New Rooms / Gavita Questions / Whazzup

[rockythegrower]

Hi, thanks in advance to any who help out with these questions. It would be great to have Whazzup chime in. I emailed the tech support at Gavita Holland but their response was to send a spreadsheet with quite a lot of info that does not really help me out it seems. Even when I input all the info they require the numbers of fixtures recommended seems way off.

I currently own 8 Gavita Pro 1000 w/ remote ballasts. I had these set up previously in a 20' L x 12' W x 9'3" H room. I did well with them but in my new place I would really like to find the sweet spot for these two bloom rooms especially.

I am selling my current 8 light setup and plan to upgrade ASAP to the new Gavita Pro and the Plasma with the Gavita EL-2 controller. I have a 1300 sq ft building I am currently building out.

1.) We have built out two identical bloom rooms in the new building. Each room measures 19'3" L x 15'2" W x 16' H. The rooms will be flip flopped 12/12.

Question: How many Gavita HPS fixtures per room?

Question: What size (600w, 750w or 1000w) Gavita HPS fixtures for best quality product?

Question: How many LEP fixtures recommended per bloom room?

Question: What would be the best configuration (distance between lights and rows also distance to walls) for these rooms?


2.) There will be one mother room measuring 12' L x 4' W x 8' 6"H.

Question: What Gavita fixtures recommended? And configuration?

Question: Or what other lighting types/brands fixtures would be recommended?



3.) I will have one veg room at 12' L x 8' W x 8' 6" H.

Question: What Gavita fixtures recommended? And configuration?

Question: Or what other lighting types/brands fixtures would be recommended?

4.) Has anyone had any experience with the newest Pro ballasts/fixtures/lamps and the EL 2 plug n play controller?

Any and all qualified answers will be appreciated and taken into consideration. I plan to purchase the new equipment in the next 5 to ten days.

Thank you.

 

[whazzup]

To answer these questions please fill in the spreadsheet, which requires you to specify:

- room dimensions
- table height
- minimum and maximum crop height
- required ppfd (recommendations also in the calculation form)
- reflectivity of your wall material

Based on that you will see in the spreadsheet a recommended number of fixtures and approximate BTU cooling requirement, but to get an accurate light plan we need to calculate that for you. Instead of posting a long post, which I just by accident tumbled upon, it would be wise to just enter the data and send it back as requested in order to receive a bespoke lighting plan.

I can't answer it based on incomplete data, it is not calculated by close guesstimates but by calculations based on room simulations in specialized software. Not that it automatically created light plans though, same as indesign doesn't generate a design automatically. It is still all hand work.

 

[whazzup]

Basic information about lights and positioning:

When calculating the number of fixtures required to light your crop you need to take the following into consideration:

1. When we light a room, we always light a complete room. This is the only way to create uniform light levels in your room. It is not recommended to only put lamps above your plants.

2. There is a minimal distance between the lamp and the crop. For 600W this is 60cm/2 ft, for 750W this is 70 cm / 2 ft 4 inch, for 1000W this is 90 cm / 3 ft. In larger rooms with many overlapping lights the optimal distance is often even a bit further away.

3. The reflectivity of your walls is a crucial factor. The lower the reflectivity of the walls, the lower the average light levels and the lower the uniformity. Walls have a bigger influence in a smaller room. We recommend to use high reflective material such as orca film of >90%.

4. Because of the influence of the walls the uniformity of the light near the walls is always lower. When we calculate the quality of the light as in uniformity % (min/avg) we always calculate a surface at 20-50cm from the walls (depending on the size of the room).

5. We calculate with 1000 umol m-2 s-1 for the generative phase (flowering, 12 hours cycle) and 670 umol m-2 s-1 for the vegetative phase (18 hours veg cycle). This is because your plants get 50% more light in the vegetative phase because you light them 18 hours instead of 12. The daily light integral (DLI, total amount of light the plants get per day) stays the same this way.

6. When combining plasma light to HPS we recommend a minimum of 1 LEP fixture per 600W HPS in veg, and minimum of 1 LEP fixture per 1200W in the flowering phase. More LEP will increase the quality of your crop.

