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Beta Test Team
Member
I'm mostly interested in their SPDs of Hortilux lamps because I know the SPDs from Hortilux are not accurate. But it would be nice to have their lamp in our database for people that want to use their lamps.
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Interesting. I was planning on just using 2 walls in one corner of the room, and building 2 new walls that go up to the ceiling to create a box, and then hang them from the ceiling. Building a roof would be easy enough, but not exactly sure what distance I want to place them from the canopy.
I'm still digesting exactly how these lights are designed to work. I'm assuming there is an optimal height above the canopy that these would be the most efficient, correct?
I know Flip mentioned on the show they were designed to not need height adjustments throughout the grow, but is there a certain distance the canopy should reach once they have stopped stretching, or am I wrong in thinking of these like any traditional HID light?
I'm used to the idea of an even canopy and maintaining it at a certain distance from the light, so this design that utilizes the reflective walls so much is a bit new. If they're fixed above the cab I'm a little worried about distance and not being able to adjust it if need be.
I'm still digesting exactly how these lights are designed to work. I'm assuming there is an optimal height above the canopy that these would be the most efficient, correct?
I know Flip mentioned on the show they were designed to not need height adjustments throughout the grow, but is there a certain distance the canopy should reach once they have stopped stretching, or am I wrong in thinking of these like any traditional HID light?
I'm used to the idea of an even canopy and maintaining it at a certain distance from the light, so this design that utilizes the reflective walls so much is a bit new. If they're fixed above the cab I'm a little worried about distance and not being able to adjust it if need be.
Too complicated for most home growers, I think, Grams per KWH is a simple & honest number that accounts for all variables. Grams per watt does not. If I increase the veg time, for example, it'll improve the GPW number but not necessarily the grams/KWH number at all. No matter what you change- lighting, nutes, veg time, grow style or strain, it all affects the grams per KWH figure. It evaluates total technique, which is really what growers need to consider.
Beta Test Team
Member
Yea, for sure. The nice thing about our spreadsheet is we already included two assistants to help people analyze their lamps (so we don't have to do every lamp). So hopefully people will do so, and share their analyzation so it can be added to the global database (we'll keep on our website).
We included features to make such sharing easy, such as clickable buttons to copy results for easy pasting into a forum posts
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Beta Test Team
Member
Well, to be fair, I've read people complain that gram/kWh is too complex, too. It does mean they have to calculate the total photoperiod hours for plants' life (veg and flowering) and then multiply that by wattage and finally divide by 1,000.
Our method is easier than that (we think), our spreadsheet does all the math automatically as long as the lamp has been analyzed.
So for our spreadsheet a user simply inputs the irradiance (or chooses radiant photons, both of which our spreadsheet can provide), inputs their yield in grams, photoperiod in veg and flower, and days spent in veg and flower.
While most growers may not use this new measurement, like most don’t use g/kWh (and instead most still use g/w), we think it's better than input energy (kWh), just like using irradiance (PPFD) is better than watt/sq. ft. when choosing how to place lamps.
Using kWh doesn't list what the plant uses, so it's not a true measure of grow efficiency (that is, it doesn't account for light source efficiency).
But we do agree, kWh is better than W.
Thanks
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Beta Test Team
Member
You can't hang them as you hang most other reflectors, they have to be fixed in place. But that doesn't mean you can't raise or lower them (but doing so is often a waste). Because 2 million photon paths exiting the aperture are calculated when the luminaire placement is calculated, the installation of the GB must be exact, so the luminaires can't be hung a rope, for example. (Well, they can be, but they shouldn't be...)
The thing about GB is you don't raise or lower them, think in terms of 3D lighting, not 2D. So instead of thinking I need X inches from canopy at all times, think about the irradiance you want to provide you plants, and then the minium distance from canopy you want your lamps near harvest (to keep leaf temp low and uniformity high; generally 18" to 24" away, at least, we're using 22").
So for most reflectors the inverse square law is very strong, that is, the irradiance drops very fast as you move away from the lamp, due mostly to the very poor uniformity of irradiance. With GB that's not the case because photons reflected from walls and ceiling are included in calculations (and even the floor if you have walkways and want to include them). But this also means using one GB unit is normally not sufficient, least two should be used in most cases (except for small areas).
What that means for example in our room that's 9.5' x 11.5' with a canopy that's 6'x8', is that when the reflector aperture is 77" from the floor the irradiance (PPFD) at 10" from the floor is above 600(!) and it’s about 800 PPFD 55” from the floor (a difference of 3.75’ and only 200 PPFD!). If you tried that with normal reflectors growers use, including Gavita and ePapillon, the PPFD would be much lower and the uniformity would be, as well.
So in our case (and your case, look at the PPFD on you bottom plane) the bottom plane PPFD is too great for veg stage when we account for DLI. That's when the lamp is over 5' away from the canopy. That's why we're dimming, so we can provide around 400 to 500 PPFD during veg.
With GB as the plants grow upward the PPFD increases but the uniformity does not decrease (to a large degree), unlike with normal reflectors.
