lighting hint

[Guest Tutu]

What's the smallest parabolic shade you can get, folks. Is there one on the market that will fit a 3'x3' room? Cheers

just 80cm, 90cm is 3ft

Edited September 4, 2010 by Tutu

[El Roacho]

What's the smallest parabolic shade you can get, folks. Is there one on the market that will fit a 3'x3' room? Cheers

just 80cm, 90cm is 3ft

Cheers Tutu, who makes the 80cm one?

[Artificial Emotion]

IMO in the height of the summer if you have no AC when it's very hot nothing beats a good air cooled hood. The Sunsystems Blockbuster air cooled hood is ideal for square tents (particularly the DR120) and is designed by engineers using photometric software. Yes, the glass filters a small amount of light, but you can get it much closer and the advantage of this outweighs the glass issue.

In the winter however a grostar or parabolic is best I would imagine.

Better yet, a light rail if you have the space.

Ran my parabolic straight through summer with a 600w in veg, improved extraction especially if you can drsaw air from a shaded side of the building.

What was your peak temperature at the top end of the canopy?

I personally had heat problems with my open ended adjustawing reflector towards the top end of the canopy.

[Guest Tutu]

Cheers Tutu, who makes the 80cm one?

God knows who makes them but greens sell them

http://www.greenshorticulture.co.uk/Grow-L...lector-1146.asp

look in the small print 250-400w versions are 80cm

[Guest Tutu]

IMO in the height of the summer if you have no AC when it's very hot nothing beats a good air cooled hood. The Sunsystems Blockbuster air cooled hood is ideal for square tents (particularly the DR120) and is designed by engineers using photometric software. Yes, the glass filters a small amount of light, but you can get it much closer and the advantage of this outweighs the glass issue.

In the winter however a grostar or parabolic is best I would imagine.

Better yet, a light rail if you have the space.

Ran my parabolic straight through summer with a 600w in veg, improved extraction especially if you can drsaw air from a shaded side of the building.

What was your peak temperature at the top end of the canopy?

I personally had heat problems with my open ended adjustawing reflector towards the top end of the canopy.

Parabolics push the heat upwards the top of my tent hit 30C but the canopy stayed at <25C all summer long. Temps ae now getting a little chilly if I wasn't moving her I'd start thinking about heating.

[El Roacho]

Cheers Tutu, who makes the 80cm one?

God knows who makes them but greens sell them

http://www.greenshorticulture.co.uk/Grow-L...lector-1146.asp

look in the small print 250-400w versions are 80cm

Cheers Tutu, I looked on greens site but somehow missed the 80cm version. Good price too

[piedpiper]

Aaaahhh !!!!!

Lively debate.....the axis around which informed decisions revolve.

Having taken on board all the comments, I've just about decided that due to the reality of the growstar (even the mini at 32") not going through the trapdoor, and the parabolic coming in a ' flatpack ' form........it's the 1m para from Greens ( when they're back in stock ) for me.

We've still got a few ' warm ' days before it starts to cool down appreciably, so the para temps can be monitored for next summer.

So the plan is to go for the 1m parabolic with a a 600 digi ballast ( not necessarily Lumatek as I feel you're paying for the brand name )......a dedicated flowering HPS bulb ( and here I'd appreciate your advice ).......and upgrade my extraction from 5" to 6" ( fan and filter, but I'll have to get a 6" - 5" reducer because I've just invested in 5m of 5" acoustic hose ) and use my existing 5" fan as an intake.

The heater's a good idea cos it does get ' brass monkeys ' upstairs in winter and although I don't have a price to hand, I don't think they're that expensive.....or are they ????

Would LOVE to go with a 1000, but the ladylove of my life would freak at the leccy bill and I'll probably have a 400 MH vegging and a 250 Enviro on my cuttings or seedlings....... all the the same time ( oh woe is me )

So !!!!!!

That's the plan.

I'd be really interested in hearing any ideas on how that could be tweaked for optimum efficiency to get the best possible results.

As Owderb says, it's mostly about the environment you grow in ( or words to that effect..... apologies to the big O )

Y'all stay safe out there

PP.

[troy]

Tubes are the best reflector hands down, no contest piss all over the growstar and the parabolic just need to use them right.

Hang them vertical and they rule extreme, horizontal they're just misued and misunderstood.

