GroErr
Well-Known Member
Hello everyone, anyone who followed my last LG/Top LED grow will know I wasn't pleased with the results.
Those LED's will be used in my veg/clone/seed cabinets but for flowering I wanted something with a little more "punch".
After looking around and doing a lot of reading, my choices came down to 2 options:
DIY LED or
This LEC Sun System with the Philips Elite Agro 3100k bulb (930)
So this round I'll be running the CMH setup while I build out a couple of 100W DIY Creee CXA-3070 "panels". It's summer and I keep pretty busy so won't get around to finishing the DIY LED panels this round, but more to play with next round
Here's the setup for flowering this round:
Plants were vegged @18/6 for about 8 weeks, stretched for 9 days @14/10 under my 300W actual draw LG LED panel and 108W of side LED Tubes. Switched to the CMH fixture and 12/12 on 6/29/2014, Day 0 for reference/counting purposes.
Plants/Strains/Footprint:
3 plants running in approx. 30" x 36" footprint. This will likely grow slightly as they're still stretching but they're pretty well done. Wanted to try and keep this to 3x3'. The 3 plants are in 5Gal Root Pouch fabric pots. All 3 are looking nice and healthy, beginning to show lots of bud site development.
Soil:
50% local Triple Mix + 50% PRO-Mix (I call it semi-soiless if that makes any sense)
I like this mix has worked very well. It contains some nutes in the soil mix and I supplement it with AN Sensi A&B Grow + Bloom nutes. I like this mix in that it's not solely reliant on synthetic nutes and I don't go over 600 ppm on the nutes. I "flush" them every 2-3 weeks, not a real flush as I don't believe in flushing, just give them water only with a good run-off every once in a while and let them use up any excess nutes to reduce build-up and avoid lock-outs.
Pots:
5Gal Root pouches. I switched to these last round and they seem to do exactly as-advertised. When I pulled the last round, the whole ball of soil came out in one piece. Essentially, the root ball filled the pots. They were 3Gal pots and handled one plant that got to about 40" tall, no issues with root binding or the like. I'll be upping the ante here betting the 5Gal pots help a bit with production vs. the 3Gal pots last round.
Lights:
The LEC Sun System with the 315W Elite Ago 3100k (930) CMH bulb. This was purchased as a kit with a very nice vertical reflector. It pulls 334W at the wall @120v. This is currently about the only "kit" available that runs at 120v. Haven't pulled it apart, too new, will at some point to verify what they're using for the ballast. What I can say about it so far is that it runs surprisingly cool for CMH, and as quiet as my LED panels. At first I thought it was running hotter, but after moving the temp sensor to match where I ran the sensor with the LED panels, the room temps are staying almost identical as when I had 408W of LED's running in this room for 10 days @14/10. So Watt for Watt it would be slightly hotter (3-4F) but really quite manageable for CMH. The hood stays cool to the touch, even at the end of a 12/12 cycle, impressive. You can feel heat escaping through the fins on the ends of the fixture but not much more than putting my hand over the LED fans. After running it for a few days, all I had to do was adjust my incoming/cool air to 1/3 throttle on the variable speed controller to maintain temps where I want them (78-82F). The specs on these bulbs are about the most efficient out there right now, they have, on paper, some fantastic specs all-around. Efficiency, colour chart, bulb life, they just look awesome for growing mj, let's see what they can do!
You'll see a couple of side panels. They're 28W 2700k, LED Tubes, they pull 27W each at the wall, total of 2 per side = 108W. Just trying them out on the sides to see if they make any difference to the lower branches/popcorn, not expecting much but I have them so may as well run them.
Here's the specs on the specific bulb I have in the LEC fixture:
Here are the pics or it never happened as they say The setup, room and ladies as of last night:
Those LED's will be used in my veg/clone/seed cabinets but for flowering I wanted something with a little more "punch".
