I’ve been watching the forum and so far haven’t seen what I’m looking for exactly.
I’m relatively new, 6 months in, I’ve stumbled a few times, never have missed quality but have been lacking in quantity.
I think lighting may be part of my issue,
how much light to use?
do you ever use veg and bloom at the same time?
I have different lights
Bestva 4000w 7x5 ft coverage LM301B diodes 10x optical reflector full spectrum LED
Koseheal 2000w LM301B UV + LED
Aidyu 1000w full spectrum 10w double LEDs.
So how much light is actually needed, and at what stage?
Two parameters needed for quantifying your grow. Light meter and Watt meter.
Unless you have HLG quality type lighting, the numbers you gave are from the sellers (and can be meaningless, useless, and designed to trap us newbies. Back in April, i was cautioned by @SilvaBack203 that my excited purchase of the Visosun (VS1000) would be a disappointingly. disastrous waste of money. I wrongly maintained a position that the VS1000, was a bargain at such a low price.
LSS, I would guess, you are running 700watts at a less than efficient level.
From Experience, an HSP 1000 is awesome, but has other issues.
My newly purchased 350R is awesome and may outshine your total lighting output.
Get the meters, map you tent, and dial in your grow. thats the plan. Good growing to you.
The 400w bestva is actually a very good cannabis light. I have the 300w in storage . 7x5 coverage on that is NOT CLOSE. 4x4 pushing it flower or veg. 10x10 is a big space. If cant afford to light it all right now free space all around and use center to grow. You have enogh light to do 5x5 of that. Showing 600w total. Seperate lights. Can space them. To light that whole tent you will need something at least like 4 550r. I run 2 550r 480w in my 5x5. Plenty. Running at about 80%. Run veg and bloom all the time.
As others have stated, the manufacturers wattage numbers are not the input current. You may need one of those watt meters to get actual wattage.
If you are running all of those lights on a 120 volt 15 amp circuit breaker. It will only carry about 1,800 watts.
If I were to use a 10x10 tent. I would run a 240 volt circuit to it, and use a small breaker panel at the tent. So all of the lights could be on 240 volts.
What I see is the Bestva is a 400 watt light. I could not find the draw or consumed watts for the other two in their descriptions. I assume 200 & 100. If this is correct, it is enough (700w) for a 4x4 with both switches on. However, the output of a watt drawn by one light can be drastically different than the output from less efficient light.
I strongly recommend looking for lights from other than amazon. A good light with comparable quality components will generally be priced similarly. Top bin Samsung diodes are priced above lower quality, lower performing diodes for a reason.
10x10 is a large area. If you are serious about filling it up with flowering plants you will need some serious lights.
Horticultural lighting group is a good place to start. I use three 260 rspecs. Spider farmer appears to have upgraded some of its products. Bar lights can improve coverage.
Cheap? , I have solar so that helps a lot. On the bestva 4000wx full output the manual says it’s 450w, but is that with both bloom and veg lights on?
Right now I run 1 light above each plant in veg, when I go into bloom I have 1 light on top and either 2 or 3 smaller lights around the sides of each plant. Overkill?
How many plants are in your space currently? Do you have any pics of the plants individually, and of your whole space? And do you have a way of measuring your dli?
Can you read your light levels? I use the Photone app on the iPhone, and it works well. It will help you to know how high to place the lights, and obtain correct DLI. Or it will let you know if the lights are not up too the job.
@borderryan22 I currently have 4 plants in the 10x10, spread out. I downloaded the phoneone app, and DLI was showing about 22, which from what I saw, it needs to be closer to 40, now will it help to leave veg and bloom function on at the same time?
@Ickey
Yes I downloaded the photone app, current height of lights it’s saying 22 DLI
One question no one has answered yet is can I have both bloom and veg functions on on the lights when I’m in bloom stage? Or do I just need better lights?
@Underthestairs got it! I was going to say that I would just to try to get dli up. If you can move lights closer without burning plants, that would help a lot probably. General rule of thumb is, if you put your hand, palm side down, over the canopy, and it gets hot after a few seconds, the plants probably won’t like it.
You will probably need more light for bloom. When you reduce the light cycle you will reduce the DLI at the same light output. Here is a chart that I made for my HLG Diablo, this shows how the cycle changes the DLI.
@Storm
I run the Bestva 400w above the plant, 1 above each plant, then 2 or 3 100w or 200w around the lower part of the plant, for each plant.
I have never had the bloom and veg lights on at the same time, but if I understood correctly, you do?
I’m installing more 20 amp plugs into my tent, so I can run more power which I will need to have veg and bloom on at the same time.
I looked up the lights on Amazon 400w 230w and 120w they have the old 281B diodes you could cut your room down in size buy hanging up a white sheet and definitely run both bloom and veg
, I have solar so that helps a lot. On the bestva 4000wx full output the manual says it’s 450w, but is that with both bloom and veg lights on?
