Ok, whos ready to start talking about the high yield methods of the 'future'???

Hoodless.

This is mainly what I am talking about. Hoods are more inefficient than internal combustion engines.

Vertical bulbs, rotating gardens, etc.

Discuss.

 

I will stat with this. I have a lot of ideas and drawings for unconventional gardens that should yeild higher than existing methods.

As far as experience, a few years ago myself and another friend with some know how collaborated with another guy who had the original concept. We contruscted it for him and it worked very well. It is essentially an enclosed 4x1000w grow space with vertical bulbs and no hoods. The guy was able to pull 3 pounds per light (dutch treat) a couple of times before it got shut down on unrelated shit. The unit was never recovered. I am currently looking for an investor to build a more refined version that I have blueprinted out.

Also theres the rotating garden. I've seen them in high times and dismissed them. However I rencently met some people who use one and had good medicine to show from it. More importantly, they claimed they got on average 4 pounds per 1000w light! I.can't say for sire, but they had a nice 1/2 oz nug they said was from it and were like 'imagine over 300 of these, and there's your 8 pounds off two lights.' It realistically makes sense in theory. And theory can become practice.

Now I'm sure a lot of people are gonna say bs. But the thing is practice males perfect. Any method can be made to work when dialed in, so why not a rotating garden??? Let me put it this way, the fiesta time you put plants under a 1000w light did you get two pounds??? Likely not, yet that doesn't mean its not possible once you hone it to a certain system.


I will save any talk about the basics of how much more efficient hoodless is inherently with the assumption that this is common knwoledge, but there's plenty to be said there.

 

Leds have come a long way for sure. I've seen some of the prototype plasma and stuff that's starting to come out, looks like it has potential once it gets dialed in a bit.

Obviously the genetic engineering and the ultra high tech isn't far off, just imagine a 50% thc plant grown in some sort of hypobaric high presssure chamber or something. Maybe a vacuum cycle that sucks the thc out. Who knows what's possible.


Like you say yeilds of the future, but I am hoping to also talk about ways to adapt todays tech to start getting larger yeilds like 1.5-2g+ per watt, which has been done. One of the quickest shortcuts is to stop using hoods. Another is just now starting to be more efficient lighting, both in hid and led. I will mention one drawback of led and plasma is that it is not 360 light emission like hid. When you start comparing what can be done without a hood, it starts evening back out with led, in a way that you can pull huge harvests as compared to before, but you have to use new methods of growing it, whereas 'flat' lighting you are more limited to the tradition ways of growing, for now. One upside of the hid hoodless is a much smaller footprint with certain growing techniques you can now employ. But led could easily be made to mimic any hid placement and areangement due to the tiny size, so as more r&d goes in ineviitably we will see gains over what is currently possible there too.

 

Haha, for sure the chillest part of the bay.


It was used with soil in buckets but could easily be adapted and might actually be even more well suited for some form of hydro.

 

Gladly.

First, let's start with the circle. Hid bulbs emit light in what we will call effectively 360 degrees. The element itself is technically emitting light in every direction. Now, if you were to draw a circle around your bulb, with the bulb in the center, large enough to touch your plants, how many degrees of that 360 is directly hitting your plants? not much. Nowhere near 180 if your canopy is flat or simply underneath it, for that the plants would have to be in a half pipe all equal lenghts from the bulb, which is up in the hood so its still not possible to hit 180 even if you do that. Realistically depending on the hood and stuff I would say it might be 90-120 degrees at best that's hitting your plants directly.

Next part of that and overall is that reflection is not nearly as good. I dont care how fancy the aluminum is, its a fact that as soon as something reflects, it loses strength. It also loses stength over distance. The light is traveling much further distance than the direct light, losing energy all the way, and then also being reflected and losing energy. 95% reflective is a fun number to sell product, but if it was actually 95% as BRIGHT as the bulb, you wouldn't be able to look at any part of the inside of the hood. Not the case. Also the reflected light is all.scattered into small focused beams from the textuxe, which dies reflect more, but its not consistant light the direct light blanket is. Ultimately relying on reflection to make the most of your lumens and watts is a losing battle.

