Looking for ideas.

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JGVermont1965

Lover of all things green
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Here or there
Here's the scoop:
We're expanding our operation and adding another 15×15 room for budding.
My question is if you had a decent amount of money what would you use for lighting?
Everything else is set, I've gotten a ton of great ideas from you all in the past, and I know you have some good ideas on this one.
Thanks for your help!
I may have to name the room The M.P. Community Playhouse !
 
I have had cheaper led's and very expensive ones. I like the expensive ones. I saved up... Lush Lighting is what i use. https://lushledlighting.com/
They look like sweet lights and it's definitely a possibility.

But would you use l.e.d.'s if you had all the other options open, also?
I've never grown under them, and I've read great things and not so great things about them, the 2 worst is if you buy a "1000 watt" light it's output is sometimes a lot less and they don't have the penetration that h.p.s. and light emitting ceramic lights.
I would love to try out l.e.d., though, I'm going to do some more research, thank you Rosebud !!!
 
I have grown under hps, t5's MH, cheaper leds.. I would stick with Lush, I love them and haven't needed to use their customer service but they are top notch. They send you replacements until yours is fixed. I have had my bigger one for 3 years I think and the smaller one about a year or so. They are just really nice lights and they have dropped their prices since I bought them.
 
I like my 2 SANSI Full spectrum LED lights and we are planning a renovation on our garden shed this summer and I am going to incorportate these lights into the set-up. The reason I like these are 1. Full spectrurm, including green. I have a very nice and lush growing plant at the moment that has never seen anything other than these lights (2) since it's germination. Doing great on a timer, and even a sister plant an OG Kush Auto has grown extremely nice showing a good grouping of flower buds already in it's early age.

2) They use regular sockets for screw in light buls. So, if one breaks and/or fails, it is a simple matter to just screw in another.

3. They can be set up on hangers or sliding pole to adjust the heights above the plants. This lets it drop down closer for starting and move up from there.

4. They cost around $40.00 each so won't break the bank.
5. They use just under 40 watts electricity each, so won't break the bank.

6. They do put out a tremendous amount of light, flooding the plants in full spectrum white light.

7. I can arrange several lights in different angle of attacks to flood the area well with light.

That pretty well sums up my reasons. Attached is a light spectrum graph of these lights.
new 40w.jpg
 
Looks good. But the green light in the spectrum.... not a big selling point. (37.7% green light) But what do I know. :p
Your new set-up should be awesome with these lights. Good karma to you and your grow.
 
We're using light emitting ceramic full spectrum in the bud room and seem to be getting great results thus far from four 315 watt lights in a 12×12 area.
It's my first time using the l.e.c.'s so I'm going to hold out for the finished product from those before the final decision so I have plenty of time to study.
Thanks for the info so far, keep it coming!!
 
i have (had) two apollo 600w lights. a while back i was in the basement and hear this crackling noise and since i don't hear well couldn't quickly locate the sounds. but did. the bulb socket puked and could have caused a fire. my wife contacted the sales person and they sent us another complete unit. i installed that and it has been operating for some time. i plugged the lights in yesterday morning, all's well, go about doing business and notice it is awfully dark in the basement. went down and both lights are out. smelled something odd, rather electrical, but then looked at the plug. the unit had puked again and this time scorched itself to the receptacle. these units have a 3 year warranty but do i really want to risk a fire? two strikes and all being considered, are there other companies you all would recommend that would do the same job as this 600w apollo? could use some opinion please.
 
600 Watt X 2 would give you 1200 watts or 1.2 Kw per hour. 1200 watts running on one circuity might be ok with the right gauge wire 12-2 grounded but would be taxing on smaller wiring, like most extension cords or such at 14 ga. or 16 ga. So I don't know your socket or wiring set up, and that makes a lot of difference.

Call me a cheap....sake. 2 X 600w = 1200 w o= 1.2 Kw. We in Michigan, on average pay $0.13 / kw per hour. that figures to be 1.2 Kw X 0.13 = $0.156/ hour x 16 hours of light (figure on timer) would cost $2.496 per day X 30 days would cost $74.88 per month, and this is on top of what it costs you to run your other household, ie lights, refrigerator, freezer, TV, computer, etc etc. I personally would not want to add an additional $75.00 to my electric bill. I have 2 each 40 watt (but actually figure out to about 36 watts) but let's say 40 watts for sake of simplicity. So my 80 watts is like leaving on a 75 watt light bulb all day and into the evening hours. I could not imagine the burden on my budget to run several thousands of watts (grow light) for long periods of the day. National average is 12 cents per Kilowatt consumed.

LED are so efficient in light received to electricity consumed that the winery where I work has converted all the cellar, lab, office and tasting room lights to LED. They look a lot like regular florescent lights, but smaller in diameter and about the same length. Full spectrum 5500K

It's a balancing act of light spectrum/ output/ costs / containment (note - containment is highly reflective sides and top and base to keep the available light more useful all the way down as far as you can go) Light without some sort of containment looses usefulness quite quickly in distance from the light source.... except for the sun.
 
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600 Watt X 2 would give you 1200 watts or 1.2 Kw per hour. 1200 watts running on one circuity might be ok with the right gauge wire 12-2 grounded but would be taxing on smaller wiring, like most extension cords or such at 14 ga. or 16 ga. So I don't know your socket or wiring set up, and that makes a lot of difference.

Call me a cheap....sake. 2 X 600w = 1200 w o= 1.2 Kw. We in Michigan, on average pay $0.13 / kw per hour. that figures to be 1.2 Kw X 0.13 = $0.156/ hour x 16 hours of light (figure on timer) would cost $2.496 per day X 30 days would cost $74.88 per month, and this is on top of what it costs you to run your other household, ie lights, refrigerator, freezer, TV, computer, etc etc. I personally would not want to add an additional $75.00 to my electric bill. I have 2 each 40 watt (but actually figure out to about 36 watts) but let's say 40 watts for sake of simplicity. So my 80 watts is like leaving on a 75 watt light bulb all day and into the evening hours. I could not imagine the burden on my budget to run several thousands of watts (grow light) for long periods of the day. National average is 12 cents per Kilowatt consumed.

LED are so efficient in light received to electricity consumed that the winery where I work has converted all the cellar, lab, office and tasting room lights to LED. They look a lot like regular florescent lights, but smaller in diameter and about the same length. Full spectrum 5500K

It's a balancing act of light spectrum/ output/ costs / containment (note - containment is highly reflective sides and top and base to keep the available light more useful all the way down as far as you can go) Light without some sort of containment looses usefulness quite quickly in distance from the light source.... except for the sun.
Excellent info, thank you.
 
Commercial, double ended hps
please excuse my ignorance, but what is double ended and could you give a manufacturer example of what you are referring to?
i would like to try the leds but know very little about them--i.e., size, power, colour, e,i,e,i,o. i know the hps but like aksarben so eloquently mentioned, the cost/month, burning the house down, etc.
 
Commercial, double ended hps
We're trying l.e.c.'s in our current room, they seem to be doing just as well as the h.p.s., but the proof is in the finished product.
I have another week or so before I finish walling things off, my buddy is leaning towards sticking with the l.e.c.'s, I would like to go back to what I know (h.p.s.) but he's the money, I just do the work.
 

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