Hey guys, I've never messed with HPS, only flo, but I thought id get my feet wet and was wondering if the experts here thought a 400 watt HPS in this Workforce \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t30 In. Base Cabinet (Size : 30 W X 19.3 D X 35.8 H) would sufficient? I want to save money and wire everything to do with lighting myself rather then buy a premade unit. Use some flex tubing and rig up a raising and lowering lighting unit. I think all ill need is: 400 watt HPS bub ($7) 400 watt Digital Electronic Ballast ($150) and a HID socket to screw the bulb in Is that everything? If I omitted something please let me know. Two more questions: 1) is a $150 400 watt Digital Electronic Ballast ok? I see more expensive ones out there and since I've never messed with ballasts before I would like to know if you can run into problems owning a cheap one? (not that $150 is chump change in my opinion) 2) with flo bulbs i used two types, 6500K for veg and 2700K for flowering. is switching bulbs like this required and or strongly recommended with HPS grows as well? Or can I just go with like a 4000K 40watt HPS bulb for the whole grow? If so what number kelvin bulb would be recommended? Noob questions and I'm sorry but that but my searches yielded less concise results then I wished. thanks in advance,
If you want to do a true build it yourself ballast you can do it much cheaper. Ballast kit 400 watt $55.00 Bulb $10.00 Bulb Socket $6.00 Power cord for ballast (get at home depot) <$9.00 Power wire for Bulb socket (again, home depot) <15.00 misc hardware Free-$20
I'm not sure if your wanting to build the light yourself, or just run the electrical to your grow space yourself. As Don stated, there are a ton of options for you. As for your two questions, as far as the digital ballasts go, I have a bad experiance with them. I had to change the ballast at least 4 times. I gave them all away to friens, and yes, I did warn them.But folks like free stuff! Mind you, this was when they first started coming around, so I am sure they have greatly improved. You were correct in your fl lighting. Different spectrums for different stages of growth. HID lighting is the same. I just looked around for a bit and found this ballast. It is a 400w switchable ballast. Meaning, it can run Metal Halide(for vegitive growth) and High Pressure Sodium ( for flowering). It is a bit more pricey then the one you have found, but this would be a great choice, imho. http://www.emeraldelectronic.com/st...08062/CategoryID/20000/SubCatID/7816/file.htm Good Luck.
The 400 switchable is a great option. Cheap too. Here is a link to one a bit cheaper. It also comes with reflector, hps bulb, socket and cords for $160 http://www.discount-hydro.com/productdisp.php?navid=53&pid=480
Very cool very cool, thank you fine sir. I much appreciate it. Now I know what all I need and my credit card is about to get warm,.. not hot though thanks to you. I bought and already assembled the workforce cabinet just an hour ago, the one I linked above. One thing I notice though is it's made from that kind of plastic that is thick and strong but hold it up to a light and it gets bright. So needless to say that 400 watt HPS is going to make it glow like a Christmas cabinet, lol I'm going to need to paint the inside of it So is that 2100K bulb what you would recommend for both flowering and veg (like it says its good for not that I believe it) or get two 400W HPS bulbs one 2100K and one more in the 6000 range? Would this one be as good as the one you linked? it's a lil cheaper... Whats the down and dirty difference between HPS and MH bulbs? I see a 400 watt MH doesn't out as many lumen's as a 400 HPS, so what are it's strong points cuz that sure seems like one of the weak ones?
Well MH is a better spectrum for veg time, but you are right, it does produce less lumens, but will keep it short and space between the nodes tight. Hps will work for veg but plants tend to stretch a bit. Use HPS for flowering. If you have CFLs in the 6500k range, veg mom and clones under those (get another box like you have with the dough you are gonna save), and flower under the HPS. If you want to do one box, getting a switchable ballast from DH is your best bet. As for paint, get that Sta-Kool, 1 Black and 1 White Gallon of Elastomeric roofing coating. Paint the inside black, let it cure for an hour, paint it with black again, cure another hour, and paint it with 2 coats of the white. It will stop the light. Think of it as liquid panda plastic.
You really want that blue spectrum from a MH bulb in the veg state, plants bush out more from what I've seen and stay more compact. You can only get the bulbs as close as practical to the plants, HPS will make em stretch a bit more than MH. Now if you use HPS and suppliment with some 6500K cfls youd be best of both worlds there.
