Confused about grow room lights

[Ninaz1]

No worries! It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of lighting options out there. Lights are all about how much money you can spend but the #1 thing to look for is a an LED fixture that uses Full Spectrum White LEDs.

9x6 is a large area to light properly. A good rule of thumb for LED is to shoot for 35-40 watts/square foot of grow space, which is far more space than you’ll need for 5-6 plants. You’d need roughly 1,900 watts of LED to light that space properly which is not going to be cheap. HID would be a better option if you have a small budget. 2 of those lights that you linked could do a 4x2 tent but not much more than that.

Figure out exactly how much you can spend on lights as we’d then be able to recommend a good light based on that. To grow the best quality plants, you need a light that is properly matched to the grow space. So like Chad said, I would look into putting a grow tent into that room to start with and go from there. 3x3, 4x4 or even a 5x5 work great. And just like with your lights, you’ll want to properly size your exhaust fan to the grow space.

I use a 3x3 tent which can flower 4 decent sized plants in 7g pots. I use a 4” exhaust fan. My lights are 2x Spider Farmer SF2000 and I spent about $600 for the pair. It’s a little much for my 3x3 but I can dim the lights and it gives me the ability to upgrade to a 4x4 without having to get new lights.

To give you some ideas, Spider Farmer, Mars Hydro and Maxisun are some of the cheaper Chinese made LED fixtures that use white LEDs.

You are my new hero! This is what I needed to know, something with a perspective of what to actually start with. I did my due deligence and researched but the more I did, the more I got overwhemled and felt like quitting even before I started.

I'm assuming you will be growing photoperiod plants, which flip from vegetation to flower when the light/dark period is 12hr/12hr. If your room isn't light proof, and during the dark hours external light is getting into the room, the plants may stay in veg because the plant is getting more than 12 hours of light.

Another type of herb you could read up on is autoflower plants. These plants flip to flower based upon age, not the amount of light it receives. Different folks will call out different pros and cons about autoflowers, but just wanted to share.

Mahalo nui for the information. Aloha.

 

[RosterTheCog]

Haven't had this happen but did have a digital ballast almost get me busted when the TV company wanted to come in and check for noise

They make a blocker for that sort of a small faraday cage that shields your cable lines
I had that too, trucks always in front of house up and down street. They never did fix my fuzzy cable either .

 

[RosterTheCog]

They make a blocker for that sort of a small faraday cage that shields your cable lines
I had that too, trucks always in front of house up and down street. They never did fix my fuzzy cable either .

I could not find the thing I used from amazon it was a coil that clipped onto the ballasts power cord so did the trick, The Ballast companies started to make better cord also that acted to block the interference .
Same type of interference that ghost hunters see .

EMF Meter Electromagnetic Radiation

 

[Chad.Westport]

Did you just debunk all of the ghost hunter shows with one sentence......?

 

[RosterTheCog]

Did you just debunk all of the ghost hunter shows with one sentence......?

LOL
OK now ya made me dig it out

1. Add an EMI filter at the input / output of the transformer. These are also called ferrite beads or ferrite chokes.

Called Ferrite Choke

Ferrite bead - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Chad.Westport]

LOL
OK now ya made me dig it out

1. Add an EMI filter at the input / output of the transformer. These are also called ferrite beads or ferrite chokes.

Called Ferrite Choke

Ferrite bead - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yeah, we had a bunch of these in the warehouse, but we were an audio company, not trying to hide ballasts. But really, I think you just blew a hole in paranormal investigations. Ancient Aliens

 

[RosterTheCog]

Yeah, we had a bunch of these in the warehouse, but we were an audio company, not trying to hide ballasts. But really, I think you just blew a hole in paranormal investigations. Ancient Aliens

I was trying to find where I ordered them from
They must have worked the cable truck stopped climbing my dang pole everyday

 

[Chad.Westport]

Haha, thats a good thing. I thought that the newer digital ballasts were supposed to eliminate this issue and that it was only the older magnetic type that let out noticeable amounts of RFI. But I'm sure some are made better than others. I always used a low price digital ballast and never had an issue that I was aware of.

In audio, the shorter the cord length, the less RFI you will get. Grounded TPS cables are another way of eliminating that, but I'm not sure if the cords of the ballast carry 2 or 3 wires inside. We did have a box of these to go on certain audio units.

 

[RosterTheCog]

Haha, thats a good thing. I thought that the newer digital ballasts were supposed to eliminate this issue and that it was only the older magnetic type that let out noticeable amounts of RFI. But I'm sure some are made better than others. I always used a low price digital ballast and never had an issue that I was aware of.

In audio, the shorter the cord length, the less RFI you will get. Grounded TPS cables are another way of eliminating that, but I'm not sure if the cords of the ballast carry 2 or 3 wires inside. We did have a box of these to go on certain audio units.

Lights are the same shorter cords best, they make special cords so most likely problem has been solved

I did talk with a cable guy a few yrs back at a party and he said yes the darn growers really screw with the signal. but that was before new fiber ops came into the area

 

[Growdude]

Haha, thats a good thing. I thought that the newer digital ballasts were supposed to eliminate this issue and that it was only the older magnetic type that let out noticeable amounts of RFI.

From what I understand its the high frequency switching in a electronic ballast that produces the RFI
Magnetic ballast don't produce any RFI

I was using a High end Solis tek ballast now I switched to <font color=red>NEW!! </font> 680 Real Watt GAME CHANGER INITIATOR Led Grow Light and love it