Rocket Plasma, new(ish) plasma light

[gcrumpets]

Anyone else caught wind of these yet? rocketplasma.com The company is called Rocket plasma, apprently some of the same peeps behind beneficial biologics/primodrial solutions (also good stuff btw). they stopped by my store a couple weeks back doing a promo tour for their new light and i had to bite the bullet. UPS dropped off two this morning

they say its the only plasma with a hefty red spectrum to replace (not supplement) a HPS, ive heard good things from people using the gavita's but they all seemed to agree it doesnt hold up flowering on its own. Im pretty excited to give this light a go round and was just curious as to what other people have seen/heard about it. I couldnt find any threads or journals of people using them (pretty new still). Worms way was some test videos of it floating around but nothing very indepth. While talking with the maker he seemed pretty confident about it holding its own against a 600w yeild wise, over a 4x4 area.... so we will see.

this isnt a journal or anything, i literally just opened the box and set one unit up as an in store display, but so far im impressed, they appear very well made... and bright! gonna take the other one home and put it in a 4' x 12'room with 2 Digilux 600's, with its own 4x4 area to grow and see what happens. should have it up and flowering with the next week or so. im pumped.

 

[puffenuff]

Looks good. What's the cost?

 

[gcrumpets]

retails for an even $1000, with a bulb in it, replacment bulbs run $99, forgot to mention the power draw, its listed as 230w 120-240v, plugged it into a kill-a-watt and it read 233, seems accurate.

ive had one running for about 3 hours now, very little heat, i can comfortably keep my hand 1/2" below the light.

 

[PSUAGRO.]

Who makes the light engine? And I don't believe their spectral distribution chart at all cause its still an mh plasma.....idk could be wrong but their technical specs are lacking.

Cute color for the housing though

 

[gcrumpets]

unfortunately i do not know from who/where they source the components, on the website there is a brief mention of different bulb color options but ive only seen the 3000k for sale. I dont have the proper tools for a real analysis but from simply looking at one lit up next to a digital MH bulb it appears to be 'red-er' hah. hopefully in 2-3 months ill have some results to form a real opinion.

this is the first 'new' type of light ive had the opportunity to try out since running a "500w" blackstar LED for 4 months, which did not impress me at all and is now collecting dust in a corner next to a kessil 150.

 

[vanlee]

Saw these being demo'd at a local grow shop. I asked about the one running and the woman said that this was the answer to the new lighting technology. She said it leapfrogged LED, and she was pleased with the tighter internode length she was seeing.

She's a salesperson, and this is bleeding edge technology. I'm sure it improves upon some aspect of HID use. I'm curious to see your views after a harvest or two.

 

[multipass]

Very cool, glad to see this grow =D

Looking at their site..
Shouldn't there be individual spectral data for each of their bulbs..?

 

[Mr John]

Looks too small for a 3x3 area, but I like the technology behind it. Wonder how it compares to HID in penetration?

 

[dbkick]

wonder how it compares to a gavita lep.They have one that is full spectrum boasting reds too.

 

[dbkick]

unfortunately i do not know from who/where they source the components, on the website there is a brief mention of different bulb color options but ive only seen the 3000k for sale. I dont have the proper tools for a real analysis but from simply looking at one lit up next to a digital MH bulb it appears to be 'red-er' hah. hopefully in 2-3 months ill have some results to form a real opinion.

this is the first 'new' type of light ive had the opportunity to try out since running a "500w" blackstar LED for 4 months, which did not impress me at all and is now collecting dust in a corner next to a kessil 150.

Just feel lucky your blackstar 500 is still working . Failure rate from what I saw is incredible.

 

[Mr John]

[h=1]Gavita Pro 600 SE any good?[/h]

 

[chazbolin]

Chameleon, Gavita, Stray Light, Rocket all source their plasma emitters and drivers from Luxim. The spectral distribution for all these mfg's is exactly the same. http://www.luxim.com/products/grow-lighting

The reason plasma lighting was created was to replace HID with a high lumen, lower wattage source that would be an option to LED and offer the controls that HID does not lend itself to, such as dimming and instant restrike. http://www.luxim.com/technology/features/high-lumens-package

Gavita recommends that you use their dual ended 1000 watt HPS lamp in conjunction with the LEP for flower as plasma lacks sufficient R-FR
http://monstergardens.com/Gavita-MASTER-GreenPower-TD-EL-1000W-400V-Electronic-Bulb

If you care to see a technical comparison of competing technologies, including plasma, you can find this information beginning on page 6. In the photopic lumen category you'll see 73% of the plasma output is in the visual range. http://www.inda-gro.com/pdf/MeasuringPlantLight.pdf

 

[gcrumpets]

Looks too small for a 3x3 area, but I like the technology behind it. Wonder how it compares to HID in penetration?

Ive been re doing my space today and finally have it all set up, I have the rocket hanging over 3x4' of canopy that slightly overlaps the adjacent 600hps over a 4x4, with 2nd 600w down the line from that. pics may follow but the footprint looks great, im gonna try to finish 3-3.5ft plants in 5gal smart pots under the plasma, probably 6 directly under it.

