LEC - Light-Emitting Ceramic

BOBBY_G

BOBBY_G

Well-Known Member
first run was a bust

although temps were not overly hot (on the cool side in fact, 70s day 50s night), i just had too much darn light in that tent (4 315s in a 5x5) and it foxtailed the hell out of most of the tops.

what are you guys using for distance? i thought 14-18" would be enough but i guess with 4 lights i need 24"+. i wanted to take a light out but then id have a huge dark spot due to the square shape of the tent. i think il try these same 4 in a 5x9 instead of 5x5, maybe on some short movers
 
GroErr

GroErr

Well-Known Member
BOBBY_G said:
first run was a bust

although temps were not overly hot (on the cool side in fact, 70s day 50s night), i just had too much darn light in that tent (4 315s in a 5x5) and it foxtailed the hell out of most of the tops.

what are you guys using for distance? i thought 14-18" would be enough but i guess with 4 lights i need 24"+. i wanted to take a light out but then id have a huge dark spot due to the square shape of the tent. i think il try these same 4 in a 5x9 instead of 5x5, maybe on some short movers
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Damn, sorry to hear it didn't turn out as expected. That is a lot of light for a 5x5 and that's definitely too close regardless of number of lights imo. I'm surprised they didn't crisp up at that height. 20-22" has worked well for me, I've stretched them up to 22-24" if my footprint gets closer to 3.5 x 3.5 under a single light like I'm running right now with 9x 2gal plants. With multiple lights I'd think the 22-24" height would work well and you'll get good overlap. I've run 2 of them covering up to 3 x 7' using that bleeding in between them and got decent results. Only problem in a square footprint is trying to get even coverage when the footprint isn't in multiple of 3' or 3.5', 3.5' is about the most you'll get decent coverage, 3' is better.
 
BOBBY_G

BOBBY_G

Well-Known Member
GroErr said:
Damn, sorry to hear it didn't turn out as expected. That is a lot of light for a 5x5 and that's definitely too close regardless of number of lights imo. I'm surprised they didn't crisp up at that height. 20-22" has worked well for me, I've stretched them up to 22-24" if my footprint gets closer to 3.5 x 3.5 under a single light like I'm running right now with 9x 2gal plants. With multiple lights I'd think the 22-24" height would work well and you'll get good overlap. I've run 2 of them covering up to 3 x 7' using that bleeding in between them and got decent results. Only problem in a square footprint is trying to get even coverage when the footprint isn't in multiple of 3' or 3.5', 3.5' is about the most you'll get decent coverage, 3' is better.
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yeah 1200W of LEDs in there rocked face @ 18" so i figured 1250 of CMH wasnt insane. theyre not crispy but are like way stretching, looks like revegging almost
 
GroErr

GroErr

Well-Known Member
BOBBY_G said:
yeah 1200W of LEDs in there rocked face @ 18" so i figured 1250 of CMH wasnt insane. theyre not crispy but are like way stretching, looks like revegging almost
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Yeah, note your stretch for future runs, when I switched from LED's to these LEC's the stretch was crazy in comparison. Not necessarily a bad thing. I veg with blurple LED's and they go into flowering with very tight nodes so I depend on the stretch to open them up when I switch to the LEC's for flowering. Some of the stretch is affected by the difference in colour temperature between your veg and flowering lights, so if you veg say with T5/6500k, your stretch should be more than if you were vegging with blurple LED's or T5/LED @5000k. Haven't found any studies/reference on what the correlation is when using different lighting or colours, just that colour/temp differences will affect your stretch and the greater the difference, the greater the stretch.
 
GroErr

GroErr

Well-Known Member
Sire Killem All said:
The pamphlet that came with my nanolux 630 CMH recommended 32 inches from the canopy I got them at 30 right now
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Not many have run these, there's a few of you that recently got these and you're like pioneers with these 630's. That makes some sense both for coverage and intensity, 2x 315's together like they're configured would be pretty intense at 20-22".
 
GrumpyToker

GrumpyToker

Well-Known Member
Bad Karma said:
I now have three, 3x3 tents, full of LEC goodness. After sampling the final results of my first crop under LEC, I quickly went out and grabbed another light from SunSystem, this time it was the "new and improved" model. Which means they added an on/off switch and the ability to daisy chain up to three units.

(On the left is the SunSystem 315 V2, the HydroFarm Phantom CHM is in the middle, and the SunSystem 315 V1 is on the right)
View attachment 3621352
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I'm considering these two lights, which do you like better?
 
