Veg light for 3x3 tent

iPot

iPot

Well-Known Member
i need some help making a light for a 3x3 veg tent. Im thinking 300watts will be sufficient. What do you guys think? I saw a post saying three cree s connected to one meanwell pulling 300w. I lost the post. After this veg light i want to build one that will compete with a 1k hps in a 4x4. Any ideas/suggestions are appreciated.
 
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VegasWinner

Well-Known Member
try using four cxb3590 36v 2-3500K and 2-5000k with a meanwell 185H-C1400B for 50W max and 25W minimum dimmed or you can use a 185H-C700B for 23W max and 13W min per cob or 100W max 50w per fixture min. I use a C1400B dimmed to 50% for 700mA vegging. I also have a 185H-250B for real low level dimming. works great. lower light levels and higher lumen levels means great vegging. peace
 
GroErr

GroErr

Well-Known Member
I run cheap Mars LED panels for veg and they work great for veg, typically running them at 30-35w/sq./ft. I'd never recommend them for flowering, I move them into a separate room for flowering under either 3590 COBs or 315w CMH. Just offering this as an option if you have separate veg & flower areas. They will do as well or better than COBs for much less cost. I've had some running for over 3 years with no failures/issues and paid as low as $0.70/watt. Besides their ability to veg I prefer them for heat management in smaller spaces, run a couple of small tents (2x2 and 2x4) with passive intake and 4" booster fans for exhaust. Easy peasy and cheap. There's also some benefits in having different lighting in veg than flowering, when they switch rooms/spectrum they blow up and seem to like the change-up in lighting.

Edit: Pics or it never happened - lol

Camshot Ops 06-16-2016.jpg
 
iPot

iPot

Well-Known Member
VegasWinner said:
try using four cxb3590 36v 2-3500K and 2-5000k with a meanwell 185H-C1400B for 50W max and 25W minimum dimmed or you can use a 185H-C700B for 23W max and 13W min per cob or 100W max 50w per fixture min. I use a C1400B dimmed to 50% for 700mA vegging. I also have a 185H-250B for real low level dimming. works great. lower light levels and higher lumen levels means great vegging. peace
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Thanks for the advice.


GroErr said:
I run cheap Mars LED panels for veg and they work great for veg, typically running them at 30-35w/sq./ft. I'd never recommend them for flowering, I move them into a separate room for flowering under either 3590 COBs or 315w CMH. Just offering this as an option if you have separate veg & flower areas. They will do as well or better than COBs for much less cost. I've had some running for over 3 years with no failures/issues and paid as low as $0.70/watt. Besides their ability to veg I prefer them for heat management in smaller spaces, run a couple of small tents (2x2 and 2x4) with passive intake and 4" booster fans for exhaust. Easy peasy and cheap. There's also some benefits in having different lighting in veg than flowering, when they switch rooms/spectrum they blow up and seem to like the change-up in lighting.

Edit: Pics or it never happened - lol

View attachment 3714450
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I was thinking of just getting a mars but everywhere said they suck they must be refering to flower.

Im going to see whats cheaper diy or mars2.
 
Atulip

Atulip

Well-Known Member
I have seen a few led failures before, but the drivers, fans, and cases are still growing strong for me. 24/0 for ~18 months now.(7 months as conversions)

IMAG0039.jpg


For the eBay Mars leds, $.50 per watt is a priced right for what it is, and on their own performed as well as equal watts HPS for me, but I have done no "controlled" tests. Just growing autoflowers from in dirt here. But for that price it is disposable, like HPS bulbs. I wouldn't recommend the painted black Mars lights to anyone, at twice the price per watt, they fail just as easily as the cheap ebay ones.

Now DIY is definitely better. And going DIY you can build higher efficiencies and actually save electricity, which will pay for the cost to build it(typically around 2 years over SE HPS at 12/12, $.12kWh, and paying $2/watt for a kit build) if this is for veg only expect even faster ROI since the lights are on longer than 12 hours.

300w of cobs at 50~55% would be enough to flower a 3'x3' pretty comfortably.
 
