penguin

Thanks for working out and posting this spreadsheet, knna, it's a great contribution to the community.

Thanks also to Quantrill for posting analyses.

I've started a summary/comparison spreadsheet for the data posted so far, adding lamp rated life and cost, with calculations for relamping costs and relamping $/PUR. I'll extend that to allow for a $/kwh to be entered, and calculate total operating cost/PUR. That should provide a pretty solid cost effectiveness comparison. I'll post it up within a few days.

Preliminary result is that based on relamping cost/PUR, the 1000w Hortilux and the 400w Lucalox are best, followed by 600w Hortilux, 400w Plantastar, 400w + 430w Hortilux, 400w Son T, and 600w Plantastar.



penguin

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Quantrill

microwave sulfur lamp

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knna

Thanks for doing the job, Quantrill.

I didnt make this analysis before due to i hadnt found a reliable source for all the data. There is some sulphur's SPD, and its difficult to know what correspond to each bulb (differnt photometric ratings, too). But the data in this sheet seems coherent.

Taking the source data as good, we can conclude some conclusions about the sulphur's lamps:

-The 700w version dont worth. Its system's efficiency is too low (20%).

-The 1000w version has a very high energy efficiency (converting input watts to emited watts as light), of 39%, a bit higher than the best HPSs. This is one of the sulphur lamp's manufacturers's claims. So it seems true, although improvement over good HPSs is little, smaller than claims.

-Due to the dominant blue-green spectrum, the conversion of emited PAR watts to photons is relatively low, but still it has a very good photons output (1,8 uE/w, similar to best HPSs). So the conclusion is their efficiency converting input watts to emited photons is similar to the best HPSs.

-But when we analyze how this photons promote photosynthesis, (the PUR value), then the figure is relatively low (1 pur/w), below most HPSs. So the sulphur's lamps are great providing blue photons, although the overall photosynthesis induction is comparable or below most HPSs. This is confirmed by the low Red/Blue photons ratio (1), typical of a vegging light.

Take in mind that blue photons carry more energy than red ones, and have less photosynthetic capacity, so a excess of them penalize overall photosynthetic capacity. But they have some qualitative advantages, not computed in the sheet, as higher photosynthetic saturation point (good when using high irradiances in the garden), more compact plants (compact buds and best light use) and healthier (some will say with more resin or THC, but although i dont deny it, i cant state it either).

IMO, this ratings do the sulphur lamps a very good lamp for growing, specially as vegging light in a intensive large garden. But when considering the price difference, is difficult to say they worth. If price were similar, ill advice to use them, mainly as vegging light or mixed with HPSs at flowering in large setups.

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Quantrill

Yean man, the data for the 1000 watt is accurite i believe, but the 700 watt data is questionable. IMHO

I might get spunky later and input the data for the sulfur + calcium bromide lamp. it is said to be geared more toward flowering with enhanced red output.

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delta9nxs

hi, i just read this front to back. knna, what an effort! everyone needs to read this. now i just need to understand all of it! quantrill, your input is going to be very helpful. indoor growing is all about efficiency. this a beautiful tool for dialing in your lighting. a "must" read. thank you

Quantrill

Let us know how we can help you with that.

toke it easy

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Quantrill

here is a screen shot of the hortilux analysis for easy viewing.

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penguin

I am really liking this! Thanks again knna

I have compiled all previously analyzed lamps into a single spreadsheet, added operating cost data (rated life, unit cost; where I could find them), and added a summary sheet that compares them all. The summary sheet allows entry of grow room size, target PUR level, and relamp frequency (as % of rated life) and calculates the number of each lamp needed to achieve the desired PUR. This is then used to calculate the monthly and annual cost of running each lamp, determine the most cost-effective solution, and calculate the relative efficiency of each lamp compared to the "optimum" solution.

There are some factors that aren't taken into account, like canopy depth, original cost of durable equipment (ballasts, fixtures), etc., and capturing the SPD data seems somewhat error-prone, but overall I think it's tremendously helpful.

Do you think it would be better to derive the PUR based on mean rather than initial lumens?

I entered the data for several more lamps, including Hortilux Blue MH, SunMaster warm MH, and GE PL/AQ T12. There are some additional lamps that I want to analyze, and a some general cleanup in the spreadsheet that I want to do before I upload, but I should be able to get to that this weekend.

