Watts/lumens per square foot ?

[Texas Kid]

I am sittin watchin this last round of plants just crawl along, not fattin up or finishin like I usually like so start thinkin about other current setups and past setups for answers. So I start figurin my watts per sq.ft on a bunch of my different setups and this what i got..

#1 setup is (2)600w over a 3x3 table or 1200w/ 9 sq.ft. = 133 watts per sq.ft. or 19,556 lumens/sq.ft. with this setup I can easily pull 3-3.25lbs from 9-16 plants on the 3x3.This is my all time favorite setup for yield, density, finish time, potency all that good stuff. Dual bulb hood used in a 3x3 Hydrohut tent.

#2 (1) 1000w over a 3x3 table or 1000w/ 9 sq.ft. = 111 watts per sq.ft. or 16,111 lumens per sq.ft. perfect for single bulb single hood setup and or in a tent.

#3 (3) 1000w over (2) 3x6 tables or 3000w / 32 sq.ft. = 83 watts per sq.ft. or 13,594 lumens per sq.ft.. This setup is on movers and does alright but could use another 1k to really kickit into gear, but overall decent.

#4 (1) 1000w over a 4x4 table or 1000w / 16 sq.ft. = 63 watts per sq.ft. or 9063 lumens per sq.ft. To me this setup is right at the edge of what you need to really kick it out like on a 3x3. I really like the 3x3 tables instead of the 4x4 all the way around.

#5 (2) 1000w over (2)3x6 and (2)3x3 or 2000w per 54 sq.ft. = 37 watts per sq.ft. or 5370 lumens per sq.ft.. This sucks bigtime, movers almost make it more painful because of the shadow dancin..lack of cash has dictated this setup but still it sucks.

#6 (3) 1000w over a 11x14 room on movers or 3000w / 154 sq.ft. or 19 watts per sq.ft. or 2825 lumens per sq.ft. this is at a buddy of mines and he is complaining about yield, density, and finish times. this setup is doin just well enough to piss you off, not really crawlin but not cruizin either. I am tryin to get 6-8k in there for he real kickin flower action.

So I was curious what everybody else was doin and experiencin..

The sun is roughly 100w per sq.ft. full tilt so that is my basic minimum benchmark for my indoor satisfaction..

Mo lumens, mo wattage, mo betta..

Tex

 

[Finalopagus]

yea I say yes
also spectrum of those lumens be port tant...

 

[Easyrasta]

im using the number 4 set up
seems to work for me
1000 over 4 x 4
63
peace
Ez

 

[Texas Kid]

im using the number 4 set up
seems to work for me
1000 over 4 x 4
63
peace
Ez

Are you in a tent rasta?I can't remember..

I ran that setup in a hydrohut and it did decent for sure

Tex

 

[mace]

The Sun and Lights

The noon Sunlight in Davis, California is around 5,000 lumens per square foot. Similarly, a 1 ,OOO-Watt HPS lamp with its inner arc tube 2 feet above a table is shining about 5,000 lumens on every square foot of that table. Although this HPS lamp appears to be equal to the Sun, it is not the same because its colour spectrum is poor. The Sun has another advantage over artificial lights in that Sunlight is just as intense at all distances. This is because the powerful Sunlight has already travelled some 93 million miles (149 million kilometers) to reach Earth, so the extra few feet or metres it has to go to reach the bottom of plants do not lessen its light intensity.

To put light over distance into perspective, the stars are actually brighter than our Sun, but their light decreases by half every million miles. So by the time the starlight reaches us, it is not even bright enough to read by.

Luckily for outdoor gardeners, the mighty Sun is giving 5,000 candles of light intensity to both the tops and the bottoms of tall trees. But with artificial lights, it is a different story. The first foot of light below an HID lamp is more intense than Sunlight. Unfortunately, artificial light also drops off by half with every foot it travels, so at 3 feet, it is only 1/9 the intensity of the first foot. This is why the bottoms of a 3-ft plant gets only about 10% as much artificial light as the tops. Therefore, the shorter an indoor plant is under artificial lights, the more light the entire plant receives.

You can obviously do more than 5000 a square foot, but you might want to research at what point light bleaching is going to occur for you.

 

[Texas Kid]

I did the real world research, side by side, not sure at what point bleaching would occur but I didn't seem to get close to it, even at 19,556 lumens/sq.ft and that was hands down my best results consistantly in a setup.

I think you can boost the plants ability to handle the excesseive energy with all the other elements of the controlled enviroment(co2, nutes, air turnover, temperature) and makin it more hearty and robust, maybe not....

