newbie set up, need advice for my light.

[gladmar101]

Hello guys,
Some advice for my light? Is it near or just exact range? But in the morning I put it outside to have sunlight and fresh air. Noon time I use my setup lamp 80watts and electric fan. ^_^

View attachment 20140828_092844.jpg

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

That is not a good container to grow in. First you need something that is not clear and won't let the light in. Second it needs to be deeper. I would recommend transplanting to something smaller and taller to help control the watering.

Be careful taking your plant inside and outside as you can bring pests and disease in from the outdoors.

Is that CFL light? The bulb is quite small, so if it is a CFL, I am assuming that it is an 80 watt equivalent, not actually 80 watts? You can probably get it a little closer, but watch the plant. Move it an inch or so closer and see how it takes the light and heat. If it does ok, move it a little closer. You will need more better light really soon--another couple of weeks. You are also going to need a dedicated space where you can control the environment to grow your plant. You should put a small fan near it to move the air around, remove heat, and help strengthen the stem.

 

[gladmar101]

The Hemp Goddess

Ill do my best for his growth.
THANK YOU!

 

[Spookyashell]

From my short experience I find Mary to be quite found of light. Even my 375W CFL (250 + 125w ) doesn't seem enough for my few plants in a small closet.

The light you have does not seem to be even close to giving enough lumens. Unless you seriously upgrade the lightsource I fear your plant will stretch high and thin and then falling over without support.

You also want a fan to keep the air circulated around the plant.

 

[DrFever]

*** lmaoooooooooooooo

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

From my short experience I find Mary to be quite found of light. Even my 375W CFL (250 + 125w ) doesn't seem enough for my few plants in a small closet.

The light you have does not seem to be even close to giving enough lumens. Unless you seriously upgrade the lightsource I fear your plant will stretch high and thin and then falling over without support.

You also want a fan to keep the air circulated around the plant.

Part of the problem with CFLs is that they are not very efficient and when you get enough of them, they are HOT. Most emit about 62 lumens per watt. Compare that to T5s which put out 92 lumens per watt and HPS that put out between 100-150 lumens per watt (depending on size). So, even with 375 of CFLs, you were probably only getting around 24,000 lumens--less than a 250W HPS puts out.

 

[Spookyashell]

Part of the problem with CFLs is that they are not very efficient and when you get enough of them, they are HOT. Most emit about 62 lumens per watt. Compare that to T5s which put out 92 lumens per watt and HPS that put out between 100-150 lumens per watt (depending on size). So, even with 375 of CFLs, you were probably only getting around 24,000 lumens--less than a 250W HPS puts out.

Thats the part I don't understand. Heat is a byproduct of inefficiency, all the energy not used to create light becomes heat in a bulb.
BUT, a 400W HPS gets hotter than a 400W CFL, so all logic should indicate CFL are the most efficient of the two, but its not. WHY, HOW?

I can put my hand on my 250W CFL, if I do that on the HPS I'll get a nasty burn. Maybe its coz the suface area of the CFL is bigger than the HPS?

Acctually I only get 15.000 from the 250W and 8000 from the 125W, so a puny 23.000 lumens. But if I go 400W MH at 6100 kelvin I just get 35.000 lumens. Better, but is that enough? I have not seen HPS here in Norway close to daylight spectrum, only CFL and MH.
Atleast my 400W HPS give 58.500 lumens, but I only use that for flowering.

Sidenote. I can replace the 125W 6500K , with a 250W 2700K that gives 20.000 lumens. That would get me 20.000 lumens of 2700K light + 15.000 of 6500K light. Would that be better than 23.000 lumens of 6500K? They were sold out f the 250W and 300W 6500K, so I got a 125W as a temporary solution.

 

[Hushpuppy]

To answer the first question on the heat losses; in cfl lights, most of the heat losses are actually in the electronic components that power the bulb. The heat loss ffrom the bulb itself is minimal, thus the reason you can handle the bulbs better. The MH and HPS lights are more efficient at turning more of the electricity into photons of light but the intensity of the light and the chemical reaction within the tube cause a great amount of radiant heat to be expelled. (sort of like radioactive light photons) They are being forced out of the tube where the chemical reaction is taking place in such a way that the photons are colliding against each other and against the tube and glass bulb and are releasing some off their energy as heat.

