They use it because just about everyone has some amount of familiarity with the lumen system, while most laypersons have no clue what PAR or Umol/s are... and of course because it's deceptive to the average consumer...

On a side note - gavita is the first one to jump on the DE bulbs and use thier spectrum. they have been using this for years in commercial horticulture. Im talking 1,000,000W++ shows growing produce. but these systems they were running only ran at 400v so they took the time and worked hand in hand with Philips to design a ballast that would run these beasts at 240V so us growers could jump on the bandwagon. it took some time but they sure did capatilize and now have made this technology available to us! ePapillion came on board early this year, copying the exact same ballast/bulb design but altered and trademarked thier hood. its a true open reflector with a wide light spread. they say that thier fixtures are 11% more efficient due to the way the heat can travel through the reflector.

Im gonna stop here, this thread went off topic - mainly my fault. i apologize for any inconvenience and should move these contributions to a gavita/epap thread. My point was to hint to farmers not to spend the money on 1500w lights and look into something more practical.

Z

Yeah z I snuck one in there before you posted.i hear ya bro, but I still consider lumens along with spectrum when buying bulbs.i feel the lumens equal power for penetration deeper into the plant.i run mostly digilux because they claim extra blue in there hps and at 95,000 the lumens are second only to ushio 600.but I find too much red in the ushios and my plants always look best under the digilux.one of these days in gunna jump on a few gavitas in the 600 and see how I like em.but im set up for cooltubes on movers so finding a place to put them has stopped me from doing it.

Cool-tubes on movers don't stop you from using the DE 600w bulbs. They make remote ballasts for them, I'm pretty sure...

Tank333 said:

Cool-tubes on movers don't stop you from using the DE 600w bulbs. They make remote ballasts for them, I'm pretty sure...

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u cant run the DE vertical and they also dont make a DE 600w bulb, yet.... they do make remote ballast and sunlight supply offers a variety of DE hoods, even an air cooled - im just not sure how practical these are

Quitters said:

anyone here using them yet & whats your opinion ???



:smiley_joint:

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I have run the master blasters HPS for 7 years for flowering only. I veg with 2 phantom 1k's . I have had 1 of my 15's burn out 4 weeks into flowering. So I swapped out to one of my phantom 1ks. There was a big difference in yield .
With all 3 on together it's over a half million lumens !!
But , if you run them your plants need extra nutes as well as a min of 1400ppm CO2 . I've learned through the years that they LOVE heavy feedings and CO2 supplementation . Take a few rounds to play around and get things dialed in .
I used 3 plants to mess around with and would try different mixes in each one with progressively higher nutrient levels to see exactly how much they could take , and you'll be surprised how much more they can absorb under these lights.


My setup is
3 1500 watt master blasters
2 1000 watt phntoms
1 agrobrite T5 4ft 4 bulb
1 sentinel chhc-4
1 botanicals 20 gal 77 spot cloning machine
I use 7 gal smart pots.
I use 48" parabolic hoods wit
Vertical mounting

Hope this helped any one with questions, if I missed anything or any one has any questions I'm happy to help.

How tall are your ceilings where the mb 1500w lamps are hung and how close to the tops can you get em ?

sixstring said:

How tall are your ceilings where the mb 1500w lamps are hung and how close to the tops can you get em ?

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I have 8' ceilings I used to have problems cooking any buds that were under my hoods . So I mounted 12 inch round floor fans to the wall and angle them up to blow the heat out of the hood and now I can get within a foot of the tops with no problems.
I'm going to post some pics when I flower them to show people the reults . I swear by the 1500's just ordered my first 1500mh to try in veg . I'm excited to see the difference in the growth next round. I foliar almost daily sometimes multiple times a day as well.
I know a lot of people have thier opinions on that , but it doesn't burn anything once you lock in your nutes for your strains .

sixstring said:

How tall are your ceilings where the mb 1500w lamps are hung and how close to the tops can you get em ?

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I'm switching to flower in a couple days I'll show pics along the way . My G.D.P. is going to flower first the strain I have is a monster grows and clones super fast and massive yields . Right now most are 36" or taller I don' flower until they hit at least 3 feet tall from the top of the pot to tip of plant . I let my others go a little longer veg till about 48" inches tall the switch to flower but that is just my snow dawg (original clone only from western mass!) And Skywalker OG both grow much slower. I have been using Hydroponic Researches veg/bloom dirty line and I'm really I pressed with the line . I used to use botanicare line but I'm trying to step up the quality . My girls came out amazing before , but like everyone else I strive to produce the absolute best buds possible so I had to step the nute game up lol . I'l post my first round of pics in the next few days