The E26 Bulb Beam angles varied from ~ 40° - 120° using PAR 38, BR30, etc.; with and without Lenses, modified A19/A21 Plastic Globes; ends removed, wrapped in foil tape... They definitely created adequate "Spot" Lighting at a specific distance, but was not adequately uniform as that distance decreased when plants grew up towards the light. BTW, the 12 - Bulb String light Fixture in a "Surround", 1600 Lm - 15 Watt LED bulbs with Globes removed (~ 21,000 Lm , 315 umol/s PPF, 180 Watts, 1.7 PPE) had ~ 40,000 Lux, 600 PPFD (umol/s/m2) min average coverage @ 1' (300mm) over a 2' (600mm) x 3' (900mm) footprint.miles wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 11:08 pmLenses and reflectors seem to be a very tricky science, almost an art to design it well. Fortunately the strip form factor makes it easier by ignoring one dimension, flattening it to 2D makes it easy to simulate it in that browser app and design something that is both easy to build / cheap to order and effective.
Crazy how your bulbs produced weird patterns, how wide was the beam pattern? My previous "setup" is just 4 GU10 36° spot lights in a row on the dining table, that results in a decent uniform bright line where I could place my seedlings and young plants. But extending this idea means: DIY with 230V, let's not do that in a wet area, and crappy lm/watt of 80.
I have no doubt though that a 4x4=16 lamp setup in a grid would do well enough for my goal of just growing peppers and herbs, 9600lm @ 2700K CRI90 ~= 160 umol/s @ 120W, maybe 120 umol/s net if you take out some for losses via sides. Not very power efficient though, these Samsung strips are clearly far better.
My early inspiration (thought I'm not a "Grower") for using E26 base LED bulbs was;
E26 Base LED Bulbs as Grow Lights... https://www.icmag.com/forum/marijuana-g ... st11687495
22,000 Lm, 1.97 PPE, Measured 49,000 Lux, ~ 686 PPFD min average coverage @ 1' (300mm) over a 2' (600mm) x 2' (600mm) footprint.
Linear HighBay LED... https://greenlightdepot.com/collections ... 6442804267
My desired coverage area was ~ 2' x 9' (~ 3 - "Bun Pan" Fixtures) and LED Strips modeled after Linear High Bay fixtures provide much better uniform coverage... viewtopic.php?f=32&t=5872
Samsung F-Series Gen3 LED Strips 8 - F564B @ 240W & ~ 45,600 Lm or PPF 656 umol/s, 2.5 PPE (umol/J), Measured 74000 Lux ~ 1065 PPFD @ 1' (300mm)