Lighting LIghting options...best bang for the buck?

[BigSm0]

(6) 3 cob bars would do the 4'6"x12' nicely. As you mentioned the budget is tight so going with the meanwell 120h-48a driver @$32 each you would need one per bar. You would be around $100 per bar and have a very nice setup. You would be around 105 watts par bar at 56% efficient which would put you at 60 par watts each. Considering a Mhydro600 Is around 30 par watts and they have shown decent results yours would kill it

 

[dankstyle J]

Hey ladies and gents!

Okay here is the situation...the medical grow rules in my country have changed and growing will be allowed for all medical users that need meds. This recent shift has changed everything for me. Though I do the outdoor gig, I would like to concentrate on an indoor setup this winter to be able to test out a number of different strains for my med issues. Last season I did an indoor microgrow in a stealth cab under 3 lights 2 are GalaxyHydro 100X3w and one was an old Marshydro 100X3w. Though I am happy with the results from both lights, this new proposed space is not vertically limited, and I will be allowed to grow between 10 and 25 plants at a time(plant number to be determined after I see my Doctor next week.) No longer will I be limited by vertical as the space has 6.5 feet of head room.

Okay....so not going to bullshit you. I am pretty damned poor, so I am on a limited budget for this setup. I initially wanted to do an autopot or dwc setup, but quickly realized that I don't have the extra cash to make that happen, so I decided to do the first run using promix in homemade 5gallon airpots. I figured it might be wise to run a system I am familiar with the first run. The envorimnet is cool and dry...should be perfect for any type of lighting really, heat should not be a major concern.

Alright so lighting...ive heard a lot of buzz about 315cmh lately. There is a seller on ebay with Phantom cmh for just over $300. How much space would a 315 cover? How close can the plants get to cmh lighting? http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Phantom-315W...312738?hash=item36051232e2:g:lC0AAOSwaB5XiEw3

Alright street lights...HPS...a 1k will cover a 4X4 area well and they are cheap. But for power consumption is this as good of a choice as LED?

And finally LED...quite happy with the old cheap GalaxyHydro's, but need more power for canopy penetration. Galaxy produced a fine light for the money, and I have been looking at their 400w cob units.http://www.ebay.ca/itm/PopularGrow-...225308?hash=item281e6e1f5c:g:N6MAAOSw65FXrSkl

So bottomline...I would love to run a hybrid light setup(perhaps LED/cmh). I am not stuck on any one type of lighting, in fact I am not even stuck on doing 25 plants at a time even if I get the right to grow that many. I would certainly do a perpetual harvest so not to overload myself with harvests. The first run I would do varied strains(from 60-100 days) to break up the harvests. Planning to run portal dragon strains, DP auto strains(from night queen to ultimate), and some Dinafem and Bomb.

A couple of fellas I would love to hear from on this
@A4
@A-Train
@Fairlynew
@derek420colorado

1000 watt de and the led you got for side lighting would blast you're plants off got mine for about 300 bucks a very beautiful lamp air cooled at dat you can hook a hella big fan on a custom rig like u got for real cheap and push all the hot air off the light

 

[dankstyle J]

159,200 lumens ,2100 k ,also comes with the mh which is nice in veg .

 

[G.Leave]

(6) 3 cob bars would do the 4'6"x12' nicely. As you mentioned the budget is tight so going with the meanwell 120h-48a driver @$32 each you would need one per bar. You would be around $100 per bar and have a very nice setup. You would be around 105 watts par bar at 56% efficient which would put you at 60 par watts each. Considering a Mhydro600 Is around 30 par watts and they have shown decent results yours would kill it

Wow....realllllly? Okay so I am talking around $600 for 6 lights, and this whole setup wold only draw 360 watts? Or am I missing something? That's insane low draw for a 12X4 foot area!! I am still grasping all the technical info, and am high as hell so please bear with me.

 

[BigSm0]

Watts are basically irrelevant. What the plant uses is par, ppf,ppfd. Not heat like the epistar panels are so good at producing. You can achieve almost 3 times the light from a well run cob vs a hps or blurple led panel. If you multiply 360x3 that's the equivalent. That's why par watts is so important. An example would be adding 2000 watts of incandescent light bulbs in a grow. It's very high wattage but terrible par and you probably wouldn't yield much at all. This is also a baseline since you mentioned the budget. The next driver up is $10 more but would power another cob so an additional cob per bar.

I have ran 600hps, cmh, mars, kind and finally on to cobs and they are no where near the same category.

 

[BigSm0]

Wow....realllllly? Okay so I am talking around $600 for 6 lights, and this whole setup wold only draw 360 watts? Or am I missing something? That's insane low draw for a 12X4 foot area!! I am still grasping all the technical info, and am high as hell so please bear with me.

Each bar would be 100watts. So the recommendation would be 600 watts. You could increase or decrease this as you see fit. Best bet it to start small and see first hanh. For my own 4x10 space I run 1300 watts and consecutively pulled 1.25-1.55gpw. I'd really like to dim the space though since that much cob wattage is way to intense.

 

[G.Leave]

@BigSm0 When I am referring to actual watts, this is the back of my mind thinking about power consumption cost, not really about the efficiency factor, but rather the total amount of cash that our power bill will be driven up. I really like what I am hearing about the cobs!

@dankstyle J - Hey thanks for the input man. Ideally I want lower draw. I was hoping to fill the entire space with light for around 1200w total max, and a 1k hid isn't going to do that.

 

[G.Leave]

Each bar would be 100watts. So the recommendation would be 600 watts. You could increase or decrease this as you see fit. Best bet it to start small and see first hanh. For my own 4x10 space I run 1300 watts and consecutively pulled 1.25-1.55gpw. I'd really like to dim the space though since that much cob wattage is way to intense.

600 watts would be totally fine in regards to power consumption. I don't feel the need to pull massive GPW, but it would be pretty sweet!
Okay so parts...what source should I be looking at for drivers ect? And what parts would I need? I am going to get parts and try a couple of these the moment I get my license. Can you recommend a thread with a build the same or similar to what I want to build?

 

[BigSm0]

Gotcha. So basically the 6 bars would run you 600 watts. The par part of it is what the plants see. So roughly 360 par watts.

A thousand watt hps would draw 1000 watts and depending on the model Ext. Your plants would see 200-300 par watts.

Cheaper led, red and blue type would be a little under the hps.

Efficiency is the amount of photons-heat that comes from a watt of energy. Fortunately the cobs are very efficient which saves you wall wattage to equal the same par watts. Regular LED unless it's more efficient won't save you anything. Which it's usually not. That's why the less expensive panels never list these specifics and I go off of the info I recieved from a sphere test done. They all do well, some save you energy and some don't.

 

[BigSm0]

It's in my head lol. 4 cobs per bar would be the best bang for your buck. (4) clu048-1212 3500k =13.25 each. (1) meanwell hlg-120h-48a =42 each (4) clu040 bjb holders = 2.50 each. That's from cobkits.com

From northern grow lights (4) sst-105 hestsinks 10.75 each

That's basically it for the components. The frame material can be bought locally.