Philips 315w CDM Elite (CMH)

[agent dank]

Just got a CMH kit from growershouse, fitted it up to my Xtrasun 6" AC, plugged it in and the first thing I notice was the ground was bent, but upon plugging it into the outlet I heard weird electrical sounds so I unplugged right away. Now the T12/930 I have the arc tube is grey.

I just shut off the 315w phantom full setup and the arc tube is white still and that thing was running all night.

Anyone know wtf is up with that kit? Its a phantom ballast. Should work.

 

[agent dank]

Have plenty of power, only one other 315w CMH plugged into a 20A.

 

[Lungy]

Hmmm after 8 weeks I got my ATL order but one of the bulbs looks like this Ugggghhh.

 

[l33t]

May I ask what makes the CMH superior to a 7-14K MH + HPS ? The 7-14K MH bulbs are far cheaper, they concentrate on the uv-blue spectrum, they are readily available and they work with our ballasts, plus they last longer. The combined HPS+MH has more efficiency than the CMH ( 120lm/w vs 110lm/w ) plus looking at PAR curves the MH+HPS would be more efficient ?

Are there any real advantages to using CMH ?

vs

And it has always been a bit weird how the HPS someone could say has a really bad spectrum for growing plants but it does some real magic to our cannabis plants , so I would take these par curves with a grain of salt.... they cant be that off though...

I have seen the ppf measurements but unless you can measure it with cannabis spectra absorption weighted curves then it's all irrelevant...

 

[HorseBadoritiz]

Hmmm after 8 weeks I got my ATL order but one of the bulbs looks like this Ugggghhh.


View Image
View Image

Tom has quickly replaced any bulb I've had a problem with, just send him a pic.

 

[bloyd]

Tom has quickly replaced any bulb I've had a problem with, just send him a pic.

Tom doesn't quickly do anything ime. usually comes through in the end though.

 

[Lungy]

Tom has quickly replaced any bulb I've had a problem with, just send him a pic.

Already done and sending me another tomorrow, he seems to be getting back on top of things again.

 

[Muleskinner]

May I ask what makes the CMH superior to a 7-14K MH + HPS ?

you raise an interesting point, I wasn't aware of these MH bulbs. But I think the simple answer to your question is that CMH is better for small grows. It's difficult to use 2 different HPS and MH bulbs into a small tent, especially if you only need 300-600 watts of light in there.

I stirred some shit in the Cycloptics thread by pointing out that the PHilips 315W agro bulb is 601 umol in the specs, and the Philips Greenpower 400w HPS is 750 umol. The Philips HPS also maintains 95% brightness out to about 2.5 years, which is superior to the CMH bulb. Even counting PAR the CMH bulb offers no efficiency advantage over premium HPS bulbs, they're both right around 1.9.

For large grows I would go for DE HPS all the way - efficiency is 2.1, better than anything else. But the cmh bulbs are perfect for 3X3 or 4X4 tents. It's definitely nicer to have the soft white light vs. the glaring orange for looking at the plants with the lights on. Also for small grows in a bedroom closet or tent you no longer have to worry about light leaks, LEO won't be able to see the telltale orange/pink glow.

I think a lot of the hype on this and LED comes from lack of scientific rigor when doing comparisons. New ballasts and bulbs tend to out-perform old ones. I had a Lumatek ballast go bad on me recently. It didn't die, but the light had become weaker and more orange colored. I didn't realize it until I hooked up my other 400w HPS right next to it. The ballast had less than 2 years running time on it. The same thing happens to bulbs. I think this accounts for someone buying a new CMH rig and then saying that it equaled their 600w HPS.

As legalization happens and this industry grows up we're finally getting the tangible specs we deserve. The PAR rating of each PHilips bulb should eliminate the mystery. Note that even Hortilux doesn't give you specs on their expensive bulbs. I like the fact that the Phillilps CMH bulb is a fully professional product and not some 2nd-class mystery-meat type product designed for the cannabis community. IMHO a company like Cycloptics is doing a great job pushing this transition, just look at their website compared to the info you get from Hortilux, Hydrofarm, etc.