Ok,... makes sense too from what I've learned using CFL's. Hey maybe I could wire in some regular old incandescent sockets in the 4" duct I'm going to mouth the HPS bulb in, then slap say 2 100W 6500K CFL bulbs in there next to the HPS as well? I plan on having plexiglass around 1/3rd of the metal tube for light to shine through by the way. Think that would be enough blue spectrum or pale in comparison to the 400W 2100K HPS? Do they make blue spectrum HPS bulbs?? So ya I bought that 400W ballast kit you linked above, paid $70 for it through lightbulbemporium.com which I know is more then that site you liked but LBE ships your entire order for only $5.99. So with everything I ordered it ended up being only $93 shipped for the ballast kid, a 400W 2100K HPS bulb, and a socket for it. I got the ballast kit in the mail today and ummmmm if anyone knows how to wire this thing please help a guy out. All three parts are already wired together but there are 7 free wires that I'm not quite clear on. I know the socket will take 2 and the plug I get to plus this all into the wall will get 2 hot and 1 ground so 3 (at least I assume). 2 of the 7 free wires are white and say COM on them, 1 says 120V, 1 says 208V, 1 says 277V, 1 says 240V, and 1 is just red. Before I got the ballast kit I was planning on maybe housing it all in the 4" duct the bulb will be in but fook that idea it F-in weighs 14 pounds! Don't need that crashing down on anything green So ima need a box to mount it in. I was thinking maybe I could find something in the duct section at Home Depot but any suggestions for this specific model ballast would be appreciated. I'm kind of modeling my cabinet after THIS grossly overpriced POS. I do see it has HPS and MH capability, but wouldn't one of it's (many) short comings be that once you harvest you have to start all over from seeds or at best clones you clipped and kept elsewhere which would require a complete other grow area? I mean you wouldn't want to clip clones from plants your about to harvest would you? Which is the only time you'd have the 14 spots to plant them free less you had a second grow area. Am I right in my thinking here? Plus a lot of the equipment must be kept outside the cabinet. What if I sectioned off a part of this cabinet, say like 1/4 (left to right) and 3/4 of the inside height and made it a 6500K CFL cloning area so I could rotate crops non stop? Does that sound feasible? Then place all the electronics inside in that 1/4 X 1/4 area above the cloning area. Hope that math made sense to ya'll I'm thinking if I could just get 4 clones in the cloning area (single row), then have 8 or 12 plants in the flowering HPS area with older larger ones ready to be harvested in the back and just keep rotating them from the cloning area to the front row of the flowering area and so on... hmmm....
The 208, 240, and 277volt wire are not used. The 120v wire is the one to use. that is for the power so you can run it on a standard outlet. I could tallk more but I have been drinking. So I can help out more and get more descriptive when sober. have a good night.
i wondered if that was the case,.. ok cool now I'm down to 4 wires, two to the outlet and two to the HPS socket? No ground? Someone get this man a cup of coffee before I electrocute myself!
Ohhhh Don Piano. Got too drunk lastnight. Can you take a pic of the wires? 2 should be for the power to the ballast, There is no green because that is for grounding the ballast box. If you are wiring it to an old extnsion cord it has black white and green wires. The green one hooks up to the ballast box (obviously you are not using one, but you can mount the green wire to one of the mouting holes on one of the corners of the ballast) brb
OK. I believe the The Orange wire on that ballast is for the 120volt connection right? If so, it should be ORange to 120volts (black wire on your extension cord) White will go to white on the extension cord, and the green from the extension cord gets connected as stated in the last post. When you hook up the wires to the lamp socket, the cord you use will still have that green wire in it. Hook one end of the green wire to the socket mounting screw, and the other end to the same point as where you grounded the ballast power cord's green wire. Did you get a diagram with it?
Ok pic below, Thanks for all the help again. Which do you all think is better if you were building your own grow box. A unit like I linked to above with HPS and MH light you need to switch at different stages of plant growth (correct me if I'm wrong in that assumption) or a box with HPS and a separate CFL cloning section? How many CFL lumen's would you say are needed for my 4 clone section?
Ok. So I had this post all typed up and the site went down for a few mins. Here is a pic I worked on instead. Hope it works. Let me know if it needs any clairification. Personally I would do 2 areas. One for mom and clone veg, and other for flowering. You can side by side them or stack them. Or like I am going to do and use two seperate parts of my house for my 2 chambers. As for CFL, You could get some of the 26watt 6500k cfls. Look at pics of my mom chamber lights in my grow journal in my signature. My mom chamber is 35"wide, 16"deep, 40"tall. What size clone/mom room are you thinking of for your box?
Thanks! You rock,.. nothing like a visual ;-) What's the deal with that one com wire being split going to the bulb though? You just split it cuz it crossed over the green one but it's continuous and doesn't interact with the green one right? Also could someone please comment on the below question: Which do you all think is better if you were building your own grow box. A unit like I linked to above with HPS and MH light you need to switch at different stages of plant growth (correct me if I'm wrong in that assumption) or a box with HPS and a separate CFL cloning section? How many CFL lumen's would you say are needed for my 4 clone section?
I am curious as to what kind of wire you have to hook this all up? I don't want to see anyone burn their shit up.
.... well, I have the box completely 100% light tight but I wont continue any further until I get an answer to my other question. I can't begin to construct the inside till I know what type grow box is best.