Interesting idea Tutu , do you mean a tube with no reflector ? The cooltubes I got came with a small reflector inside which I exchanged for an adjustawing and used horizontally,

cheers ,Troy

Edited September 5, 2010 by troy

[Artificial Emotion]

^ yes, it would be good if Tutu could elaborate.

What I want to know is if I've wasted my money on my Sunsystems a/c hood. They say it's designed using specialised 'photometric' software by engineers and I thought you can get it closer to the canopy which will increase yields even though it has to pass through glass, but I don't know. I think it was either lazi or scraglor that said that if he gets his reflector so close to the canopy that the top becomes slightly burnt he gets an overal increase in yield regardless of the fact that the canopy has been singed, so I wonder whether the Blockbuster a/c hood would work well?

[Grow1]

Hi

seriously good thread here with lots of anecdotal contributions.

Got a question:

I have used the growroom lighting calculator and curently have a 250w CFL (blue for veg and a red one for flower).

here it is in situ during my first grow.

I have entered my growroom dimensions into the calculator (2.5'wide, 1.5'deep and 4.75'high) and it is giving me ftw/m2 which seems to be above the recommended 50w/ft2. (I had to choose 2x125w envirolight as there wasn't a 250w option)

On my last grow (see sig) I found that the bud at the top of the plant ripened before the side buds and was thinking of supplimenting the 250w CFL with 4x30w 2700K flouro lamps like this one:

hanging them down around the outside of the plants. Using that calculator this then gives me 100w/ft2. I feel this will give a much better light spread but is it overkill? As a novice I don't want to attempt a sog or scrog on my second grow.

Edited September 18, 2010 by Grow1

[compostverte]

When I use fluorescents, I tend to use at least 100 watts PSF. in fact I'm doing that with my HPS lamps.

The main thing is training - especially with fluorescents. You don't want anything lower down.

Blab's bonsai box mk2 uses two 125s. :-

http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=81536

With a little care you could run a 250 watt HPS in there - but you would need to put the fan and filter outside the grow.

Edited September 18, 2010 by compostverte

[Grow1]

When I use fluorescents, I tend to use at least 100 watts PSF. in fact I'm doing that with my HPS lamps.

The main thing is training - especially with fluorescents. You don't want anything lower down.

Blab's bonsai box mk2 uses two 125s. :-

http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=81536

With a little care you could run a 250 watt HPS in there - but you would need to put the fan and filter outside the grow.

His Bonsai box certainly looks the business. My growroom (a wardrobe) is a little larger so I'm guessing that if I up the light as I have suggested to 100w/ft2 then I will be on target. I may even go for 4x45w cfls with my 250w in it's reflector giving me a total of 450w to give me a little headroom. My wardrobe growroom has a shelf in it which I will use to mount the filter so it doesn't interfere with the plants. Anyways, I will post up a diary and pics when I get it underway (after mid October as I am moving). Gotta paint out the growroom too as the silver foil I used before was a bit crap. Thank goodness i was using flouros so I avoided heat spots.

[compostverte]

If you're thinking of 450 watts of fluorescents, please don't.

A 250 watt HPS will do a better job, for much less electricity and heat.

[Grow1]

If you're thinking of 450 watts of fluorescents, please don't.

A 250 watt HPS will do a better job, for much less electricity and heat.

Well I already have the cfl 250watters so I can't afford to invest in new technology, and my research has led me to believe i will get less stretching with flouro as I can keep the lamp nearer. Good reports for flowering too, just may take a little longer.

The extra lamps (which I may reduce in power) are really for vertical infill on the sides of the plants to give a more all round light coverage. I think I could live with it reduced, say to 350w of total flowering light. I take on board what you advise, and yes it is more then a 250w hps, but a better light spread I think. I am growing double the amount I grew in my first diary. so I reckon I should give them more light than I did the first one.

I'm not too worried about heat as the space is only half a cubic meter and the ventilation fan I'm getting shifts 145m3/hr (so 290 air changes an hour, nearly 5 per minute) so this will be more than enough to keep the area at a steady temperature. I also have fans on the cabinet intake, but with all this airflow I may actually have issues with low temperature. Anyway I have ordered a reasonably accurate termo/hygrometer with min/max memory so I can keep a close eye on the heat and humidity.

[compostverte]

Oh well.

I suppose it could have been worse.

Your "research" might have told you to use LEDs....