Seperate flowering & veg HPS lamps?

[Mr Burns]

I'm using full spectrum 600w Grolux lamps right now and am thinking of changing for seperate veg and flower lamps. Money aside here, if you could buy any seperate 600W veg & flower lamps what would they be & more importantly why?

[cidium]

Hey burnsy,

Money aside... LED

Why... All the light output is band specific, meaning you are not lighting up any other colors so all your electric costs are PAR friendly. Also, LED is low heat.

Drawback... The cost to fit a medium size room is well beyond, "Money Aside" - LED's don't offer alot of penetration. In some repects they are the same as Flo's ( inverse square law ).

Realistically... I would use a MH grow bulb and with the onset of flowering supplement with RED LED lights.

Best thing to do is use a search like "LED Grow Light" and see what you think

Cid~

[Shadows]

Just to change the tone a little..

Its sometimes reccommended to have 66% of your flower wattage for veg. If you did 600w of each, veg would quickly out grow flower. @ 66% you'd need around 400w of veg light for a 600w flower room.

@ 400watts I'd either choose an enhanced spectrum MH bulb, or go with tube fluorescents with mixed bulbs to gain the same mixed spectrum. Actually I'd probably settle on the flo's just because they light a larger surface area. May not have the penetration but their effective foot print is much larger.

[Mr Burns]

The money aside was probably a bit strong. LEDs!!! That's serious buck and something I can only afford once I'm back to work 100% and no girl to spoil. :rolleyes: I can see your thinking Cid and agree 100%.

What Shadows is saying is something I've considered, the flo's. I was looking at these hoods so I could mix the spectrum a little.

http://www.hydroleaf.com/retrieveImage.do?image_id=896&parent_id=0&width=200

http://www.hydroleaf.com/hydroponics/envirolite/p-896.html

BUT, what about digital ballasts and dedicated blue and red lamps? What HPS lamp would you buy? This is more along the lines that I'm thinking......

[cidium]

Hey burnsy,

I want to say my friend of all the people that I have seen come onto the scene you are the most energetic and tenacious I have ever seen. The one thing I haven’t figured out is are you doing this for personal or cultivation? It really doesn’t mater but I am going to give you my 2 cents on cultivation. There are 2 things anyone needs for growing money and space. I assume you are working on the space and it seems you might have some money to spend. The money is for start-up, so as you progress you can make upgrades. But you are going to want to have your space configured for your final arrangement. I would have 100 sq ft., 10'x10' for flowering and either the burnsanator or 12 sq. ft. for clones/seeds. In the flowering space I would paint all the walls flat white and turn a few crops to either buy mylar or plastic. Some where in the room there would be an A/c unit with ducts to direct the air where I wanted it and into the cool housings of the bulbs. In addition there would a lot of ventilation - overkill. My light setup would be a dual bulb ballast, http://bestgrowlights.com/site/403863/page/235766, for a 10'x10' room I would run 4 of the 800w units. If money was an issue I would blanket off half the room in the middle and run 2 . As for the bulbs, being a dual setup I would not need an enhanced HPS bulb so any red spectrum bulb would do. Same would be true for the MH, as long as the PAR output was moderate to good I would burn it. My medium would be as simple as possible, that translates into soil. Hydro, rockwool, bubbles and aero are all cool and by far more productive than soil but they lead to more work. Of all the soil less options I would go with the bubbles since it has some obvious advantages.

The layout would be 2 benches at a comfortable height so I didn’t have to bend over all the time - I’m getting old. These benches would run from wall to wall about 4' in width. They would have rails about 6" tall so it would look like a box on legs. I would line the box with water proofing material like vinyl or something close. The box would have a slope to it so water would run to one corner where I would have a drain that lead to a catch box. The basin would be light tight with a return pump that fed a drip system up top. There would be a heating unit on a thermostat in the basin to regulate it. And the pump would be on a timer so I could watch more TV than watering. Each bench would have 2 lights above that would be chained so they could move with the plants. The plants would finish out about 24" tall, in the bigger picture plants don’t need to be much bigger. I would make sure all the plants in my canopy were within 4"-6" of each other at all times with selective pruning.

