T5 being phased out intentionally to blind humanity with led

Smoker's Lounge
134

I do love the way T5 HP bulbs get plants in top shape to move up to bigger pots and lights.

Just recently my T5 fixture stopped working with what seems to be that both ballasts are done. One went and shortly after the other one failed. It’s not really meant for you to be able to change the ballasts so I wanted to get another.

I’ve also used them as supplemental lighting with my HPS. I can’t explain it but they are a useful tool for indoor growing. They help in so many ways. I never get seedlings to progress as good under any other lighting.

I’m gonna be looking for all I can, to buy up, if it’s really being phased out. Being without them for a few grows now, I want them back.

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136

Then step away from your phone and PC. I have used LEDs now for a year, prior was a 10yr break, and HPS / MH back then. But my eyesight has really started to go downhill… in the past 10 yrs when I wasn’t growing anything. BUT its also when I got a cell phone that it started happening. The last 1 yr is no worse than the prior 9, but its a steady decline in near field vision. I think its focusing on tiny text on small backlit screens with blue light.

Or it may be age. Eyesight starts to decline in your 40s’ So the timeline fits…

Can’t say that I think sooooo much screen time is helpful to our eyes. Gotta imagine a phone is worse as you stare AT it, vs looking at things being lit by your LED lights.

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I read a EU commission report of the dangers of LED lighting last year. Avoid them at night was the best advice I can give, not alot of definitive info but that was a while ago when i read it.

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It’s not certain how successful dotGov will be.

I recall a number of years ago walking into Lowes (US) to pick up a screw in Edison-base bulb. They had none, not a single one. Just a bunch of these weird new bulbs that had two pins that snap into a base for power. What?

A Lowe’s associate said that these were the future and that the entire industry was transitioning to this new style of fixturing. I walked out went somewhere else. The hell if I were going to replace all of the fixtures in my home because some marketing guru thought they could forcibly generate a new revenue stream. What was even more odd, they still primarily sold lamp fixtures with … an Edison base.

About a month or two later, those new style bulbs gone. Back to Edison. Haven’t seen a single one of them since. No one wanted them. Buy a new bulb, replace your entire house to be able to use it.

They were GU24 and, apparently, the push from dotGov to transition every one over to CFLs wasn’t going so well. So dotGov mandated that, in order to receive the Energy Star certification, the base of all certified lamps must be of the GU24 style.

That move accelerated the failure to push a transition over to CFLs. Even more, consumer LEDs were burgeoning at the time and, though they were still relatively new to the market, they had clear advantages over CFL.

Needless to say, the market didn’t accept the mandate. Eventually, EnergyStar dropped the requirement.

Seems dotGov is coming full circle on this. Whether they’ll be successful this time around is to be seen. It’s a big problem when dotGov mandates the elimination of something where the cost/devaluation risks are borne onto the consumer while receiving minimal benefit or incentive to do so. It’s not inexpensive to replace all of the bulbs in a home. Not to mention personal preference.

Large commercial properties, though … really gets costly particularly in these market conditions.

Personally, we have been mostly LED based here anyhow for quite some time. Edison based. So, the mandate doesn’t really get me too irritable beyond the unrealistic demands our betters think they can force onto us. And, knocking on wood, … our eyesight is still fine.

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139

My theory is the original poster @SkunkHunt101 works for either a T5 seller or manufacturer.

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Back on the health implications of LED.

A couple of things optically are clear to me. Traditional luminars namely produce a diffuse radiant output. That’s what we are used to. That is, the power in the total flux generated is spread over the surface area of the entire bulb. The bulb itself is coated with a material to create diffuse lighting while the filament (talking incandescent) may be relatively compact. This is unlike LED diodes in many of the horticulture fixtures where it is practically a point source. All of the power is concentrated as a single spot. The plastic lens spreads this power out but, relative to traditional incandescent, it’s more like a spot light than a diffuse omnidirectional lamp.

This means that staring into a LED diode could mean that you are receiving a significantly greater / more intense dose of visible radiation when compared to a lamp with a coated bulb. We are not used to that but it becomes immediately obvious that they are really really bright and you shouldn’t be staring into it.

LED bulbs that are packaged in a more traditional style with a glass diffuser, not as much of a concern. The power is spread out across the surface and it is no longer quite a point source.

However, high levels of light in the BLUE spectrum is considered to have potential health consequences. There are charts for potential light source physiological effects. Scotopic potential, melanopic potential, and BLH potential (blue light hazard) are examples. More on this later.

Depending on the phosphors, some LEDs are quite efficient at producing light in the blue spectrum. When we look at spectral distribution graphs, the energy moving towards the left side is also an indication of higher energy as the wavelength become shorter. Higher energies typically means it can penetrate deeper farther faster and possibly damage some materials over time. This applies to really anything. Could be a car. One with higher momentum (higher energy state) is more dangerous than one at rest. Or how about a soft sponge ball. We can say that a ball coming at you at 100 MPH is significantly more dangerous than a ball at 1 MPH. But relative risk of actually incurring damage from a soft sponge ball to a human is minimal. We learned this growing up and it is intuitive. Could something bad happen, sure. But the risk is much less than if you were to replace the ball with the car.

