Test Equipment for LED

[Marine2143]

[TEKNIK]

There are a lot of test products out there. I haven't shown anyone here how my tests work but if I test a board(non tunable) then it's possible to use a lux meter to get a par reading as I test for lumens and par at the same time, a lux meter is much cheaper than a par meter. I was told recently that the company that makes the lighting passport has gone broke but I am not sure if that is true or not.

[unkle_psycho]

I've slowly started to feel I would like to find some type of a meter that gives an image of the spectrum used, and naturally also the intensity.

I was looking at PAR meters and saw some discussions where they dissed the quality of the cheap meters... I was thinking if I get a cheap PAR meter I will end up making conversions anyway, and then there is little difference to buying a lux meter. When looking at LUX meters I realized there is such a wide price range that I failed to choose anything.

Are there any shortcuts? I think I saw someone say its enough to get the good sensor, and you could even make the display part...

[The_Mouse_Police]

You can get cheap spectrometers, which are generally reflectors and lenses on webcams. But, then trade time for cost, since you have to do the work to calibrate it, and find how much error you have in low sensitivity ranges. I looked into it, but decided that it wouldn't be worth the trouble, nor especially enjoyable as its own project.

https://store.publiclab.org/products/le ... 7504787563

http://www.thunderoptics.fr/index.php?p ... ectrometer

Those are two cheap options that I am aware of, both very basic and DIY.

[TEKNIK]

I am having a meeting next week regarding a distributorship on a hand held par meter, it's pretty expensive though with a recommended retail of $2800USD. I am not sure how sales will go at that price. Advantages to it is that it will read from 360nm to 780nm and it is also ip65. It's designed for the professional not so much the DIY at that price.

[BuddyColas]

Another very informative video. Thanks.

[unkle_psycho]

I am having a meeting next week regarding a distributorship on a hand held par meter, it's pretty expensive though with a recommended retail of $2800USD. I am not sure how sales will go at that price. Advantages to it is that it will read from 360nm to 780nm and it is also ip65. It's designed for the professional not so much the DIY at that price.

I understood that you could get a pretty decent apogee for around 500$? I googled them yesterday, and seems there are a lot of waterproof models even at the lower prices. Supposedly 500$ is just the starting point for devises that work. I saw more expensive PAR meters on alibaba The meters on alibaba also claimed to measure deeper into red, I think even the newer apogee cuts of before 700nm.

I guess you would need to know pretty much which market you would be aiming for with such a premium meter. Surely there should be some clear benefits to increasing the price 5 fold.

I really like the devices that give an image of the spectrum, not just the numerical values.

[TEKNIK]

The one I'm looking into does a lot including show the spectrum, I will see how the meeting goes next week. TBH I was hoping for something around the $600USD mark for the DIY user but it's not going to happen with all the features.

[unkle_psycho]

Yeah, at least theres a lot of interest, there just seems to be little knowledge on quality parameters among the cannabis growing consumers. At least people seem to have concluded that the cheap hydrofarm sensors are crap.

I bumped into this scetchy looking french website, they manufacture these, and I get google hits on their gear globally. http://thunderoptics.fr/index.php?p=1_2 ... ectrometer

Interesting how they have 3 models from 70-350$, and the cheaper hobby models have a way higher range then the scientific sensor.. which only goes until 700nm.

[TEKNIK]

Most of the money for this sort of thing goes into the quality of the spectrometers, then they need money for the R&D and software. If the software isn't very good then it makes the device difficult to use. You could probably compare some of them to how mobile phones vary a lot. Cost to make the phone isn't a lot, cost to develop it is massive. It really depends on how much you will use it and how accurate you need these things to be.
My Goniometer has awesome software and that sets it apart from the cheap Chinese ones available as I can do a lot more with the information I get from a reading.