Hey guys, what's up, it's Andy here and today
we're talking grow light, it's not an easy thing to buy a grow light anymore. There's
so many things that can get you bogged down with decision fatigue, efficiency, how long
it's going to last all those different factors. So what we're doing is we've broken it down
for you.
And we got an expert, Anton from energy wise, who's going to explain to us
a couple of things that you have to have to have to be on the lookout for when you buying
a grow light, there's a couple of old paradigms like what's you know, how many watts equals
how good you grow light is, those things are not true anymore, you guys have to be so careful
out there when looking for grow lights.
And as always, thanks so much for energy wise
for coming on and giving us some time. And thanks to the guys who support our growth
shop, it really means the world to us. So guys, hope you enjoy. And let's take it away.
And John, thanks so much for joining us today to share some of your knowledge. How are you? Hey, well, thanks, Andy, for having me back.
Right? Anytime. Yeah, let's jump straight in. And
if you can help give us a little bit of clarity on the first thing that we want to discuss
is when people looking at it grow, like they obviously seeing just like, it's still a big
proponent is like how many watts the light is consuming, but there's quite a big misconception
around just looking at the wattage of the light. Sure, no, look, besides for the fact that
we have so many versions, or I'd say versions of LEDs and they come out like every 10 to
12 months, you're gonna get another version of an LED, and is going to be slightly more
efficient than the previous one, and maybe give you a slightly different spectrum.
And
so what is giving you or more importantly, maybe your plants is is slightly different.
And so for you to just talk what's blase from year to year to year, maybe it's gonna catch
you out a little bit with you not keeping up to date with, with the latest gen of, of
technology that's out there, or something that I think like I've like,
obviously HBs it was like a big a big factor, you know, because that was almost like the
correlation between output and and power that your clients get, you know, the power that
your clients can actually use was almost like directly proportional, the more watch you
cram, and the more like output that your lights that the plants are going to use.
That was
sort of more directly proportional. But now I think with LED, it changes the game a lot.
And I think most growers are moving towards LED. But then on that, now that it's not,
if it's just a little bit more than words that we need to look at, I suppose we would
look at the power as a better understanding of the the output of the light. But is that
also then how much the plant can consume? And now you stepped into, into nice work.
So yeah, we instead of talking what it's perhaps a little bit better to talk about the package
that the light has, and we call it the package, and it's basically measured in micromoles
per per second. And it's the amount of lag or the amount of PA photons that the lab can
emit every second. And so that we call the package and that's measured in micromoles
per second. And is your PPF few buttons and photosynthetic photon flux. Yeah. Of candle candle. What did they used to call
luck with cat like candle light? How many? Those is the it's your it's your lumen, your lumen package?
Basic? Yeah.
Yeah. But that's not the usable spectrum. It's, it's not all I mean, in lumens,
we are only counting the light that is perceived Basel's 100% And when we talk about the power
region, we talk about the full region between four and 700 nanometers that that the plants
are experiencing they can't at all whereas we have a sensitivity curve with our lack
with our eyes and so it's we don't take the full region of the extents of our sensitivity
we actually wait it and in the middle we get a higher weighting as opposed to on the outsides
of the curve. And then that's something I mean I know you
can obviously do a you can do a decent reading with like just a power metre but like is there
I know some of the facilities are using a bit more advanced tech with their with their
readings.
So developing palm maps, for instance, no developing palm maps, if you've got a handheld
spectrometer, you've, you've got a lot of power in your hand. Because as you guys have
done in your laboratory, there's I've seen on your other sessions where you've actually
set up a lot and gone and made your own Power Map, through empirical readings, brilliant
idea, nothing wrong with that whatsoever. And, and quite clever, even on an installation,
to do that, and to do it twice a year, and to record that and see how your lights are
performing. And if there's any changes, I think we're gonna get into that a little bit
later. But But, so you certainly can do that the other ways. If your LED manufacturer has
a laboratory, we have machines called goniometers, that we can spin the last fitting in our laboratory
and get a 3d computer file that allows us to make these power maps on software on the
computer.
And they are pretty lifelike we can we can verify them afterwards after installation.
So we'll do that as a design. And then afterwards, in the instal, we can verify, which is quite
cool. I think that's that's absolutely key to picking your
your light choice because you can get certain lights that maybe don't have that X, you know,
that data available, and you can choose a light and as that like for whatever your use
case is. And the outputs case, you know, like how important is going to be to get consistency
and accuracy is going to judge whether you need that sort of data when making the purchase.
There's a lot of I mean, it's still I mean, I'll personally now I'm gonna step into into
a zone of my not so clued up on I'm quite clear on the rest but to be honest, the the
spectrum readings and UV and IR I know UV and IR and more and more important, but the
sort of different colour spectrums of the lights, I would be I wouldn't confidently
say that I'm an expert at that, is there something particular that users out there should be
looking for when they looking for a specific wavelength or colour spectrum in a in a light
and also I suppose UV and IR for the for the most part, and yeah, I'd say
that when you are vegetative growing you and and propagating you, you're looking at a more
Blue Ridge spectrum.
So when you when you're looking at that spectrum distribution spectral
distribution, you're looking for a higher spark in the blue area, which is between four
and 500 nanometers rather than your reds which is your 6700 nanometers. And then for flowering
the plants, the plants switch over into a flowering state and perform better during
flowering with a read Rich spectrum. So it can be very expensive to buy both spectrums
and have both nights some light fittings allow you to switch between the two different spectrums.
