Hi!
I’ve only been growing for about a year and a half. Started with a mars hydro 300, upgraded to a Spectrum King 140W almost a year ago, and now i’m building a rig much like this custom HLG 550 for my 4x4 space.
I’m using 4x 288.2s from Atreum (they come with heatsinks) and a HLG 480 series driver B with a dimmer. I want to have them all running in series and i’m debating running the SK140 in conjunction.
There’s some guys on this thread with real knowledge and i’d love some opinions if anyone has time!
My big questions are:
How should I lay these out to cover my 4x4? - they’re actually square and slightly more efficient than the 288s from HLG so this may change things.
Should I run my SK140 in conjunction with these lights or would that be overkill? And if so, how should I design the frame to utilize the SK140 as well. (So far i’m working with 4x 4’ pieces of 1/8th" thick 3/4th" aluminium).
@Zackgrows I think you could do it either way. If you want to incorporate the sk, you would likely stretch boards out to corners a little more and put it directly in the center. If you don’t, the 4 boards are still very good in a 4x4. On the boards that go end to end I would probably make them about 12” from the end of one board to the next board. From the boards that are side by side, probably 8” gap between boards. If you decide to drop the sk140 in, maybe make the spacing 14” and 12”.
If you are building our own frame, and each board has its own heatsink, are you just mounting them on a ‘rack’ wherever you need? If you can choose the design, I would base it on where your plants will be sitting and try to center them, or try to get even coverage in the space
Makes sense. I’m planning on a SCROG run so I guess centering it would be best. I’m going to take @dbrn32 s advice and make the spacing 14" and 12" and drop the spectrum king in the middle. I can use the dimmers for the first week or two of flower and then slowly bump up to 100%.
Trust him for the lighting specifics, I know little. I did put one together and use it though, and one light for two plants is not optimum. If I could spread the 2 boards further apart (about the same as the distance between the center of two pots side by side), I think it would be better for maneuvering plants for light.
Great point. I’ll think about plant spacing as I lay out my design. Will upload pics in about a week once it’s built.
Boards came in, driver came in, all my parts, everything except the aluminum and plug. Home depot is slow.
But I am glad this came up! @dbrn32 is there reason I could not just slice my heatsink in half with the driver and a board on one side, and just a board on the other? Longer wires between the boards, maybe curly-que them so they slinky?
Just thinking about my current situation with 2 plants at different heights. It would also allow separation so the best pars (or whatever) are centered over each plant. not just individual height adjustment, but centering for the best performance as well.
