600w or 1000w layout schematics, advice :)?

[jimbobthe3rd]

I have a 12' x 16' space, with a 2' walkway down the side of the room (whole open room is 14'x16'). Just wondering if you experienced growers would use 12 1k lights to cover equal 4x4 portions of the 12' x 16' space ( 3 across and 4 down ).

Or would you lean towards more total light coverage using 20 600w lights (exact same 12k watts). Using perhaps 4 across & 5 down, thats letting the 600s cover 3'x3.2' each. The heigh of the room is 7.3', so if using the 1k's the style of grow will be Scrogging with no under or vert lights. If using the 600s, it's possible i'll try mini-trees just not sure.

Advice and opinions from experienced people are greatly welcome! Thanks alot. I basically have 12k to work with, and 12' x 16' ( maybe 14' x 16' i could sacrifice that 2 foot walkway space for more plant/light :)))

Sincerely,
Jimbob.

 

[dankworth]

Your 1ks and spacing are perfect.
So much more cost in 6s.
They do not penetrate nearly as deeply in a canopy.
Your cola that grows will be better quality and bigger with 1ks.
The 6s will only penetrate so far in the canopy and still produce premium material.
Maybe penetrate 12", maybe less.
So the amount of 'bearing surface' on the stick, the length of the stem on which bud will grow, is substantially greater with 1ks.
The length of the arc tube in a lamp has a lot to do with performance.
Point source vs line source and all (1k more like line source than 6, carries a disproportionate gain)

Do planters like Mississip hip, trellis them with a screen 12" above medium, get a screen of horticultural trellis 6-12" above metal screen. Colas want to fall, they will stay put via the horti trellis. Helps so much with light exposure, quality, yield.
Put a reflective surface at top of medium. Affix reflectix in walkways, so you have a continuous reflective floor. But only when plants are thick enough to handle the light.

Arrange whatever reflectors so that they crosslight the neighboring 4' wide bay perfectly. Multiple overhead 1ks spaced like that beats 6s all day long.
Lower initial cost as well, lower relamping cost, less cords in the way.

I have run 6s and 1ks in vert and overhead. I am only willing to run 1ks overhead, based on experience.
But 6s in cool tubes, vert in between the rows, shining on the sides and bottoms of the plants, bouncing off the reflective floor, chunking up the sides and bottoms so that you get more premium material and less popcorn, sounds fun to me.
And the only time I would consider ever using a 600 watt lamp.

600s do not produce any meaningful advantage vs 1ks.
600s do not in fact produce more lumens per watt, not with a good lamp choice. 155k lumens for digilux 1k [email protected] amps. 95k for digilux 600watt [email protected] amps. Yes I like digilux for the price, spectrum, and brightness. Plantlightinghydroponics has them for like $60 with shipping, let us know if you can find them cheaper elsewhere.
You can get them closer because of less heat, but you could just get a 1k and back it up some, and get the same light values at top of canopy, and much better penetration through the canopy.
I will state again that crosslighting the neighboring bay with 1ks is the way to go.
If you have room on your circuit(you will if you have digital 1k ballasts) then you could fill up the extra room on your circuit with dual 600watt ballasts from Lumatek.
Then put them in the aisles like I described.
Hopefully you will be doing chow dtw, all the cool kids are doing it. High performance, high reliability.
I even show a nute formula in a thread for chow dtw that I make from 5 50 lb bags of fertilizer salts + micros that I bought for 181.06. It will last me 5-10,000 gallons depending.

For the love of all that is good in this world, get 1ks. I say this from years of experience with both. 6s only look good if you have not worked with 1ks yet.

 

[jimbobthe3rd]

thanks for your very informative reply dank, just some quick maths.
i have a 7.3' ceiling. i'm doing coco dtw, my pots are 1.6' high, say the reflector & chain is atleast 1', needing to be atleast 1.5' away from the top of the canopy at all times. this leaves about 3 feet of plant space. 1st trellis at 1'(for scrogging), 2nd trellis another 1.5' above that(for support of colas) and they can hang half a foot above the top trellis where hopefully they'll finish.

them 1ker's, should be able to penetrate almost all the way through that 3' canopy should they not? eliminating need for any vert/under lights yea?

i think i read somewhere that 600s can penetrate 2 feet of heavy foliage, and 1kers atleast 4 feet, i could be having incorrect flashbacks, but does that sound right?

