Pure red spectrum LED? Like a Sodium Lamp?

I think I have figured out how I would like to work my grow room. I’m only allowed to legally grow 4 plants at a time, but with the right strains and set-up, I think I can still harvest some decent yields on a 2 month rotating basis. I’d like to maintain 2 grow areas in my grow room. I will make tent like structures with Panda film. I’m thinking like 7 x 3 or 7 x 4 for each area, and each area will contain 2 plants. One tent will veg and the other tent bloom about 2 months apart.

I’ll do the set up with the grids and LST to maximize my harvest, so I won’t want to move the plants. Instead, I’d like to keep my full spectrum lights in each tent, maybe 25 watts per sq ft, and move a red spectrum lamp or lamps from tent to tent depending on which tent is vegging and which is blooming.

But there’s really no point to adding more full spectrum light, there is already plenty, so I think a mainly red lamp will do the job better. I’m considering a HPS lamp, but I’d rather go with a similar LED equivalent.

I’ve done a little searching and haven’t found anything economical other than an HPS yet, any suggestions?

fwiw, the strains I will be growing are Gorilla Glue, Girl Scout Cookies extreme, Bruce Banner, Skywalker OG, and Black Widow. I need to figure out which of the 4 doesn’t make the cut.

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I should know this because I know you’re not far from me at all, but what are you currently using for lights?

I have an off brand generic quantum board lights. I bought a bunch of 150 watt panels and a couple 100 watt ones because the price seemed to be too low. They use the Samsung 301D diode not the B or H. I have enough to put 600 Watts in one grow room and 650 in the other. Should be good for Veg, but I’ll want to up the watts for bloom I think. Based on the spec sheet I think they are 2.48 umol/watt with a bias towards the middle and upper end of the growing spectrum. 56 units 400-500 177 units 500-600 144 units 600-700 for the 150 watt lamp 56+177+144 = 376 / 150 = 2.5 umol/watt

but as I understand it the 600-700 range is the bloom range, so unless I get another smoking deal on these panels, I’d rather my additional panels be biased towards the red spectrum

I was looking at HPS lamps, and ready thta a 400 Watt only has 0.9 umol/Watt and a 1000 Watt has 1.7 umol/Watt

Maybe a 400 or 600 Watt isn’t the right choice if this is true, but they are so damn cheap used.

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I was asking because you could get 660nm led modules to include with current lighting. If you ran from separate drivers it would be pretty easy to just turn on/off those drivers as needed. Seems like that would make the most sense on paper, but I’m not sure how easy it would be to incorporate with your current fixtures.

Some guy just offered me a 600 Watt HPS fixture for $50, so I’m going to have to try really hard to say no because I want to say yes, but if I’m paying for another 600 watts of electricity for 12 hours every day I don’t want to get 1/3 or half the effectiveness of a quantum board. But it’s $50, for 600 Watts!

Your suggestion is about what I was thinking - to build a board with 3000K (or 2700K) and 660nm diodes. I could turn it on or off during flowering, but then I would have to make 2 because I will be on a 2 grow room rotation. Alternatively (and more cheaply) I could just build 1 red concentrated light back and move it back and forth every 2 months to whichever room I want to flower.

There is no additional room on my existing panels to add more diodes if that is what you meant though, they are packed in and covered in silicone I think to make it waterproof.

However, I may be fixing a problem that doesn’t exist, it seems like the buds are coming in nicely on my first auto to bloom. Regardless I think I need another 200-300 watts to do what I eventually want to do, so if I can build the proposed light at a reasonable cost, I’d do that. If this plant comes in by Thanksgiving and I like the result I might find a similar deal on an off brand quantum board on Black Friday.

The boards I got were 53 cents per watt on Amazon day, and I think the Chinese company making them doesn’t understand pricing structures and strategies, they keep adjusting the prices and their prime day prices were way cheaper than any other quantum board. They seem to have settled into the 70=80 cents per watt range. The other day I saw “1 left” at 56 cents per watt and bought it for a 150 watt board, and immediately after there were more available at a higher price, so they are experimenting with pricing.

So far I like the result, but having all my eggs in a no-name brand from a country known for disreputable business practices makes me a little uneasy - but there is no question the girls took off after switching from burples to these. This is my current set-up for Auto’s. 2 veg on the left 2 bloom on the right. 700 watts on the right, 300 on the left.

Buds on Zkittles this morning, second week of flower

I’ll split up the lights - 4 150 panels in one veg room - 3 150’s and 2 100’s in the other

Then maybe 200-400 more watts for whichever room is flowering.

I’m a little disappointed after looking at the prices of diode boards and drivers, I’m not sure I can make boards cheaper than I bought them… Another reason I don’t think the company I bought from knows what they are doing… Unless they are taking a loss on their first batch in order to get their name out.

You don’t really need to make boards, and you probably don’t need to add 300 watts worth to 7x3 room either.

The picture helps understand what you’re working with. If it were me, I would frame out groups of panels. Be it two, three, or whatever makes sense. On the frames leave a little at each end and in the middle to mount some small heatsinks, then just attach a few strips and wire up to a cheap driver. You can repeat for each fixture, then when it comes time to flower, just plug in the cheap drivers.

You won’t be able to do it for $50, but will be far superior to hps. And much more manageable.