Phillips Elite Agro 315w T12 CMH in open fixtures - Impressive!!!

GroErr

Well-Known Member
Agreed. I didn't want to mention the faster finish time over LEDs until I had a few runs to compare, which I have now. Definetly finishes about a week early on two separate strains. Pretty confident in that statement. No question on the quality and yield improvement though.
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if this early finishing holds, in my case I just ran these back to back, clone from same mother, same environment other than 3Gal vs. 5Gal pots (don't think that would make any difference, particularly since these plants weren't very big and could have run in 3Gal pots just fine). The biggest difference for sure is the weight/size, don't have to weigh them to see/feel they're much bigger and dense. I wouldn't expect that big a spread/difference if you're going from a quality LED or hps, I went from a low end LED to these so the difference is night/day. Was hoping to do a side by side hps vs. CMH, same strain/clones with my son, but he's in the middle of a run and I'm just about to start so the timing doesn't work. He's impatiently waiting for the weight results, he's still drooling when he sees them though, that's a pretty good indication, he's an hps die-hard ;)
 

GroErr

Well-Known Member
Yeah, it rules for density. Everything I grow comes out dense so far, some more than other, but zero airy buds
Good to hear, sounds like you've been running them for a while. How are you finding the penetration? One thing I noticed very clearly is the size and density of buds below the top canopy are much bigger and dense than previous runs with the LG's. not surprising comparing them against those panels but what's your experience against what you were running prior to this CMH?
 

GroErr

Well-Known Member
@hyroot & @PSUAGRO, circling back to a conversation we had back on page 2/3 of this thread. Just saw an interesting, if not more confusing follow-up email from Ceramatek. Went back to him to provide some documentation to backup what he's saying and clarify which ballast they support @120v, looks like the 375W is still not supported, will see what he has to say...Still not clear, he's saying they support the 315W ballast @120, but that wouldn't run the 315W bulbs, he may be referencing running the 375W ballast @ 220/240v against the Philips ballast, which still does nothing to support use of the Ceramatek ballasts/315W Elite Agro's @120v.

Quoting his email, removed the headers for privacy:

Start Quote:
From:
Subject: Global follow-up
Date:
August 22, 2014 at 7:21:35 PM EDT
To:

Hello,
It has been a couple of months since we communicated via email. Please allow me to give you an update and clarify some of the statements which I made in the past, which may have seemed inconsistent.
Since our focus has been commercial lighting, where 120v is very rarely used, we had never focused on supporting 120v. We do see there is considerable interest in other markets to have a wide voltage ballast that does go down to 120v. I received some mixed signals out of engineering when we were communicating earlier. We have had a few commercial customers that required 120v and needed to hand select ballasts that would operate at this voltage. With these particular installations we didn’t provide a warranty since we hadn’t performed thorough testing and our customer was accepting of this.
The basic problem with running at 120v is that there is the potential to exceed the maximum current limitations of specific parts used in our ballasts. At 120v you have double the amperage/current compared to 240v. With the hand-selected ballasts, as referenced above, we would find ballasts which had parts that could safely exceed the tolerances. With our latest ballasts we are using parts that are now able to safely work at 315W @ 120v. Therefore, we now have a fully warrantied, 120v-277v 315W ballast.
With our 375W solution, the current is still too high, and that product will remain 200v – 277v.
We have done extensive testing using the 315W Philips Agro lamp with our ballast with very positive results. The benefits of running the Philips lamp at high-frequency is that performance is quite a bit better, from lumen retention, to lamp life, and lamp efficacy. On a head-to-head test between the Philips ballast and ours, we were able to measure 5% more light output at the same wattage. These tests were done using an integrating sphere and spectro-radiometer, so properly done with consistent results.
Please let me know if I can answer any other questions for you.
End Quote:
 

GroErr

Well-Known Member
Interesting answer back when I questioned him on this. They're claiming that their 315W (now supported @120v). If the 315w model could natively drive the 315w Elite Agro bulbs at full spec, this could be as efficient as running the 375w @220v.

Asked him for data/specs/results or it never happened as they say...

Start Quote:
From:

Subject: Re: Global follow-up (2)

Date: August 25, 2014 at 12:03:53 AM EDT

To:

Hi,


We have done testing on the elite agro lamps with the 315W. These can be ordered with those lamps. I'll even have grow results from a full grow cycle with only the 315W and the agro lamp this week.
End Quote:
 

GroErr

Well-Known Member
Well, got an answer back from him, typical sales person answer though. Lots of talk, no data.

