u/Jackfruit-Maleficent

Pic 1 bottom (both bifurcated):

• arachnoidea v nigricans 'venteri', DMC13645 (HaworthiaLand October 2023)
• "seedling" with a species look (Etsy seller March 2021)

Pic 1 top:

• herbacea (local garden center September 2020)
• 'Circus' variegate x unknown (homegrown from Renny seed sown autumn 2021)

Pic 2:

• an abundance of herbacea 'Bosfontein' (started as a single head from EBay seller vplcud3/Elvio Design September 2020)

Highlights:

• Pic 1, center - emelyae 30km S Oudtshoorn ex Hammer, looks like what's now called picta GM259, from 2020
• Pic 2, center - comptoniana, no other tag info, from an Etsy seller in 2021, looks like a common TC offering
• Pic 2, lower right - George Theodoris PP230 bonus plant from 2021, Scarlet Begonias x a Japanese wimii hybrid
• Pic 3, center - homegrown from Sandy's Haworthia Garden seed, sown 2021

Assists from fractalish David Hockney. (RIP the real David Hockney, 1937-2026)

Pic1 Haworthias, clockwise from top left:

• ('Circus' variegate x unknown), from Renny seed sown in 2021
• herbacea, no-tag from local garden center in 2020
• decipiens v minor 'delicata n.n.', IB06573, from HaworthiaLand in 2024
• Kurohime x Asura/Ashura, seedling from Lynsey Succulent in 2021
• truncata, from EBay in 2020

I'm really happy I can grow these pretty much the same way I grow Haworthias:

Pic2 Gasterias

Pic3 Madagascar Euphorbias

miscellaneous from early May

Each light is 100W at full power. The distance from LEDs to middle shelf is 20 inches/50 cm. At the 40% power setting, using a US$20 dedicated light meter, I measured a consistent 10,000-11,000 lux over most the middle shelf at ~19 inches from the LEDs (assuming ~1 inch as light meter height).

The consistency and spread are helped by:

• The lights' long axis is perpendicular to the rack. (Per specs, light drops off faster past the end of the long axis than past the end of the short axis.)
• I separated the lights from each other by the "right" (trial and error) amount. (This avoids an overly bright spot underneath the middle, which a single double-wide 200W light would have given.)
• A good amount of light bounces off the walls. (Similar to, but not as pronounced as, having a grow-tent.)
• The lights aren't exactly centered over the middle shelf. They're shifted a bit right, so on the right the wall reflection adds and on the left there's a lower light strip where I have the Aloes.

Adjustment potential:

• The middle shelf height is adjustable without disassembling the whole setup. (The rack is Brightroom brand from Target.)
• Each light can slide left or right because of the Viparspectra's carabiners and the rack's wire shelves. (Each light comes with two rope hangers. Each hanger has two carabiners. I needed to minimize the hang distance so I removed carabiners to use by themselves.)
• The lights themselves have several power settings. I really like that they have several mid-range setting choices - 40%, 50%, 60%.

For a 4th tray I'll choose some Haworthias as each other rack's turn for watering comes up.

So I was on an archaeology dig in my upstairs office and I unearthed a backup drive from my old computer. I was very sad to learn that the wonderful works of the maestro of mashup Dr Heinz Funkenpumpe have been erased from the web by copyright daemons.

But some of my obscure faves from the 2010s are still out there.

Cuz when I'm generating I'm listening, and cuz "the Novi Sad music scene" is fractalish in my book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37nsYDukPVI (eat your heart out Donna Summer and Jamiroquai!)

I bought two of these for US $80 each during the Memorial Day sale on Amazon. My goal is to create one or two higher light areas for the most light-demanding of my plants - some Haworthias, a few caudex plants, and whatever else this allows me to get into. Right now my 4000K, CRI 80, Home Depot LED shop lights top out at around 10000 lux (single strip) or 14000 lux (double strip) at Haworthia plant surface. And of course there's an involved technical discussion that could be had about PPFD etc, maybe I'll learn the details later maybe not. Right now I just want to transition some plants to more and better quality light.

Pics:

1. Came in a nondescript cardboard box with identical bar code labels on two sides and "Made in China" printed on the other two sides.
2. Was securely packaged with firm foam on all sides. Good quality Samsung LEDs, as advertised.
3. Has a Mean Well driver and substantial metal heat sink, as advertised.
4. Has a pleasing (to me) light color. Advertised as 4000K, but this 4000K is an averaged color temperature from a blend of different color LEDs.

The panel itself is 11.8 x 11 inches (30 x 28 cm). It has several dimmer settings that go as low as 20%.

I used my $20 dedicated light meter to measure lux.

At full power, ~12 inches (30cm) from the panel:

• directly under the panel center, ~45000 lux
• offset 12 inches from panel edge along the long axis, ~15,000 lux
• offset 12 inches from panel edge along the short axis, ~25,000 lux

At ~30 inches (75cm) under the center, <correction> ~10,000 lux.

So this will be plenty of light for my purposes. My metal rack shelves are 18 x 36 inches (45 x 90 cm). I'm happy that one light per shelf is enough for my purposes. I plan to try out one light at <edit:> a TBD distance above one tray of my most light tolerant / light demanding plants to test out the transition, after I've taken more careful measurements </edit>.

Other notes:

• The panel didn't get noticeably warm during the ~5 minutes I had it on at full power.
• The one annoying thing was that carabiner clips had some metal splinters and sharp edges.

playing with "iridescent steel" effects

bottom is francoisii, top is a bonus plant (francoisii x cap-saintemariensis)

Their long carroty caudices caught me by surprise. I'll separate soon them when I get some deeper pots.