12 ft long 9 ft wide 11 ft high room
- Thread starter corinth
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Slicknick909
Well-Known Member
That's not nearly enough light for that big of room. Minimum you'd need 6 1000w DE fixtures to flower. With HPS in flower you want about 45-60watts per square foot, you have 108sq ft to cover, which means 4860-6480watts for your space is needed. You can convert the watts into BTUs to figure out cooling requirements.
BedroomFarmer
Well-Known Member
You could get or make some trays and put a light over each one depending on size
Slicknick909
Well-Known Member
6 fixtures at 1000w of HPS is about 22,00BTU of heat per hour, about 2 tons of AC is required to cool them.
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- #5
Ahh so im looking st 3600 watts peak power which is only 400 watts over the 3200 i figured id be using. I can easily buy 4 more 600 watt air cooled fixtures and run 3 inline fans to cover those. Iflts gonna be about twice what im uding now bill gonna be 450 heh monthly which isnt horrible considering 6 lights u guys are totally right. My built in ac puts out quite a bit of cooling . Im sure the air cooled hoods would be the best option at 600 watt. Unless they made air cooled des affordable
Slicknick909
Well-Known Member
3600 watts isn't enough to cover your whole room.
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- #7
At 3600 itd be like 6 600 watt bulbs in their. Its gonna be tough fittin 4 hoods. 6 would be prolly ideal id think. Its 8 ft wide 600 does a 4x4 dont it. Yea so 6 prolly be ideal. Comparing 1k warts like 120k lumenz? And the 600 is like 90k . So im wondering if its more efficient. I just csnt see how ima fit 6 lights in their. Im using all air cooled. Unless i can find air fooled 600 watt de systems fairly cheap which isnt likely. 2 more 1k watt set ups on amazon with the digital balast n their cheap hps and a seperafe mh bulb. Id prolly junk those n get hortilux bulbs. Ima just add these 2 more 600s and go from their. I try not to go wall to wall. Ill proly try like 3 or 4 under each . Possibly get the 1ks with the digital balast prolly there like 200 each i got like 800 this month extra so figure ill go with lighting. I need to measure that room lol. Its a big room but from what i can see 2 more lights would be dope . But evebtually ill prolly figure something out here to improve it further with good ideas.
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- #8
I didnt even really think about how adding so much more light would do what it does. But its judt the optimal light requirements. Itd be beautiful in that room with more lights. Im wondering now does it matter with what brand 600 watt kits i choose from or is it negligible.
Yeah, more or less. "Back in the day," I knew a guy who used a 1Kw setup for that - but it wasn't a double-ended one, and he grew equatorial sativas (only).
As far as I know, the Eye Hortilux brand still nails the top spot in performance tests. And I'd bet money (if I had it) that they do the same on the cost ranking, as well. You could probably hunt down one of those performance tests, see what #2 and #3 are, and buy each of them for the price of #1.
But the cost to run them is the same. And, assuming you're setting up to grow commercially instead of trying to grow a huge supply for yourself all in one go, well... even a 10% increase in yield could end up being "real money." So that's one of those things that you'll just have to think about and decide for yourself.
As for ballasts, it's probably a good idea to buy a brand that has been around for a while, both because one can hope that they've got any bugs worked out, the quality is there or else they'd be buried in bad reviews, and that they'll continue to be around in case you need warranty service. The newer electronic ballasts don't seem to be user-serviceable (and it's definitely not a case of "just run to the local electric supply house and buy a part for a few dollars, then go home and spend five or ten minutes swapping it in").
Reflectors... I don't even know what's available these days. I tried to find the same model that I had the most luck with years ago, and learned that it had been discontinued for a while - and this wasn't recently. They have (relatively) huge ones available these days, which might or might not be a good thing, depending on your setup. If you plan to mix your lighting - in other words, run something like 25% metal halide bulbs in there, then it probably would, because it might help you spread each bulb's light out into the "footprint" cast by the others around it.
Some people run multiple HIDs, and don't even bother with reflectors. The orient them vertically, "in and among the greenery." Such a strategy has a big positive going for it, but also a big negative working against it: The light from an HID bulb gets "cast" in 360 degrees, and with them set up like that, it's all going directly onto plants, instead of half having to hit the reflector and then go downward. However, it obviously means that you cannot run separate ventilation just for removing the heat that the bulbs produce (unless you go with Cool Tubes, I suppose).
I'm just rambling, lol. It's past my bedtime by... a day and a half
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- #10
I appreciate your rambling very much so. I shopped around today for 2 new 1k air cooled hood kits today. 1 hydro guy i try stay away from tried selling me hype and upped his prices a bit to 640 before tax with plantmax bulbs . Then i spoke to my regular hydro supplier and he worked with me. He was gonna custom order hydrofarm stuff cause he dont carry but for what he would price together i got 2 good kits just hood n balasts for 400. Ima go with some of those ugio lights or whatever least 1 i hear there pretty good. Yea i explained to the hydrosupplier too bout switching some mh in this flower room. He said about the same thing so ima make 1 of the 4 bulbs mh. Now this is what im understanding now. I guess digital balasts gettin phased out and how they switch from 4 6 and 1000 watt --- i use cali balasts and they do like dimmable instead. So i can dial my 1k bulbs down to less like 500 or somrthin 750 i think. Itll draw less but i dont really understand. Cause i was shooting to get least 4 1k set ups but dial them all down to 600 . Now im wondering since ill be using my 1k bulbs dial down to say like 750 am i still meeting optimal lighting where i want it. Ima get a light meter tomorrow too. Heading down that way tomorrow for the 2 new lights think ill order 1 of those 440 cfm fans to cool the 2 new hoods should be enough .