7. In most cases the dimensions of a room are not ideal for the footprints of the lamps. Therefor most rooms have a different "sweet spot" for the lamps. In general though you should hang your lamps in-line, with the centers of the lamps between 90 cm and 110 cm apart. The distance between the rows is between 1.8 and 2.3 meters. The distance between the rows and the walls should be less than half the distance between your rows: when the rows are 2 m apart the ideal distance from the walls is likely to be 80 cm or less. At the head and tail of the rows the lamps should be really close to the walls (30-40 cm to the center of the lamp). This is because a HPS fixture always has a wide footprint.

 

[rockythegrower]

Thanks Whazzup, I am not really a forum post guru so bear with me. I have read all the basic guidelines for Gavitas thru out ICMAG and have memorized the general guidelines. As I stated I also have an 8 light 1000w pro set up I have been using for the last 2+ years.

The spreadsheet Gavita tech sent me was outputting like 13 1000w HPS lamps per room and 12 Plasma... it seemed way over for each room I entered dim's for.

To answer your questions:

- room dimensions :: Two identical bloom rooms. Each room measures 19'3" L x 15'2" W x 16' H.

- table height :: 25"

- minimum and maximum crop height :: 3 ft min - 7 ft max

- required ppfd (recommendations also in the calculation form) Not sure here

- reflectivity of your wall material :: 90% ? 3 coats of white SafeCoat No VOC paint + 1 coat primer

Don't worry about the mother or veg rooms i listed in earlier post. I have those covered and learned much from reading your prev posts. My biggest concern is dialing in the flower rooms at the moment.

I think I have actually gotten most of the info i need thru parsing all the forum posts you have made + the info learned at Gavita Holland site. But any additional insight appreciated. I am a grower not a lighting engineer.

One question in particular is how exactly should the new 1000w complete fixtures be plugged in conjunction with the EL2 controller? I see the EL2 itself plugs into a 120v outlet but does each complete fixture need its own outlet in the grow room? or do the fixtures plug into a central unit that relays with the EL2? I figured on just buying the gear and then figuring it out from there but if you could help on this I can have all the plugs and correct electrical in place prior. I need the EL2 to run 2 generative rooms 12/12.

Thanks in advance,

 

[Beavinator]

I am currently going to be setting up a new place and I plan on using the Gavita Pro1000e DE fixtures. My plan is to build 4 rooms with 25 lights per room. I will probably start out with 2 rooms with 25 per room and then build the other 2 rooms as the first rooms grow. I am very excited to try out these new Gavitas as I read that they give you a 6ft x 4 ft footprint. That is gonna allow me to put an extra 10 plants per light vs my old setup. I really love my system of growing as I get a lot of crops per year! I dont veg my plants not even for 1 day. I just plant 35 per light in beds and flip them. I get an honest 2 pounds per light every time. I think my record was 2.7. I use the perfect room system and have been using it for 25 years. People used to laugh at me when I said I have no intake or exhaust. Anyways I cant wait to try these lights out! They are sweet!

 

[panga]

I am currently going to be setting up a new place and I plan on using the Gavita Pro1000e DE fixtures. My plan is to build 4 rooms with 25 lights per room. I will probably start out with 2 rooms with 25 per room and then build the other 2 rooms as the first rooms grow. I am very excited to try out these new Gavitas as I read that they give you a 6ft x 4 ft footprint. That is gonna allow me to put an extra 10 plants per light vs my old setup. I really love my system of growing as I get a lot of crops per year! I dont veg my plants not even for 1 day. I just plant 35 per light in beds and flip them. I get an honest 2 pounds per light every time. I think my record was 2.7. I use the perfect room system and have been using it for 25 years. People used to laugh at me when I said I have no intake or exhaust. Anyways I cant wait to try these lights out! They are sweet!

How'd the 25light rooms turn out ? How much Ac btu needed? What was the layout of the lighting?

 

[Beavinator]

That project has still not gotten off the ground LOL. I started talking with that Christian guy at Current Culture and I am seriously thinking about switching to the Undercurrent Pro system. It has always been a dream of mine to grow monster trees and I really love the looks of the Undercurrent systems! The biggest reasons why I am considering changing is 1 -its just so much cleaner! and 2 - I am so sick of having to change the beds of dirt after every cycle! Its just so wasteful doing the dirt beds. Only thing that worries me about hydro is its a lot easier to lose an entire crop. As for my cooling I am thinking about trying a chilled water cooling system instead of conventional A/C. Supposedly its more efficient in our application. One other system that I am really interested in is done by a guy on here. I think his name is Madlab. I sent him a few messages asking about his system but he doesnt seem to wanna reply.