LED Lighting That Doesn't Look Red/Purple
 

Hi guys! I'm looking into getting some sort of LED lighting system that can produce enough (preferably even more) light to bloom cattleyas that produces minimal heat and doesn't look like some ufo is about to abduct my babies. I'd like to cover around a 4'x1' area (since my plants are all on a linear shelf, hopefully i can get a metal rack to put my plants later but I'm not sure if I'll have the room). I'm currently using an 18" Finnex Ray2 about 1' away from my plants but after using it for two months, it seems that my highland Nepenthes seedling pitchers aren't coloring up and my Neofinetia lost most of its anthocyanins. Its also not large enough to cover my area and the plants on the edges are growing towards the light.

These are half red hand half blue a little annoying but not too bad. I like the all white but they get toe blooms going.

A good device at a price of $250 is this one:
Fluence PhysioSpec Indoor RAY44 - PAR 190 μmol/s - 120V 85W
Dimensions: 44L x 2.2W x 1.4H in
Fluence RAY44 Plus Grow Light | Multipurpose Grow Light

These do look like ok options, but it seems that the Ray44 needs a bit of cooling to function well. Seeing as my setup is in LA without ac and I'm growing some plants that don't like too much heat, I'm not sure if that would be ideal. I'm looking at these two. The first seems to have rather positive reviews but I'm not sure if the light is intense enough to bloom things like sohpronitis or unifoliate cattleyas while the second seems to be rather effective and cheap but there is a chance the bulbs will be defective. Does anyone else have suggestions?

SunBlaster LED Strip Lighting - SunBlaster Lighting
Amazon.com : Roleadro Upgrade and Newly Developed LED Grow Light Full Spectrum 2nd Generation Series 300w Plants Light : Garden & Outdoor

That Roleadro lamp says it's 300W, but it only draws 125 watts. That's not possible. I would not trust them.

Sunblaster 48" would be my choice of the two, but you might need two per shelf at a foot of distance from the plants.

I use the Sunblaster strips. I have a mini cat blooming under one strip. My bottom shelf has two strips, plants are blooming but, I need sunglasses. I'm quite happy with them.

It has 60 x 5W emitters running @ about 2W a piece, a common practice for low cost fixtures. The original Chinese black boxes ran 3W Bridgelux emitters @ 2W.

I have natural white LED bulbs (e26 base) that I got from Orchids Limited. They are super effective, AND they are 4ft from the plants! My whole thing about growing under lights was disliking the idea that I'd have to have some unattractive light a foot or so from my plants! I have 6 of these bulbs in track light heads, and they reliably keep my phals blooming.

---------- Post added at 10:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:27 PM ----------

In reading more in this post, I think the lights I use wouldn't bloom what your growing...

I purchased a Roleadro LED like that from Amazon. They're cheaply made crap. My unit stopped working just a little over 6 months after purchase, and neither the vendor nor Amazon were willing to work with me in terms of getting a replacement.

I will say that on a variety of sites, many/most of these types of lights are listed/advertised as 300w/400w/1000w, but it's used in the context of "equivalent to a 300w sodium vapor bulb", which is a common form of high output lighting that these LED fixtures are designed to replace.

Yeah. "Equivalent Wattage" is terribly misleading. Yes, it IS equivalent to what they human eye may perceive, but that's a combination of intensity, spectrum, and the adaptability of the eye. Plants ain't so adaptable.

I'd like to add my own perception here:

I think the overall level of concern over lighting is overblown, probably because that is led by the pot-growing community, who want to try every trick in the book to maximize quantity and quality. I am not saying that lighting is unimportant, but that intensity is more important than spectrum.

When I was first growing, it was under 50/50 (wattage wise) ordinary 100 watt incandescent bulbs and 20 watt fluorescent shop lights. Folks have been successful under High Pressure Sodium (HPS), which is basically red & yellow light, with very little blue, and Metal Halide (MH), which is essentially all blue end of the spectrum. People grow under compact fluorescents, red/blue LEDs, and white LEDs.

Certainly, a true plant light will be better than a common household lamp, but based upon my own experience with Cree outdoor LED floodlights, they are very good, too, and far less expensive.

If I was designing a lighted grow space today, I'd use several of them, suspended well above the plants, so the lighting would be bright, but diffused.