 

[rives]

May I ask what makes the CMH superior to a 7-14K MH + HPS ? The 7-14K MH bulbs are far cheaper, they concentrate on the uv-blue spectrum, they are readily available and they work with our ballasts, plus they last longer. The combined HPS+MH has more efficiency than the CMH ( 120lm/w vs 110lm/w ) plus looking at PAR curves the MH+HPS would be more efficient ?

Are there any real advantages to using CMH ?

And it has always been a bit weird how the HPS someone could say has a really bad spectrum for growing plants but it does some real magic to our cannabis plants , so I would take these par curves with a grain of salt.... they cant be that off though...

I have seen the ppf measurements but unless you can measure it with cannabis spectra absorption weighted curves then it's all irrelevant...

I've never been around the 7-14k MH lamps, but a quick search shows that they have a very limited life (6-8k hours) and I couldn't find any data on how well they maintain their light levels over time. A 400w HPS is rated at a 24k hour life with a mean lumen maintenance of 88% vs the 930 315's 30k hour life and 92% lumen maintenance.

I don't know how you arrived at the "combined efficiency", but the MH lamps that I could find put out 42-46 lumens per watt. A 400w HPS puts out 112 mean lumens per watt, and the 315 930 does 110 mlpw. I don't see any possible way that you can combine 42-46 and 112 to exceed 110.

It's possible that the combined spectrum of the MH + HPS is superior providing that you could mount them in a manner that allowed uniform distribution over the entire lighting footprint. That seems like a pretty good trick to me.

There are numerous types of lighting that work well with our plants, from HPS to the NASA LED paradigm. Unfortunately, most of them don't work all that well with human color perception and make it very difficult to see what is going on with the plants. HPS works great on a factory floor or for street lighting, but I vastly prefer a natural-appearing light in the grow room.

I stirred some shit in the Cycloptics thread by pointing out that the PHilips 315W agro bulb is 601 umol in the specs, and the Philips Greenpower 400w HPS is 750 umol. The Philips HPS also maintains 95% brightness out to about 2.5 years, which is superior to the CMH bulb. Even counting PAR the CMH bulb offers no efficiency advantage over premium HPS bulbs, they're both right around 1.9.

If I remember the thread correctly, the Greenpower actually is rated at 430w, which puts the umol/w at 1.74 whereas the 315 is 1.9.

 

[Riever]

Got a quote from Welthink for $1000 shipped for 12 315w digital remote ballasts...

Not really liking that all complete systems have an integrated ballast....

Krunch, I must have gone to the wrong website to look at the Welthinks. I think I'll try them too. Can you steer me in the right direction for them?

 

[Muleskinner]

let's not pretend it's hard to find HPS bulbs of 1.9 efficiency - most of them are around that level. Certainly all of the premium 600w and 1000w are that or even higher these days.

IMO, if the commercial industry hasn't swtiched to something….there's a reason. It's been many years now….why hasn't Philips introduced a 1000w CMH? 600w?? 750?? Most likely because HPS is more efficient. Just go to P.L. Lighting's web page and look at the products…..75% or more of commercial greenhouses worldwide are using their lights.

sorry, I guess it's become my mission to be skeptical of LED and other non-traditional forms of lighting…..OK, found something useful! The Philips 400w bulb is 725 umol….so only 1.8 efficiency - not as good as CMH! At 600w and 1000w, the advantage goes back to HPS, with DE and higher-voltage bulbs. Of course, Belicheck always says "stats are for losers"…..no guarantee one works better than the other on cannabis:

http://www.lighting.philips.com/b-d...ticulture-products/cl-hid-600-1000w-cg-en.pdf

 

[Jhhnn]

I've never been around the 7-14k MH lamps, but a quick search shows that they have a very limited life (6-8k hours) and I couldn't find any data on how well they maintain their light levels over time. A 400w HPS is rated at a 24k hour life with a mean lumen maintenance of 88% vs the 930 315's 30k hour life and 92% lumen maintenance.

I don't know how you arrived at the "combined efficiency", but the MH lamps that I could find put out 42-46 lumens per watt. A 400w HPS puts out 112 mean lumens per watt, and the 315 930 does 110 mlpw. I don't see any possible way that you can combine 42-46 and 112 to exceed 110.

