Cost of lights .....Yikes!!!!!!!!

[ogtealover420]

So If one where buying say 8- 1,000 watt hps ballasts and say all the goodies like hortilux bulbs and some of them cheap wingy reflectors w/cordsets. How would one avoid paying 200 dollars per ballast and 130 per bulb????? I mean wormsway offers 10% off with farmers card and a small discount for buying more than x amount of any one item. But all in all we are still looking at 350+ per light;(. And this does not include Air conditioning nor the expense of building the room. Not to mention containers and coir and FFOF and guano ETC. I really have the drive but I am lacking cash so any advice on saving money on equpment would be great.

 

[420Gator]

dont forget the electric bill all that will easily be over 1000 a month. and those cheap wingy reflectors cant be air cooled like a sealed hood, thus further increasing your AC needs and monthly power bill. as far as the medium id say anywhere from 4-600 for all those lights plus you need ph/ppm meters, wall fans, can fans, filters, nutrients, possibly a water filter etc...

 

[Lost]

You don't just start with 8 1000's and the setup that oes along with it unless you have deep pockets. Buy 2, reinvest the harvest and get 4 more, etc rinse, repeat...

 

[sedate]

So If one where buying say 8- 1,000 watt hps ballasts and say all the goodies like hortilux bulbs and some of them cheap wingy reflectors w/cordsets.

Um. The first thing that jumps out at me is that you want to spend money on Hortilux bulbs - but not air cooled reflectors?

Given that massive misunderstanding of the proper order of equipment here, I would defer to Lost -

Buy 2, reinvest the harvest and get 4 more, etc rinse, repeat

Start small and re-invest when you get the hang of the grow cycles.

Not to mention containers and coir and FFOF and guano ETC.

Um. Again - FFOF and - of all things - guano?

Not to be a cock dude, but methinks you aren't ready for a 8kw grow - start with 2kw and make ur recipie work with that.

Then expand.

 

[420Gator]

oh yeah. all those lights youre probly gonna need some expensive electrical work as well before you even plug anything in

 

[Tesseract]

These are 1000w HID lights. Big boy toys! They cost $$$

 

[mrdizzle]

you can buy brand new 1000w ballast for $100 bucks, throw a $60 dollar phillips bulb in them with a $15 cord and you have a Q$175 out the door $3000 return in 2.5 months grow light

 

[antimatter]

yhea were being ripped off, big markup on growing equipment unfortunately.

 

[bigtrees]

350 a light still inst anything to cry about..... say it yields 2lbs what are you complaining about. id be more worried about the power and rent and nutes bill as well to run that you need alot of medium.

 

[ogtealover420]

dont forget the electric bill all that will easily be over 1000 a month. and those cheap wingy reflectors cant be air cooled like a sealed hood, thus further increasing your AC needs and monthly power bill. as far as the medium id say anywhere from 4-600 for all those lights plus you need ph/ppm meters, wall fans, can fans, filters, nutrients, possibly a water filter etc...

Well let's pretend it is a warehouse and I have no rent there, I have already been pulling well more than a pound and a half off of 1400 watts using ffof,coir, lime, guano, seaweed,
act teas,big bud, bone,feather,alfalfameal, worm castings, perilite. with 1 six inch fan and 3.5x10 ft. not great but a couple of the strains were lower yeilders and a couple were higher. I had two circulation fans and some of the pots where like 15 gal i mean I only had like 14 plants in the room both times. I had two prior harvest with a single 400 of more htan 5 ounces each time. IMO i get better each run as does the quality of the herb even with the same genetics.
I use tap water. And i think me electric will be paid for by someone else as well. I had just added a larger 8" fan, 12,000 btu window unit and brought the lights up to 2,000 watts of hortilux only to have the pigs snacth it all up leaving only the nutrients, pots, 400 watt hps set up(plain cord no reflector and my newest 1000 watt ballast.also the a/c, I still have it. but it is used any way. I have not been charged with the grow and it has been over two months.

