Development kit for horticultural lighting applications

Würth Elektronik has launched a new Lighting Development Kit with horticulture LEDs to accelerate the development of systems for targeted plant lighting. Companies producing solutions for vertical farming in cities or optimised 'supplemental lighting' in greenhouses can employ the kit to examine the effect of different 'lighting recipes' on plants and in their different growth phases. The circuit, therefore, accelerates the development of lighting control systems.

The purpose of horticulture LED solutions is to optimise multiple properties including light spectrum, lighting intensity growth intervals for different plants and other quality parameters to improve the yield or to enhance the content of valuable secondary substances such as flavonols.

The kit provides a simple solution to mix RGBW colours for various lighting strategies and to control plant growth with the supplied Horticulture Panel which includes LEDs with wavelength 450nm, 660nm, 730nm and RGBW LEDs. The Magl³C multi-colour LED driver provides the panel with power. With four Magl³C LED Step Down High Current Modules at its centrepiece, it is possible to control the individual intensity of the four LED strings. This makes it feasible to generate light with different wavelength ratios and to examine their effect on different plants in their growth phases.

The control is done with the free iOS app 'WEilluminate' via Bluetooth LE. A version for Android will be available soon.