It's possible that the combined spectrum of the MH + HPS is superior providing that you could mount them in a manner that allowed uniform distribution over the entire lighting footprint. That seems like a pretty good trick to me.

There are numerous types of lighting that work well with our plants, from HPS to the NASA LED paradigm. Unfortunately, most of them don't work all that well with human color perception and make it very difficult to see what is going on with the plants. HPS works great on a factory floor or for street lighting, but I vastly prefer a natural-appearing light in the grow room.



If I remember the thread correctly, the Greenpower actually is rated at 430w, which puts the umol/w at 1.74 whereas the 315 is 1.9.

Prior to switching to 630w of CDM I used a 1000w dual arc plantmax lamp-

https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/8...BaseShopping&gclid=CInlkdz40ssCFQyHaQoddUIBcg

It was in no way superior to the new setup. The CDM's grow about the same using a lot less power & producing a lot less heat.

I can appreciate all the quantification about various light sources but they're really just attempts to estimate actual performance. At that, CDM works better than the numbers would indicate. Part of that, I think, is the huge reduction of infrared that tends to cook the plants rather than providing them with useful energy.

This link you provided long ago tells that part of the story-

http://www.cycloptics.com/sites/default/files/USU_spectral_analysis.pdf

 

[Jhhnn]

let's not pretend it's hard to find HPS bulbs of 1.9 efficiency - most of them are around that level. Certainly all of the premium 600w and 1000w are that or even higher these days.

IMO, if the commercial industry hasn't swtiched to something….there's a reason. It's been many years now….why hasn't Philips introduced a 1000w CMH? 600w?? 750?? Most likely because HPS is more efficient. Just go to P.L. Lighting's web page and look at the products…..75% or more of commercial greenhouses worldwide are using their lights.

sorry, I guess it's become my mission to be skeptical of LED and other non-traditional forms of lighting…..OK, found something useful! The Philips 400w bulb is 725 umol….so only 1.8 efficiency - not as good as CMH! At 600w and 1000w, the advantage goes back to HPS, with DE and higher-voltage bulbs. Of course, Belicheck always says "stats are for losers"…..no guarantee one works better than the other on cannabis:

http://www.lighting.philips.com/b-d...ticulture-products/cl-hid-600-1000w-cg-en.pdf

Commercial greenhouses vs indoor growing is an apples to oranges comparison. Greenhouses get natural blue-rich sunshine whereas indoor grows obviously don't. Artificial lighting is often used in greenhouses for photoperiod control rather than growth, as well.

Philips produces 830w, 330w & 205w CMH lamps as power saving screw in replacements for 1000w, 400w & 250w MH lamps widely used in commercial lighting. I'm using a 330w for veggie starts as I type. It doesn't put out nearly as much light as a 315, however.

Once a grow gets bigger than a few 1000w I think the advantage switches to the DE lamps in situations with enough headroom. Dunno that they'll grow any better but the upfront costs are lower & fixture management obviously easier.

I share your skepticism about LED's in general. What look to be quality units are *very* expensive & there seems to be a lot of hokum in that market segment.

All I can say to 315 skeptics is that you need to try 'em to understand. Watt for watt, they'll easily outgrow conventional lamps.

 

[The Wang]

Anybody experiencing plants getting burnt from their phantom cmh?

I have 2x 315w in a 4x4 tent and think the light is burning my plants. They are at least 30 inches away from the tops.

 

[rives]

let's not pretend it's hard to find HPS bulbs of 1.9 efficiency - most of them are around that level. Certainly all of the premium 600w and 1000w are that or even higher these days.

IMO, if the commercial industry hasn't swtiched to something….there's a reason. It's been many years now….why hasn't Philips introduced a 1000w CMH? 600w?? 750?? Most likely because HPS is more efficient. Just go to P.L. Lighting's web page and look at the products…..75% or more of commercial greenhouses worldwide are using their lights.

sorry, I guess it's become my mission to be skeptical of LED and other non-traditional forms of lighting…..OK, found something useful! The Philips 400w bulb is 725 umol….so only 1.8 efficiency - not as good as CMH! At 600w and 1000w, the advantage goes back to HPS, with DE and higher-voltage bulbs. Of course, Belicheck always says "stats are for losers"…..no guarantee one works better than the other on cannabis:

http://www.lighting.philips.com/b-d...ticulture-products/cl-hid-600-1000w-cg-en.pdf

Let's not pretend that you can cherry-pick amongst the various attributes of an entire lighting family and choose whichever specification you like to compete against the 315. It's meaningless - the 600w and 1000w HPS lamps have a fraction of the life of either the 315 or the Green Power 400. The Green Power has phenomenal lumen maintenance but most other HPS lamps don't approach it.

