From DEs to LEDs

[DesertHydro]

i take any and all advice. my environment is on point now. it wasnt before that big ass humidifier. that thing can send out a gallon an hour. my issue at first was overwatering. i got that dialed in. i am now watering for 20 seconds every 3 hours. my manifolds flow heavy as there is one pump per site. i am getting my feed rates dialed in finally. i was expecting them to need a lot more food since i was running co2 but i guess that was not the case. i normally run 1.2 ec with jacks. i was told i could do up to 1.8 with co2 so thats what i did. i think the overwatering exacerbated the issue. i think they will lighten up over the next week or two.

my plant count is 24 at the moment. there are 12 in that room and when that comes down the other room that i showed you is ready for 18. this is my first try at a sealed room. my controllers keep things in check quite well. im at 85 degrees, 60% rh, 1.2 ec and about 1000-1200 ppm co2

 

[greengrassgrower1]

Alright i would tweet a few things. Are you using digi HPS ballasts? if so turn them down to 600 or 750 to allow your plants to regain their health. I always like 3' from open ended SEs.. From the pick it looks like they could be alot closer..

I use Jacks as well.. Love the stuff. In the past i would say stay in the 600 to 750 range but i would often suffer from slight yellowing.. I have bumped it up for a few runs now and will never go back.. I like my PPMs as followed Part 1 400, Part 2 100(the Epson salt) Part 3 350(CalNit). I dial it down at week 6 and 7 then nothing week 8 and 9.

Get your rh higher if your temps are at 85 rock 80 RH.. This is important when your lights are off keep your temps up and RH up, say 78 temp and 70 rh.. Dont worry about mold as long as your fans are making the leafs shake your good.. When you walk into your room lights on or off you want to feel like Your in a tropical hot humid location.. This changes towards week 6 when u want to start dropping the temps and drying out the air.. I finish at 70 temp and RH 45.. It will bring out some color and trikes at the end..

Hope this helps out, link your thread so i can follow along..

Cheers,

 

[drgreentm]

Thanks for the kind words Dr.

I agree my G per w was low for HPS.. A couple plants didnt hit as well as they should have.. As far as turning them down i did to 750w and saw same to less results so i put them back to 1k.. Out of the 12 to 15 runs i did with the best was .86 per w. and they looked like this x 16..
View attachment 4053547 Now thats with a bigger yielding strain then i am running now..


Back to the light source.. dollar for dollar if i were lighting up a big area i would go SE HPS.. HElla cheap and gives great results.. But for me in my 8x8 its about being efficient.. That means 2 things to me...

Maximizing photons per Watts: QBs have the best output for the price IMO. 600ws of QBs = 1k SE.. = Savings on lighting and cooling cost.
Maximizing photon delivery: looking at 1 HPS to 1 QB rig.. One light source vs. 4 boards.. The spread on the boards is ideal for an even coverage eliminating Hot spots..

One other thing to note about the QBs and HPS is the head room that is needed. DE, i like them 3' to 4 ' away from the canopy and QBs i like 18" allowing you to grow much lager plants.

All and all i am very impressed and excited as to what i can achieve with 2.4k vs 4k..

Cheers,

Greengrassgrower1, makes complete sense and only you know what works in your area, if I was running your space I would be doing exactly what you are as I think the qb’s are great lights and I’m like you in the sense of, I’m looking for efficiency. One way or the other I will be trying out some led in the near future I’m sure and I have a whole other half of the room that is unoccupied at the moment so maybe next expansion will be with some led.

Anyway you seem like a very humble grower and I appreciate the hell out of that. Your grows are on point to say the least and looking foreword to seeing more of them. I have no hate for any led growers and have seen some great grows with them, very impressive.

 

[DesertHydro]

Alright i would tweet a few things. Are you using digi HPS ballasts? if so turn them down to 600 or 750 to allow your plants to regain their health. I always like 3' from open ended SEs.. From the pick it looks like they could be alot closer..

I use Jacks as well.. Love the stuff. In the past i would say stay in the 600 to 750 range but i would often suffer from slight yellowing.. I have bumped it up for a few runs now and will never go back.. I like my PPMs as followed Part 1 400, Part 2 100(the Epson salt) Part 3 350(CalNit). I dial it down at week 6 and 7 then nothing week 8 and 9.

Get your rh higher if your temps are at 85 rock 80 RH.. This is important when your lights are off keep your temps up and RH up, say 78 temp and 70 rh.. Dont worry about mold as long as your fans are making the leafs shake your good.. When you walk into your room lights on or off you want to feel like Your in a tropical hot humid location.. This changes towards week 6 when u want to start dropping the temps and drying out the air.. I finish at 70 temp and RH 45.. It will bring out some color and trikes at the end..

