Here is just 1 of many sites that sell led lights for growing.
http://www.advancedledlights.com/categories/3W-LED-Grow-Lights/

As for powering them, they should be economical per lumen output.  Economical enough to run off of a battery that is charged by solar.  And days that are dark, using wall power or a small gen to keep the battery up should not be too bad.

Leds can be had very cheap, even on ebay 100 or more for 20 bucks with resistors. ;]  Just need to know the spectrum needed and mix n match to get good balance.

And lets say someone here breaks down and reveals an ou device, the indoor food garden could perpetuate.  ;]

Or just run the leds on a big joule thief.  ;] ;]

Any way i look at it, the outcome has to be good.

And what is "cool" about leds, the amount of heat they dissipate is less than fluorescent bulbs per light output. So temperatures can be maintained easily for year round perfect environment.

Mags

  Yes, possibly when the time is right that electrical generator we have all been waiting for will be invented,  that will take care of all our personal household power needs.  That is what I'm banking on...
  But, in the meantime a solar back-up system that can be incorporated into everyday use, would not hurt. Every dollar spent on solar can go a long ways... until something better comes along.

Hello Everyone,

I feel it is necessary once again to make a distinction between an over unity device and a free energy device.

An OU device is one which outputs more energy than it takes to run it, therefore yielding a surplus of energy. This is commonly referred to as >100%. It is important to distinguish that only the energy that is over 100% is available to be utilised. For example, a device that runs at 110% is an OU device and 10% of the energy output is available for use after the system running cost is paid.

A free energy device produces an energy output that is available to be utilised by the user at zero fuel cost to the user. For example, a device that runs at 20% efficiency will provide 20% of the energy available from the fuel to be used by the end user. If the fuel cost is zero for the user then this is a 20% surplus of energy available to be utilised by the end user. An increase in efficiency of the device is directly correlated with an increase in available energy to the end user, a 50% efficient device will provide 50% of the energy available in the fuel to the end user to be utilised as work done.

This is a very important distinction to be made and I do wish that people would be more accurate in defining what they mean as an OU device and a free energy device are not the same thing. OU devices are just around the corner, free energy devices have been around forever.

The major difference to understand is that a free energy device provides useable energy to the end user at no cost to the end user. A cost has however been paid by the universal system that provides that energy source. The only cost to you is in collecting and processing the fuel for use by the device / system.

Examples of free energy sources include solar, wind, tidal, and bio matter.

I have already covered Growbox technology extensively and discussed the differences between CFL, HPS and LED systems:

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/read/184455

This system runs off electricity and so a fuel source and a device to convert that fuel to electricity is necessary. This is already available and is obsolete technology that is experiencing a rebirth:

http://www.overunity.com/index.php?topic=10708.0

What we are interested in with this thread is gasification technology. This allows you to take dried biomass (wood chips) and convert it to combustible gases. This gas will then run a standard off the shelf ICE generator without modification.

Some beer mat calculations tell us that a 2” fire tube model will provide 5 HP which will be sufficient to run a 5HP ICE powered wood chipper machine giving you the capability to process your own fuel source, you only need to go and collect it.

A second EGU 2” fire tube model will allow you to run a standard off the shelf ICE 2.4Kw / 5HP generator to provide electricity for your growbox(s).

This will allow you to run 3 off 600W HPS bulbs which will comfortably grow 6 hemp plants in self watering containers per growbox. If you wanted to stress your generator at maximum (not recommended) you could run 4 off growboxes.

This system is scalable and simply requires more $ for the hardware setup to provide the quantity of food you wish to grow.

Once you add heat recovery and management systems you will have the ability to heat your home in winter while growing food, as well as storing energy in a battery bank for 12 hours every 24 hour cycle.

If you are considering LED's (not my choice currently) then I suggest you study the links and learn about mother boards and daughter boards. The number of LED's you will need is currently cost prohibitive and the technology is rapidly maturing offering larger outputs for less $ every year, currently HPS is your best bet and very cheap. A single HPS bulb will last for a year before needing replacement offering excellent bang for the $.

This system is fully understood and simple, can be built relatively cheaply and will offer you the ability to be fully self sufficient in your community off the grid with zero fuel cost to you, right now, today.

This information has been fully available for months now and yet it seems people have not grasped the implications which makes me wonder if anyone actually bothers to read the information I, and others, have laboured to provide for you, free of obligation.

