Ceramic Metal Halide (CMH)

[jomills1]

Beyond those 3 things, you need to have a timer, a plan to dissipate the heat, get it out of the growing area, odor control, and a way to maintain photoperiod control.

I think that rives & I share a certain techno tinkering curiosity, also the means to support it. That's something you can grow into down the road, or not, depending on how well your planned adventure agrees with you. I'd suggest making it cheap & easy on yourself atm, bring in a harvest, take it from there.

If you want to explore down the road, what you buy now can serve as backup in the future. More than one grower has found themselves jammed from lack of spares when equipment failure occurs. It's worse when you're using uncommon equipment like 315 hardware. With the standard 400/330w hardware, an urban dweller can get any part of it locally in a pinch, even make substitutions, enough to keep on growing. It's even better if you can just swap for stuff you have, sort out the problem independent of the grow.

Well I currently Veg with CFL and flower with LED. I'm using a small tent with 2x3 for flowering, but upgrading to a little more space for a solid vertical grow attempt. I think I'll just start slow then and go with the 330. Once I can research and do a bigger upfront investment I'll figure out the 315 situation. Thanks to both of you for the help.

 

[drknockbootz]

What do you guys think is a good distance for 4 sun system 315w over a 4x8? Im looking to get an even par footprint over the entire area and orca reflected walls.

I was thinking 2.5ft or 3ft , how does that sound?

 

[beta]

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[Jhhnn]

I'm helping a friend set up a small personal medical cab, appx. 27"x27"x72". She already has a 400W HPS ballast, so we were thinking a 400W CMH would be a good fit; I'm afraid it could be a bit too much heat-wise, even with a cooltube + dual-stage cooling. What do you all think?

Do the 330CMDs put out less heat? Are there any other advantages to the 330W CMDs over the 400W CMH that would justify the purchase of a 400W MH ballast to run it when we already have a 400W HPS ballast to run a 400W CMH? Thanks!

I have no experience with cabs that small, so take this with a grain of salt.

330w or 400w (same light output) would be a lot of power, 66-80w/sq.ft. You'd def want two stage cooling, and I think it's prob not worth it, if it'll work at all. 250w would be 50w/sq.ft, entirely satisfactory, and hugely more manageable heat wise.

Advanced still has pre burn CDM250S50/HOR/4K/ALTO retrofit to HPS ballast lamps available, and they're available elsewhere too. The same bulb for vertical orientation is also available elsewhere. Or use 250w hps.

I'm confident that would work well with 2 stage cooling.

http://www.advancedtechlighting.com/cdmed18.htm

 

[Ranger]

Negative. Magnetic ballasts don't change the frequency of the current to the lamp, just the voltage. It's always 60 Hz in N America. Consumer grade electronic/ digital ballasts operate in an entirely different way, provide very high frequency current to the lamp. CMH lamps can't withstand high frequency operation.

The 315 system uses an entirely different kind of electronic ballast, one that provides current at ~105 Hz. 315 components (other than cords & sockets) are not compatible with any other system.

Purchase individual pre-burned & tested 330 CMH lamps here-

http://advancedtechlighting.com/cdmallstart.htm

Lots of other places, too, not pre burned or tested-

http://www.amazon.com/Philips-232595-CDM330-ALLSTART-Halide/dp/B0061KR0UG

They also offer an inexpensive compatible magnetic MH ballast-

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1FTW1TXT1P6H93ET2J9F

That ballast will not operate HPS lamps.

anyone know why his site is not working? well the site works, but you cannot buy anything through his system, just kicks back your card and says it doesn't work. (checked with my card companies and it's not on their end) ??????

 

[Pinball Wizard]

I think that ship has sailed away.

Goodbye.. 400 retro-white CMH. Eventually I will have to find a replacement lamp, for my HPS ballast.

OMG...I might have to go back to HPS lamps? ...been using retro-whites since 2007.

 

[Jhhnn]

anyone know why his site is not working? well the site works, but you cannot buy anything through his system, just kicks back your card and says it doesn't work. (checked with my card companies and it's not on their end) ??????

Call 'em on the phone to see what's up, or use email.

 

[Jhhnn]

I think that ship has sailed away.

Goodbye.. 400 retro-white CMH. Eventually I will have to find a replacement lamp, for my HPS ballast.

OMG...I might have to go back to HPS lamps? ...been using retro-whites since 2007.

Heck, 400w MH ballasts are extremely inexpensive-

http://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Pro-E...sr=8-4&keywords=400+watt+metal+halide+ballast

Or replace the guts in your case with MH specific pulse start hardware for about the same price-

http://www.amazon.com/ROBERTSON-3P1...sr=8-1&keywords=400+watt+metal+halide+ballast

CMH doesn't require pulse start, but they can use it.

Find vendor canblack on ebay for a terrific deal on the 330w lamps.

Just sayin'.

Edited for errors

 

[rives]

400 & 1000w HPS ballasts will operate MH lamps if you disconnect the ignitor. That's all that happens with the switchable ballasts.

You can then run the 330w Philips CMH lamps.

Heck, 400w MH ballasts are extremely inexpensive-

http://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Pro-E...sr=8-4&keywords=400+watt+metal+halide+ballast

Or replace the guts in your case with MH specific pulse start hardware for about the same price-

http://www.amazon.com/ROBERTSON-3P1...sr=8-1&keywords=400+watt+metal+halide+ballast

CMH doesn't require pulse start, but they can use it.

Find vendor canblack on ebay for a terrific deal on the 330w lamps.

Just sayin'.

This is incorrect - the two different lamps take different capacitor values.

