Hydroponics in a Vending Machine aka (The Purple Plantiator) L.E.D.s

The lighting rig in all its glory.

 

We designed a lighting rig for the plants to give each plant 6 strips of LEDs. The design was built using our laser cutter and bolted together. Each stip was stuck on to the laser cut acrylic and then hand soldered together.

Laser Cut Design
Lighting Rig

When researching lights for Hydroponic solutions we found that we could get LED lights that targeted the absorption spectrum of Chlorophyll in plants. These lights put of the brilliant purple glow you see in many hydroponic setups. These lights targeted the following wavelengths: Red 625-660nm; Blue:450-465nm. If you look at the total absorption spectrum of Chlorophyll you will see that our lights are missing some parts of it. To augment we plan on putting some 6500 Kelvin colour temperature lights into the vending machine so we are covering the entire plant spectrum.

LED strips for growing plants
Chlorophyll light absorption