You're starting to get it. Don't get me wrong...it looks like a shit load of bud there...but I/we need to know how much in actual weight so that I can give you an idea of what light and how many watts are needed of said light to do what you are looking for. Lights performance, as you know(or possibly not), is measure in Grams/Watts...so your (yield weight/actual wattage of the light used at the wall). This is basic ratio of input to output of the grow.
And there is the possibility that you have the messiah of lights. And that the dorm900 will kill the at600. But no one has ever shown that and you would need to be the one to do it.
Hi GG,
On the GPW, (Grams Per Watt) that is exactly what I thought the formula was from my prior readings about measure yield against the energy used by the lights. To date I believe the best I've done is close to .85 g a watt. But I have been trying to perfect my pruning techniques with mainlining, lollipoping and proper defoliation to ensure light reaches lower part of branches. So I've had issues producing a consistent full 8 or 16 branches depending on if I am putting 4 plants with 8 cola sights or two with 16. I'd would have some with 7 branches instead of 8 and some with 6 always decreasing the potential for greater yields. This is one of the few times the pruning has gone without screwing up the topping and creating the proper manifold for mainline trained plants.
There is just too much foliage to deal with with 4 plants having 16 branch sites. My plants typically go to flower at 2.5 feet tall and grow to just at or over 3 feet, which only the top 6 to 8 inches having bud sites, for I remove anything lower after the 4 site on the branch. If I pull a half pound from these four plants it will be best so far exceeding the 7.75 oz I have obtain before with these lights, from what I can remember I pulled 220 about 7.75 or 7.80 oz hitting about .85 a gram, respectable but not the holy grail of 1 gram per watt if I recall what holy grail is for GPW. Funny when I mentioned GPW, SDS read it as GPU (grams per unit) as was like perplexed by that misunderstanding.
Knowing the bench mark for any reputable LED panel is to match (yield and quality) of it's HID counter part using roughly somewhere between 20 -30 percent less energy. And for green folks like me that is important to max potential with lowest use of energy possible.
For instance in your Apache grow (please correct me if I am wrong) using a panel that draws roughly 750 watts verses 1000k HPS. You have a larger square footage to cover and more foliage (canopy) to provide light too. I would love to be able to fork out that kind of dough and go with the apache which you have will demonstrated holds it own compared to the HPS and does it more energy efficient in terms of watts used. With regards to my 2x2 space using these 246watts of LED from Dorm Grow, just looking at it seems comparable to what 400 or possibly 600 watt HID would do.
My personal current space is a 2x3 and also have similar grow for a patient from which this 2x2 particular grow occurred. My 2x3 is going away and I am looking at a coverage where one would typically set up two HPS to cover 6 plants each and may hang a MH down between the two HPS HIDS to provide additional spectrum and coverage.
So now I will soon have space to do the traditional HID grow for which I have the gear from past grows from.
Just don't want to use any more energy then possible, don't want to use more energy in a larger fans to remove excess heat from HIDs
So this I will be moving into a space now to do 2 grows of 6 plants each similar to your side by side as far as space goes, the question came to my mind would it be possible to increase my wattage use with larger Dorm Grow panels and get similar results to a HID counter part.
So in the case of the Dorm Grow 900 is rated to draw about 540 watts, it would seem at best it could potentially be on par with a 800watt HPS. If I wanted to do a run to produced more like a 1000w HPS then I would like I would need to supplement adding several of the spot light 12watt red led bulbs that screw in to regular light sockets. They actaully are rated to pull 12 watts. Thinking I would need to add at least 10 if not 20 in lighting fixtures around the edges of the main panel and a lower set around the middle of the foliage. That would be an additional 240 watts, but a 45 a pop I may as well just step up the the AT600 and not fuss getting close to 800watts of LED for 6 plants each. Perhaps only need 10 at 45 a pop which would put total draw 660, about 100 watts less then the Apache AT600 at 3/4 the price. So it seems I may just need to step up to the plate and fork out the dough for the Apaches.
Who knows I just may take up the challenge and get the Dorm Grow 900 and see what it can do solo.
I've got lot to process here and I do appreciate you and others that have been constructive in their replies, you all have been a great help I believe I am much better informed then when I started to ponder should I Apache or Dorm Grow.
I may have to go Dorm Grow until I can get finances secured for the sure thing, its a gamble I wouldn't take if I didn't see a possible potential to be within striking distance of 1 gram per watt. But since I want to use the entire space I have and only have some much to invest I believe Dorm Grow will give me a shot at getting some decent yields, more likely not like the Apache AT600 but I can't afford two of them and would need two to utilize the new space I am looking at.
Again I just want to thank everybody and I promise to update on what this yield is and what m future plans are.
DankSwag
? just wondering lol