As we continue moving left and we hit UV. Continue farther left and we hit x-rays, gamma rays, all kind of high energy stuff we don’t really want to interact with, can be quite damaging.

800px-EM_spectrum.svg
800px-EM_spectrum.svg800×380 23.3 KB

Now, is there something to be concerned with? Is it a car? Or is it a soft sponge ball?

Here is a preview chart:

image
image2066×1236 73.9 KB

< continuing >

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A current one is electric cars with no real thoughts on charging infrastructure.

I like my LED house lights. I chose them. :+1:

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Yeah, I was about to mention that but I didn’t want to derail into all of the other stuff…

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Yeah, not pro or against electric vehicles per se but what are they going to do? Spend a million dollars to retrofit my building with charging stations? Not well thought out.

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< continuing >

And, here is a numerical chart comparing different light sources:

image
image2022×1362 256 KB

Notice that the authors of this chart utilize lumens since we are talking about human perception. Also, notice the color temperatures (CCT). A larger color temperature number indicates a more blueish or a ‘cool’ light source. Smaller color temperatures indicate a more reddish or ‘warm’ light source. The above table is normalized relative to an incandescent bulb that has a value of (1).

We’ll explore some of the data shortly.

Visually, an incandescent bulb (red trace) compared to an unspecified LED (blue traces) has a spectral distribution that looks something like:

image
image1910×1193 82.7 KB

< continuing >

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< continuing >

Interlude. Just for fun:

image

The above spectral distribution is most similar to:
  • An Incandescent
  • High Pressure Sodium Vapor
  • Metal Halide
  • Fluorescence / Low Intensity Discharge
  • A Mercury Lamp
  • LED
  • The Sun

0 voters

image

The above spectral distribution is most similar to:
  • An Incandescent
  • High Pressure Sodium Vapor
  • Metal Halide
  • Fluorescence / Low Intensity Discharge
  • A Mercury Lamp
  • LED
  • The Sun

0 voters

image

The above spectral distribution is most similar to:
  • An Incandescent
  • High Pressure Sodium Vapor
  • Metal Halide
  • Fluorescence / Low Intensity Discharge
  • A Mercury Lamp
  • LED
  • The Sun

0 voters

image

The above spectral distribution is most similar to:
  • An Incandescent
  • High Pressure Sodium Vapor
  • Metal Halide
  • Fluorescence / Low Intensity Discharge
  • A Mercury Lamp
  • LED
  • The Sun

0 voters

image

The above spectral distribution is most similar to:
  • An Incandescent
  • High Pressure Sodium Vapor
  • Metal Halide
  • Fluorescence / Low Intensity Discharge
  • A Mercury Lamp
  • LED
  • The Sun

0 voters

< continuing >

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148

I hate physics.

Answered the first one for fun, probably wrongly and then saw the other questions…

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149

Second hardest course I ever took, after grammar.

I took some wild guesses and think I got some right. Much like in those courses :joy:

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Oh yeah, not easy. Well, a couple should be familiar to some.

Lots of this is on the web, ok to look. Mostly a visual comparison. E.g. Google Spectrum HID, search here, etc.

p.s. two of the answers are in the graph in the post prior.

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152

I hear it a good thing to turn off your computer an hour before bed due to blue waves interfering with sleep. I’m not a techie, but as for led’s in home and grow applications isn’t the LED light spectrum controlled and varied? Hard to wrap my mind around LED’s made to produce the red spectrum emitting “dangerous” blue spectrum. All that said, I still use ye olde T5 over my seed starts which end up outside under the sun which I hear emits a lot of blue spectrum.

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Abstract:
“Lighting can affect the health of people in buildings. This goes beyond the safety aspects of providing enough illumination to see by; lighting affects mood and human circadian rhythms, while poor lighting can cause glare, headaches, eyestrain, aches and pains associated with poor body posture or, in extreme cases, skin conditions and various types of sight loss. These aspects ought to be considered by designers and building owners and occupiers in order to improve the lit environment and use adequate lighting and lighting controls that meet the recommendations of codes and standards. Various types of lighting can have different impacts depending on their spectral, optical and electrical characteristics. This paper discusses potential impacts of LED lighting on human health, and is based on a recent BRE review of research investigating the most typical effects of lighting on human health.”
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cosmin-Ticleanu/publication/296621681_A_summary_of_LED_lighting_impacts_on_health/links/5799d4a408ae33e89fb78621/A-summary-of-LED-lighting-impacts-on-health.pdf

These were pretty much the dangers the EU report are outlining. At the the same time it was later determined that the report proved it was safe. How much fecal matter is allow in your LED light to be determined safe is what we should really be wondering…
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://ec.europa.eu/health/system/files/2019-02/scheer_o_011_0.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjW9fO1qrf3AhVymGoFHUd9AfUQFnoECAsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1oBZjwXiRqeCKqEYtXDhYH

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154

I’ll have an answer for you in a few minutes.

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155

I am scared.
I mean I am all for organic and all butt…

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156

My lights are rich in far brown.

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I thought fecal matter was mostly found in our smartphones because we use them a lot in the WC … icon_e_surprised|nullxnull

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