After looking around and doing a lot of reading, my choices came down to 2 options:
DIY LED or
This LEC Sun System with the Philips Elite Agro 3100k bulb (930)
So this round I'll be running the CMH setup while I build out a couple of 100W DIY Creee CXA-3070 "panels". It's summer and I keep pretty busy so won't get around to finishing the DIY LED panels this round, but more to play with next round
Here's the setup for flowering this round:
Plants were vegged @18/6 for about 8 weeks, stretched for 9 days @14/10 under my 300W actual draw LG LED panel and 108W of side LED Tubes. Switched to the CMH fixture and 12/12 on 6/29/2014, Day 0 for reference/counting purposes.
Plants/Strains/Footprint:
3 plants running in approx. 30" x 36" footprint. This will likely grow slightly as they're still stretching but they're pretty well done. Wanted to try and keep this to 3x3'. The 3 plants are in 5Gal Root Pouch fabric pots. All 3 are looking nice and healthy, beginning to show lots of bud site development.
- 1x Jack The Ripper (JTR clone)
- 1x Blueberry (BB seed)
- 1x Pure Power Plant (PPP seed)
Soil:
50% local Triple Mix + 50% PRO-Mix (I call it semi-soiless if that makes any sense)
I like this mix has worked very well. It contains some nutes in the soil mix and I supplement it with AN Sensi A&B Grow + Bloom nutes. I like this mix in that it's not solely reliant on synthetic nutes and I don't go over 600 ppm on the nutes. I "flush" them every 2-3 weeks, not a real flush as I don't believe in flushing, just give them water only with a good run-off every once in a while and let them use up any excess nutes to reduce build-up and avoid lock-outs.
Pots:
5Gal Root pouches. I switched to these last round and they seem to do exactly as-advertised. When I pulled the last round, the whole ball of soil came out in one piece. Essentially, the root ball filled the pots. They were 3Gal pots and handled one plant that got to about 40" tall, no issues with root binding or the like. I'll be upping the ante here betting the 5Gal pots help a bit with production vs. the 3Gal pots last round.
Lights:
The LEC Sun System with the 315W Elite Ago 3100k (930) CMH bulb. This was purchased as a kit with a very nice vertical reflector. It pulls 334W at the wall @120v. This is currently about the only "kit" available that runs at 120v. Haven't pulled it apart, too new, will at some point to verify what they're using for the ballast. What I can say about it so far is that it runs surprisingly cool for CMH, and as quiet as my LED panels. At first I thought it was running hotter, but after moving the temp sensor to match where I ran the sensor with the LED panels, the room temps are staying almost identical as when I had 408W of LED's running in this room for 10 days @14/10. So Watt for Watt it would be slightly hotter (3-4F) but really quite manageable for CMH. The hood stays cool to the touch, even at the end of a 12/12 cycle, impressive. You can feel heat escaping through the fins on the ends of the fixture but not much more than putting my hand over the LED fans. After running it for a few days, all I had to do was adjust my incoming/cool air to 1/3 throttle on the variable speed controller to maintain temps where I want them (78-82F). The specs on these bulbs are about the most efficient out there right now, they have, on paper, some fantastic specs all-around. Efficiency, colour chart, bulb life, they just look awesome for growing mj, let's see what they can do!
You'll see a couple of side panels. They're 28W 2700k, LED Tubes, they pull 27W each at the wall, total of 2 per side = 108W. Just trying them out on the sides to see if they make any difference to the lower branches/popcorn, not expecting much but I have them so may as well run them.
Here's the specs on the specific bulb I have in the LEC fixture:
- Part No: 928601167102
- Name: MasterColor CDM-T Elite 315W/930 T12 U P 1CT
- Colour: Warm White 3100 K
- Lumens: 36200 Lm
- Luminous Efficacy: 115 Lm/W
- CRI: 92
Here are the pics or it never happened as they say
The setup, room and ladies as of last night: 
But yes, I think they will be a very nice combo eventually. Kind of want to see how these lights fare on their own this round though. They're a relatively high cost fixture/light setup ($500) and the footprint is just about the max they recommend so I'm interested to see what they can do more or less on their own. I don't think those SMD LED tubes will really add much but they do light up the bottom/sides nicely from a visual perspective, whether they have any efficiency to actually grow any bud down below remains to be seen. Cheers.
