Lighting Building my 1st light

[wwwillie]

If you dim by the driver it will draw less at the wall. My 185-1400 goes from 70-180w with 4 boards in parallel

Thanks man. That's the answer I was looking for.

 

[brian247]

Thank you for clarifying that, I have been more busy than expected and just hopped on at 4am to check everything out, I will check back in with my laundry list of things to get, have a great motivated day everyone.

 

[stonehead]

But if you get a constant current it means you won't get full power unless you fill up the voltage.

I think the 185-1400 is 144v but I'm only using about 115 so only getting 180w

 

[brian247]

Hey guys I am so sorry I have been gone for this long, life hit me with a storm of things(had to find a new place to live, had to get a new job, and just life overall haha). Moved just a few months ago and everything was going great and my lease ended, then I ended up moving in with a nutcase and have been very busy moving back and forth. Safe to say I have my place for a year now and I can finally get back to what I love doing. I am looking to grow about a 5x5 space and have been lucky enough to have a few friends who will let me grow out at there place. I will be growing indica's and certain hybrids to combat the lanky sativa's since the place I am growing in has a limited hight of about 5 feet (its a cut out in the garage that has alot of space other than height and I dont know if this will become an issue with the powerful lights and bleaching since I have never tried to tackle a task of limited height). I am trying to see if they will be cool with a grow tent in another space of the house so I dont have height restrictions

 

[BigSm0]

bleaching is from an incomplete spectrum, burning is from lights being to intense for the plants which is often wrongly described at bleaching. Even more so with autos that receive light for long hours each day compared to photos.

The electricity inside your home is alternating current.[ac] what is not being used is sent back. Like leaving an appliance plugged in but turned off. Drivers are like this appliance. On a dimmed driver the voltage is not decreased but the amperage is. Amps x Volts = watts. The cobs require a specific voltage to turn on but at a lower amperage when dimmed which lowers the wattage. If you have a shorter ceiling I would go with a lower wattage per cob. Constant voltage drivers allow you to add more cobs which takes away from the total amperage the driver can deliver. This lowers the power going to each cob and allows you to fine tune the wattage per cob.

 

[brian247]

Thanks for the answer bigsmo, when I was referring to bleaching I just meant generally plant damage from light intensity hahaha sorry if my terminology was off. But anyways, you guys think the plants would be able to fit under a 5ft cealing. (i know plants grow a few feet which is easy to account for buttttt I am thinking with the 5 gal bucket of soils height added would it be too much?)

 

[BigSm0]

Thanks for the answer bigsmo, when I was referring to bleaching I just meant generally plant damage from light intensity hahaha sorry if my terminology was off. But anyways, you guys think the plants would be able to fit under a 5ft cealing. (i know plants grow a few feet which is easy to account for buttttt I am thinking with the 5 gal bucket of soils height added would it be too much?)

I know it is just a common term most people get wrong. To prevent light burn you should double the amount of cobs and drive them half as hard. Instead of one cob at 50 watts its best to run 2 cobs at 25 watts. The efficiency is much higher and the intensity is lower. You will actually end up with a much more even canopy with denser buds throughout the plant vs just on top too. I built a light that covers a 4x6 area this way with 8 cobs at 35 watts each vs the traditional 6 cobs at 50 watts each. In the end the larger light with lower wattage cobs out performed the higher wattage lights I have ran previously.

 

[brian247]

Sweet that is pretty interesting but makes total sense, spreads the footprint as well. So if I was to be lighting a 5x5 area would with that many cobs I would have to build two separate lights most likely due to mounting reasons (unless you have some cool idea's). I have been rediculously busy and I am trying my hardest to keep up on this, though my only time has been late night. I will try and figure out how many cobs I would need if I was going to run a system like that, may take me a lil while to figure it all out haha!