Gotta upgrade my lighting and soon

CFLs are freaking great but the footprint sucks and I need to cover 4 sqaure feet. I have exactly 4' in height inside and I'm in love with LST so I figure either a 150W or a 250W. With the 250W the e-ballast does sound nice so I can swap MH/HPS. Will the 150W cover the grow space anyway?

In my opinion an LED is the way to go.. 1 Hans panel will cover a 2x2, a couple of CFLs with it for some side lighting will be good.

http://bonsaihero.com/ledgrow.html / http://bonsaihero.com/ledgrow-led-panel-80-watt.html

Check this out too: https://www.rollitup.org/led-other-lighting/531652-testing-hans-panel-56watt-cree.html

Spanky's Monkey said:

CFLs are freaking great but the footprint sucks and I need to cover 4 sqaure feet. I have exactly 4' in height inside and I'm in love with LST so I figure either a 150W or a 250W. With the 250W the e-ballast does sound nice so I can swap MH/HPS. Will the 150W cover the grow space anyway?

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Your height restriction will limit coverage of either unit, so you're probably best off with a cheapie reflector you can bend to customize the LST area.

And get the 250, I use a 600 for a 5 square area plus CFL's

Good luck!

Yeah I use a 600 watt digital ballast Apollo Horticulture Dimming switch 50% / 75% / 100% MH 55k Lumen....HPS 98k Lumen... Good luck on the upgrade the more light the better I have always found in most cases if you have the ventilation, humidity and space right.

Looking at either the Floralux 250W or a 250W electronic ballast.

nice....

Hey, I'm not looking to start a farm but I would like to grow 2 or 3 plants comfortably in my 2'x2'x4' box.

You should be able to do that as long as the height kept right / temp / humidity / ventilation also help Hope all goes good..

Avrum, LEDs are way to expensive for my blood. Gonna go with a mech ballast 250W so I can get the bulk of the heat out of my box. The CFLs are really nice lights but their internal ballasts give off some serious heat.

It's only expensive to get one, but long term it is way cheaper than HPS. draws less wattage (the hans panel is only 65 or 80 watts, so that's way less than 250), runs cooler, and you dont have to change bulbs all the time.

1 Hans panel is around $300 shipped. How much is the 250w HPS + ballast + Cool tube + fans?

I'm definitely gonna go with LEDs when I get some funds for it. Anyways good luck with whatever you choose buddy!

Spanky's, Something you might want to consider is a DIY led grow light kit from evolutiongrowled.com They sell a few sizes and are quite cheap as far as led lighting goes. I started out with a 50w kit (Paid $100) and had good results from 1-2 plants at a time. After a while I upgraded to a high end system and gifted the used 50w kit to my little brother who grows in a small cab. What he ended up doing was ordering a second kit and removing the metal housings and mounting the fans directly to the heatsinks. Once he did this he only looses approx. 2.5" of vertical space and gets great coverage throughout the cab. Previously he was using numerous CFL's and had ongoing heat problems and less than ideal performance. Now he quite happy with the setup and has no heat issues whatsoever, Plus his finished quality has improved! Not sure if your a handy type of guy but this may be a good solution to your problem without being overly expensive. Just thought I would mention it, Might be worth looking into. You can find the DIY led grow light kits here http://www.evolutiongrowled.com/evolution-led-grow-light-diy-kits-and-parts.html

Spanky's, Its been a while since I bought my DIY led grow light kit, But when I was looking for that link I noticed they also have much larger kits now all the way up to 200 watts. So a larger kit would probably be the better way to go depending on the sq footage of your grow cab.

IGROWLED said:

Spanky's, Its been a while since I bought my DIY led grow light kit, But when I was looking for that link I noticed they also have much larger kits now all the way up to 200 watts. So a larger kit would probably be the better way to go depending on the sq footage of your grow cab.

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Spammer [x2] in the same thread. Priceless.

Show us your results or do you go around EVERY forum dropping the SAME knowledge, lol.

$500+ for a 200w DIY Kit, fuck that! You could easily do it with top of the line components for half that. You aren't even offering top of the line stuff. lolz. Ridiculous. Personally I would drop coin on the AT200 for a lifetime warranty for just a notch above your DIY price. Dumb.

LED's and Sulfur lighting will be the future, but IGROWLED is the past of future wannabe rip-off artists.

It's all good already dropped coin on an HPS and I'm seriously loving it.