Re: halide lights
Carl Gustafson (Carl.Gustafson@cbis.ece.drexel.edu)
Wed, 29 Sep 93 09:40:47 EDT
>Just to bore everyone with a scientific point...
>
>I think I can safely say without contradiction that a halide lamp
>using 1000 Watts of electrical power will give out 1000 Watts of
>heat (so like 1 bar of an electric fire, if you have that sort
>of fire). Some of this heat is due to the inefficiency of the lamp,
>and is never converted to light in the first place. Even the
>proportion of energy converted into light will end up as heat after
>striking the plants, the walls, the floor etc. (of course I am ignoring
>the presumably small proportion which ends up as energy stored in the
>tissues of the hopefully vigorously growing plants, which is the main
>point of this exercise, and even that turns into heat when they die
>and rot eventually).
A friend, who grows orchids in a 20' x 40' basement room uses halide
lights. He switched from 1000W to [more] 500W lamps. He feels that the 500s
disipate disproportionately less heat than the 1000s.
You can also move the ballast to a remote location. This should help cut
down on heat in the growing area.
These lamps can give you quite a tan, if you aren't careful.
Carl Gustafson
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Imaging and Computer Vision Center | Software Guy
Drexel University |
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | I only speak for myself
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