That's why you don't raise or lower the lamps, because you know the PPFD your plants are getting at any canopy height. If you choose the correct top irradiance plane PPFD for your GB modeling, then the entire volume of your grow area will have ideal PPFD for Cannabis growth and yield at all growth stages and plant heights. Anywhere between around 400 to 800 PPFD, max about 1,000 PPFD, from veg (starting around 400 PPFD) to flower (ending around 800), is a great goal.
And for example, if we want to grow short plants (SOG) we simply use a tray stand so the canopy is closer to the lamps to being with. And if we grow large plants (tress in RDWC) we put the containers on the floor, so the canopy starts further away from the lamps. Then we dim the GB so we use the same PPFD and DLI for all growing styles regardless of plant height.
When using GB you have to have a good idea about how you want to grow, most notably your starting (bottom) and final (top) canopy distance from floor and your goal PPFD (considering DLI) for veg and flowering stages.
Like Flip said in that interview, using GB takes a paradigm shift from using normal reflectors most Cannabis growers’ use.
Scientific plant growth rooms and chambers (like at Universities) use GB style lighting (wall-to-wall, 3D), not the reflectors common with Cannabis growers. They do this due to the huge advantages in plant growth from uniformity of irradiance vs. the hot-spot ridden and very uniform irradiance from normal reflectors (and that's even with reflective walls).
This concept is foreign to most growers, so if I didn’t do a good job explaining it please let me know and I'll try to do a better job.
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Beta Test Team
Member
I just realized you're including wattage from all electrical input during the grow, I was only referring to lamp wattage. In that case I totally agree with you, kWh not mole, because we can't calculate mole for things like water pumps.
So our measure of grams/mole/kilo-hour is only for yield efficiency as it relates to light.
Sorry for the confusion on my part!
Beta Test Team
Member
Please ignore this post.
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I cant seem to find out if there any Digital ballasts that can run the 400 CMH bulbs??
anyone have a clue on this??
anyone have a clue on this??
D
Drek
If you're referring to the 400w Mastercolor Retrowhite, it was designed as an HPS retrofit, so you would use a normal 400w HPS ballast configuration for it. The only CDM that can be used with electronic ballasts, are the newer family of Elite CDM's.
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Beta Test Team
Member
Mea culpa time:
Lasto Lighting just emailed us, and they're so very nice. It seems the first email we sent never arrived, our fault. This shoe taste in my mouth is not so great. They seem very willing to share their data with us.
Lasto Lighting just emailed us, and they're so very nice. It seems the first email we sent never arrived, our fault. This shoe taste in my mouth is not so great. They seem very willing to share their data with us.
And if referring to the 330W Philips 400w MH replacement lamp, 400w magnetic MH ballasts are inexpensive-
http://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Pro-E...sr=8-3&keywords=400+watt+metal+halide+ballast
Dunno that low frequency electronic ballasts are avail at 400w.
Beta Test Team
Member
Well, looks like LASTO Lighting is a no-go. They don't have (or won't share) the data we're asking for; the have said they only have the SPD graphs. Thankfully this wasn't unforeseen, which is why we created our SPD Digitizer Assistant spreadsheet (based off of knna's work).Mea culpa time:
Lasto Lighting just emailed us, and they're so very nice. It seems the first email we sent never arrived, our fault. This shoe taste in my mouth is not so great. They seem very willing to share their data with us.
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Does anyone have a list of low frequency ballasts that are available that are a reasonable price. , iv noticed advanced nutrients and solistek make them but there quite costly at 300+ each , from what I've learned CMH Bulbs will only operate correctly on low frequency ballasts
indianajones
Active member
the low frequency square wave electronic ballast is a fairly new tech,
any time you buy new tech it is more expensive.
any time you buy new tech it is more expensive.
LargePrime
Member
welthink
google it.
TheCatsMeow
Member
Theres a company out of Boulder, CO that is offering a 315w agro elite bulb with their specificlly designed hood and "low freq-sqaure wave ballast"
The ballast they sell are just painted welthink ballast from China.
Is it possible that the welthink ballast are low freq?
you can buy them online for CHEAP
I suspect that all their other ballasts are high freq, judging from the price differential. They're very proud of their 315 ballast.
There are a few other low freq electronic ballasts out there at 1000w, iirc, and they're quite pricey, too.
I don't understand the lust for electronic ballasts. For CMH, it's like trying to drink whiskey from a bottle of wine. Yeh, sure, that's what it takes to run the 315 because that's the way the whole system was designed. OTOH, the system for CMH retrowhites is an older system designed around magnetic ballasts & those lamps were designed as power saving replacement lamps for that system.
It would take a long time for the increased efficiency of a high priced low freq electronic ballast to catch up to the upfront savings of using an inexpensive magnetic ballast unless your electric rates are very, very high. If they are, & you want CMH, then the answer is to bite the bullet, put your money up front into a 315 system, preferably with genuine Philips components. Or just pay the slightly higher operating costs for mag ballasts & retrowhites. There's really no practical in-between.
