"Seeing is believing, and if you plug in one of the newer high output quad band LEDs, you will be amazed at the intensity of light created."
Stealth Grow LEDs In the News
Jordan Scott of Stealth Grow demystifies LED technology in exclusive interview with Maximum Yield
| Maximum Yield Magazine 2010-02-01 | Download an Adobe PDF version |
 |
Maximum Yield (MY): It’s been noted that LEDs are great as supplemental lighting only. What is your response to this?
Jordan Scott: Stealth Grow (SG) LEDs should be used as a primary lighting source. SG LED panels function great all on their own. The key is that Stealth Grow lights have the necessary power along with quad-band spectrum, meaning we build our lights using four different types of LED chips to achieve a broad and complete light spectrum. Many LED grow lights use only two LED chips, a red and a blue, and thus do not support the entirety of the light requirements of the plant.
While red and blue spectrum light is most necessary for plant growth and flowering, they are not the only colors that a plant needs. Stealth Grow incorporates full spectrum light of the color temperature 2,700 degrees Kelvin, (the same as a T-5 fluorescent bloom light), and we also use high band red LEDs. This quad-band approach provides the plants exactly what they need to flourish without wasting energy as heat... Read the complete article (PDF) »
Next Generation of LEDs: The Diodes Strike Back
| by Erik Biksa | Maximum Yield Magazine 2010-02-01 | Download an Adobe PDF version |
|
In a previous article, I concluded that LEDs were a viable technology for providing artificial light energy to fuel the photosynthetic response (plant growth). However, there were some limitations. The dual band spectrum provided only red and blue light wavelengths. While these bands are where most of the photosynthetic response occurs, making LEDs very efficient, there is some other activity that occurs in other spectrums of the visible light bandwidth.
Imagine this: blue and red wavelengths of light are like the macronutrients, in terms of fertilizers, while other bandwidths are more like micronutrients. Micronutrients are just as important as macronutrients; the big difference is that they are used in much smaller quantities than macronutrients. So, it’s about supplying the correct and exact ratios of each. HPS and MH lighting produce huge quantities of their output in spectra that the plant uses very little of, making them much less efficient... Read the complete article »
Grow Room Invasions: Next Generation LEDs II
| by Erik Biksa | Maximum Yield Magazine 2010-03-01 | Download an Adobe PDF version |
|
The earlier generation LED lights produced lots of light relative to the amount of power they used, ran very cool and eliminated wasted light wavelengths. However, they were unable to deliver very high intensity levels for larger, high yielding gardens and omitted the “trace” amounts of light wavelengths that certain types of plants seemed to require to fulfill their life cycles in a timely fashion.
Enter the higher wattage, very high output quad band LED crop lighting systems. By using higher wattages and more individual diodes/chips in the lighting board and driving them with hundreds of milliamps rather than tens of milliamps, the overall intensity is incredible. Coupled by the fact that there are 288 diodes/chips per fixture being tested, we had a 600 watt LED lighting system. We also discovered that these are not driven to their full capacity, so a 600 watt LED fixture is really only drawing about 327 watts of power. Amazingly, this provides light intensities that compete with 1000 watt HPS lamp in the 630 to 680 nm (nanometer) range, the light for flowering and fruiting responses.
Not only is this next generation of LED crop lighting much more intense than it’s predecessor, it also offers a broader spectrum while still delivering very efficient... Read the complete article »