I believe that the reason that Philips hasn't introduced a higher-wattage lamp is the operating pressure. CMH operates at vastly higher pressures than other lamp families and current technology doesn't allow for a substantially larger envelope that can contain those pressures.

I've used most available forms of lighting over the years. For what I do, the overall performance of the 315 is better than anything else that I've used in several decades of doing this. YMMV.

 

[Muleskinner]

wang I would say something else is burning them - I just adjusted my 315w from 15 to 16 inches above the plants - they are not even close to burning. Unless your temp is very high???

Jnnnn I read that report and noted the lack of IR with CMH. Maybe we can say that the 315w CMH is the best bulb ever for tent growing. The best HPS lights' efficiency are 1.7 and 1.8 at 250w and 400w. They don't match CMH till you get to 600w, with more heat.

Many of us hobby/medical growers use 250w and 400w HPS bulbs exclusively, the 315w would seem to blow them away in every possible way except longevity of the bulb. I'm not psyched about running a 600w HPS in a small tent, if two 315's are less heat that's a big advantage.

I thought the Philips spec showing the light distribution of the bulb was interesting too. The HPS and CMH bulbs have almost the same pattern. That tells me there's no reason you can't use horizontal reflectors. They will work the same as any other HID bulb in a horizontal reflector.

 

[Muleskinner]

>>I believe that the reason that Philips hasn't introduced a higher-wattage lamp is the operating pressure.

thanks, that answers my question! There had to be a good reason. What do mean about HPS having a fraction of the lifetime….don't the specs show that Philips Greenpower HPS bulbs last much longer? I was seeing 95% at 2.5 years w/ HPS vs. about 1 year for CMH?? Does it out-peform those specs??

You can see big commersh guys don't like CMH - I'd rather buy 1 DE HPS light every 2.5 years that 2-3 CMH bulbs every year, for a hobbyist it's fine, but not if you're buying 500 of them.

I don't get the "cherry picking" comment - any of the Gavita pro fixtures give you the same efficiency as CMH right? Wouldn't the PPF umol rating indeed be apples-to-apples??? yes, the HPS might have more heat, I get that part…..

http://www.gavita-holland.com/index.php/products/lamps/category/pro-lamps.html

 

[l33t]

I've never been around the 7-14k MH lamps, but a quick search shows that they have a very limited life (6-8k hours) and I couldn't find any data on how well they maintain their light levels over time. A 400w HPS is rated at a 24k hour life with a mean lumen maintenance of 88% vs the 930 315's 30k hour life and 92% lumen maintenance.

I don't know how you arrived at the "combined efficiency", but the MH lamps that I could find put out 42-46 lumens per watt. A 400w HPS puts out 112 mean lumens per watt, and the 315 930 does 110 mlpw. I don't see any possible way that you can combine 42-46 and 112 to exceed 110.

It's possible that the combined spectrum of the MH + HPS is superior providing that you could mount them in a manner that allowed uniform distribution over the entire lighting footprint. That seems like a pretty good trick to me.

There are numerous types of lighting that work well with our plants, from HPS to the NASA LED paradigm. Unfortunately, most of them don't work all that well with human color perception and make it very difficult to see what is going on with the plants. HPS works great on a factory floor or for street lighting, but I vastly prefer a natural-appearing light in the grow room.



If I remember the thread correctly, the Greenpower actually is rated at 430w, which puts the umol/w at 1.74 whereas the 315 is 1.9.

Sure the 7K-14K MH bulbs last 5-15k hours . I buy them at 15euro/USD per bulb.... The 315 ceramic is at least 40euro if I am not wrong ? The 600w HPS we buy for 20-30euro...