Tex

 

[astartes]

TK ---

I'm with you. I regularly run around 100w/sq ft. Currently I have a 3'x3'8" box running with two air-cooled hoods. One's a 400w MH and the other is a 600w EYE hps.

I've tried different setups, bulbs and wattages. For how I run my box, this seems to be the best. I run a perpetual assuming a 70 day finish time for all strains. 3 go in under the MH to reduce early flower stretch. After 23 days they move over to the other side of the box under the hps for another 23 days. Then to finish, they go in between the MH and Hps.

9 plants in total in 3 gal organic coco. I always run 9 different strains at one time, so yield is not the utmost concern. I've been through a couple runs of this and seems to average out to 22-26 oz. I'm more than happy considering it's all different strains.

 

[Thick Smoke]

i got a 430 and a 400 in a 3x6 so i am gettin 45.5 per sq
i would like more light in this space just aint available at the moment.
if given the oppurtunity i would add a 600 in there aswell.
my density on colas is fine, but lowers are kinda fluffy.
and bottoms are for hash.

last harvest was 7oz from 6 girls and i was very dissapointed. however i didnt expect much as i hadnt grown in 6 years and had many problems on the first run.
ph craziness, fungus knats eating the roots and 2 broken plants due to a cat.
also never ran either strain in room and 1 of them was very poor producer.

i ran kc's mango as i had always wanted to try it back in the day. it is a very strong plant and eats alot. however it had to many leaves covering everything.
this run i put the 3 clones i had of in flower and at day 20, i clipped alot of the big fans.
there now at about day 30 and doing better production wise but i will not run them again. maybe outside. (the taste of the 3/4oz i got from them was amazing)

 

[theherbalizor]

Well my main rooms are complete hotchpotch. But I have just set up your number one system.

2 x 600w in 1.2 m tent with 1.2 m flood and drain table running 20 6.5 lt pots with rockwall on house and garden. These are looking really fat and some of the best. fastest plants I have done. ALthough I wasnt prepared for thier initial feeding requirements. Lots of light = Lots of photosynthesis = lots of chlorophyll required = high EC needed. Took me a day or two to work that out. Lots of early yellowing. But all good now.

If I can get what you get with that setup, I will turn all other of my setups into this.

 

[Stackin Paper]

Well my main rooms are complete hotchpotch. But I have just set up your number one system.

2 x 600w in 1.2 m tent with 1.2 m flood and drain table running 20 6.5 lt pots with rockwall on house and garden. These are looking really fat and some of the best. fastest plants I have done. ALthough I wasnt prepared for thier initial feeding requirements. Lots of light = Lots of photosynthesis = lots of chlorophyll required = high EC needed. Took me a day or two to work that out. Lots of early yellowing. But all good now.

If I can get what you get with that setup, I will turn all other of my setups into this.

Option 1 is 3x3,

4ft is just shy of 122cm so 4x4 will be closer to the tent you just set up,

 

[theherbalizor]

ah whats in a foot!!!

Thats what I tell my misses. LOL

 

[ProGroWannabe]

TK....right now my setup for flower is just 1650 watts covering roughly 48sq.ft. hung vertically. That's a measly ~35 watts per square foot. It's doin alright since it's vertical bulbs in a stadium format but I can easily tell it's way under-lit. I used to run a cabinet with 100 watts/sqft with vertical bulbs and obviously liked it much better, but a 5000 btu window A/C unit barely kept up.

This attic set-up at 35 watts/sqft is going to be getting an upgrade with 1K's as soon as cash allows.

 

[Texas Kid]

Mo lights is mo betta....

Tex

 

[Easyrasta]

Are you in a tent rasta?I can't remember..

I ran that setup in a hydrohut and it did decent for sure

Tex

nope
im in a walkin closet
got room for another 1000 and a cab for mama s and clones lol
peace
Ez

 

[Texas Kid]

Always room for another 1k...hehe

Tex

 

[Greyskull]

Mo lights is mo betta....

Tex

I am running strong on (2) #4's. I am trying to super size because mo lights is mo betta.

Great thread TK

 

[Texas Kid]

My 20' sea container setup is 8000w over 120sq.ft.

So it is 67 watts /sq.ft or 9667 lumens per sq.ft.

Tex

 

[Otto]

My new little box is hitting 14-15,000 lumens per sq. ft....6 sq.ft. 600w....

-Otto

 

[jadins_journey]

2 1000's each covers 3x4' so I'm figuring 83 watts pers square, wish I had gone with 3 600's but that would have meant I had experience when I built the system and I did not.

 

[krizznapp]

Ive got 2 600's in a 3x6 homemade flowering box. TK I've been thinking about this topic since your first post, did some math and went ahead and bought another 600 digital. That should put me at 100% Great thread man!