When compared to capturing more of the light by having plants all the way around the bulb on a certain 360 degree axis. This can be a horizontal or vertical axis and still show huge gains over systems relying on reflecting 2/3 of the light with a hood. Ideally if you could have a full sphere of plants around a light source, so that no light escaped due soley to plants, then you will have achieved maximum efficiency in regards to 360 degree light sources output. In theory.

Also another drawdack is how hard hoods make it to cool bulbs. Hey, I have a flat piece of glass, let's turn it into an airtight duct! You basically couldn't start with a worse shape than a plane in regards to efficient air flow. Corners and angles are hugely inefficient for good flow. Not to mention I have yet to see a hood that has a truly air tight seal under pressure once you have a fan on.

Along from the airflow the entire design is fighting you the whole way. You have a lot of air around the bulb that is being allowed to heat up and now you have more air to move to keep cool. You have more glass warming up, but its not as bad as the metal part of the hood! Glass is an insulator, it is actively bouncing heat back, metal conducts, and wicked that heat into your room. The powdercoating helps. It's still a bunch of hot metal putting heat out into your room. The bigger the hood the more hot metal and glass that also expel heat, and the more air to move. The small tube reflectors are amazing easy to keep cool with a smaller fan. but they have no reflection and still very few degree of direct light.

The melonhead hood is a cool design that got overshadowed by the release of the giant hoods shortly after. It has a tube and a hood. It makes the airflow efficient and also keeps the heat off the metal since there is now insulating heavywall borosilicate glass in between the bulb and the metal part of the hood. Doesn't leak cause now the only place to leak is where you put your ducting on, so that's on the user. Great idea and a great design. Unfortunately advanced nutrients doesn't have the investment in the equipment game to keep up with lots of new models. I would personally love to see the magnum and raptor size hoods utilize the 8 inch glass tube and ditch the flat cumbersome glass panels.

But the melonhead still relies heavily on reflection. No 360 degree usage, still a lot of diffused and watered down stuff compared to direct light.

That's the basics, hope that helps, lol!

 

Ok, let's talk efficiency. Anyone seen these new Gavita/Phillips hid systems???

http:// http://www.gavita-holland.com/index.php/products/proline/item/gavita-pro-1000-de.html

Seems pretty cool, definity better hid technology without a doubt. The three main advantages to this new duel end electronic hid system are that the bulb is silent, it is more efficient for the wattage used, and the bulb lasts longer. All big pluses over current hid.

The big thing for me is the added efficiency and added life. If you look at the bulb, it looms like a hologen in a desk lamp. These have been working great for a long time, I'm sort of surprised its taken this long to adapt it to grow lights. Now, if it puts out 10% more par light than normal systems, that's big. What's bigger is if it really only loses 5% over a year. this means after s year it should still be putting out about the same par light than a normal hid system does brand new!!!! That's pretty major.

Now the problem is the design of course. Ugh, the dutch. Look at this atrocity. It's bulky, lumpy, mishaped, asymmetrical, just plain ugly. You can't air cool it, and supposedly these ballasts run very cool, but the bulb is still wide open. They offer you to keep the ballast attached to the hood??? What is this, 1992??? The technology seems sound, but the packaging needs some serious refining.

 

Sounds awesome!!! I've had a similar idea for led, sounds like you have really thought it out! So to clarify you have a permanent grid, and there are leds all along it right? The grid is leds? So that all the bud sites are getting light and not just from the top correct? is the center light above or below the canopy? If you don't mind, lol!

Sounds damn nice, this is exactly what I am talking about. Great stuff!


And why wait??? Weed is legal in a lot of states, enough so for plenty of companies to make and sell hi tech equipment and systems. Just come to California! Lol!