Now you will not get an HPS bulb that will put out daylight spectrum. Only the MH will do that. It is because of the chemical properties that you get the spectrum off light that you get from those bulbs. CFL or florescent bulbs can be doped with different chemicals to get variations in spectrum because the base elements are what do most of the light emitting reaction. They(some bulb companies like "Digilux") are now doing a little bit of chemical doping with both the MH and the HPS to increase the spectrum variance so that the HPS bulbs have a little more blue spectrum which is good for the plants, and the MH is getting a little more red spectrum to help with rooting.

In order to get more lumens right now, you can use both the MH and HPS bulbs over the plants to give them more light energy. During veg growth, the plants prefer to have the more blue spectrum but can still make good use of the red/orange spectrum. Now if you have a 400w MH/HPS and you have the CFLs, you can use the CFLs with the MH to get 58,000 lumens of light within the growth spectrum.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Thats the part I don't understand. Heat is a byproduct of inefficiency, all the energy not used to create light becomes heat in a bulb.
BUT, a 400W HPS gets hotter than a 400W CFL, so all logic should indicate CFL are the most efficient of the two, but its not. WHY, HOW?

I can put my hand on my 250W CFL, if I do that on the HPS I'll get a nasty burn. Maybe its coz the suface area of the CFL is bigger than the HPS?

Acctually I only get 15.000 from the 250W and 8000 from the 125W, so a puny 23.000 lumens. But if I go 400W MH at 6100 kelvin I just get 35.000 lumens. Better, but is that enough? I have not seen HPS here in Norway close to daylight spectrum, only CFL and MH.
Atleast my 400W HPS give 58.500 lumens, but I only use that for flowering.

Sidenote. I can replace the 125W 6500K , with a 250W 2700K that gives 20.000 lumens. That would get me 20.000 lumens of 2700K light + 15.000 of 6500K light. Would that be better than 23.000 lumens of 6500K? They were sold out f the 250W and 300W 6500K, so I got a 125W as a temporary solution.

Actually, 400W of ACTUAL wattage (equivalent wattage is an immaterial number that does not mean anything for growing purposes) is hotter than 400W of HPS. It can seem like the HPS puts out more heat, but that is because it is pretty much concentrated within a small space and like you mentioned, the CFL has a lot more surface area. However, because of that it is also easier to cool it. Do you have access to T5 fluorescent tube fixtures? These are available in both red and blue spectrums. In addition, they emit 92 lumens per watt. So not only are they about a third more efficient than CFLs, but they also spread the light better and stay cooler. They come in 2' and 4', but I like the 4' fixtures as they are 54W tubes that emit 5000 lumens--the 2' tubes are 2000 lumens. I found that I had no problem replacing a 400W MH with a 4' 4 tube T5. I think that the better light spread of the fixture and the fact that you can get the plants within an inch or 2 of the lights makes the difference. I really wouldn't buy any more CFLs...unless you want to use them for household lighting--love them for that!

Where in the world did you find a 400W HPS that puts out 58,500 lumens?

 

[Spookyashell]

Actually, 400W of ACTUAL wattage (equivalent wattage is an immaterial number that does not mean anything for growing purposes) is hotter than 400W of HPS. It can seem like the HPS puts out more heat, but that is because it is pretty much concentrated within a small space and like you mentioned, the CFL has a lot more surface area. However, because of that it is also easier to cool it. Do you have access to T5 fluorescent tube fixtures? These are available in both red and blue spectrums. In addition, they emit 92 lumens per watt. So not only are they about a third more efficient than CFLs, but they also spread the light better and stay cooler. They come in 2' and 4', but I like the 4' fixtures as they are 54W tubes that emit 5000 lumens--the 2' tubes are 2000 lumens. I found that I had no problem replacing a 400W MH with a 4' 4 tube T5. I think that the better light spread of the fixture and the fact that you can get the plants within an inch or 2 of the lights makes the difference. I really wouldn't buy any more CFLs...unless you want to use them for household lighting--love them for that!

Where in the world did you find a 400W HPS that puts out 58,500 lumens?

Well, the thing is. I have 2 pretty identical closest. The closet using 400W HPS I have serious problems keeping the temp under 30 degrees C, think its 35 most of the time, the plants in flowering has dry leaves like potato chips due to the heat.