Hope this is helpful to you all,

RM

RM

Just how many wood chips does it take to grow your, emm, tomatoes, from start to finish?

Mags

Hi Mags,

Excellent question!

I do not currently know the rate of fuel consumption of wood chips from personal experience. I have been attempting to build an EGU Mk2 variant but do not have the funding to complete the project anytime soon. Until my EGU is completed I cannot answer that question, however, there are people around the world with working gasifier systems and if the rate of consumption was too high then the device would not be viable. It clearly is.

Remember that gasifiers are currently used to power automobile engines which have a very large fuel demand. For example a typical truck will have an ICE that has an engine in excess of 100 HP and therefore a large fuel demand. A small ICE generator has a 5HP engine and therefore a far smaller fuel demand.

If the gasifiers are capable of running trucks without the driver having to stop and refill the fuel hopper every ten minutes then it is perfectly reasonable to assume that a similar quantity of fuel will run a smaller demand for far longer.

So in the example of the 100 HP truck ICE, then the same quantity of fuel should run 20 off 5 HP generator ICE's at the same rate of consumption. I know this is not the precise answer you were looking for but is the best I can provide at current time without experimental data. There is clearly an advantage to be gained though in utilising this technology on a smaller scale.

Once you add the potential of plasma, for example by creating a nitrogen plasma on the engine air intake (the safest way), the efficiency of the gasifier will increase and therefore the fuel demand will decrease for the same loading.

The amount of fuel needed is also dependant on the type of crop grown. The reason for this is that the crop will have a growing cycle from seed to harvest. From now on I will only be talking about the Hemp plant as tomatoes are a waste of time, and very difficult to grow. If you were going to rely on tomatoes to feed your family in a survival situation then the odds are your not going to make it.

The Hemp plant is very easy to cross breed, and there are many strains that have been pioneered by the cannabis growers in Holland, where it is legal to do so. The aim of the game will be to create a strain with the highest biomass yield (weight) with the shortest growing time.

There is currently a huge range of plants to choose from with growing cycles from 16+ weeks to as little as 10 weeks from seed to maturity. There are also variations in the demand for hours of light, with some plants needing only 12 hours or less and others needing up to 24 hours constant. This can no doubt be improved in the future with clever breeding and high yielding crops can be brought to harvest in 8 weeks, and requiring 12 hours or less of light, allowing you 6 crops per year, per growbox.

All of these variables can be improved so that it may be possible to create a plant that is high yielding, reaches maturity in 8 weeks, and requires only 8 hours of light or less. The advantages in reducing hours of light required are that more growboxes can be run from the same generator. For example a plant requiring only 8 hours of light and 16 hours of dark will mean that 3 off growboxes can be run in every 24 hour cycle from the same generator. If you had a 600W HPS in the growbox, and 8 plants per growbox, then you could potentially grow 24 plants per 600W of energy in a 24 hour cycle. A 1.8 Kw generator will therefore allow you to grow 72 plants from seed to maturity. Not bad for a little 5HP genny...

Hemp will also be an extremely beneficial plant to grow as the seeds contain all 8 essential amino acids, in the perfect proportions, to sustain your body. The leaves and remaining biomass can be turned into many different types of food. The main stalk can be steamed and then stripped of its natural fibres providing you with the finest natural fibre available for making everything from rope to clothes. These fibres can also be impregnated within a resin providing a material similar to GRP fibreglass. The remaining stalk can then be dried and used as fuel to supplement your wood chips, alternatively you could use it to make hempcrete which is a rival to concrete, and can no doubt have it's properties improved in the future to provide a renewable building material.

All of this is in addition to the THC content which is a natural medicine and in my opinion essential for the body's ability to stay healthy and ward off diseases, maybe even cancer! It is no accident that the human body has many thousands of cannabinoid receptors which can only have been integrated into the human genome through mass consumption of cannabinoids through long periods of history.

When you consider that up until 100 years or so ago it was illegal NOT to grow this plant, and then see what benefits this plant has for you as a human, you start to understand why this plant was banned and the media constantly demonise it in the minds of the masses.

When you read the work that the growbox technology is a part of you will notice that they are based on HHO as the prime mover energy source, this was because I was attempting to design an OU device to provide the power source. The reason for this is that I understand that not everyone has access to masses of biomass for processing as fuel, like people in cities or people in deserts such as the millions starving to death in Somalia right now. I was attempting to create designs that may lead to >100% and therefore allow the oceans to be used as a fuel source for land irrigation as well as drinking water, effectively creating new coastal societies with the ocean providing all survival needs. The people interested in developing HHO will already be doing so in an attempt to prove my work or not, so no need to pursue this if it is not your calling.