 

[dankworth]

Second trellis should be lower than 1.5 ft above the first trellis. Maybe like a foot above. You will scrog until flowers form, then let the cola develop. The cola does not need to get any taller than like 18". Do not let the plant get stalk above the screen, only flowers.
Then later the plant will get chunky, and try to fall over in the last 1/3 of flower. 'But it will simply fall against the horticultural trellis.
I do my scrog at 32" high in a room w/a 7.4' ceiling. This lets me have super sun 2s backed up against the ceiling , and perfectly crosslight the neighboring bay(I have 3.5' wide bays). This way I can get under the scrog to access containers and plumbing.

You should know that amending coco with either perlite or clay pellets improves the growth rate of coco by a considerable margin. Hydroton/coco mixes are said to have a higher growth rate than perlite/coco mixes. Bad backs like perlite/coco mixes.

This enhanced performance leads to a reduction in cycle time, so results occur in less time than before. This can improve average annual output by a considerable figure.

With a reflective floor covering the containers and walkways, all the light gets bounced back up to the bottom buds, improving them. More solid colas this way. Just get 18-24" colas, or closely spaced 12" colas or something with your 1ks. They will not penetrate as far as 3 or 4 feet and produce anything good. Confine your light with reflective surfaces back to the flowers at every opportunity. As long as you are keeping canopy temp in check.

 

[jimbobthe3rd]

Yes i actually use a silica rock and coco mix at 25/75, the silica rock breaks down over the course of the grow and allows the plant extra uptake of silica, i always have the bottom 2 inches of the pot as hydroton for drainage help.

I have painted melamine white walls & ceiling for reflectivity, and will lay some white reflex panda on the floor :) thanks for all the tips. Yield wise, with my med-heavy strain, on each 4x4 will be one plant per 1k light. I'm really hoping for min 2lb ~ will be super pysched if i can get 3lb per light, thinking it might be a possibility once dialed in due to alot of over-lapping light and reflectivity.

What do you normally yield per 1k light if you don't mind me asking dank?
With my previous runs on 600s, i average 1~1.25lbs per 600.

 

[dankworth]

I got 2 per, saw how it would be 2.5 with optimization. Fresh lamps, all digital ballasts, optimized vpd, optimized nutrition, foliar, etc.
Btw, when I say reflective floor, I mean that you should cover your medium with a reflective surface. And then affix reflective panels between your planters at the same height as the top of the medium. So it is all one big continuous reflective surface.
The closer the reflective surface is to the flowers, the higher the efficiency of the reflected light will be when it comes to generating chunky flowers.
This is very important for yield figures out of the room. If you just cover the containers/planters with a reflective surface, and then make the floor of the walkway reflective, it will cost you results. Got to be one solid continuous reflective panel 1' under the metal screen.

BTW reflectix, due to its dimpled surface, does things to plants with light that white paint or pandafilm does not.

Edit- Jackmayoffer, in a warehouse thread with a-wings, may have hit 3/light on a perfect run. But I am not 100% sure about that.

 

[jimbobthe3rd]

Ahhh that makes sense...having it on the floor wouldn't really help much at all would it? but if it's level with the top of the pot, that reflectivity would be x2 or x3 better! You certainly know your shit, thanks again for the tips man, few things you've said will definately help me achieve that 2+ :)).

 

[dankworth]

Ahhh that makes sense...having it on the floor wouldn't really help much at all would it? but if it's level with the top of the pot, that reflectivity would be x2 or x3 better! You certainly know your shit, thanks again for the tips man, few things you've said will definately help me achieve that 2+ :)).

Yeah, you get the principle I'm taking about using. I have thought about making a suspended ceiling w/a reflective panel that is level with the glass on the reflectors to enhance that too. And rounding the corners to avoid light traps.
Then you can sit back all high as fuck and pretend that you are floating in a spacelab, and make space noises and shit.
Plants love it when they can hear your voice.

Glad I could help. You are a quick study.

Edit- when confining the plants with reflective panels like this, be mindful of the fact that this will require certain airflow and cooling to keep the canopy temps in check.
I list some other things that help improve performance for cheap over in BC Farmer's "20 light 25 plant screen of green" thread in grow diaries.

