belive the time would be better spent designing somethign to get mh or hps lights closer to the plants no matter how you look at it scientificly you will get better results if you can manage to cool those lights down as 200 led's does not even compair to somehting say like a 600w hps that you where about to put cm's from your girls

 

I think the led idea could be good for a clone room or mabey as side/undercanopy lighting but I would definatly prefer my ladies under cooled hid's , the idea of using fibur optics sounds great with HID lighting though.

You still can't help but wonder how much is really lost buy transfering the light through the cable though, it has been my expierience that when you platform methods they gradualy loose efficiancy the more steps or processes you add in this idea's case the cable would have to take in 100% of the lumenens and let out 100% of the lumes to be as efficiant as something that is able to actually cool the bulb to a point of being able to be say 5cm or closer away , seems like something that deserves lookign into though

[despinos]

You're probably right about the HID lamps being a better main light source. Leds would probably work better as a secondary source in a multi-shelves design.

 

I bet that we'll be seing shortly "plug and play" illumination designs that work solely on leds. There's a lot of research on les these days, and if you search on, lets say ebay, you'll find leds that provide from 3 to 20 candelas. The efficicncy of light transmission using fiber optics over short distances is very high (above 95% for a hundred metres, probably). Anyway, in my opinion, the greatest "loss" of light comes in the coupling betwen your favorite light source and the fiber optic.

 

I still do like leds, as I see they can provide more flexibility than a single or two lamps. (there are even infrarred leds and ultraviolet leds).

 

I've just found that there's a lot of Led-talking on this site

 

http://www.overgrow.com/edge/showthread.php?t=533812

 

I think that there's something about fiber optics somewhere on that site too

 

Greetings!!