However since Mr Goose came on the scene and freely gave of his vast knowledge I have been able to develop a feasible alternative using gasification as the prime mover of the system, so all of the work that subsequently depended on a reliable prime mover energy source is now viable. I have noticed that Mr Goose has been attacked on this forum and effectively been driven away, which I personally feel is a great loss, it is my opinion that we all owe him a debt of gratitude for his efforts.

I also understand that there are some drawbacks to this technology, primarily in the noise created by the ICE generators and in the periodic maintenance that they will require. I have been working to overcome these problems but have not as yet completed this project. However, below is a partial copy of an email I sent to an individual privately. I have cut and paste it as I am not writing it out again...

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So lets talk about something interesting and happy... here's a secret of mine...  

I often write about technology in what I refer to as a jigsaw, outlining the "ranges" of potential. Sometimes I pull the pieces together for people, but most of the time I do not, I want them to discover it for themselves 

So let's you and me put some pieces together...

If we take gasification technology, which is known to produce combustible gases from the pyrocatalytic cracking process:

http://www.seabirdadventure.com/tesla-turbine/archives/understanding-pyrocatalytic-cracking-

and then we use my EGU design which is off the shelf and smaller (still to be proven... hmmm... with practically no budget I have almost finished an EGU prototype and everyone else with resources and workshops... there is no word for 6 weeks now  )

http://www.overunity.com/index.php?topic=10708.120

we have a renewable and uncontrollable fuel source in the form of wood chips... EGU designs start on page 9 

instead of detonating the gases in an engine like with an ICE generator (which is very noisy and therefore not an option for 99% of the population for getting off the grid)... we burn the gases in a "clean burn":

http://www.seabirdadventure.com/tesla-turbine/archives/closed-loop-steam

we then use the Kelly Kettle design principle of a double walled concentric reducing chimney as the heat transfer to create steam in boiler 1, and out of the top comes the hot gas (which is used for cooking in a pan, or boiling water) and create steam in boiler 2.

then we have 2 steam boilers that can either run a hot water system (heating or water purification, distillation) or we use the steam pressure in a closed loop to run a turbine (either Tesla's boundary layer turbine, or my RotoMax designs whose performance is currently unknown, to me)

we can then use one boiler to grow food (which only requires a 50% duty cycle, 12 hours at night OFF and 12 hours in day ON, and the time the growlights are off the energy is used for heating at night, or stored in storage heaters for release on cold days)... Growbox 

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=186038

The other boiler runs the turbine which provides the rotary moment for an alternator and runs 24/7 charging a battery bank(s) and provides electrical power, and when the battery bank is full the dump load goes back into the boiler via an electrical heater element (like Rose uses haha  )

The end result of putting these pieces together in this way is that you have a system powered by a fuel that is renewable, non polluting and freely available, the system is near silent and so can be installed in a house and replace the grid with an option that only YOU control, it runs 24/7 and the only maintenance will be on the fuel generator EGU (keeping the chip hopper filled and the ash sump empty). All survival needs will be met by yourself and the technology controlled by yourself. When you look closely at my work you will see that all of these options are hidden there in plain sight, it just depends on you reading between the lines and then implementing them with your own take on it... Cool eh!   Not bad for a guy who delivers pizzas for a living these days

The only issue I have yet to solve is filtration of the gases to remove small particulates as the wood chip filter on the original gasifier design is not good enough, but will work. I am thinking of using a centrifugal spinner to separate the gases from the particle matter but have not started work on that yet. It will work something like a dyson vacuum and I will maybe take advantage of potential temperature difference to power it, not sure yet gotta think about it.

So what do ya think ? You want a silent generator that runs without maintenance or special skills needed and provides everything you need without a centralised system spoon feeding you ? I know I do, which is why I have designed it 

Any thoughts appreciated...

Rob 

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So, I believe it will be possible to remove the potential drawbacks of regular maintenance, noise, and periodic filter changing by using the output from the gasifiers in a different way. This will be a steam generator based system as opposed to an ICE generator system.

I appreciate there is a lot of information for you all to get your minds around here but if you have questions and need help then ask, I will help you.

Hope this is helpful to you all...

RM