LEDTonic's Journey & LED Grow Lights
Hello THCTalk Community!
We, LEDTonic, are this forum's most recent partner and advertiser. With this post we're hoping to tell you guys a little bit about our company and our products, and also what we're hoping to contribute to this wonderful community.
LEDTonic
My name is Daniel and with my partner Max founded LEDTonic in 2019. We are originally from Sweden but have lived in Spain, Norway, and US in recent years (i.e. more grower friendly countries than Sweden). We are growers ourselves and we enjoy growing any and all types of plants, especially those which we can consume, one way or another :-).
LEDTonic came about when we ourselves were looking for a decent grow light but all we could find were BLURPLE lamps with questionable specs, data, and manufacturers. PPFD charts couldn't be trusted, lamps had safety concerns, and manufacturers didn't reply to emails or gave very vague responses.
We thought growers deserved better and that we, in fact, could do better.
In the early days we focused on housing-type lamps (colored LEDs but light pink spectrum with a health amount of white and green instead of only blue and red) as we saw that beginners prefer this sort of LED lamp. We figured that a fresh brand like ourselves would be able to break into the low/mid-end grow light segment easier than in the high-end and premium segment. I mean, I would have a hard time trusting a completely new brand with a several hundred dollar purchase so I wouldn't expect anyone else to do that either.
Now, two years later, we've received plenty of delightful feedback from our customers and we also learned what different type of growers are looking for in terms of light. Through feedback, talking with customers, experimenting and growing ourselves, we have now released two new open panel-type LED grow lights that we've seen great results with. The lamps perform exceptionally well compared to their peers and are also very price competitive.
We've spent about a year developing, designing, testing, re-configuring, and safety certifying these lamps and I'm hoping you'll find it at least somewhat interesting to learn about their journey.
Q-series LED Lights: Q2 & Q7
I'd like to begin with the smaller of the two, the LEDTonic Q2.
It's a small and versatile 36W E27 socket type lamp. It's essentially a bulb-grow light but instead of the bulb we fitted a large PCB (an aluminium board with diodes) to an E27 housing and socket. It comes with a 6' (2m) power cord, ratchet, and a screw for sideways hanging.
Our intentions with this model was to create a cost effective lamp for small spaces. While almost all LED brands go bigger and bigger, we've seen a demand for smaller spaces as well, eg a closet grow or a clone/veg tent, or as a side light.
At a distance of 12" (30 cm) the Q2 delivers around 280 PPFD in the center spot and covers a 1.5x1.5' (45x45 cm) area with around 150 PPFD -- great for clones and early veg.
At a distance of 6" (15 cm) the Q2 delivers around 660 PPFD in the center spot and 300 PPFD in the outer edges of a 1x1' (30x30 cm) area.
We figured that instead of running a several hundred watt lamp at long distance from seedlings, using a Q2 the first few weeks will reduce both the electricity bill and the heat generated by the lamp.
The Q2 comes in three CCTs: 3000K, 3500K, and 4000K, to satisfy your spectrum experimenting curiosity.
It's fitted with Samsung LM561C diodes and runs at an efficacy of 2.13 µmol/J.
A 1-pack costs $55 and a 2-pack costs $90.
LEDTonic Q7
This is our flagship lamp. It's a 320W dual quantum-panel lamp utilizing a Mean Well HLG-320H-48B driver with a 1-10V dimmer and Samsung 301H diodes (3500K).
The Q7 has a couple of unique features compared to "the usual" quantum/panel-type lamps:
1. The 832 Samsung diodes are spread out across two boards instead of one.
2. Both boards are independently vertically and horizontally adjustable (i.e. you can hang them at different heights to fit your plants). They are, however, not independently power-adjustable. One dimmer controls both panels.
3. Both panels connect to the Mean Well driver with 5' (1.5m) cables. This allows the driver to be placed or hung away from the panels, potentially even outside of a grow tent to reduce the heat inside the tent.
4. The panels' diode density increases gradually away from the center to reduce PPFD hot spots and increase coverage.
5. Both panels have four hanging points to allow for hanging the panels at an angle, if the grower so chooses.
6. Waterproof click-connectors connect the panel to the driver for effortless assembly and disassembly.
Due to it's flexibility, the Q7 emits a great light footprint for 2x4', 3x3', and also 4x4' spaces. We've grown with it in up to 5x5' but here the PPFD are in the low 200s in the outer corners.
In addition, the Q7 operates at an efficacy of 2.55 µmol/J (tested, not just made up). Final PPFD maps are coming soon but the last version of the prototype averaged above 850 µmol/m2/s in both 2x4' and 3x3' and around 550 µmol/m2/s in a 4x4' tent.
The story behind developing this lamp is extensive but in short, it took us over a year to bring the final version to market. We traveled to China twice to meet with manufacturers and suppliers. All gave us fantastic promises but none of them delivered. After trying and ruling out three different manufacturers who all claimed they could make the entire lamp in house, but eventually failed to do so, we decided to source every item of the final product individually. We now have around 10 suppliers of around 20 parts that all go into this one lamp.
The journey was tiring to say the least and the several re-designs of the lamp also took its toll. In the beginning there were plenty of uncertainties of how we could get best possible light distribution, how the two panels should connect to one another or the driver, whether or not to use heatsinks, how to package the two panels safely, who could reliably supply Samsung diodes of the highest possible bin, and how to assemble the lamp to meet international safety standards. These were some of our challenges but after a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, it's finally ready. We're hoping you'll find it as exciting as we do.
Here's the V0.1 of the Q7 where it still has heatsinks and a cable connecting one panel to the other. The lamp is used in a 5x5' (150x150 cm) room flowering 8 plants.
Here's the current version of the Q7 where both panels independently connect to a shared Mean Well power supply. Both panels come with 5' (150 cm) cables so the power supply can be placed or hung away from plants or even outside a tent to help with heat management.
That's our story. We look forward to interact, help, and cheer you on during your own grow journeys in this cozy community. We strive to always present our products as accurately as possible and give transparent data (efficacy, PPFD, etc) so that you can accurately judge and compare our products to others. We will also continue to help growers with their grow or light-related questions, here or through our support email. If you ever in need, we're only a message away. And if there's every anything we could do better, we're always happy to hear your feedback.
Thank you for your time and happy farming!
LEDTonic LED Grow Lights
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