The closet with 375W CFL keeps a temp around 22-25 degrees. The HPS system clearly generate atleast twice the amount of heat my 375W CFL system generates. (The CFL closet is even a bit smaller than the one with HPS)
Also the closet with HPS has 6 ventilation holes about 3" each, but still gets alot hotter than the closet with CFL and no vent holes.
So it's quite clear the HPS system geerate alot more heat than the CFL system.

I can get T5 through my brothers shop. But they only gave 8.000 lumen with 2x 54W tubes. And thats the same as my 125W CFL, So I didn't see the point. My 250W CFL is cool to the touch. The temp of the bulb is at bodytemp, or maybe a few degrees below even. This is the one:
http://www.designbelysning.no/vekstlys/grolys-hps-cfl-mh/250w-high-power-cfl-e40.html
it has the size of a 1.5 liter soda bottle, its huge.


The CFL's is acctual 375W, not some of those "equal to" stuff. It does state however to use some kind of Cool design technology. Maybe its alot cooler than normal CFL's ?

This is the HPS I got, is 58.500 lumens alot for 400W?
http://www.designbelysning.no/vekstlys/grolys-hps-cfl-mh/400w-hps-lucalox-paere-med-ekstra-par.html

The 600W version, give 90.000 lumen
http://www.designbelysning.no/vekstlys/grolys-hps-cfl-mh/600w-hps-lucalox-paere-med-ekstra-par.html

 

[Spookyashell]

To answer the first question on the heat losses; in cfl lights, most of the heat losses are actually in the electronic components that power the bulb. The heat loss ffrom the bulb itself is minimal, thus the reason you can handle the bulbs better. The MH and HPS lights are more efficient at turning more of the electricity into photons of light but the intensity of the light and the chemical reaction within the tube cause a great amount of radiant heat to be expelled. (sort of like radioactive light photons) They are being forced out of the tube where the chemical reaction is taking place in such a way that the photons are colliding against each other and against the tube and glass bulb and are releasing some off their energy as heat.

Now you will not get an HPS bulb that will put out daylight spectrum. Only the MH will do that. It is because of the chemical properties that you get the spectrum off light that you get from those bulbs. CFL or florescent bulbs can be doped with different chemicals to get variations in spectrum because the base elements are what do most of the light emitting reaction. They(some bulb companies like "Digilux") are now doing a little bit of chemical doping with both the MH and the HPS to increase the spectrum variance so that the HPS bulbs have a little more blue spectrum which is good for the plants, and the MH is getting a little more red spectrum to help with rooting.

In order to get more lumens right now, you can use both the MH and HPS bulbs over the plants to give them more light energy. During veg growth, the plants prefer to have the more blue spectrum but can still make good use of the red/orange spectrum. Now if you have a 400w MH/HPS and you have the CFLs, you can use the CFLs with the MH to get 58,000 lumens of light within the growth spectrum.

Excellent info, thanks.
Don't like the radiation part, and My HPS says "Extra Photosynthetically Active Radiation" . I'd better stay out of the growroom before I start growing a tail

I don't have any MH yet. I have 1x 400W HPS 2100K 58.500 lumen with reflector, I use that for flowering. And for growing I have

1x 250W CFL 6400K 15.000 lumen
1x 125W CFL 6400K 8.000 lumen
1x 250W CFL 2700K 20.000 lumen

But I can only use 2 at the time as I only have 2 reflectors to mount them in. ATM I'm using the 2 6400K light. But perhaps I should replace the 125W 6400K with the 250W 2700K? will give me alot more lumens, but less of the daylight spectrum.

I'm considering replacing the CFL's with a 400W MH 6100K 35.000 lumen, but I fear it will generate so much more heat that I have to raise the reflector much higher. I have the CFL's 2-3 inches over and it doesn't get hot at all. How much heat do MH generate compared to HPS? Coz I have to have my HPS about 20" above the plants and its still too hot.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I am not talking wattage to wattage--I am talking lumen to lumen. You really cannot compare wattage to wattage because of the differing amount of lumens that different bulbs put out. Lumens are what matters, not wattage and here is why: Your 400W HPS is putting out over twice the lumens that the 375W of CFLS are. You said that the 375W of CFLs are putting out 23,000 lumens. To get the CFLs up to the 58,500 lumens that the HPS is putting out, you would need 2 more 250 watters and even then you would still be a bit short of the 58,500 lumens being emitted by the HPS at 53,000 lumens. So to equal the lighting of a 400W HPS it would take 875W of CFLs. When you more than double the CFLs, your heat is going to increase proportionally This is not to even mention that you are shelling out twice as much money to the power company every month.