Here’s the real meat my friend. All my past grows in the tron have been leading up to a specific method of growing, let me run it by you. As you might already know I have been growing in the phototron which has approx. sq. footage of 2.5. My last grow I was able to harvest 92 grams of bud.That’s 24g per sq. ft.We can modify the numbers to help out with the math so I’ll change the overall to 28g per sq. ft.. My pot size has a lot to do with the number of plants I can jam into the tron. I am using a 4" pot, it seems small but I have learned that the plant doesn’t need a huge pot to produce. The key is to give the plant all the food it needs daily.In the 4" pot I can mature plants at a height of 18" - 24" with good results. In the case of the virtual growroom I would use 8" or 6" square pots, square uses all available space, in a matrix of 5 x 11 for a footprint of 55 pots with the (8") and 7x15 for 105 pots with the (6"). As for th 8" pots, 5 in a row will be 40" deep the same as the bench and 11 will be under 8 feet. If my numbers on yield hold true that’s 32 sq. ft., 4x8 bench size, multiply our 28g by 32 we get 896g of nugs. That’s 32oz, 2 pounds of chronic. There is still a lower grade of nuggets to factor in, another 12g per sq. ft. - that factors out at 384g. In all reality these numbers are only going to get better with better lights and Co2. Also remember these numbers are based on only half of a 10x10 room. Below I drew how I would layout the growroom - what do you think? By the way burnsy, I tend to ramble on but I live vicariously through my growing buddies like you since right now I am undergrowing in the tron. So I like to dream about my setup and maybe soon I will be showing you pictures of it????.....:::edit::: ( i had to recalculate my numbers, they look better )

http://www.homegrownbud.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=929&stc=1&d=1135216379

[Mr Burns]

Goodness gracious and a coor-blimey thrown in for good mesure.

Nice work Cid. To answer the commercial side no I'm not. However I have a brother and life long friend with big appetites so it helps with buying nutes and updating the room. To be honest if I had grown 5 kilos and had it with me now, I could sell it and make good money, but I don't have that sort of weight and am staying away from the commercial operation of huge grows. Don't get me wrong, when we move I'll have a concrete garage which will be one huge flower room. The shed I have built here I'l take with me and will be the veg room. I'll end up with a lot of weed but I'll face that bridge when I come to it.
Fact is, a huge grow would be awesome. When the attic grow was on I loved sitting on a chair just watching the plants. Being able to move around them and even walk around them!! That's what I want back and perhaps I was spoilt by having such a room as my first grow? Thing is, if my first car was a 30,000 car and I then drove a 500 £$ car, I'd feel the same, always wanting what I didn't realise I had.

Your ideas of a grow room are awesome. Benches are a must and although I have a working grow bench only 18 inches deep and 3ft long, it's a busy and well organised space. If I could create a micro-enviroment with my heated dome, by having a hinged cut out in the worktop and all apperatus hidden below the bench, that would be a great start. Veg anf flower rooms is a great idea and something you/I/we can all benefit from. I've not had it available to me but I've been lost in space thinking about it.
The grow light link was a good looking light set up. I was thinking of going digital with the ballasts at some time, and the ballasts I have now can run both HPS & MH, so I may just switch their use to MH but host both HPS & MH in the same shade.

Probably the biggest single hurdle for me right now, is the air con. You may remember I bought a mobile unit but in this shed it'll make far too much noise. When we move it won't be any problem at all. The garden there has fields around it which gives me the option of piping all incoming and exhaust under the lawn inside soil waste pipe. The cows and horses can suck on it if they wish, as long as they don't ask for credit ;)

You really do have it right Cid. We must be about the same age cause I'm into workbenches and optimal workspaces. Perhaps is was the short 18 month spell I had building custom factory cars? You know the kind of enviroment, not F1 or CART, but a very workable and organised working space? Like the old attic grows again, once you've had it...................