From what I've seen, the switchable ballasts use 2 capacitors operating in parallel for the HPS lamp, and then switch one capacitor and the ignitor out of the circuit for the MH lamp.

 

[Ericos]

What do you guys think is a good distance for 4 sun system 315w over a 4x8? Im looking to get an even par footprint over the entire area and orca reflected walls.

I was thinking 2.5ft or 3ft , how does that sound?

Im rocking 4 315w cmhs and but have them about a 1'above the canopy with a 2 x 8 and 2 x 4 table under them in a line. My setup pics are on pg 415-418 i think maybe earlier. Easy with proper air flow. 3' away is to much par loss/intensity loss. Noticed in flower shorter streching than with a hps.

I feel a 3x3 is the perfect footprint for the 315w at 1'away. Ill be adding 1x8 tray to fill the space and footprint. I root to fruit though.

If you can stagger the fixtures across that 4x8 space, like a snake moving type of shape. Should be able to spread your light well and keep them closer like between 18-24" even a foot if you want.

 

[Jhhnn]

This is incorrect - the two different lamps take different capacitor values.

From what I've seen, the switchable ballasts use 2 capacitors operating in parallel for the HPS lamp, and then switch one capacitor and the ignitor out of the circuit for the MH lamp.

Deleted erroneous info. My mistake.

 

[rives]

The few switchable ballasts I've opened up just switch the ignitor out of the circuit for MH operation. That's because the operating specs are close enough at 400w & 1000w that differences in operation are undetectable. There's a big overlap in operating voltages- page 55-

http://educypedia.karadimov.info/library/advance_2003a.pdf

The difference in capacitor value is small as well- 24 uF for MH vs 26 uF for HPS.

So, yeh, just switching out the ignitor in a 400w or1000w HPS

They use the same transformers, but I don't know where you found those capacitor values. Every 400w HPS that I can recall had a capacitor value in the mid-50's, and the 400w MH's has them in the mid-20's.

Here is a link for replacement 400w caps -

http://www.usalight.com/SearchResults.asp?searching=Y&sort=7&search=capacitor&show=9&page=2&f-400%20Watts=2450

*Edit* - Ah, I see. those values are for 1000w ballasts. Never played with one. The 400w values are substantially different.

1000w link - http://www.usalight.com/SearchResul...rch=capacitor&show=9&page=2&f-1000 Watts=2452

 

[Jhhnn]

They use the same transformers, but I don't know where you found those capacitor values. Every 400w HPS that I can recall had a capacitor value in the mid-50's, and the 400w MH's has them in the mid-20's.

Here is a link for replacement 400w caps -

http://www.usalight.com/SearchResul...arch=capacitor&show=9&page=2&f-400 Watts=2450

*Edit* - Ah, I see. those values are for 1000w ballasts. Never played with one. The 400w values are substantially different.

1000w link - http://www.usalight.com/SearchResul...rch=capacitor&show=9&page=2&f-1000 Watts=2452

Thank you rives. I am, in fact, in error about 400w capacitor values. they are different for hps (55uF)& mh(26uF).

My lack of experience is showing, I'm afraid. It is as I offered for 1000w.

Should I go back & edit, you think? Being wrong is one thing, spreading it around another matter entirely.

 

[Ericos]

Root to fruit images attached. They're golden goat and diiferent phenoes of our inhouse breed cave monster ( male hermies from a stressed induced caveman og kush female x unknown indica female we called mystery girl).

Golden goats is the frostiest.

Yeild looks like itll abit lower than before but better staking and tric development compared to my previouse run of golden goat. First round for our inhouse breed.

 

[rives]

Thank you rives. I am, in fact, in error about 400w capacitor values. they are different for hps (55uF)& mh(26uF).

My lack of experience is showing, I'm afraid. It is as I offered for 1000w.

Should I go back & edit, you think? Being wrong is one thing, spreading it around another matter entirely.

It might be a good idea to put an edit at the bottom of the post in case somebody stops reading before they get down here.

It's interesting to me that the MH capacitor value doesn't change with the wattage, but the HPS changes markedly.

 

[Ericos]

I cant edit yet but forgot to mention my soil pic above. Im using happy frog, marine compost, ewc, sm bonsai soil( for mineralization), and rice hulls. Really decent air to water ratio compared to my previous soil mix attemps. Well draining and requires 1 to 2 waterings a day. I use earth juice products and use both rainbow mix and sea blast through my cycle, the RB mix is supplemental.

 

[indianajones]

ebay has some 860s for cheap right now, $45 less than i paid for mine...

 

[Ericos]

Well got a few update picks with the 315w and 860w cmh. Pics attached with the bigger cola and trimmed sample where under the 860s. Still harvesting. The rest are various cycles of root to fruit with sog under 315s. More clones are being added this weeked and tables

Im much happier my skills are getting dialed in and getting better genetics while culling out low quality producers. More pics to come this weekend once that cycles harvested. The plants under the 860w are the last of those two strains for me. Not that great and happy to move without the girls.

 

[Ericos]

My cave mosnter strain will be finishing this week under the 315w. Nice 56 day breed for being a the first flowering of this strain. Next round will be dropping
temps more to getting some better purpling.

Pics are day 50

 

[Mikell]

Call 'em on the phone to see what's up, or use email.

Blech, no reply to email or phone call so far. Not exactly the level of service I care for.... I'll give them a ring later, a little further away from the lunch hour. Maybe they're unionists...

I've been poking around and haven't come up with much result so far, does anyone know of another decent bulb that gets away from the HPS spectrum for a 400w ballast?