And and sometimes you take a middle of the road and you get a good not the best verging
and you get a good flowering light. So it really comes down to the grind and what your
budget is and how you want to proceed. I don't Yeah, it sounds like they're not necessarily
it's never really been a deal breaker but it does, it does help if you want to, you
know, have that particular set and I think now I'm stepping out of the cannabis space
but it's it's the certain spectrums are more important if you're not growing cannabis,
believe roses have a very specific spectrum and like colour profile is I think cannabis,
we just have the focus on either your red and your blue is at different points.
Anyway,
UV and IR is that something that you want to see in in a light UV chips and IR chips
is that a must. Infrared apparently has some very good abilities
to turn the plant into flowering quite quickly, which is quite interesting. And obviously
keep it there. And once it's once it's turned and the the UV from the expert, but I've from
what I've been seeing, it can help the plant produce more THC percentage. It's like a sunscreen
almost a natural sunscreen that the plant is producing the THC to counteract the UV
And, and so the UV chips have also started being used in the grows for that reason Trinus but I don't really I mean it's I'm
still seeing lights coming out these days I don't have UV and I'm also IR but uv is
not on every 100% mainstream light just yet it's not a deal breaker. It's not and I think for the most part most
lights are non deal breakers and, and marijuana at the end of the day, it's considered a weed
and it grows prolifically. I think if you want to start tweaking your growth to get
the most out of it, if it's now a commercial growth, and you want to flip to flowering
fast, and you want to try and get more crops in a year, and then those small subtleties
become I think, a little bit minor scale.
Yeah, there we go. All right. What about the the longevity of a of a unit? I
mean, it's not exactly. Not exactly every LEDs made the same? And not LEDs aren't made
to last the same as each other. Is there any sort of data that consumers can look out for
when it besides the standard people say, Oh, 50,000 hours, you know, like 400,000 hours,
you know, besides that, yeah. So interesting. And it is another very big
field. But generally speaking, there's a term called the LMB values. And LMB values are
a an idea of how much a lot will be left in your light fitting at a particular timeframe.
So you mentioned 50,000 hours, and a lot of the horticultural fittings, if they do have
a longevity rating, our rates are rated at 50,000. Or else, maybe more for if you only
had an 18 hour, grow day for five years, I think it comes out to about 32 or 34,000 hours,
which is five years probably maximum in the horticultural field anyway.
But so the LMB
rating tells you, it will always be qualified by a number of hours. So they're telling you
that there'll be so much light left in your lab fitting after so many 1000 hours, and
then maybe there should also be a temperature. So saying the maximum temperature that that
fitting can be held at an ambient temperature, so your ambient room temperature. And those
three things are what tell you about the longevity, a lot of guys have an L 90, an l a t one l
70. Longevity rating, and there's going to be two ratings as they get older member and M
number usually, L A and B number and then against a against a generally 50,000 hours
or you know, a set amount of hours that is tested.
Okay, cool. So 90s at 70, right? Allomancy is 8770s. And then you get a beat
in between in a b 50. The first number tells you more about how much of the last should
be left in the fitting. The second number tells you what confidence they've got sir
and l 90 B 50. means that you should have 10% Left 10% loss in your fitting after a
certain number of hours. And the B 50 tells you the certainty so they are only certain
or 50% of those fittings are those chips being up at the 90% mark the other 50% of your chips,
they don't have any idea of so if you can, if you can get a beaten value, you've got
a lot more certainty in your output a B 50 value gives you a lot less certainty.
Yeah, that's critical. Because I mean, imagine
on a domestic scale they there is some room for fluctuation but I believe on the commercial
scale. I mean, that could really be a wake up call in five years time, it could. Yeah, it could bend your brain, you just wouldn't
know why your bio plants aren't producing that they should. It comes back to why you
should have power in your hand and have that spectrometer have a measuring device that
that you can data log your own your own values and come back to them after year five and
know exactly how much you're locked has lost. And hence whether you need to put more laps
in there to keep up your spec or else at least acknowledge why your outputs are changing,
you know, and not have to scratch your head and and try and do Yeah, I mean, this might be something interesting.
I mean, I've never really considered this as part of the secondhand market.
And I know
a lot of guys may be looking at considering a secondhand light. And sure, you can't really
go on the it's not like a computer screen or, you know, like things like that way, it's
kind of stays the same for the whole time. But suddenly, like that was mass output, you
know, it's three years old, you're thinking, you know, saving, getting the light at 50%
off, but maybe it's only got two more years on it, you know, it's not guaranteed to last
year. It's very interesting on on that front. And last bonus question. What's your opinion
sort of four plants and maximum pa levels, you know, like, the over 1202 supplementation?
Where were you at on that? Yeah, look, personal experiences is very slim
at at the very high level.
So, but I've, I've listened to a few good guys speaking. And
I think, from what I've from what I've ascertained, you can start getting benefits from I think
500 to 1000 is considered commercial scale growing. So family micromoles per metre squared
per second, all the way up to 1000 is considered commercial, I believe anything from 700, about
707 50 and above, can benefit from the addition of co2. And from what I've read, it seems
like that that benefit of adding co2 tops out at about 1400 Micro moles per metre squared
per second.
I mean, those are massive values. Add at 1000 micromoles. I've got clients you've
you've appreciated a half a metre gap between the plants and the last because at those levels,
you start frying the tips of your plants in your, you know, you actually need like distance
to save you from the from the heat, we've got lenses which allow us to project that
like further down. Better than say a fitting that doesn't have lenses, but at 1000 micromoles
be sitting around 500 watts per square metre. So you start multiplying that over a couple
of square metres and and becomes a ridiculous amount of energy draw, which, let alone just
being able to supply to have the energy, the money to pay for it. Escom still gotta be
able to supply to you which can also be a she's an inconvenience, or that could be a whole discussion, but yeah,
today. Thank you so much for coming on. And Tom, it's always a pleasure to have you and
for sharing the knowledge and we look forward to seeing you again in the future.