All this talk of bigger grow rooms has me wanting to move tomorrow. Now that would be a good build till bud grow? 672 ft3!!!!!!!!

The cooling duct room in your plan Cid, could you explain that part?

[cidium]

This is how I see the system working - The main A/c unit would be in the room not vented outside as it would impact Co2 and internal temps. The unit would attach to a main duct housing on the ceiling, something like a metal rectangle duct (14"x8"). There would be room vents cut into the duct that would have louvered covers to help regulate the cooling. There would be 4" flex ducts running to the lights, each light with its own duct to insure each light receives the same cooling. The light housings would be connected as an output to the room duct.

The room duct and fan would be all inside the room. This fan assembly would be used for air circulation and a method of returning the hot air from the light housing. The fan would be placed inside a square to round collector and have a 4" flex duct leading to another square to round the same size. The fan would pull air into the square to round creating pressure in the duct. The output from the light housings would patch into this line mid point. Details like a sweep tee are just things I didn't add to the renderings, but the light air would need to enter into the room duct so there wouldn't be any restrictions.

As the A/c unit pushed air into the main ceiling duct it would provide cool air for both the room and lights. As the air is passed thru the light it is mixed with the ambient from the room fan and sent back to the main growing space. This allows two things to happen, first it helps to complete the flow for the lights giving good draw. Second, it allows for room heating by turning the A/c unit to fan only mode. The heat pulled away from the lights will mix with the ambient room air much better.

One would need to regulate air temps and controlling the A/c unit and room fans with thermo switches placed in the room. This systems assumes one would be adding Co2 to the circulation so all the components are enclosed in the room.

http://www.homegrownbud.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=961&stc=1&d=1135302755

[midwestbluntman]

damn cid how did you make them 3D pix?Looks like a hellva setup tho.

[cidium]

Hey Bluntman,

I used 3D studio max to make the renderings. These renderings are like the mario brothers version as in the real world there would be metal furnace ducts, flex ducts and regular 24" summer box fans all over the place.

[Cranky]

oi oi burnsy....the old man has one of them hoods but not the six bulb one but the quad one.tidy bit of kit bro;) heat just isnt an issue and ya can get super close to ya plants:cool:

the growth ya get from these things is fukin awsome!ive never seen plants grown so compact when comparing to these things;)

check out the old mans dirty little slappers:eek: ya cant see the stem for growth2thumbs

http://www.homegrownbud.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=962&stc=1&d=1135342538

im gonna start useing these for veging when im back at it;)

cranky

[Mr Burns]

Cranky. It's what I use in the Burnsonator for veging as you know, and they do seem to push the nodes closer than I've wever seen. Maybe it's something I'll look into after investing in hydro? I wanted to go flo but going wet is my priority.
What are those flo lamps in the pic? Are they the 300s I see around? Any good?

The main A/c unit would be in the room not vented outside as it would impact Co2 and internal temps

Cid. With that statement and saying "This fan assembly would be used for air circulation and a method of returning the hot air from the light housing"
I guess this is for a cold enviroment? But then you're working with air con which confuses me. What about the hot air that the unit will produce, wouldn't this cancel out the cooling effect if not vented outside?

[cidium]

You are correct burnsy, that would be bad to have the A/c exhaust air returning back to the room. I need to clarify what I said. I would use a heat exchanger style A/c unit. A unit that would have a cooling line and a cooling coil with a forced air fan. These units are a bit more spendy but allow the compressor/condenser to be remote located. In addition these units can have a small electric heater installed to provide heat when needed.

Adding the Co2 is as simple as injecting the gas into the main room duct. The Co2 will follow the room vents and output high in the room then fall towards the plants as Co2 is heavier than O2. Also I think Co2 would be good for cooling of the lights, I'm not 100% on this.

[Mr Burns]

So are youi going to go with this set up CID? Be an interesting build if you did?

[PMoM]

Whoa, you guys are saying that 4 of those envirolites in veg made those nodes be that tightly together? I may have to look into this sometime. My first grow was with flo, but not like that. Flo tubes. Nodes weren't that tight.