more lights lesser wattage?

[Burnz]

I tend to agree that you cant match a 1000w light with 4 250w's... Maybe you could if you only wanted to grow plants to a foot tall or so... But grow a couple to a metre plus under some 250w's and I bet they go to shit, chuck a 1000w in there however, you will have golf ball rock hard nuggets at the bottom of the plant

 

Its all in the penetration

[Olly]

Its all in the penetration

 

Oooooooooh yeah baby.

[Pleb Scrubber]

I said the 1000W is less efficent because more of the electricity its chewing is being wasted as heat and light that the plants wont use...

nothing about growth performance or light penetration...

[Olly]

I said the 1000W is less efficent because more of the electricity its chewing is being wasted as heat and light that the plants wont use...

nothing about growth performance or light penetration...

 

Hey Pleb.

 

!000w of light the plants wont use? The plants will take as much light as you can give them... to a degree of course. The heat, as you said, is a by product but not entirely wasted.

 

1000w of light at 10" will provide more lumens than a 250w at 5". Just because you put umteen amount of 250w lights in your room will NOT increase the lumen output. It doesn't work like that & that used to confuse me too.

 

The difference in the power consumption I think you are referring to is a bit more, but the difference in results is astronomical... My mate trimmed last week & got 8ozs of dry under 600w. She did the last under 1000w & got over a lb for only an extra $200 of power.

 

Efficient... Twice the result for adding UNDER 1/2 again?

 

Heat is the by product of a really bright light & is to a degree inefficient. BUT plants need warmth as well so all is not lost.

 

I had this with a mate years ago... I lost.

 

It's got to do with the maximum amount of lumens you can give your plants without overheating them & the ONLY WAY you can increase lumens is too increase wattage NOT add more lights.

 

Lumens... how the F@^% did we get onto lumens I hear you ask?

 

Lumens are what the plants use for photosyntheses which is what you really asked. Wouldn't 4 x 250w closer to the plants be more efficient than running 1 x 1000w further away & the answer is no.

 

Sorry if I've gone on a bit but I'm passionate about our hobby. I don't know that much about it but what I do know I know well.

 

Olly

[Olly]

& now I'm confused again after reading Whazzas update on lighting.

[Pleb Scrubber]

So why do the commercial medical marijuana growers use rows of 600W lights?

Cause for the cost of the electricity they use, they deliver more bud... and cover a larger area with overlapping light coverage...

If 1000W is always better and more cost effective, why dosnt anyone use 1500W hps grow lights?

I mean if you want to make a single massive monster prize bud and dont care about efficiency or cost, 1000 or 1500 makes sense, provided you have some serious heat management which is also gunna chew more power in fans/aircon

Edited February 10, 2011 by Pleb Scrubber

[Frazz]

well i prefer multiple sources of light compared to one single light

even though one light may produce more lumens than multiples, I reckon i can grow more buds with multiple lights

rather than place all my lights directly overhead i bring some lights down closer but have them at angles directed down and acrross the canopy

 

you know with one 1000w light that toward the edge of the illumination footprint the light is not very intense

whereas multiple lights i can divide up the intensity and spread the light better, no hot spots

and yes ive used both 1000w and 600w to compare

 

i know thats not all scientific but its just the Frazzalova way

 

[MongyMan]

The main things to consider with indoor lighting other than the spectrum of course is how much power put in is converted to light, the 'intensity' of the light (ie. how quickly does the amount of usable light diminish as you move further from the light source) and how much heat is produced by the light. Finding the balance between these to maximise output is the key to efficiency.

 

If you want to talk which lights convert the power put into them into the most light per amp, then 600w win.

 

If you want to talk which lights have the most intensity and heat then the higher the watts win.

 

If you want to talk which lights are best to grow under it gets a bit more complicated.

 

I see alot of people make posts about CFL's and LED'S saying the spectrum is right, they use hardly any power and have sfa heat so they must work well and be better than HID lights. Problem is they have sfa 'intensity' and that's the most important thing when you want to grow buds. It's the intensity that gives you solid buds and lots of them. This is where HID lighting beats fluro lighting hands down.

 

IMO 600w are the most versatile light for most growers who bud under a single light. They cover enough area and have the intensity to grow enough nice solid buds to keep a light to average smoker in smoko reliably yet don't produce an unmanageable amount of heat for most people.

 

Using multiple lights comes down to a growers preference from my exp. Some swear that using 3 x 400w is better than 2 x600w or 4 x 250w is better than 1 x 1k etc. All I can go go on is what I have seen with my own eyes and that is that if you can deal with the heat produced by high watt lights you cant beat high watts for solid buds and yield, especially on light movers.

 

Lower watt lights might cover more area and sound good on paper if you only account for the sq meter area covered and not the cubic meter covered which allows for light penetration as well. (google the inverse square law of light) The reality is, the loss in intensity doesn't make up for the increase in area gained and you can see it in the buds and yield.

 

The higher the wattage and thus the higher the intensity wins every time imo if you can deal with the extra heat easily. (light movers are a must with 1k lights and over imo)

 

Peace MM

[Pleb Scrubber]

hmmm...

 

speaking of light movers, would it be worth manually moving your light, only once per day, so that more of the cannopy gets lit from different angles? Or does it need to be moving constantly for any real effect?

[merl1n]

OK, in my experience, I have my lights on a straight bar with a bearing in the middle, being the suspension point. I manually move them every couple of days. This makes a hell of a difference, it allows the full intensity of the light to get to the whole plant. Now I'm doing SCROG and need that spread of light. Due to the angle of the two end lamps all of the light overlaps. I was using two bars in an X but the buds were not as solid as the overlap wasn't as intense(I didn't have a centre lamp either).

So Pleb , no they do not need to be moving constantly.

I have found that monster buds are nice and look fantastic but there is a bit of a problem with mould in big dence buds that can't breathe. So rather than having a huge monster bud, I would rather a couple of smaller buds that add up to that one and no mould, but thats me.

 

Merl1n