It's interesting that for every "what if?" scenario I've looked at so far, one of the Hortilux HPS lamps has come out on top, especially since it has a much lower R/B than most of the other lamps that rank high in efficiency. I also have a new respect for T8 fluoros .


penguin

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knna

No, i think its better to analyze the initial lm. In horticultural applications, lamp's useful life is shorter than for human use (stimated at 70% of initial lm), because often no more than 10-15% of output degradation is profitable, thus the quick lamp's replacement (HPS usefull life for human applications is near 20Kh; is there any intelligent grower who dont replace their bulbs far before this point?).

I believe its better analize new lamps, and let growers choose the point to replace their lamps.

But maybe it would be better use the mean lm during horticultural use (for example, up to 80 or 85% initial output), so results in the sheet inform about the mean emission of the lamp along their use. Maybe using a figure of 90% of initial lm would be a good aproximation to mean lamp behavior in a garden.

Your idea of including price and duration of lamps is great, but it have some problems:

-Very differents prices for same lamp between differents distributors. What price we apply? As far as all the prices are from the same distributor, as a orientative cost and relative cost (between differents bulbs), its good enough. But probably is going to be difficult find a distributor wich sell all the bulbs.

-One thing is bulb expected life (until failure) and another very different the usefull life, the time the bulb last in reach a point of degradation wich make more expensive keep it working than replacing them. This time is far shorter than the "expected life" and very influenced by the setup, and specially, compability with ballast. Anyway, it would be possible to use manufacturers graphs of output degradation (they use optimal conditions) and choose for example the life to reach 85% initial output as "useful life" (probably in that time, most growers bulbs are at 80% or less initial output). When not avalaible, use (with asterisk) the data for a generic similar lamp.

Yeah, i thought the same when analyzed it. Most blue enhanced HPSs sacrify efficiency to obtain the supplementary blue (usually, they work at slighty higher wattages to compensate it), but it seems it dont happen with the Hortilux.

Take in mind the T8's data correspond to electronic ballast systems. While i prefered to use the data of good mag ballast for HIDs, due most people currently use them, i choosed the electronic ballast for floros because currently havent sense use old mag ballast with them. Electronic ballast not only improve lamp duration and reduce ballast loses, as their HIDs counterparts, but in floros they improve strongly the efficiency (by working at very high frecuencies) and their price is just slighty higher than conventional ones. Notice than floro's electronic ballasted systems often have a system's consuption below the nominal wattage of the lamps (i checked this with my 55w CFLs: two working on a electronic ballast consume 107-108w in average (ballast loses included), while with conventinal ballast they draw 123w, for the same output; T8s benefit more yet of electronic ballast).

I was thinking about how to improve the sheet results. As i comented some days ago, i was thinking on split the correction over the PPF to obtain PUR in two steps:

-The first would be correct PPF just by cannabis absorbance. I though this step is highly accurate, due i have spectral plots of colombian sativa transmitance/absorbance/reflectance. It would be possible use the absorbance curve during veg (in order to analyze veg lamps) and during flower (and during differents stages of flowering development).

-The second stage would be correct again for the photosynthetic action curve, wich is the step i think may introduce larger error or subjetivity.

But when again i looked for a Cannabis (o similar plant specie) Quantum yield curve, ive found some articles wich made me think twice all this steps.

I stated some times in this thread that plants can adapt their photosynthetic apparatus to the light environment, so the PUR figure must be taken with a grain of salt. But i thought this adaptation is somewhat limited. Howewer, ive found this adaptation may be far larger than i previously thought:



This pic shows the photosynthesis' action curve of radish. The solid line correspond to the mean of Inada and Mc Cree curves, while curve 1 correspond to radish grown under green dominant light and curve 2 correspond to radish grown under blue dominant light. Notice the large differences between. The action curve is calculated for unit energy irradiations, so changes correspond to both canopy's photons absorbance and quantum yield.

This differences can be observed between the Inada and Mc Cree curves. While Inada plants were grown at sunlight, and have the max point at 670nm, McCree ones were grown indoor below HPS, and have the max at 610nm.

Aditionally, the article with this pic (SPECTRAL COMPOSITION OF LIGHT AND GROWING OF PLANTS IN CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENTS) detail the higher photosynthetic saturation of blue photons.

Ive found long term studies with differents lights, giving time to adaptation, wich shows that still there is differences in average photons absortion between plants grown under differnts lightings. But how to compute it in the sheet? How can we stimate how cannabis adapt to differents lighting environments? Really i dont see how to do it, so probably the only accurate bulb measurement can be done on PPF (micro mols of photons).

Thoughts about this question are welcome.

knna

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choader

penquin - fantastic idea!! I'm sure many folks like me would love the info but can't follow this thread. And I have a technical/scientific degree!!!!

Maybe I need to go back to school??

Choader

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