Hey darkpiece, nice to see you!
I notice you have alot of plumbing going to your lights. Just how much light power do you run in your room? Thank you for checking out my current grows bro. I really appreciate it. I love watching your perpetual seed grow ops. I love how it never stops and there are always big bushes flowering all the time.
You asked for it. I got high and wrote this:
Well, right now I have 6 x 600W. 2 of those lights are in the old room still though. So right now the new bloom has 4 x 600W on two air-cooling circuits.
But I am planning for expansion to 9 lights in that room. They will be in a 3 x 3 grid. Each light gets 42" x 45" of space. The total size of the grid is 10'6" x 11'3". The nine lights will all be fully and independently adjustable for the full range using pulleys. There will be three separate air-cooling runs - 3 lights per run. Each run is using a separate intake, exhaust and 6" fan, with an option to upgrade to 8" all the way through. The hoods all have 8" ducting. I use gradual reducers to transition from 6" to 8" and back as needed. 3 x 600W lights on one 6" fan is more than cool enough.
If you envision the room from the top down, oriented as if you just came in the door, the lights will be numbered like this:
7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3
The ventilation routes go 7-4-1, 8-5-2, and 9-6-3. Route 9-6-3 is nothing more than lines and circles drawn on the ceiling right now, but the other two routes are active.
Lights 4, 5, 7, and 8 (all red) are currently installed with 600W HPS lamps. 7 and 8 are both using my 3 year old magnetic ballasts and 8" Sun System Cool Sun XL hoods. 4 and 5 are using brand new digital ballasts and 8" Sun System Blockbuster hoods. Eventually they will all be digitals, but for now I will use what I have. Lights 6 and 9 (purple) are still in the old bloom, but when I move them (in about three weeks) they will also be 600W HPS with 3 year old magnetic ballasts and 8" Sun System Cool Sun XL hoods. Then I will swap the HPS bulb out of light 5 and replace it with a 600W MH conversion bulb. I like MH, but until I can surround it with HPS like that (three sides) I'll skip it.
Eventually I will get three more Blockbuster hood and digital ballast combos so that I can fill positions 1-3 (though which hood goes where will likely change later. When the full 9 lights are deployed, I will change out light 5 again, this time for a 1000W MH. That puts the 1000W MH in the center, surrounded by 8 x 600W HPS. By then I will move up to 12 or maybe 18 plants in bloom at a time.
If I decide I need it later, I can always move them all up to 1000W. I have a 50A 240VAC circuit dedicated to the lights and their fans. I also have 2 x 30A 240VAC circuits and 2 x 20A 120VAC circuits dedicated for the grow. I'm
wired. I'm so glad I did all that when I was setting this up.
I did the math. A light at 1000W can be assumed to actually use about 1100W. 9 lights draw 9900W total. Divide by the voltage (240) and you get your amps: 41.25. That's a doable amperage on a 50A circuit. Or we can look at what I really expect to do (8x600W + 1x1000W) With 600W lights, assume 680W used, so ((8 x 680) + (1100)) / 240 = 27.25A, which is a breeze on a 50A circuit.
I think 9 x 1000W is a bit too much for a 10.5'x11' space anyway.
I wanted to take pictures, but I lent my camera and I don't have it back yet.
I need to get to the weekend feed.
