Unfortunately i have been hearing from growmau5 on the dude grows show and others saying they think the blue red with the cobs or qb they like or need. I dont like em either. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
I mix mine as it is. But pure red and blue or blurple is pretty old. Maybe if the power increases on the individual diodes to give better penetration. The MARS COB im testing is a 3.5k cob in the center with 8 blue and 8 red diodes to add in the spectrum better, but with my QB I Always ran some sort of blurple except one time. Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
I don't think it's true as was suggested earlier that just because a light is in the same K range as another it has the exact same spectrum curve. This isn't true. The spectrum curves of the different lights like HPS, white leds, burple panels, CMH, and others is quite different. Then you have people like Amare and Spectrum King that add reds, blues, and other wavelengths to the white light to change the curve even more. The main downfall of the HPS lights is there is too much power in the yellow and green areas and not enough blue to compensate. I don't think that a 3200k HPS light is going to be the same spectrum curve as a 3200k led light. One of the advantages of leds is they are not stacked in the yellow area and the spectrum curve is able to be tuned so that it matches the par curve or whatever curve they want. The HPS light by design has a very much reduced capacity to tune the spectrum. The other spectrum that HPS has a lot of is infrared. The combination of too much yellow/green power and the infrared bombard the foliage with too much of spectrums they can't necessarily use and results in higher surface leaf temperatures then other lighting methods. This increases nutrient consumption compared to other lights and needs cooler temps to keep the same levels of plant health. LED gardens can be ran about 4 degrees warmer and probably should if your plants don't mind for the more rapid growth and higher feed rate higher temps can provide. Most of the reason that you can cover more area with the leds is the more efficient spectrum. The light fixture itself if you use the lumen scale is not that much more efficient then the HPS. It's only when you use the par scale that you see the efficiency. The differences in those scales is what spectrums they measure and how much each range accounts for in the total number.
360 degree light is the most efficient use of any space but the complications of growing like that stop most people from trying. You can yield plenty growing the plants in a single layer. I don't think anyone that has researched it would argue though that for a given footprint the various forms of vertical grow rooms are capable of much higher yields.
there needs to be a tent that is available in dif sizes that uses the walls instead of the floor to increase the surface area that is utilized. The only one I know of is the Buddha Box (I think that is correct)
There's quite a few actually. There's pretty expensive and may come as a kit with everything including lights. There's a great article here I've seen before with lots of systems but it's being blocked by my browser. Vertical Hydroponic Systems
Sorry to thread hijack. I'll stop but this is funny. Great hippy marketing. The volksgarden... hehe Store | Omega Garden
nice link. If you miscalc stretch in a vert grow, you are in trouble b/c there is no where to go with the light
The spectrum k rating is a very loose way to compare lights. It’s based on the color balance to the human eye. My 3100 k CMH and 3100k standard MH have different peaks at different wavelengths of light. The CMH has peaks at 950-1150 nm. Most other lights don’t. Traditional MH has a very strong UV /A/B factor. HPS has neither and a boatload of wasted light. HPS does have more Infrared overall than MH though. HPS seems to kick flowering hormones in fast and create dense buds. Albeit with less flavor , health and color , terps, potency. Than a full spectrum. HPS is between 1900-2200K Metal Halide usually runs between 3000K-20,000K (Bulbs above 10,000K are used mostly in Aquatic coral reef’s or exotic tropical greenhouses) LED’s can be tailored to your custom use. TBone knows all about them.
People downplay the efficiency of hps. It's actually very impressive. A 600 watt hps is about 160 lumens per watt. If you stick to the lumen scale the quantums are only beating them by a small amount really. The qb304 at max rated power is 177 lumens per watt. Up to 200 dimmed. Not that far ahead of hps in lumens.
The heat is the biggest drawback of the HPS. And the plants are not as healthy. They produce dense buds though. Kind of reminds me of a juiced up bodybuilder. Looks good doesn’t mean they are really healthy or in good shape. Then they get their ass kicked by a skinny Nick Diaz ! Lol.
One thing I’ve learned is that sativas tend to do better with a full spectrum light for majority of their life. Doesn’t matter as much with a shorter cycle indica. IMO. The HPS induces a lot more stretch in plants than a full spectrum light. This can be good or bad depending on your setup. Ceiling height,strain , etc.
It's much easier to manage stretch in an led garden. All my HPS growing buddies flower much earlier then I would be cause the plants get so large in flower. LED plants are bushier and shorter.
I only run HPS for about 3 weeks of my grow. Rest of the time. I use various spectrum Metal halides. I use grow MH for first 3 weeks of flower. Keeps my sativas shorter.
I'm sure you probably know that you need a heatsink with those. What driver are you planning on using? You get complete kits? At that price it was just boards. You want two separate fixtures or a single one with two boards? If you just want a single fixture running both boards in series you may want to use the meanwell hlg 240h c2100a. That will be able to max out those boards. There is reports of those drivers running pretty warm. Mine do. I have two HLG 240h-c1050a's. I'd have to dig to find a different driver but the cool thing about the 2100a is the built in dimmer. A qb260 heat sink is what you need. I like the slate 2. All the heatsinks are sold out.
Already bought the heat sinks, I bought separate ones for each board. I want to have the ability to move them around independently. I haven't bought drivers yet, I figure I will want the dimmable version. I'm just slowly accumulating everything I need, since my current setup is still doing just fine and the bulb is practically bran new. I think i'll just end up using 4 of those boards in my 5x5 I know it isn't the most ideal but I hardly ever use the full 5x5 space anyway so I think i'll be just fine coverage wise with overlap an such helping out. I suppose if I ran enough wire I could still have them connected in a series and save some $$$ on drivers but be able to move them around independently.
If I compare the HLG series meanwells to the other drivers I've used they run pretty hot but the built in dimmer is pretty worth it. That is there top end led driver series but I've used MDR/NDR drivers which are made for IT components and they work great. They run very cool. They're not made in range you need for series I'm pretty sure so you'd need a driver for each board and they don't have built in dimmers that function very well because they aren't current pots. If temp of driver is more important then dimming then the MDR's if you can find an applicable one may be better. There's other series. I hear the OLN series drivers also run cool. I'll peak around for you. With the HLG 240H series around $60 sometimes you can run single drivers cheaper. 4 boards in a 5x5 is pretty low level since that is what they recommend for a 4x4. Since a 5x5 is roughly 50% more space the ideal setup for 5x5 would be around 6 boards.
This is a larger driver then they use on the qb135 kits if the pictures are correct but it's within the range for one qb288 board. It's 150 watts 2800mA max current. The max rating on the qb288 is 3000mA. These drivers are known to overamp slightly so it would probably easily push it to max limits. It has built in voltage and current adjustments. $43.40 https://www.arrow.com/en/products/hlg-150h-54a/mean-well-enterprises