It has been said that teas will get you an extra quarter pound per light(1k) and when you do teas correctly, this is true. And it costs next to nothing. I talk about it a bit in that post.

Edit- I ran 1/2 hps, 1/2 mh when I did 2/light. Tired-ass digilux hps, broke-ass 18.00 Plusrite internet metal halides. Still 2/light.
I really think there is a disproportionate gain in performance when blending hps and mh light. The digilux mh is the best I have found for desirable spectrum, and sheer brightness for weight-getting.
Running 1/2 hps and 1/2 mh in a bigger room like yours blends spectrum very well. Now think about the increased cost and reduced lumens of outfitting the whole room with dual arcs. hahahaha
I will take my $55-60 digilux lamps , blended, over dual arcs any day of the week. Even if the dual arcs were free.
But the king for potency is the hortilux blue mh, if you had money burning a hole in your pocket, and you wanted to have the most potency out of your strain possible, then during flush replace the 6 hps lamps with the horti blue mhs($170 each) and run the digilux mhs for the other 6 overhead lights. Or even all 12 lamps as the horti blue mh.
Just get one of those lamps and put it in the corner to confine its light, and then smoke off of those buds, and you will see why I raise a fuss about it.
It can make the right meds downright epic, no exaggeration.

 

[fishwhistle]

"I have thought about making a suspended ceiling w/a reflective panel that is level with the glass on the reflectors to enhance that too. And rounding the corners to avoid light traps."
Dank,have you ever considered lighting the darker areas/corners above your lights with some regular fluorescent lighting to ward off light theft from the darker areas?Im guessing that light naturally will bend and be attracted to the darker areas but if those areas are lit the HPS will not be stolen away to light them?Or am i just stoned?BTW digging your posts,they are some of my fave right now,very helpful.

 

[dankworth]

"I have thought about making a suspended ceiling w/a reflective panel that is level with the glass on the reflectors to enhance that too. And rounding the corners to avoid light traps."
Dank,have you ever considered lighting the darker areas/corners above your lights with some regular fluorescent lighting to ward off light theft from the darker areas?Im guessing that light naturally will bend and be attracted to the darker areas but if those areas are lit the HPS will not be stolen away to light them?Or am i just stoned?BTW digging your posts,they are some of my fave right now,very helpful.

Nope, fluorescents do not have sufficient intensity to be placed there. It would not do enough good. The less intensity of the lamp, the closer it must be placed to the canopy to do any good.
Because of my wattage/ft2, digital ballasts, lamp choices, reflector choice, reflectix surfaces, all those things in combination, I do not have any dark areas above my reflectors, or dark spots across my canopy.
The only darker areas I would like to get more light to is the underside of the canopy. Every other part of the plant is sufficiently illuminated.
The light would generate weight more efficiently if it bounced off a reflective suspended ceiling closer to the canopy, vs. bouncing off the regular ceiling which is much further away. Light intensity of reflection then diminishes considerably.

It is all about getting the reflective surfaces as close to the canopy as possible. And using reflectix if possible. Lots more on why this does what it does, but I would have to type too much about it.

Thanks for the question, and thanks for digging my posts.

 

[fishwhistle]

dank,are you using the reflectix with the bubbles on your walls or the flat stuff with scrim?i noticed they have both at home depot but the flat stuff is a shitload cheaper,125'x4' roll for about 65 bucks a roll.

 

[SolMannaFest]

Howzit JimBob! Just curious to know if the final consensus is going to be for a 1k setup or?

Bless...Manna

 

[dankworth]

dank,are you using the reflectix with the bubbles on your walls or the flat stuff with scrim?i noticed they have both at home depot but the flat stuff is a shitload cheaper,125'x4' roll for about 65 bucks a roll.

I don't even know about the cheap stuff. I will have to take a look. Sorry just noticed this, little after the fact.

 

[fishwhistle]

no worries,the flat stuff is reinforced with scrim and does not have the bubbles,its #is rb48125 on the depot site and its 4'x125' for 65.84 vs the regular at 4'x25' for 42.42.Im sure the bubble stuff is a little more insulating but i already have r30 in my walls i just am thinking about the reflectix strictly for reflecting light.