To remove the lenses or not

[Bgreenheadband]

I currently have 6 600's running in a 10x30' room.

I am exhausting through a 8 inch fan on a cann 100 filter..

My temps stay right where I want them (around 75-80 F) with the exhaust running.

In previous rooms, we pulled cool air from the outside through the lights, but since I am not doing this currently, I figure the lenses are just blocking lumens.

So should i remove them? Will it raise my room temps much (or at all)

Will i have to raise the lights? (if i do it, I planned on just using a laser thermometer to meter the top cola/leave temp to make sure they arent too hot?

Good idea? Anything I need to know?
Any reasons why i shouldn't?

Thanks for any info...

 

[nameless]

the glass blocks a small percentage of lumens, if your not aircooling id just take it out. but you prob wont notice a difference

 

[lightningstrike]

Package the lense and label it for easy replacement when re installing is needed with summer temperatures. The day you need it, trying to find it propped next to the water heater or in peices because of unplanned movements by pets or working in a hurry will remind you of safe packaging.

 

[daheadies]

taking off the lenses not only makes it so you get more lumens, but also allows heat to disperse better.. definitly take off if not venting. The only reason to keep them on is for a safety precaution (I have seen fires start inside of bulbs before)

 

[alamony2005]

I remember when my 600 failed. It was like a plasma blue color that engulfed the interior. It sorta looked like the lightening globes you can touch and a bolt will rise to your hand. SCARY!!!

On a side note.. take a look at this little slice of heaven.

Hello all, well we done it, all your vote's showed that there is a keen interest in the subject of vertical growing, thank you all that have voted and than you Gypsy for making this happen!

I have always seen vertical grows on the net over the years but never really give it any thought, then when I started seeing the results that some of these vertical setups were getting I was instantly hooked!! There are so many benefits to vertical growing that I sometimes wonder why everyone isn't doing it. There is a lot of equipment for horizontal growing such as, Reflectors, Light Rails, air-cooled hoods, EZ Roller's, etc most gardens are focused in a horizontal setting. If everyone grew vertically then the hydroponics stores would be out of a good chunk of business from not selling their horizontal designed equipment. I have noticed that when I talk with my hydro guys and bring up the vertical growing method they look at me like I'm nuts and try to push their other horizontally inclined ideas onto me.

There are some legendary vertical growers out there like Heath Robinson this guy reported to me that he is achieving an absolutely massive 2.5 grams per watt, now although he is using a heavy yielder (critical mass) It's still a shock to think someone can produce this in a small scale grow, (600w) that's why we needed this area to focus all our knowledge and to help everyone build their own vertical system, I'd rather do that than pay thousands for some of the commercial vertical growing system's out there.

Here are some diagrams that I think Krusty made a few years ago to explain why vertical lighting works so well as opposed to horizontal.

As you can see their are a few benefits to vertical lighting, Number 1 The majority of the heat produced by the HID is pushed upwards to your exhaust vs the horizontal hood that traps heat and directs it at your plant's. The main advantage to this is that you can put your plants closer to your bulb's without worrying about burning them, 1 grower I know can get his plants up to 6" from his 1000w bulb but keeps them back a few more inches due to the buds getting bleached from to much light!!

Number 2 The next benefit of vertical growing is that you will be using 360o of your light, you want to absolutely cover the outer diameter of the bulb with plants so barely any light can escape, this will give you the best efficiency, you will be blasting your plants with as many lumen's as possible. Compare this method to a horizontal garden, if you look at the diagrams you can see that a massive 75% of the light is reflected thus killing a lot of lumen's in the process, lumen's that I'd prefer getting to my plants, and after all less lumen's = less yield and we don't want that now do we!

Benefit Number 3, This next benefit is for space, the amount of space you save by growing is phenomenal, a 600w lamp would be fit for a 4X4 area at very most, and even this is only a low 37.5 watts per square foot. compare this to a vertical set up, you could have a vert system 3 foot in diameter but 8 foot high and fill it with 300 plants have 5 of these in one room......ya get the idea? If not here is a pic to explain the major benefit of space improvement.

As you can see you would be improving your space by 135%! That's a huge increase.

Here is another diagram that you should have a look at.

Right well according to this chart the maximum distance you can get your plants to your 1000w hid is 10 inches, this will blast 64,000 at them compared to 44,000 at 12 inches, that's a BIG drop for only 2 inches. How far do you keep your plants from your bulb?

Another benefit of this system is that you can slow down the stretch on plants, this is very handy for growers wanting to grow sativa's that have a 3 x + stretch. In some of the v-scrog grows I've come across it would seem that when you stop raising the light the plant responds by cutting it's stretch and focus more of it's energy in bud production which is real handy I think you would agree.