He did answer and clarify this though:
The Ceramatek 315w kit can be ordered through them w/the 315w CMH Elite Agro in a bare bones kit (ballast/bulb/adaptor) and runs @ either 220 or 120v, fully supported by them. Whether I get one or not is a different story. If you're in the US you may have some options, in Canada all I can do is order the kit through them directly at full price which is close to the price of a complete LEC Sun Systems 315w (220v) or around $430. A bit steep for my taste, particularly after seeing what the full Sun System kit can do, even @120v. I'll likely be getting another LEC Sun System to run through the winter, doubt I'll spring for a basic/bare bulb Ceramatek kit for this price range.
 

GroErr

Well-Known Member
@PSUAGRO. Thanks for initially turning me on to these early on in this thread. Just finished that initial run with only 2 smallish plants and will pull about 160-180g's from them, this CMH stuff is for real, tightest indoor buds I've seen yet, nice and frosty, no complaints here... Going with 4 average size plants this round in a 3x3, targeting 12-13 oz from the two strains I'm running, quite doable imo with these bulbs.
 

PSUAGRO.

Well-Known Member
Well that's interesting^^, still too much consumer confusion on the 120v option. Nobody wants to be the guinea pig on the new kits either

Glad you like the gear....................trust me I'm jealous, anyone who's used cmh knows what a nice and comfortable spectrum it is to be around. I have no space :(

be safe
 

longbeachallstar

Active Member
What's your guys suggestion on light distance. The dude at advanced says keep them fixed so that finishing height is 22" away. I could be wrong about that info the conversation was over a month ago.

So. I finally got mine. 3 weeks later - so i had a bit of slow service too - the delay was understandable - health related. but communication was spotty - makes sense if youre in the hosptial and rollin on pain meds.

Installed and about to hit flip tomorrow morning. Ill take some snaps. I ended up not doing a 4x4 area of OG - so I could stick in a tga vortex. Tahoe. And Louie 13 and a beat up purple dream plant that's gone through hell and back - (unsure of genetics but I have an extra small cut to see if its worth a second run)

I heard tech guy at advanced said the preference is to use 315 versus 860 - but he does have 860s for sale.

Also - he says that if Phillips bulbs aren't run by a Phillips ballast. It normally voids warranty. The frequency is wrong with other ballasts - an example or info he gave was that now DNA lighting which sells 315 setups is forced to go through advanced for ballasts/equipment.

How much of this is true.... Well... Call the guy at advanced - as everyone says. He's pretty technical - I'm just waiting to see what happens in a couple months :)

@typoerror - it's free_TATu from czn - good to see ya
 

GroErr

Well-Known Member
What's your guys suggestion on light distance. The dude at advanced says keep them fixed so that finishing height is 22" away. I could be wrong about that info the conversation was over a month ago.

So. I finally got mine. 3 weeks later - so i had a bit of slow service too - the delay was understandable - health related. but communication was spotty - makes sense if youre in the hosptial and rollin on pain meds.

Installed and about to hit flip tomorrow morning. Ill take some snaps. I ended up not doing a 4x4 area of OG - so I could stick in a tga vortex. Tahoe. And Louie 13 and a beat up purple dream plant that's gone through hell and back - (unsure of genetics but I have an extra small cut to see if its worth a second run)

I heard tech guy at advanced said the preference is to use 315 versus 860 - but he does have 860s for sale.

Also - he says that if Phillips bulbs aren't run by a Phillips ballast. It normally voids warranty. The frequency is wrong with other ballasts - an example or info he gave was that now DNA lighting which sells 315 setups is forced to go through advanced for ballasts/equipment.

How much of this is true.... Well... Call the guy at advanced - as everyone says. He's pretty technical - I'm just waiting to see what happens in a couple months :)

@typoerror - it's free_TATu from czn - good to see ya
Hey longbeach, glad to hear you're setup to go. 22" seems a bit far unless maybe scrogging or doing really short plants, I'm trying 16-18" above the top canopy this round to see if penetration maintains as well as I had the first round. 1st round/test I ran them at 12-14" and got some light burn/bleaching, too close imo. I have a new 3x3 setup and at 20" right now, they're pre-stretched @14/10 but still expecting them to go a couple of inches higher and end up at approx. 16-18" above the canopy. Plants are 28-30", tied down to 24-26" so penetration shouldn't be a problem (26" + 18" = total of 44" to the base). Trial & error I guess as there's not a lot of reference for these bulbs out there. Went looking around a while back and only reference I could find was 8" which would burn the shit out of them with these bulbs. Coverage of the 3x3 area looks great, don't expect any issues even if I bleed out a bit from the 3x3'.
 

typoerror

Well-Known Member
22" is a bit much imo. i keep the light at 16" above canopy with zero issues.

i figure that was you, tatu. woulda been a crazy coincidence that two different people were basically doing the same thing on two different forums. lol
 
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