LEC Sun System 315W CMH/Philips Elite Agro 930 - Virgin Flowering Run

GroErr said:
Liking these Elite Agro's though, I'm looking at 12-14 zips from a 315w bulb, that's pretty efficient, haven't had to modify any equipment or worry about temps, nothing wrong with that.
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When you say you're not worried about temp's, does that mean you're not venting the light itself at all? Obviously there is some heat generation, is it seriously no more than the LED's you used? For a newcomer to growing, this unit seems attractive, in that it's relatively low consumption AND quite stealthy (not to mention looks a lot like simple "plug and play"), going by initial reports. If no venting is needed and the results are good, which they appear to be, NICE! And to be fair, once you've committed to paying for high quality lighting, $500 is pretty reasonable for a central light considering the competition for stealthy alternatives to HPS (AT600 - for a 3 x 3 or 4 x 4 runs $2500 or $2800-ish shipped to Europe and even with A51's where 3 or 4 units is probably the equivalent in terms of coverage you're looking at $1500 to $2000 + shipping). All of a sudden, a couple of these are an interesting prospect for a 4 x 8 area with a few LED/CFL side lights perhaps, again, assuming they are as easy and stealthy as they appear at first glance! Would you recommend these for a novice grower?

I shall pray to the herb spirits that your harvest is a fruitful and delicious one.

(sorry to go off on a selfish tangent! Your buds do look rather frosty and tantalizing!)

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to ask; is it noisy at all?
 
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If I wasn't fortunate enough to get to test a few led panels, and had to fork out my cash, I would definitely replace my 432w hot5 (gathering dust these days), if for no other reason than the money I would save in replacing the hot5 bulbs

Looking at several cmh results, it's certainly in the same ball park as properly designed led panels
 
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Heavy Consumer said:
When you say you're not worried about temp's, does that mean you're not venting the light itself at all? Obviously there is some heat generation, is it seriously no more than the LED's you used? For a newcomer to growing, this unit seems attractive, in that it's relatively low consumption AND quite stealthy (not to mention looks a lot like simple "plug and play"), going by initial reports. If no venting is needed and the results are good, which they appear to be, NICE! And to be fair, once you've committed to paying for high quality lighting, $500 is pretty reasonable for a central light considering the competition for stealthy alternatives to HPS (AT600 - for a 3 x 3 or 4 x 4 runs $2500 or $2800-ish shipped to Europe and even with A51's where 3 or 4 units is probably the equivalent in terms of coverage you're looking at $1500 to $2000 + shipping). All of a sudden, a couple of these are an interesting prospect for a 4 x 8 area with a few LED/CFL side lights perhaps, again, assuming they are as easy and stealthy as they appear at first glance! Would you recommend these for a novice grower?

I shall pray to the herb spirits that your harvest is a fruitful and delicious one.

(sorry to go off on a selfish tangent! Your buds do look rather frosty and tantalizing!)

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to ask; is it noisy at all?
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Hey Heavy, thanks for the comments/questions. I was running up to 700W of LED's in this 4x9.5x7'H room through the fall/winter/spring. Now it's fall again and I'm running 2 of the LEC's pulling 760W @120v at the wall (about 690W if you run them on 220v) with no change in equipment, just a 4" inline intake from the furnace/air conditioner for fresh air and 4" inline exhaust (w/carbon filter once they get 3-4 weeks into flowering). Both running at the lowest setting on variable controllers. No different than when I had the LED's. Of course they generate some heat but in comparison to the LED's it's like 2F difference and still keeps me peaking at 84F during lights-on (perfect imo). In comparison to hps, there is no comparison for heat, my son runs hps and he's always fighting with temps, particularly through the summer (although he's just about to pull the trigger on 6 of these!).

For a 4x8, 3 or 4 of these would cover the 4x8 well, they're more suited for 3 to 3.5' depth so like 3 of them would cover off 3.5x9-10' nicely. Not sure what you mean by stealthy but I've recently posted a pic showing both units, they don't take much room and you want to run them about 20-22" above the canopy to avoid any leaf burn/discolouration. As far as recommending them yeah, for a novice grower even better, set them up and forget about them, you can concentrate on other things . An no, there is no separate cooling required for the hoods, I just have a couple of fans for circulation and the inline fans for incoming/exhaust. The Sun Systems units don't have cooling in the hoods other than a couple of vents on the ends and you can touch them after a 12 hour cycle and they're barely warm.

It really is a great option if you have at least say 6' of height in your room/tent. I'd consider DIY COBs or high end LED's like Apache or A51 as the comparison for efficiency, output and heat generation. I wish I had found these before spending a few months getting next to nothing from cheap Chinese LED panels. Cheers.

