Horticulutral LED Lighting Part 5: Lifetime, Optional Hard- and Software, Conclusion

Read the Previous Parts:

Estimating a Lifetime for LEDs

Due to chemical and physical changes, LED modules lose some of their luminance over their service life. L denotes this process (known as degradation), and a common value for L is approximately 30%. Consequently, 70% of the initial luminous flux will be retained after 50,000 hours (L70). The B value is directly dependent on the L value and denotes how many modules (in percent) are permitted to fall short of the L value. A common value is B50, which means that 50% of all modules can fall short of the L70 value after 50,000 hours.

Optional Hard- and Software

Some LED manufacturers offer the possibility to control their systems wirelessly. WIFI or Bluetooth connections make it possible to steer your lighting remotely without the need to enter the room.
While being a convenient and handy option to especially operate bigger projects with just a swipe on your smartphone this offers a severe security risk. Attackers could be able to identify your wireless growing hardware via the MAC address of the system and find out about the existence of the project and even its location.

Furthermore, you are offering the possibility of hacking into software and messing with your production. Keeping your projects offline is always the best way to secure an uninterrupted growing environment.

Conclusion

As shown in the previous pages we were able to figure out a good amount of benefits a LED fixture can bring with it when it is well designed and manufactured.

First of all: LED lights are more energy efficient than other types of lighting systems. Therefor they have the possibility to reduce the consumed energy of a crop production. The manipulation of the red and blue mixture of light can play an important role in how the crop turns out.

LED systems provide the possibility to effectively control and encourage photosynthesis and plant morphology. Red and blue lights are important to secure a healthy plant development, however the perfect mixture differs between plant species and application.

While these two colors play an important role in the production of healthy crops, other colors are able to improve the performance. Far-red may even be needed for the flowering of certain species.

Currently available LED lights are able to produce the same as or even more crop than traditional lighting systems. Even though these systems are new to the market, they have had a remarkable impact.

Especially with the constant development and improvements considering LED lights the future seems bright for them to play a major role in the market.

When buying a LED fixture there are many things to consider. We encrypted some of the most important aspects and showed what a customer should look out for and what technologies are better avoided.

When choosing a LED fixture you should be sure that you get the best possible for your money. That is why we added a small flow chart for you to follow at the end of this article.

Buyers Short Guide

When choosing a LED fixture simply follow this flow chart, if you
can answer the questions with a “yes”, simply follow the green
arrows, follow the red arrows if you answer with “no”

LED Grow Lighting Buyers Guide – if you can answer the question with a “yes”, simply follow the green arrows, otherwise follow the red ones.

When you covered the most important aspects:

Does it say UV or IR spectrum without real UV or IR LEDs in the fixture? – Do not buy!
Has the stated output been measured within a short distance to the LEDs? – Do not buy!
Are the advertised promises exaggerated, such as: “replaces 600W HPS with 200W LED”? – Do not buy, it is clearly a scam!
Does it promise non provable facts like “less stress” “greener plants” etc.? – Do not buy!
Can you find the fixture on cheap retail websites such as Aliexpress or Alibaba? – Do not buy it, or import it by yourself and safe a good amount of money. (reverse search product pictures using Tineye or Google reverse image search)
Think twice about wireless controlling systems
See if the manufacturer or retailer can provide you with a lighting plan.
What is the warranty all above 2 years for the whole fixture is good! 3 to 5 years on a driver is considered normal.