the cmh seem to be doing well. theyve got my interest
I'm pretty impressed with them. My plants aren't a good representation because they've been so stressed from the broad mites plus I burnt the crap out of them leaving the lights on one of the times I sprayed.
What I've gathered so far on these cmh's:
The 315w vertical fixtures(light bulb screwing in vertically) paired with the philips 3100k bulb seem to be the way to go in comparison with the 630 double ended cmh(growers choice @3000k red enhanced) as far as par readings go. Pretty identical readings yet the 315s obviously are using much less wattage and generate about half the heat.
The growers choice hood deffinitely needs redesigned. The "hot spot" of the light is considerably off to the side, no matter the angle of the light, most intensity shines atleast 1 foot off center and dumps off fast. Its pretty screwy. When working under the lights the 630 feels much more intense but for whatever reason does not show it on the par meter. It does also look to shine slightly brighter than the 315s as well.
We'll see for sure how they compare for flowering(8 more days).
I also own a couple blurples(hydro galaxy) and a 600w hps/mh (Vivosun). I've hung them side by side with my cmh's for a few days and the cmh's excell. Growth seems to slow where the cmh's aren't shining down and par readings don't even compare. I should specify a bit, in comparison with the traditional hid, I only ran the MH next to the cmhs (not the hps), in an open hood (air cooled style but I didn't have the glass in) and at 600 watts of mh, it was pretty clear that the cmhs put it to shame and I took the mh down because I felt I was kind of just wasting electricity.
Now that I have this pest problem under control I'm really excited to see what the cmh's bring. Soon I'll be flowering, and I'm really eager to see the resin production that these are said to excell in.
I was looking for preflowers on one of my plants earlier and it made my fingers sticky just touching the main stalk, already getting aromas too at about 5 to 6 weeks from seed.