Just feel lucky your blackstar 500 is still working . Failure rate from what I saw is incredible.

well actually sense you mentioned it, yea the UV Led fried and took out half the board, i opened the bitch up, spent 5-6hours with a tiny ass screw driver and soldering iron, bypassing the blown led only to find out that when it blew it took 2 of the 4 power supplies with, never felt like spending the $60 for replacments... cant complain tho, picked it up for $300 2nd hand off ebay.

Gavita Pro 600 SE any good?

Ive personally never ran one but ive sold a few and gotten excellent feed back, with ethier the 600 or double ended 1000w people seems to think they are visually brighter than the lumateks,phantoms, or whatever they were replacing... the extended bulb life sounds nice too, but the selection of reflectors is limited, ive only seen one air cooled hood for the double ended bulbs.

 

[CaliWorthington]

Any updates on this? How's the growth looking under the Rocket Plasma? I'm wondering if plasma has better penetration into the canopy then induction. If so, a plasma/red LED combo might be worth a try. I'd like to run that side-by-side with induction/LED and see which is preferable. Worst case, I'd end up with a couple high efficiency veg lights.

 

[gcrumpets]

just to update, i have plants about 4 weeks into flower under the rocket plasma, in a 4x8 tent.

theres 8 plants directly under the plasma and 8 plants under a 600w lumatek hps right next to them. not the most scientific test, the plasma is lighting up 8 LA chocolat clones in 3 gallon smart pots (about 24-30" tall) and the hps is lighting up a mix of 3 different strains in 5 gallon smart pots than were vegged about 3 weeks longer and are all about a foot taller than the LA clones.

however, the internodal spacing under the plasma is smashing the hps plants, very tight little bushes, and ive been working with this LA for a few grows now and its typically a nasty stretcher with flimsy structure that requires frequent support. this run under the plasma its almost like working with a different plant the canopy is about a foot shorter but with the spacing it could easily have a comparable yeild to the hps side....

another point to note is that the plants started showing sex almost immediately under the plasma, literally the 1st day i switched to 12/12 they shot out pistils and strong pre flowers. within 4 days they looked like they had been flowering for an easy 8 or 10, the hps side was lagging behind. 4 weeks in now and theyve pretty much evened out in terms of visual maturity of the flowers.

again, all are in the same 4x8 grow lab, co2 ppm drifts between 900 and 1600ppm during lights on, temps stay between 83 and 88 degrees and all are being grown in relatively hot soil mix, loosely based on super soil, fed with humic acid, molasses and some seaweed pretty much every watering.

no complaints thus far, pretty happy with the light... waiting to see the scales next month.

 

[PSUAGRO.]

Any pics? Yeah it should be no surprise that a MH plasma will have tighter internodes vs your hps, flowering is where you will see the hps take over IMO.

Keep us updated grower.

 

[gcrumpets]

Been a little more secretive as of late and am kinda hesitant to post pics, I did take some tho, perhaps once I'm done traveling for the holidays I'll throw them up.

Everything is about 38 days into flowering and doing good, I'm gonna go ahead and estimate that I pull between 8-9 zips out from under this plasma, the LA is looking like it should average a little over 1oz per plant... Which would be pretty impressive at only 230watts. The 600 next to it looks like it should yield about 12-14oz right now but we'll see how these things fill out.... I'm usually pretty good at eyeballing my yield, if I hit 1.25lb from this tent with 830watts I'll be pretty satisfied.

This plasma is definitely cool, the $1000 price tag is still a huge setback tho, I'm definitely not about to go out and buy 3 more... Wish I could tho haha

 

[Voidling]

Would love to know the outcome. I saw plasma couple years back but were way too pricy. Still out of my reach for the big brands but I came across this kickstarter that was trying to bring the price down http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1051430234/sunstream-400-a-plasma-grow-light-for-everyone It wasn't funded but I'm hoping they can manage to release it anyway. Was just about to pull the trigger on a blackstar when I came across it.

Do the blackstar really fail that much? I've got a friend with 4 or 5 for flower and a couple of veg without any problems that I know of. But he only has the 240w versions I think

 

[gcrumpets]

Hey guys, stay tuned I'm doing the chop chop tomorrow night. 8 la chocolat clones from under the plasma that will be 57 days into flower. I know this strain, been rockin it for a few grows now and it was most definitely more ripe that previous runs with hps @ 8 weeks, I have let it go 9 weeks in the past but it is without a doubt ready under the plasma in 8 so that's cool... I have yumboldt x vintage 06 and big Buddha cheese under the 600, both of which I usually let go 9-10weeks so the comparison weight will still be a few weeks out. Once the trimming is done I'll let y'all no what it clocks in at.

2nd test grow for the plasma will start as soon as I get the space cleaned and some fresh soil mixed up.

 

[gcrumpets]

211.2 giblets from the plasma side of the tent. 600 Hps side going another 7 days till chop.

thats about 0.91g/w, I can be happy with that... This time around I got my filters and tanks off the floor allowing me to use the full 4x4 footprint, this next test run will have 25% more canopy space, and I'm using bigger plants, about 18" tall when put into flower as opposed to about 10"'last run, I wasn't sure of the penetrative power of this light but now I think it can handle some 3ft bushes. I think I could get that yield up quite a bit.