Thats the sour d I was describing earlier. Im pretty happy with how theyve turned out so far. These were the ones I did in m.g. @Dr.ofSmokology haha I will say im going to stick with the m.g. for the outdoor grow next year and play around with nutrient levels very carefully. I didnt have too many bumps with it as far as I know for my first grow. Plus I got the 2 cubic ft yellow bags on clearance for .50 that price, ill make it work!
awesome. maybe even mix the mg with another top or potting soil to reduce its potency? might be worth a thought.
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Very true. I need to start exploring the stores close to me for better soil. Anything within 50 miles of me that sells any kind of soil doesnt have a website so its going to be more of an exploration day. The internet is way too much for soil
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Your tent is 10’x5’ of floor space? I seen your comment in other topic about building lights…
That’s a big tent! Do you pretty much run the plant canopy from wall to wall, or do you have a signed amount of open floor space? Building a light to flower 5x5 usually gonna start somewhere around $600. Depending on features you want could easily be couple hundred more.
I’ve only done one grow in it so far but yes, it was wall to wall and then some! I ended up having to move some plants outside due to lack of room 
but honestly that would be good with me. I’d like something I could make dimmable.as far as power it puts out, how far can you go before you have to start introducing additional CO2? I feel like it’s a good sign you asked about the tent, I was going to respond to you asking wheres a good place to start learning the basics/fundamentals of grow lights about a week ago and forgot! I see your tag in just about every forum dealing with lights, and I feel it would be best to start from square one.
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My hero
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Bruce Bugbee has some good videos on YouTube if you’re looking for info on light science. Kind of a rabbit hole from there. Depending on what your looking for could be all over the place. I can certainly try to help you track down specific info, just need to know what you’re looking for.
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Any good, another too good to be true, or never heard of it? I still have to get back to you about building my own light once the time gets closer, but I saw this looking for nute deals and figured I’d ask in case it’s a deal I don’t want to pass up!
I’m not familiar with it, sorry.
smoke report? what up?
Now that the holidays are out of the way, I think I can finally clear my plate and focus on this light situation. I’ve given it some thought, and Im thinking I’m going to get a 5x5 strictly for flowering to start the perpetual growing I believe it’s called. My plans for my 10x5 (18/6 light) are going to be the left half strictly for photos that will end up in the flowering tent and the right half will be for autos. I believe my Amazon LEDs will be capable of powering veg growth so I’m going to use those for the photos. With the right half being used for autos, I want to upgrade the lighting on that side as well. Since those will be on an 18/6 schedule, would you still advise going with the same light as the flowering tent I’m asking about a little farther down? Or would a spider farm be alright when it comes to final yield #'s since this tent will have the extra 6 of light.
Now the building my own light questions for my flowering tent. I’ll take your recommendation on which route to go, I either want to build my own or I’m going hlg. Which would be more beneficial? If I can build an equal quality light to hlg for cheaper or a better quality for the same price, I’m all for it no matter how long it takes.
As far as specifics, what do you recommend for optimum performance? I definitely want a dimmer as far as extras, but after that I’m not too sure what else. High quality drives and diodes are a given so I’m not sure what else I would want. At what point does more lighting power become useless without adding CO2 into the mix? I want the light to have full coverage and be as powerful as possible but I probably won’t be adding CO2 for at least a few more grows.
If you recommend the hlg route, which unit?
I’m not going to lie and say price isn’t a factor because it is, but I don’t want it to be a factor when choosing a light or option as long as it’s within reason. I’d rather get the better product the first time around. I feel my two biggest issues my first grow were not enough nutes during flower and not enough light so I’d like to fix those. I don’t think I missed anything, if so feel free to let me know! Thanks again for the help! I found your let’s talk diy lighting forum that I’m starting to dig into. Four years, quite a load of info there!
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As long as you don’t run into auto that doesn’t want to flower on long light schedule that should be fine for them. If you grow enough autos, you will probably run into some that struggle to flower on 18/6. So have a plan for that.
As far as getting a light for flowering section, diy seems to be dying art. There just isn’t as much money to be saved as there was a few years ago. When hlg-550 was $1050 it definitely made sense to grab 4 boards and heatsinks for $400, $120 driver, and $75 in aluminum and wiring. Now the bigger badder hlg-600 is something like $775, and with sales and discount codes can be on your doorstep for under $700. So most opt to spend the extra $100 to do nothing and get a longer warranty. I think you can actually get a refurbished lamp for what it costs to build one, maybe even cheaper?
From there, you basically have to decide on what you want. If you want super badass multi channel dimming with spectrum control, uv, far red, even canopy from corner to corner, you will certainly be able to build cheaper than paying someone to build it for you. If you’re wondering, none of my lights do any of that lol. I have one with multi channel dimming, but I don’t even use that light. At the same time, the scorpion r-spec is superior to hlg-600. And then scorpion Diablo is superior to the scorpion r-spec. If you’re going to pay for scorpion diablo, then chilled tech and other heavy hitters are in your wheel house. But they will all have dimming and do a good job in 5x5 space. While I think it makes no sense to copy a diy build of hlg-600. If you absolutely wanted a chilled tech x6 600, I may be able to help you save some money there.
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For the dimming feature, I just like being able to turn them damn near off so I don’t cook during watering haha. I still get in there and shuffle plants around from time to time, which is also preventing me from putting a nice pvc net system together.
What are your thoughts on the pricing on these?
These are the two I was looking at if I went the hlg route. The 650 for the flowering tent and the scorpion r spec for the autos. I have six autos going so the six units in the r spec seem appealing. I’m not sure if that would be better than going the 650 route for the autos as well? I’m sort of leaning more toward the hlg route after you mentioned the warranty aspect. The 650 has a 5 year and the scorpion r spec 3 year.
Is it risky getting a refurbished lamp from hlg or do all the wear and tear items that Im worrying about get replaced?
I did start looking at chilled lights. the 600 watt looked pretty sweet. Then I saw you could get a diy kit to save some money too. Then I saw the big kahuna…
Just when I thought the scorpion diablo looked appealing! 
They have a better warranty buying straight from chilled or even an already built light but the price increases rapidly. The kits save a decent buck on that 1000w, especially from that site.
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They’re all really nice lights, I don’t think you would be unhappy with any of them. The scorpion or chilled tech light should keep light intensity a little more balance closer to canopy because the modules are more spread out. Maybe better options if you’re vertically challenged?
Everyone that gets a refurbished hlg lamp seems to be extremely happy. A lot of them have never been sold and may have a little bend in heatsink fin or scratches in anodized surface from shipping or handling. I understand warranty is a little less, but drivers will most likely have 5 or 7 year warranty anyway from manufacturer. If you had a board take a dump they may replace it anyway. But buying one and swapping wouldn’t be terrible either.
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I’m digging the price tag on either one of those!
Either one of those, they only have 240v available in refurbished. I don’t have access to that by my tent so I will definitely have to get the adapter. Will that create any issues for me at any point?
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I haven’t seen either of those in person, but should be easy swap. The driver should run on anything from 110v to 277v, its listed as 240v because of the cord that’s attached. With meanwell drivers they had a waterproof coupling you could just take apart and terminate a 120v cord.
I would double check with hlg, but I’m pretty sure you can get the 240v model and just change the cord or plug.
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Thanks for the recommendation! Now I’m just trying to decide which bullet to bite, the 650r or the scorpion
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and u my freind are the resident go too guy for MG , awesome bud nothing wrong with that. u put in the time and knowledge. and the price point is attractive. i am going to run a mg pot . from what i read u water the crap out of it to leach out nutes b4 planting correct ?
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