Contemplating a light mover... worried about watts/sq. ft.

Hey there gang,
I'm in the process of moving my veg out of my sealed room with co2 and using that space to maximize flower production.

My flower room is 7 x 11. I typically SCROG with screens that are 3 feet wide, this gives me a foot wide aisle to walk through the room with. So I am thinking two Rows of flowering plants, each one 10 feet long x 3 feet wide.

I currently have three sealed 600's. Three over a 3 by 10 area yielding 60 watts/sq. ft and one in the veg tent on a 6' rail. Yield is very good.

If I purchase another 600 for the flower room then I would have 2400 watts for 60 sq.ft.of flower which would = 40 watts/sq.ft. I would put all four on a light rail and run them over the 10 distance.

So finally getting to the question.. will the light rail somehow compensate for this reduction in watts/sq.ft. ? If I have to put three lights on each side I might as well just skip the light rail.

Would love some advice based on experience. Thanks allot and merry christmas!

I am planning an addition of a light mover also, and have done a fair amount of research on actual need of light. It seems to be common belief that the plant can only absorb the energy from 6 hours of direct light, longer than that is wasted. I am not changing to 6 hours of light though, but if the light is always moving and removing shaded spots by moving then even a little less light time on each plant should make no difference in total weight and quality, except to make it better. My concern is this, how am i going to efficiently duct in and out of a light that is constantly moving? That is the biggest problem i see, otherwise the light mover is brilliant. I guess this wasn't based on experience, but theory. I am not able to add a mover until probably feb myself or i would inform you of results.

Never heard of the 6 hour deal about photosynthesis. Would love to see a citation. Anyways, I was trying to figure out watts/hour given the fact that half the plants won't get the full strength of the light when it's at the other end but perhaps this is a red herring of sorts. Although the will have less time under the lights, the intensity will be higher. So maybe total lumens or lux per day would be a better way to look at it.

Nobody elese?

When I started back at her 10 years ago I bought light rails and used them for 18 months. Covered more area = more plants, but same yield. So they gather dust. Bottom line for me was the same yield = not worth it. Remember it's more plants too for the same yield. Save the money and buy a light you will get more out of it. IMHO

Good point. I'm legally limited to the number of plants I can grow..hence the SCROG so maybe I should just skip the rail in the flower room then. But it would look so cool !!

I heard about the 12 hour veg set up on here, don't have anything to site for it but i do have it currently going in my set up to try it out, been just about a week now and no flowering at all. Theory seems to be there, and i want to keep my power consumption as low as possible, also the reason i am going to go with the light mover.

I believe every situation is completely different, as with my room venting 2 hoods would be hell, unless i have them where i do not need them, as where one light on a light mover will be much easier, even if it does slow my air flow a little bit, it certainly will not cut it in half like i would have to do with 2 hoods. I use a 1000 watt and a light spreader to be able to drop that light CLOSE to the plant canopy, so if it is moving all the time i can get a lot of lumens out of it for the whole space of the room, not just good light in the middle and so so light on the edges. Also this way i do not have to run 2000 watts in a 7x7 room that holds heat bad!!! Everyone will have different stories on light movers as none of our rooms are exactly the same. I honestly will take and physically move my light just to see how the theory works in "practice". Good luck in whatever you decide.

Taken from a thread from 420,, "i have a 8' x 13' gro room with 40 plants. i used to use 4-1000s and 2-400s to cover the space. i installed a light mover on 6' track w-2-1000s. i'm 1 week into flower, and at this point, the girls look as healthy as i've ever done. cant speak about yield yet. if you havent seen pit vipers gro you should check it out. he uses a mover and does VERY well. "......... So, IMO 2 LIGHT RAILS, 4 LIGHTS,,, or one light rail with the lights being 2'1/2" foot? from the center (modified?) ,,, That way the rail would only move 2.5ft from the center of the room,, As my fine paint pic illiterates.. The circle represents the motor.. You would get more light at the center of the grow at 2.5' from center or you could put lights out further so they dont overlap the center too much...,,,Just an idea...

Hmmmm. Really got me thinking. Wish someone else would chime in. Cost of light rail $250. Cost of two new 600 setups.. $800. Plus another $75 a month in energy

I used to work at a hydro for a while and we always told people light rails are a good thing, they increase the amount of space you can cover without increasing the watts, I would run the movers with them starting at the opposite ends this way you loose less light because the light patterns cross as they move closer together, and if you have all your other environmental situations dialed in you will differently increase your yields with out increasing the number of plants

Im not sure, but I think large indoor commercial grows always use light rails.... Merry Christmas.. (let me add : commercial, non cannabis...)

A lot of the big indoor (legal) grows are run by guys who have more money than sense, i have seen a few on here, none with movers and one in person, Not a damn mover anywhere, but 4 (yes 4) 20000 watt rooms, plus more upstairs i did not go see. These guys a lot of the time are amateurs (i am too) with enough money to get a warehouse and everything else ness to do a 80000 watt of light grow. If they were pros at this already they would not have any interest in giving their names to the government, they would stay underground like they are.

your plant will get the same avg amt of light at any given time given correct placement without a mover man...
imo its not necessary

Well, Good old Jorge Cervantes pretty much sums it up here,, (case closed, buy the mover!) I love mine.. enjoy pg 41.. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rnwwxoOb3gUC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=light+mover+advantages+horticulture&ots=6hXIl2HAes&sig=q1aq0t2lUX4CSGFxtHiv4AbWZrw#v=onepage&q&f=false

I think theres a big difference between arguments .
quality will probably be the same .
but wattage will be less .
I say go with the movers bro .

Well I received a mover for my veg tent as that makes all the sense in the world to me. It's only 4 x 7 but now I can run a single 600 mh in there with nice even coverage.

I think the mover makes sense to me. I would be flowering 24 plants in a 7x11 space with 2400 watts. That ia still 100 watts a plant

If you did each side with 2x5 plants , that would be 3sqft per plant ...as you posted above you would only have 1.25sqft per plant,,if my math is correct.. kinda tight unless your switching from scrog to sog? For my current grow, My math equals right at 2.o8 sq ft per plant.. that's 66watts per plant or 32watts per sqft... but the light rail theoretically gives you 1/4 more light than what you have... And Im going to get those bad boy ocho xxxl working closer down since I dont have heat issues..

I've used a light mover/rail, they work well for especially if you get the intellidrive which pauses the movement at each end for optimum light time on each plant. Otherwise the end plants would only get 1/2 as much light as the center.

However in your situation, you may be okay without it, you have enough lights to place them directly over 1/2 of each 10' row.

I’ve got a similar situation right now with the same lights you have, only difference is I’m 7' wide and it's not working out so well with the lights down the center. I’m going to start a new post about my situation, it'll have a picture that may be useful for comparison (just imagine you have only the 3 center rails)

If your wattage is limited in that you can't run more lights than you currently have (ie. you don't have the capacity from your breaker box), the light movers are an excellent choice. However, a light mover that covers two 'areas' of plants will never perform as well as 2 lights in that same space.