I’m in a 2.5x5x7. My budget is $600max.
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And right now, I don’t feel confident enough to do my own build. However, making my way through this thread is teaching me TONS. I think next year, when I get a new light for my other tent, I might be ready to build my own.
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I’d stay the course on what we had planned. You could maybe get those in that space for $600, but build is going to be more difficult. And far from tried and true in my opinion.
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Qb 120’s rated for use without any heatsink material up to 2100ma. Without thermal paste and/or a good aluminum base, I’d probably just run them how they are.
What did you get???
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Drivers and strips by the look of things.
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Handful of hlg-120’s and some non mainstream pcb’s using 3030’s. Project still in planning and development stages lol, will be more on them at some point.
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I have two 600w reflector series vipraspectra lights from amazon. I added 4 23w led grow lights for side lighting. This is my first room of my own. It’s sealed. I now regret not getting a qb or cob. What’s my best next move. I’m literally on day 1. So obviously I’m going to do 2-3 harvest before I buy more lights. But is there a way to improve the lights I have. Are they decent lights(ie did I make a reasonable decision on price and use) I saw lots of YouTube vids beginning to end grows. Amazon has a vihmi something cob for $79. Timber lights has qb for$350 for a 240w. My room is 6x6 sealed with all the controls etc. it’s funny I’m looking for upgrades before my first harvest. Lol. So to summarize
Q1) is the vipraspectra 600 reflector series worth a dang?
Q2) can I upgrade it?
Q3) would a light mover being a better first upgrade rather than a new light?
Q4) what’s my next new light? To add just a bump and/or complete replacement?
Q5) would it help the grow to keep both veg and bloom on all the time?
Thank you for your time. I wish I had found this before my purchase. But i may just have buyers remorse/anxiety.
I think the viparspectras can grow some buds. They aren’t the best light on the market, but there have been some decent grows with them. If you can’t return the lights, or don’t want to, to try and maximize lighting. Then I suggest doing a couple grows with these lights, and then learning the grow aspect of the hobby, and worry about lighting later on down the road. If you don’t know how to grow, no matter how good the lighting is, it wont really do much for you.
I don’t know if you have seen growmau5 videos on youtube but there are ways of modifying the lights and adding cobs to them. It involves removing all the LED diodes off the board, then using the drivers, heatsink, fans in the fixture to mount them. Its a process. but you could definitely save some money on a whole setup by doing it that way.
With 2 Vipar 600’s pulling around 285w each, you’re sitting at 570w which is about half why of what you would want for a 6x6, or even slightly more with blurple diodes. Maybe you could only start with a 4x4 section of the 6x6 tent for now, as in flower I think is where you would begin to see some issues.
I would definitely grow with both the veg and the bloom switch on at all times. Maybe for seedlings you can use the veg switch, or just keep it a little higher. In my experience the viparspectra are a bit more on the blue side, which can keep plants pretty stout.
As for the light mover I am not very experienced with those. Even with it, you are still under the recommended watts sq/ft.
If you’re interested in sticking with LED’s then I would do some more research on maybe building a smaller panel at first to get to your recommended lighting. (when you’re ready). And then add on to it, phasing out the vipars down the road.
Like I said, I have seen some pretty good grows with them. You just need to make the best out of them.
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Thank you. I already feel better.
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You’ve got about 12 square feet worth of lights in a 36 square foot area. You could grow some kick-ass buds if you cut your area down to 12 square feet for now. You can do that with something as cheap as cardboard sheets painted flat white. Just make sure all the light ends up inside the 12 square foot area.
Or you could buy four more of those lights, if you like them. $169 for 285 watts is a pretty good price. They won’t be the most efficient thing possible, but the initial cost is good. But think about shrinking your area. I grew about 7 ounces dry in less than 9 square feet, and I could do that at least twice a year. In 12 square feet with good lighting, you could probably grow 10 ounces. Do you need more than 20 ounces per year?