Bad Karma

Bad Karma

Well-Known Member
GrumpyToker said:
I'm considering these two lights, which do you like better?
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They each have their strengths, and weaknesses, but I think the SunSystem is a better unit. Don't get me wrong, the Phantom is still a high quality light, just not quite as high quality as the SunSystem.

SunSystem 315
Pros: Superior reflector, more efficient (ballast/driver), one piece design.
Cons: More expensive, runs hotter (due to one piece design).

Phantom CMH
Pros: Less heat in tent (if ballast is kept outside of the tent), less expensive.
Cons: Cheap reflector, ballast needs a fan pointed at it or it can get very warm to the touch, much more cord/cable to deal with.
 
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BOBBY_G

BOBBY_G

Well-Known Member
GroErr said:
Yeah, note your stretch for future runs, when I switched from LED's to these LEC's the stretch was crazy in comparison. Not necessarily a bad thing. I veg with blurple LED's and they go into flowering with very tight nodes so I depend on the stretch to open them up when I switch to the LEC's for flowering. Some of the stretch is affected by the difference in colour temperature between your veg and flowering lights, so if you veg say with T5/6500k, your stretch should be more than if you were vegging with blurple LED's or T5/LED @5000k. Haven't found any studies/reference on what the correlation is when using different lighting or colours, just that colour/temp differences will affect your stretch and the greater the difference, the greater the stretch.
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they were vegged under 6500k T5 and first 3 weeks of 12/12 i used the 4200K LEC bulb before switching to 3100K
 
BOBBY_G

BOBBY_G

Well-Known Member
Bad Karma said:
They each have their strengths, and weaknesses, but I think the SunSystem is a better unit. Don't get me wrong, the Phantom is still a high quality light, just not quite as high quality as the SunSystem.

SunSystem 315
Pros: Superior reflector, more efficient (ballast/driver), one piece design.
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data to back that up? how much does sun system draw at the wall. phantom is 340 something

also not sure how you assess 'quality' of reflector, theyre almost identical designs and i have yet to see a par map done on either
 
Bad Karma

Bad Karma

Well-Known Member
BOBBY_G said:
data to back that up? how much does sun system draw at the wall. phantom is 340 something

also not sure how you assess 'quality' of reflector, theyre almost identical designs and i have yet to see a par map done on either
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How do I assess the quality of the reflector?
The Phantom has a reflector that looks like it's been used for target practice by a BB gun. All bumpy, raised, and uneven. The SunSystem has a reflector with a smooth mirrored finish. I can tell you from first hand experience that the SunSystem penetrates further into the plants canopy than the Phantom. It's all about aiming the photons downwards onto the plants and the Phantoms bumpy reflector hinders that process.
Like I said above, the Phantom is good, the SunSystem is just better.

Wait, why am I explaining myself to someone requesting "data to back that up"? When that same person couldn't be bothered to read a few pages in this thread, or do a Google search, to find the appropriate height to hang his Phantoms from? Your own actions have negated your credibility on this subject.
 
BOBBY_G

BOBBY_G

Well-Known Member
Bad Karma said:
Wait, why am I explaining myself to someone requesting "data to back that up"? When that same person couldn't be bothered to read a few pages in this thread, or do a Google search, to find the appropriate height to hang his Phantoms from? Your own actions have negated your credibility on this subject.
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well, youre not explaining yourself to me, youre making a post as a respected user in a forum on the subject at hand. please take the personal element out of it. the only credibility i seek is the right to ask questions so we all can further our understanding :)

by definition 'looks bumpy' and 'penetrates deeper' are pretty subjective

i think that most people are more concerned with the uniformity of light it throws down, as measured by a par map (thats the kind of "data" i was looking for, your experience is also data but i think you get what i mean). reflectors vary wildly in coverage and uniformity. the sun systems looks like a great reflector, but performance should be #1 criteria

not bagging on your observations (or taking *any* personal jabs). Seems like a lot of people here acknowledge your skills and that youre a good guy. just realize subjective data is subjective data

and yes i boned it on my first run, so what, thats irrelevant. i hadnt used hid in 6 or 7 years and set the height of canopy to get 1000 umol, an intensity which happens to grow dense golf balls under my LEDs. note to self, will shoot for 500-700 next time with the LECs

youre the only person i know who has both of these, would be a great service to the community to hang them each at 36" and compare the footprints. Good chance your right, but apart from having data, we may never know.

as for ballast efficiency, again were just guessing. par map over a given area combined with watts at wall would tell a lot
 
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