I talked with Bill Mack of Delta light. He's a real guru when it comes to LED lights. I mentioned I would like to have some kind of grow light. He is looking into something like a 360 LED light in the $400 range. I will be staying in touch with him on this project. Most studies show that 90% red, 10% blue is pretty optimal for plant growth. Bill mentioned that the colored LEDs will put out more light than the white LEDs for the same amount of energy. Delta light can be reached at:
Delta Light
P.O. Box 202223
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55420
email: deltalight77@hotmail.com
612-980-6503
Bill Mack at Delta Lights has a catalog through which he sells AC and DC LED lighting products. He has good prices and you can email him for a catalog if you are interested. My discussions with him have have focused on persuading him to design a reasonably priced alternative, which he seems receptive. Of course, he is looking for a return on his investment. I will certainly be buying something once a final design is agreed upon, hopefully others will too, not only for their needs, but also to get a better price for all if more of them are sold. Hopefully the discussions and input from this list will help in designing a workable solution that we all can use. His response is below.
Offered by Steve.
The reason for the frequency is two-fold: 1) the higher frequency is used to provide continuously variable dimming of the LEDs (from 1-99%). That is the dimmer control. A separate control would modulate the output at a lower frequency should the researcher decide he would need that function. Separate RED and BLUE LED dimmer controls provide for user-controlled optimum brightness (92% RED and 8% BLUE) but it is true that unless the user has some way to measure individual color intensity it's just "by guess and by golly!" The propose boards will be around 6" X 6" and yes, they will have an additional connection on them for "daisy chaining" to the next board. The system will be built on the concept of running on 12V DC. If one wants to run them off 115V AC (USA), or 230V AC (Europe) then the user buys himself an appropriate off-the-shelf power supply. ... I greatly hesitate to design these arrays with a running voltage over 12VDC because of safety sake!I don't want to shock anyone!! I will be manufacturing arrays with both fixed output (cheapest) and variable output (versatile) options.
Bill Mack
DeltaLight77@hotmail.com