Why should I choose to use a 400w magnetic ? I use 600w dimmable ballast at 660w and I get 150-155lumens/watt. And the 7K-14MH , yes it's 70-80lumens/watt but lumens measure mostly yellow and green so the PAR is as almost as good as an HPS.

And again, PAR doesn't say shit. PAR measurements just measure the light activity between the photosynthically active spectrum. So these ppf umols are not weighted , THEY MEASURE GREEN the same quality as BLUE which is totally false. Unless you can do PAR weighted curves specifically for cannabis its all irrelevant really. There are big spikes around the green spectrum with those CMH....

I guess its a good bulb/technology and probably REALLY good for small grows but unless the cost comes down considerably, it will never challange my HPS/MH setup. I get a 600w MH or HPS bulb and dimmable digital ballast for less than 100euro... Am I missing something ?? I also hate HPS only and I use 2:1 MH/HPS . Those 7-14K bulbs have really good spectrum, you just need to find a cheap source and replace them regularly.

PS Also when you overdrive the metal halide at 660w you basically squeeze more life out of the bulb until it dies or replacing will be more efficient than running it . I wouldn't be surprised if you can run them for 5k hours with minimal losses. We need to see how long these 7-14k bulbs last with digital ballasts.... time will tell...

 

[Muleskinner]

>>>And again, PAR doesn't say shit. PAR measurements just measure the light activity between the photosynthically active spectrum. So these ppf umols are not weighted.

Wikipedia confirms this - I'm learning more every day. So what we really need is "YPF" not PPF. Yield Photon Flux is a weighted aggregate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetically_active_radiation

Check out this line from Wikipedia - sounds like any attempt to quantify this stuff is just a WAG (wild-assed guess):

>>The YPF curve was developed from short-term measurements made on single leaves in low light. Some longer-term studies with whole plants in higher light indicate that light quality may have a smaller effect on plant growth rate than light quantity.

 

[rives]

Sure the 7K-14K MH bulbs last 5-15k hours . I buy them at 15euro/USD per bulb.... The 315 ceramic is at least 40euro if I am not wrong ? The 600w HPS we buy for 20-30euro...

Why should I choose to use a 400w magnetic ? I use 600w dimmable ballast at 660w and I get 150-155lumens/watt. And the 7K-14MH , yes it's 70-80lumens/watt but lumens measure mostly yellow and green so the PAR is as almost as good as an HPS.

And again, PAR doesn't say shit. PAR measurements just measure the light activity between the photosynthically active spectrum. So these ppf umols are not weighted , THEY MEASURE GREEN the same quality as BLUE which is totally false. Unless you can do PAR weighted curves specifically for cannabis its all irrelevant really. There are big spikes around the green spectrum with those CMH....

I guess its a good bulb/technology and probably REALLY good for small grows but unless the cost comes down considerably, it will never challange my HPS/MH setup. I get a 600w MH or HPS bulb and dimmable digital ballast for less than 100euro... Am I missing something ?? I also hate HPS only and I use 2:1 MH/HPS . Those 7-14K bulbs have really good spectrum, you just need to find a cheap source and replace them regularly.

PS Also when you overdrive the metal halide at 660w you basically squeeze more life out of the bulb until it dies or replacing will be more efficient than running it . I wouldn't be surprised if you can run them for 5k hours with minimal losses. We need to see how long these 7-14k bulbs last with digital ballasts.... time will tell...

I didn't find anything approaching a 15k hour life for the MH lamps, the best was just over half that and the same thing holds for the lpw. Using the specs that I found, if you are using them at a 2:1 ratio, then you would need a total of 8 of them to achieve the same life as the 315, and 2.5 of the 600's if you are using the Green Power. You haven't said what wattage MH you are using, but assuming that it took three of the 315s to make it equivalent, using your costs you would have 120 euros for the MH lamps and 50-75 euros for the 600's vs. 120 euros for (3) 315 to get equivalent lamp life. Ballast cost for the 315's would undoubtedly be higher, but the Phillips 315 ballast is industrial grade and would probably outlast the competition by a wide margin.

I don't see a great deal of difference other than a hell of a lot more complexity and maintenance with your arrangement. It would be very interesting to see how the two spectra compared.