So two rare questions; 1)how much light minimum is needed to keep a plant in veg and happy? Answered already 300-600ppfd, multiply this by 67 to get lux, and you’ll be close enuff. Outdoor plants generally start flowering when reproductively mature (has shown preflowers) and daylength drops below 14 (yes, 14) hours. 2)how much light is safe for a flowering plant Answered already ~ 1000ppfd as an average. Commercial greenhouse growers use a version if this called Daily Light Integral (DLI). Here is an article showing monthly dli averages for the us; i pay particular attention to the dli info for northern california-southern oregon region, the primo us outdoor growing region. https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/HO/HO-238-W.pdf
AFAIK yes. The lower(softer) you run these boards the more efficient they become, producing more lumens per watt
He’s bs’ing you, he cranked his first 96 to the max to get this reading... @Hunter2348 is a good bud of mine, and a bigtime joker...
Read my response to your second post (which i just saw this morning), if that doesn’t answer your questions, ask again in another way...
Regarding Q2, has to do with daylength, not amount of light, as stated numerous times recco'd flowering intensity is 600-1000ppfd, multiply by 67 to get lux, close enuff for growing weed.
In a 4x4 (as shown in the mapping) you should be able to get near-perfect 1000 ppfd coverage by running 6x96e 18” above plant tops at 120w each (720w). The first step in reducing temps is to locate drivers outside of tent; if lights/sinks still are too hot, place a fan above and blowing across the sinks to speed up heat dissipation so your exhaust fan can remove the heat quicker. Adding more 96s will allow you to reduce the wattage of each light, i haven’t run nine so don’t know if/how much total wattage reduction would be. But, imo, if you can’t run 6 at a reasonable trmp in a 4x4, you have a hvac problem, not too few lights....i’d focus on fixing that.
Both my drivers are outside my tent and I have no exhaust fans in my tent since I’m running co2 for veg and flower because I’m doing autos. My tent is in a small office room that I run my AC to as a lung room. I know I have plenty of light for my plants but I’ll probably end up getting more lights for another tent or a bigger space later anyway. Was hoping I could just buy them now and use the extras to run cooler and more efficiently
You might consider getting an environmental controller to run your co2...that way you can get adequate ventilation and use co2. You have a hvac problem, if you fix it you will be able to improve your growing way more than adding lights will do. I use this one, but others are available: Titan Controls® Saturn® 6 - Digital Environmental Controller with CO2 PPM Control | Titan Controls
WOW,I must be out of it. My Q2 is about an out door flowering plant at night in the dark near my other outdoor vegging plant using Qb132’s dimmed. There is a measured threshold of light in which this flowering plant at night will become effected negatively from the nearby 132’s. Q2 is asking At night using this new LUX meter next to my flowering plant what LUX# reading is the max reading the flowering plant will safely tolerate and stay in flower? Clear night full moon can disrupt a flowering plant,I just got the meter so have not had the chance to learn that reading. To be safe I have rolled my flowering plant 20’ away until I learn what this elusive LUX reading is. I understand all the light intensity needs of plants in all stages,your link was clear as were all your posts. And again thank you for all of it. Q1 will need to wait,it was also not understood. I really don’t think anyone will know the answer,as I said this is not a common growing scenario.
My last try, you should probably ask these questions on another part of the site, where outdoor growers discuss... Assume as was stated by another poster, that during flowering, the be safe, no light is tolerable during “lightsoff”. Cover the plant during lightsoff period. Lots of options.
Well that right there answers the question. Plant sensitivity is well below the the threshold of a cheap LUX meter. I was trying find out what the LUX reading was for safe veg and flower within a proximity. Back to the scheduled program.
I think you have plenty of light for a 3x3.5. If you don't have anything else to do with it and it would fit in the middle I might go ahead and run it. Otherwise it would make a great small veg light somewhere ran at low power. You could run all three on that HLG 150h-54a in parallel and it would split the current between all of them. Not sure if that would be good for temps with no heatsink but you could dim from there if it's not. It doesn't hurt to run more boards usually if temps aren't an issue and they fit in the setup. Just costs more.
I believe the info you seek is in this thread or Soil2Coco's ppfd thread on the qb96. I'm not sure where but there is a conversion factor to go from lux to ppfd and it's different for each diode. Possibly each board. The conversion factor number has been posted here along with recommended ppfd levels for veg to bloom. I think it was somewhere around 3-400ppfd for early veg, 400-700 for mid to late veg, 700-800 near flip, 1000-1100 as target for bloom.
Yeah I agree that I dont need more but like you said I have nothing else to use it for, and I have the driver so I'm thinking if nothing I get slightly better even spread and maybe a reduction in watts used. Here's another question for you guys. I'm looking at this PPFD reading from ledgardener for the 288. (This was done with a HLG-120-54A @18") So if 1000 PPFD is the recommended amount for full bloom, a 288 run at 120W doesn't even max out a 1x1? What am I missing here?
Single board? If so, missing the benefit of cross lighting effect for multiple boards, big effing impact...
Check this out, focussing on the 2x2 area directly under a 96 (red box): Single 96e, 18”: Pair of 96e s, 18”: Triplet of 96e s, 18”: Quad of 96e s, 18”: More bds -> higher ppfd under any single bd