Hope this helps out, link your thread so i can follow along..

Cheers,

Thanks. Much appreciated. I will fix my Rh tonight when I'm there. My ballasts aren't dimmable so what I've been doing is compressing the cages to keep them from getting too close. I think most are in the 24-30" range now. I'd like to sell all my SE again after this round and invest in LED and CMH tech

 

[DesertHydro]

set my rh at 75% and installed two oscillating fans. im gonna be dropping 4 separate COB light engines over plants that arent getting hit from all sides. just ordered all the gear tonight.
have any of you LED guys checked out photonfantom boards?

 

[dannykay]

set my rh at 75% and installed two oscillating fans. im gonna be dropping 4 separate COB light engines over plants that arent getting hit from all sides. just ordered all the gear tonight.
have any of you LED guys checked out photonfantom boards?

I've tried their website about a week ago, seems that they're all out of stock for a while now.
Did you find any available stocks?

 

[DesertHydro]

I've tried their website about a week ago, seems that they're all out of stock for a while now.
Did you find any available stocks?

2/3 were in stock as of today.

 

[dannykay]

2/3 were in stock as of today.

Thanks.
Am I reading correctly that you can drive the sunboard240 at 2.1ma w/o heatsink at 100w?

to me the no heatsink requirement is very compelling, with shipping/custom prices.

 

[DesertHydro]

Thanks.
Am I reading correctly that you can drive the sunboard240 at 2.1ma w/o heatsink at 100w?

to me the no heatsink requirement is very compelling, with shipping/custom prices.

if i did the math correctly 2.1ma would put you around 70w and i think the boards have a 100w max. i could be way off. i stopped doing all the calculations and just wired my cobs in parallel with a constant voltage driver lol

 

[greengrassgrower1]

A shot pre and post Harvest.. The circle of life continues.

 

[lukio]

very nice indeed!

 

[ganjamystic]

 

[Stone_Free]

Good job man, you should be proud of your efforts. Enjoy the reward!

 

[greengrassgrower1]

Well the numbers are in and its 1.05 Gs per Watt.. I am super happy with the results. i hit my average with 1600 less watts, and the quality is slightly better..



Big thanks to HLG @robincnn @Stephenj37826 for the order and the extra goodies..

 

[Flowki]

i think its cool and crazy we have people switching from DE to LED. that just goes to show you LEDs are finally getting to the point where they can hang with the big boys.



running PPKs(recirculating top feed on close intervals every couple hours) the medium is a 50/50 by volume mix of little silica stone gravel and giant perlite. room size is roughly 23x32 and there is going to be three rows of 6 lights. 1 plant per light as i am on limited plant count. long veg, scrog, train FIM LST all of it lol. ive dialed back the co2 to 1000 ppm and have been getting the nutes back to where they need to be. this building is just being built. ductwork shows up tomorrow and then it will be mostly done. need to set up my filtration, ozone and ductwork as well as wire one more power supply for the last row.

here's a shot of the current room. they got flowered early because of a timer malfunction but i caught it early enough to reveg them and cause the weird mutations in structure. super bushy and lots of bud sites. had to run the bulbs vertical because i was afraid they were gonna stretch but the mutation negated stretch almost completely. it also delayed the initiation of flower by like 2.5 weeks. oh well. you grow and learn from every experience.
View attachment 4053665

Anybody else look at that pic and found themselves squinting?, nice setup.

 

[DesertHydro]

Anybody else look at that pic and found themselves squinting?, nice setup.

that reminds me.... i need to buy some oxy/acetylene goggles for when im in there lol. thanks. that room comes down in about 2-3 weeks!

 

[DesertHydro]

A shot pre and post Harvest.. The circle of life continues.

View attachment 4057719 View attachment 4057718

good shit!! what would you say you need to cover a 5x5 with those? how many panels/watts total

 

[thetr33man]

So far you liking the cobs or QBs more?

 

[GreenHighlander]

After reading through this thread I just wanna say beautiful job greengrassgrower.
I am certainly now considering LED.
What would the rough cost of the latest light setup you showed cost? and rough amp draw?
Cheers

 

[greengrassgrower1]

good shit!! what would you say you need to cover a 5x5 with those? how many panels/watts total

I would say 6 boards at around 120-140w each for a total of 720-840w. Thats where i would be looking if lighting a 5x5.