GroErr

GroErr

Well-Known Member
Atulip said:
I have seen a few led failures before, but the drivers, fans, and cases are still growing strong for me. 24/0 for ~18 months now.(7 months as conversions)

View attachment 3715125


For the eBay Mars leds, $.50 per watt is a priced right for what it is, and on their own performed as well as equal watts HPS for me, but I have done no "controlled" tests. Just growing autoflowers from in dirt here. But for that price it is disposable, like HPS bulbs. I wouldn't recommend the painted black Mars lights to anyone, at twice the price per watt, they fail just as easily as the cheap ebay ones.

Now DIY is definitely better. And going DIY you can build higher efficiencies and actually save electricity, which will pay for the cost to build it(typically around 2 years over SE HPS at 12/12, $.12kWh, and paying $2/watt for a kit build) if this is for veg only expect even faster ROI since the lights are on longer than 12 hours.

300w of cobs at 50~55% would be enough to flower a 3'x3' pretty comfortably.
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I did a test on the Mars vs. CMH for flowering after a couple of trial runs with the Mars lights and no matter what I threw at them wattage wise they just didn't produce weight. Nice quality but fluffy compared to when I switched to CMH and then COBs. In my trial I flowered the same strain, clones from the same plants, same environment, same containers and medium, feed schedule etc. The CMH run produced 3x the weight vs. the Mars and finished them 1 week earlier. Significant difference for a relatively low investment. Like I said, I do like the blurple panels for vegging and the switch in spectrum between veg & flower makes them explode when they go into flowering. Not as much growth/stretch under the 3590 COBs but in the end the COBs produce as well or better. Still dialing in the COBs but was pleased with a first run in my flower room. I have used some off-brand COBs in my small breeding tent for a couple of years and they produced quite well and nice quality but the 3590's are definitely more efficient and produce better.
 
Woyaboy

Woyaboy

Well-Known Member
GroErr said:
I did a test on the Mars vs. CMH for flowering after a couple of trial runs with the Mars lights and no matter what I threw at them wattage wise they just didn't produce weight. Nice quality but fluffy compared to when I switched to CMH and then COBs. In my trial I flowered the same strain, clones from the same plants, same environment, same containers and medium, feed schedule etc. The CMH run produced 3x the weight vs. the Mars and finished them 1 week earlier. Significant difference for a relatively low investment. Like I said, I do like the blurple panels for vegging and the switch in spectrum between veg & flower makes them explode when they go into flowering. Not as much growth/stretch under the 3590 COBs but in the end the COBs produce as well or better. Still dialing in the COBs but was pleased with a first run in my flower room. I have used some off-brand COBs in my small breeding tent for a couple of years and they produced quite well and nice quality but the 3590's are definitely more efficient and produce better.
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I too have noticed Mars can do quite well for vegging. I have the 600 for a 2x2 and they really seem to like the light a lot! Always wake up to nice lush new growth.
 
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mypassion

Well-Known Member
3 on each side 2 on the middle will give you good coverage, saw a video on growmau5 YouTube channel, you should check it out.
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
Blurple might do well for vegging, but 30-35W/sqft is what I use in my flowering tents to support 2-3 foot tall plants.

I actually use more like 13.33W/sqft in my clone box which runs 24/0, but it only supports ~1 foot tall plants.

Veg is the low hanging fruit when it comes to saving money with higher efficiency lamps.
 
GroErr

GroErr

Well-Known Member
churchhaze said:
Blurple might do well for vegging, but 30-35W/sqft is what I use in my flowering tents to support 2-3 foot tall plants.

I actually use more like 13.33W/sqft in my clone box which runs 24/0, but it only supports ~1 foot tall plants.

Veg is the low hanging fruit when it comes to saving money with higher efficiency lamps.
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One of the other things I like about these mars panels with the veg/bloom switches is being able to turn it down for whatever reason like slowing them down. In a 2x4 I'll sometimes just turn on the veg switch which pulls about 180w or 23/w/sq. ft., or crank both on and run at 35w/sq./ft. when I need or want to speed things up a bit. I just did that in a smaller 2x2 tent to hold my outdoor plants in there without getting too large, ran one of the smaller "150" panels which pulls on 63w with the veg switch only, or just over 15w/sq./ft. I run one of these over my cloner as well, pulls the equivalent of an old school 60w incandescent bulb.
 
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