I don’t mind spending some money, but I’m not looking to throw it in the toilet on ineffective products.
There is more contradiction in these responses. More confusion abounds.
One response says 40sq ft needs 4-5 200w cxb3590s which sounds like WAY TOO MUCH. Especially when someone else says and I’ve read that you can grow 4-6 plants under 1 200w and 8 under a 300w. I was thinking like maybe 1 100w or 1 200w at most for this space. Not 5-10 times as many.
I’m not growing in a tent. It’s a room 10x15x8’.
Also people are talking about using some random number of cxb3590s with no indication of wattage??
I have no idea what 90deg or 120deg lenses are or what they are supposed to do.
Obviously, any one plant can be put under any one light, etc but that is not a typical setup nor is it mine. More useful information would be how many plants can be sufficiently grown under a 100/200/300w, etc. But there is already contradiction there.
I also don’t understand the talk about upgrading/changing chips, etc. Why do I need to upgrade a light I just bought? And why do I need to change chips during the grow- I thought one of the best things about these lights is they can be used for the entire veg and flower cycles?
We told you man.
Hlg quantum boards or fluence if you want top notch quality go there.
A lot of people dont even know or understand the basics enough to describe their own setups, here's mine.
Wattage is volts multiplied by amps. So 50 volts multiplied by 1 amp is 50 watts... 50 volts multiplied by 0.5 is 25, basic math.
I bought 20 bridgelux eb2 strips 41 volts or so per strip. The recommended drive current is between 0.7 Amps and 1.4 amps. I chose to run them at 0.7a so I bought a hlg600h 48b. I dont know the details of how the driver adjusts its volts down but it should be running at 41volts or there about.
41 volts x 0.7amps x 20 strips is about 574 watts and probably 650 at the wall (120v losses and to a tiny extent driver.)
I wish I had some ppfd numbers to share but I'm not shelling $500 for that. I probably went way overboard.
With LEDs it's kind of hard to go wrong as long as you dont buy that
KIND LED shit. Theres a few names you will be impressed by regardless as long as you're using their newer technology. Samsung, bridgelux, and cree are the main. Ones.
Fluence and
hlg both use samsung diodes and they're considered the top of the food chain.
Here's a basic ground rule for current day and it's not perfect. You'll need roughly 60% of the energy you're using in the HPS setups. The softer LEDs are ran the more efficient they are. Fluence is close to a strip setup with very evenly spread light. I think they recommend you keep it around 12" off canopy. Quantum boards take a in between of strips and cobs. Better spread then cobs worse then fluence. I dont know canopy distances on quantum boards (you'll read it as QB's often so you know what it is when it pops up.)