 

[squarepusher]

well, if you dont want to go Digital ballasts, you can get them cheaper than $200.
For bulbs, heres a 1000W 140,000 lumen HPS one for $32

http://tigerhydro.com/sw-hpsbulb1000.html

 

[ogtealover420]

Um. The first thing that jumps out at me is that you want to spend money on Hortilux bulbs - but not air cooled reflectors?

Given that massive misunderstanding of the proper order of equipment here, I would defer to Lost -



Start small and re-invest when you get the hang of the grow cycles.



Um. Again - FFOF and - of all things - guano?

Not to be a cock dude, but methinks you aren't ready for a 8kw grow - start with 2kw and make ur recipie work with that.

Then expand.

Well i have 4 harvests indoors under my belt. i started with 3x3- 1 400 watt light and 1 strong modified air purifier as exuast.Worked it up to3.5x10ft- 2k. and 12,000 btu a/c and two in line fans. I had my mix and feed dialed in all across the board bringing my plants to a tasty fade in the last two and a half weeks. Also jsut before all this was inerupted i had jsut bought a pondmaster 18 and pondmaster AP-100 in hopes of building a sweet under current and running the bulbs vertical and i still do that is why i chose not to air cool my lights. Oh and the building holds a 50 degree temp year round. so i might need a tad bit of heat?

 

[sky high]

Certainly Made in Chink-Chank kinda stuff....but hey...it's cheap...



don't forget the attorney retainer fee in the cost of yer build..... yikes.

s h

 

[ogtealover420]

oh yeah. all those lights youre probly gonna need some expensive electrical work as well before you even plug anything in

Well there was a machine shop that made air plane parts so the electric is there for sure i just need to run a 8 light controller from one of the mains with romex wire. i hope to go as many as 24k in the future as the building is beyond massive imean it has two basments and the building has over 100 rooms and the building being 4 stories tall the possibilities are endless. Some of the walls there are over 8 feet thick. and 80% of ceilings are concrete.

 

[sky high]

I'm betting the building is wired for 3-phase power if it was once a machine shop.

Not sure what effect that will have on HID/if you can run HID on such a set up. Have you investigated the power supply?

Is anyone here a Sparky that can comment on 3-phase/compatability/etc???

s h

 

[calbunn]

In the interest of lowering my electric bills I've grown with every type of grow lamp made, including plasma, and since I've spent over $4,000 bucks on LED panels I found this latest bit of information I came across worth sharing within our community.

As area lighting retrofits LED lamps and drivers have been banned from all US Military bases worldwide (UFC). The Air Force issued a memo, dated 3/18/2010,where LED lamp life, lumen level and optics are all cited as reasons for the ban. Pretty interesting read since not only a year ago it was all about putting LED retrofit systems in as fast as the projects could be funded. Now they are funding the removal of these systems and installing conventional HID or induction.

While many sections of this memo have been highlighted I'll point out what I see as significant to our issues;

para 5.1.1 The only fixtures that are allowed now are conventional HID (with the exception of induction) also rejecting T5 and CFL as options.
para 8.2 The LED lamps narrow optics have been blinding pilots on approach making it harder to see the airfield
para 8.6 Claimed energy savings by reducing the actual lumen output to achieve the 'efficiencies' savings

1-3 (f) written documentation that the specific fixture has current flowing from the driver to the LED lamps rated for that driver.
Why this is important is because anyone can say anything about what LED lamps and drivers are in that fixture and charge you MORE for the UPGRADE. Unless you bench test the lamp array and driver you can not be sure there is ANY difference whatsoever between the high power and low power arrays. Everyone, not just the military has been effected by this 'hide the pea' gimmick the mfg's use. If you have not heard of LED BIN CODING get a cup of coffee and wade into those waters because unless you understand it you will not get the same lamp driver combination's as you reorder. Suffice it to say the military had seen enough when they published this memo.