Also the way your ventilation is set up makes an incredible amount of difference. Having a huge amount of ventilation holes doesn't really help with ventilation--you need a good exhaust fan. And having an air cooled hood makes a huge difference.

A 400W HPS with 58,500 is a good find. Most 400W HPS run around 50,000 or less.

"Extra Photosynthetically Active Radiation" really has nothing at all to do with what you are thinking of radiation A MH light is not going to cause radiation poising or anything like that. They are talking about light and the ability to photosynthesize

 

[Spookyashell]

I am not talking wattage to wattage--I am talking lumen to lumen. You really cannot compare wattage to wattage because of the differing amount of lumens that different bulbs put out. Lumens are what matters, not wattage and here is why: Your 400W HPS is putting out over twice the lumens that the 375W of CFLS are. You said that the 375W of CFLs are putting out 23,000 lumens. To get the CFLs up to the 58,500 lumens that the HPS is putting out, you would need 2 more 250 watters and even then you would still be a bit short of the 58,500 lumens being emitted by the HPS at 53,000 lumens. So to equal the lighting of a 400W HPS it would take 875W of CFLs. When you more than double the CFLs, your heat is going to increase proportionally This is not to even mention that you are shelling out twice as much money to the power company every month.

Also the way your ventilation is set up makes an incredible amount of difference. Having a huge amount of ventilation holes doesn't really help with ventilation--you need a good exhaust fan. And having an air cooled hood makes a huge difference.

A 400W HPS with 58,500 is a good find. Most 400W HPS run around 50,000 or less.

"Extra Photosynthetically Active Radiation" really has nothing at all to do with what you are thinking of radiation A MH light is not going to cause radiation poising or anything like that. They are talking about light and the ability to photosynthesize

Yeah, my ventilation is not good. I have the fan at the back, plants in the middle and the ventholes in the door. So the fan is pushing air towards the ventholes with the plants inbetween. I have to get some fans installed in the vents pulling in at the bottom and pushing out at the top. Thats the plan with the holes, not just gotten to it yet.

But the heat generated by my HPS feels like a 2000W heater oven, its insane, can't even have my hand anywhere close to it. Burned alot of my hair being under it while rotating the plants, head didn't touch it.

Still wondering where the energy from my CFL's go since they give less lumens and also a MUCH less heat. I can guarantee 4x of my 250W CFL combined won't generate as much heat as my 400W HPS. So I'm starting to suspect my CFL's don't really pull 250W, but is some funky savings bulbs. But shouldn't they have given even less lumens then?
I have a power meter thingy I can connect infront of the powercord to the bulb. Gonna go find it and check.

Edit: Crap, the misses have put it somewhere "smart", gonna be 6 months til I find that then. Guess i'll have to buy a new one tomorrow, they were cheap anyway.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Regardless of what it may seem, lumen for lumen, CFLs do not put out less heat. Think what the space would be with 2 more 250 and 1 more 150... You are basically running less than 1/2 the amount of light with the CFLs than you are with the HPS.

However you do need a good exhaust fan. Ventilation is for more than cooling your space, too. Plants need a continual supply of fresh air all the time the lights are on. I actually like to replace the air in my space 2-3 times a minute. With a good exhaust fan, you will probably not even need any kind of intake fan. Most of us have passive intakes and spend the money on a good quality centrifuge type fan with a speed controller. For a 400W something like this would work great.

LOL--us "missus" do that sometimes. I am doing some very deep cleaning and sorting things and throwing things away and am amazed at the things I am finding that I put somewhere that I would remember where they were....but forgot.

 

[Hushpuppy]

I think the reason you may be getting so much heat out of the HPS bulb is because you don't have it in a glass enclosed fixture. Iff you have it as just the bare bulb under a reflector "wing" then you will get much more radiant heat because of the intensity of the light. Think off the light as water being sprayed out of a nozzle. The cfls may be putting out 20ltr per second but the pressure of the water being sprayed is less. Where the HPS or MH (both are HID, High Intensity Discharge) you could be putting out the same 20ltr per second of water, but it has 5-10x the pressure. If you think about water spraying on your skin at a given flow with low pressure, it is not uncomfortable, but increase the pressure of the same flow to 5x or 10x and it will get painful when it hits you.

