Ken, One more short note on this. A friend who is a basement grower began with a dozen or so T5HO fixtures to get the rather high light levels he needed - expensive both initially and when replacing the fluorescent tubes (all 4 tube or more fixtures). He's been replacing the tubes with socket-compatible HO LED tubes that he found online, ballast-bypass type, one fixture at a time and after a couple of years seems pleased - cheaper and more light. Among the orchids he grows are a number of the geophytic European terrestrials like Ophrys and Himantoglossum, and he has no trouble flowering them. Steve On 2/26/2022 3:25 PM, Kenneth Preteroti wrote: > Steve yes you are correct that I am aware of the lumen/lux vs > ppf/ppfd, human eye vs plant. Throw in PAR too! > None of these terms seem to truly help the hobbiest grow Massonia’s, > Conophytum’s or Cannabis. > > My reason for high end LED’s is light penetration. I wanted to > replace my HPS system rated at 55000 lumens. I could have went with a > dozen T5HO fluorescent. However the LED’s at 325 watts made the most > sense to me. This was for growing in the basement. > > I started with supplemental lighting last year when I saw Arnold’s > results who lives in the same state as me. Arnold indicated he used > supplemental lighting based on advice from Rimmer. Now I am a full > member of the supplemental light club. Ha ha. I need adjustable height > hangers for the lights next year. > > Steve noticed my LED’s are under driven and therefore are passively > cooled. Heat kills LED’s. Stay away from fan cooled systems. The fans > last a year or two and need replacement or you kill your LED’s. Heat > is wasted energy and money. > > > > Ken P > New Jersey, USA > Zone 7a > > The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. > > George Orwell, 1984 <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5470.1984> > > > >> On Feb 26, 2022, at 1:44 PM, Steve Marak <samarak@gizmoworks.com> wrote: >> >> Hi Ken, >> _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>