1-4.4 WARRANTY This is where even the military had issues with LED lamp life failures the wholesalers, factory reps and the mfg would not make right due to such things as 'heat management' issues that voided the warranty, etc. The reference the same problems they had with CFL having been initially reported to have 30,000 hr life expectancies and now they have those lamps down to 6-15,000 hours with a 50% mortality @ 10,000 hrs.

If you would like to see the memo go to: there is a hyperlink below the Typical Lamp Life section. Below that is Bin Coding and lastly there is section that explains why LED yields (as most of us can attest) have not been as good as those grown under HPS even though on paper it would look like the HPS would not deliver the same PAR spectrums as the LED designed to target just those narrow spectrums.

I love growing my own. I just want to keep costs down when doing so and I really don't like being taken advantage of with slick marketing. YES ON 19!

Thanks for listening

 

[ogtealover420]

you can buy brand new 1000w ballast for $100 bucks, throw a $60 dollar phillips bulb in them with a $15 cord and you have a Q$175 out the door $3000 return in 2.5 months grow light

Where at? and how are those phillips gonna preform compared to horilux???????? This could same us some serious cash. And i can upgrade my bulbs when i change them out but I do have a reputation to uphold as my herb tends to be in the top ten but I lost all my genetics which was a large factor of that.

 

[squarepusher]

pretty sure all ballasts are made in China, even if they are American branded

 

[ogtealover420]

I'm betting the building is wired for 3-phase power if it was once a machine shop.

Not sure what effect that will have on HID/if you can run HID on such a set up. Have you investigated the power supply?

Is anyone here a Sparky that can comment on 3-phase/compatability/etc???

s h

Hmmm....... not sure but I bet there is a way. There was three large lines with meters on the wall. i know nothing about electric but the owner said no big deal to run the wires. However he is not a eclectrician by any means.

 

[calbunn]

I'm betting the building is wired for 3-phase power if it was once a machine shop.

Not sure what effect that will have on HID/if you can run HID on such a set up. Have you investigated the power supply?

Is anyone here a Sparky that can comment on 3-phase/compatability/etc???

s h

While there is nothing wrong with 12/240 v single phase systems (residential/light commercial). If you have a 3 phase system you are in excellent shape electrically speaking!

3 Phase in an industrial application can come in at the meter in either 120/208 WYE which means it has a Neutral (primary return to earth path), Ground (this is the mechanical ground wire that is secondary protection to earth and bonds the metal housings of all electrical equipment) and 3 'hots'. The hots will measure 120 v to neutral/ground and 208 v phase to phase.

The other system you'll find is a 277/480 v DELTA system and if you have a large machine shop or mfg facility this is the most desirable. This system allows smaller wires to be run since the current carrying capacity is met with the higher voltage thereby allowing smaller wires to carry the same current as the 120/208 3 ph systems allow.

voltage travels at 60 Hz or 60 cycles per second no matter what (in the USA). So by taking each of the 3 phases and moving them 120 degrees out of phase with the other phase (3 phases @ 120 degrees= 360 degrees - a full circle).

My point is that if you find yourself with a 3 phase service order as much equipment as you can in 3 phase. Especially motors and HVAC systems. They run FAR more efficiently and the loss of energy, as measured in power factor can be reduced for better more accurate metering.

I'll be happy to assist with any specific questions you might have with a particular installation.

Nationally there will be changes occurring very soon as to how we're going to be metered (have you had a new digital smart meter installed yet at your home or business?). The aim is to 'reduce our carbon footprints' and charge us based on time/date stamped usages with credits for efficiencies and self generated systems such as solar, wind and geothermal.

There is no question utility bills will be going up under these new programs.

There are some excellent ways to reduce costs and maintain yields that with the cost of fruit falling (at least in CA) everyone should be taking advantage of to cut those costs. 3 phase systems allow for greater efficiencies for the equipment that runs on them.