That is the way radiant energy works. By emitting the light at a much higher pressure, the HID lights super charge the light energy coming out of the bulbs.

Now with the CFLs, Those are really good bulbs that you have (I have researched them before) but if you notice in pictures, they are super bright on the inside of the circle that is formed by the bulbs but not as bright outside. That is because only half off the light generated by those tubes is getting pushed out. the other half is getting trapped within that circle. So the lumen output by the bulbs is true, but only 2/3-3/4 is getting out to the viewer or to the plants. (and because it is not being pushed as hard as the HID lights) the intensity that you can feel isn't as bad.

With the T5 tubes and the HID bulbs, the light is able to escape from all the way around the bulbs so that you get all of the lumens put out as non are being trapped within multiple tubes that are sitting back to back with each other in a circle.

Now if you get a sealed glass fixture/reflector hood for your light, then connect a fan to it so that fresh air is pulled through and around the bulb, it will not feel anywhere near as hot. This is because some of the intensity is lost to both the cooler air passing through the fixture and around the bulb, and some is lost to the glass fixture.

THG is correct that regardless of the type of lights you use, you really need the type of fan that will work like a vacuum to pull air rather than just a regular "bladed" fan that pushes air. You need to connect this "vacuum" type of fan so that it pulls the air out of the grow space and force it out through the opening, then the vacuum pressure created in the space will pull fresh air into the grow space. This is vital to the plants even if heat isn't an issue because they need fresh air like we do. I hope this helps

 

[Hushpuppy]

This is what I mean by a glass enclosed fixture that is able to have ventilation hose to connect from it to a centrifugal exhaust fan: [ame]http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Horticulture-GLK400CT24E-Digital-Dimmable/dp/B00547I5I8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1410146175&sr=8-4&keywords=hps+grow+light[/ame]

This is the open, bare bulb fixture that will cause you to have more heat: [ame]http://www.amazon.com/iPower-GLSETX600DHMWING20-600-Watt-Digital-Dimmable/dp/B005DOS0R8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1410146372&sr=8-3&keywords=hps+grow+light[/ame]

Here is the type of fan that you need to connect to the light fixture to remove the heat and then pull fresh air into the grow space: [ame]http://www.amazon.com/VenTech-IF4-Inline-Duct-Fan/dp/B005KMOJPK/ref=pd_tcs_subst_hi_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=147PV9QBNCYZ81S1D6X9[/ame]

 

[Justanotherfarmer]

I am growing in a 3x3 tent and I have a 600watt mh running right now and I can keep it under 85 degrees all day long most of the time it hovers between 79-83 degrees f. My tent is also lined with reflective material. I am growing in a smaller space then you, more then likely, and I have no problems at all with heat. I used to. Once I got my passive cooling setup running its been all down hill from there. I am using a 6in 450 or so cfm centrifugal fan pulling air through my filter, through my light and out into my attic where it is dispersed by the exhaust fans in our attic. Thats the only fan connected to my main vent system. I have a few clip on fans in the tent for circulation and branch strength. I also ran some flex tubing down to the floor and into my tent and sealed everything else I could up so air is being pulled through that. The reason for that is the air is always going to be the coolest on the floor. If this doesnt make sense, pop on over to my thread and check it out from the begining. I had a lot of heat issues and hush and hemp both saw me through them along with others. So my advice, listen to there advice

 

[Spookyashell]

I found the powermeter and connected it. The so called 250W cfl I have pulled 134-138 watt while I messured.
15.000 lumen out of about 135w isn't that bad for CFL is it?
thats 111 per watt

I didn't test the 125W but I would guess it then pulls about 70W and give 8.000 lumen

 

[Hushpuppy]

No that is not bad at all. If you can get a good ventilation system set up so that you continually pull the heated air out of the space then you should be OK

 

[Spookyashell]

No that is not bad at all. If you can get a good ventilation system set up so that you continually pull the heated air out of the space then you should be OK

I have no heat problems what so ever in the vegie closet using CFL, only the flowering closet using HPS.