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Yes. Yes I do need more than 20 oz. will a light rail increase my footprint slightly? Or do they just increase penetration since you can lower the light closer to the canopy without burning it?
Growmau5 has great video. Perfect next step. Seems super easy. After the convertion to Cree or whatever makes sense, would that increase my footprint or just make better lights. It appears it would cost 15-$20 a cob x 12. $240 to upgrade. Is that cheap? Idk. Again thanks for all the help.
I measured the room. On one side I have the air filter dehumidifier, controllers, ac and heater. On the other is the lights hanging. So although I’m in a 6x6 room the plants get only 3x6 of it . I apparently didn’t understand sizing (meaning my growspace isn’t 6x6). Since it’s not a tent I have to get in and out, lst etc without damaging plants. I also store bites etc in there for discretion- ie “what’s all these plant nutrients for?” . So my grow area is 3x6 with 2 vipraspectra reflectors and 4 led 23w bulbs. Do I need a Mylar wall between the two spaces?
Oh and the co2 tank. Additional question not led related will the displays from my controllers do damage to my plants during the 6hrs of dark?
Okay, that’s still 18 square feet, so about 32 watts per square foot. With those light, 50 watts per square foot would be better. Light rails and LED bulbs don’t really put out a lot of light, and their efficiency is poor. You are much better off with brand name recent COBs from Cree, BridgeLux, and such. $25 - $30 per COB, but you also need heat sinks and drivers. Or strips, HLG boards, etc. Lots of ideas for getting efficient lights in this thread.
Reflective mylar is not necessary. White painted paneling or cardboard is just about as good and it does not make hot spots. You can also get white Panda film if you really want to spend money. But it’s really important to get all the light confined to the grow area. Lighting up your side walls is wasted light.
Trying to have separate veg and flower areas is difficult without tents. You veg with 18 hours of light but flower with 12 hours, and the flowering plants need TOTAL pitch black darkness during their 12 hour night. Do whatever you have to do to get that, because plants tend to go hermaphroditic and ruin your harvest with light leaks. Might be easier to just veg in the whole 18 square feet, and then flower in the same space.
I plan to veg, then flower, then dry all in same sealed room. Then start again.
By light rail I meant a mover.
So changing out the leds to cree would up my watts per square?
A watt is a unit of energy, in our case consumption. I don’t really recommend sizing your room by watts because it’s not definitive of actual light intensity levels. There are members here that run their lighting around 20-25 watts per square foot that do as good or better as others with 40-50 watts per square foot. It’s all about how efficiently said lights put photons into your space. 50 watts of Cree or any cob consumes just as much energy as any other 50 watt light source. They just produce more usable light per watt.
A 50 watt cd bin cxb3590 is going to have a ppf of around 110 umols per second. For all intensive purposes, we’ll lump all of current flagship cobs from major players there. The way average ppfd is calculated, it’s ppf/square meter. So 6 of them at 50 watts would give you ppfd average of about 660 umols/s/m2 in 1 square meter.
If you want to have a kick ass light, look to get into an area of about 800 umols/s/m2. To give yourself the flexibility of having a good flowering spectrum that will also veg well, like 3000k-3500k with drivers that can dim to drop light intensity levels would be optimal.
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There are vast differences in efficiency among different lights. Blurple light on Amazon are probably about 100 lumens per watt. Good brand name COBs are more like 160+ lumens per watt, Of course you need less watts when you use the good ones. And ppf is nearly ideal for comparison, if your light vendor tells you what it is and they are telling the truth. Most Amazon light vendors even lie about the wattage, much less tell you a ppf test result. But with the lights you have, you probably need about 50 watts per square foot.
That’s why I like the brand name COBs and vendors like HLG and RapidLED. They actually tell you what you are buying. @dbrn32 really keeps up on all the high-efficiency COBs, strips, etc. He can steer you to very good light emitters that will give you excellent performance and low electric bills,
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Would 2 HLG-240H-30A $30 be worth it (Ebay) new? Maybe something to run a HLG or a cob setup?