EDIT: Forgot your noise question. Quieter than LED's, no hum, no fan noise, nothing, the circulation/inline fans in the room make more noise than anything.
 
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PetFlora said:
FYI, the fans Amare Technologies uses are very quiet
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The look pretty sweet, I'd imagine any of the better panels should be next to nothing noise-wise, even those LG panels with 3 fans are relatively quiet.

I'd like to see a run with a commercial or DIY White COB panel @ about 60% 3000k 20% 2700k and 20% 4000k. That little breeding tent run I mentioned a while back with the cheap Chinese and DIY panels and the above spectrum mix produced 6.6 zips from 2 small plants, essentially matched the output of the first CMH test run, same strains, same clones/mother. Below is the before/after, the largest bud on the PPP weighed 25g dry. The JTR was the frostiest run yet. Running the Harlequin CBD breeding project this round in there to see if I can replicate it, if so, I may be modifying my COB panel design even before I build it ;)
Breeding-All-Day58-Flower-2.JPG IMG_4955.JPG
 
I see you use a Britta, do you think that add something to the grow? I haven't seen that idea before, sounds neat!
 
Dloomis514 said:
I thought I saw the brita mentioned in your grow journal. Am I mistaken?
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Oh sorry, probably mentioned that I use the Brita filter for cleaning up my tap water, it's pretty high in chlorine. They're not the greatest option but was easy to install the on-tap unit, cheap, and cleans up some crap, reduces the chlorine to the point you can't smell it, usually let it sit 24 hours to evap anything left in it. My straight-up tap water smells like a pool which has just been shocked, pretty bad. Now that I've expanded my grow though it's a pain, the output is pretty slow and I'll use up to 20-25L per watering if they all fall into the same watering day. My son has an extra RO system, I'll be installing that next. Water quality is definitely one of the key ingredients, what you use depends on your source water quality, for a small grow the on-tap filters aren't a bad/cheap option and easy to install. Cheers...
 
you can toss a handful of compost in your water to remove the
chlorine also. once it kills a microorganism it off gasses. way more
micro herd than chlorine, so you are inoculating your water as well.

have you ppm tested your water before and after using the brita?
 
indianajones said:
you can toss a handful of compost in your water to remove the
chlorine also. once it kills a microorganism it off gasses. way more
micro herd than chlorine, so you are inoculating your water as well.

have you ppm tested your water before and after using the brita?
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Interesting method, never heard of that. I tested it a couple of times and it was <50 ppm after putting it through the brita, about 150 before if i remember right. It's easy to tell it's working even without testing, a smell/taste test is all I need to know it's not pool-shocked water ;) Main thing I'm concerned about is the chlorine and ph levels not being too high, any time I tested the ph it comes in around 6.0 after filtering, good enough and the plants including seedlings seem to like it so I don't worry about testing unless I'm seeing a problem. Before I started using the filter, between the ph and high chlorine I'd end up with yellowing on seedlings, likely ph was too high. I really don't worry about this stuff too much, I borrow the meter from my son if I want to test it, don't even own one. I probably would if I were doing hydro but if I don't see problems that could be water/ppm/ph related I don't bother. The one thing my tap water is good for is my aero cloner, never have problems with slime or the like and just throw straight tap water in, the chlorine helps there imo.
 
D619 said:
Anyone who has completed grow with the 315s. End up with leafier buds vs bigger calyxes?
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Haven't noticed any difference but haven't looked for it either. Only the second run with the LEC, but I've run the same strains in my tent with LED's and didn't really notice any difference in leaf ratio, just more frost and stronger smell with the LED's (same strains/clones, same mothers) in the last tent run with the mixed white spectrum. Only noticeable difference between the Elite Agro and my old LG LED's is bud density, no comparison there, like 3x the weight/density.
 
D619 said:
Anyone who has completed grow with the 315s. End up with leafier buds vs bigger calyxes?
Click to expand...


those britta and pur filters do not reduce ppm's at all. they remove most of the chlorine and thats about it. if you aerate water for a day that gets rid of chlorine too. If you want RO water get an Ro system or fill up 5 gal jugs at those glacier water machines at every grocery store. around $0.35 a gallon to fill up.
 
D619 said:
Wow, LEC produced 3 xs the weight/density compare to LEDS? Thanks
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Compared to the LG Chinese LED's yes, 3x the yield, clones from the same mothers. As Pet mentioned, that does not compare them to quality LED panels. The 3070 COB lights, A51 and Apache LED's consistently pulling very respectable yields and quality buds. The point is not LED's are created equal, have tried 3 low-end Chinese "7/9 band" panels with dismal results, buyer beware with low-end panels. Sticking to the brands above all pull nice yields, with higher efficiency per watt than hps. Based on some documented grows in here, the Cree 3070 COBs seem to be the most efficient lighting available right now.
 
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