WormSlayer Posted May 25, 2008 Share Posted May 25, 2008 Vertical growing for teh win! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom boy Posted September 9, 2008 Share Posted September 9, 2008 hi there m8 i have a 70 watt hps which i am useing to set up a small scrog cubard grow how close do you think should it be to the plants ? about 6" ??? cheers thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randalizer Posted September 9, 2008 Share Posted September 9, 2008 (edited) hi tom boy, 6 inches sounds good. Again, try the hand test. Put your hand just over the canopy. If you can hold it there for a minute without burning your hand, your okay. Someone else mentioned that in a previous post in this topic. Just an update folks. I've recently gotten a 3rd tray and light rail and such. Me new 600W Lumatech can handle either HPS or MH. My three trays meet end to end in an "L" configuration. As I am a SOG grower and harvest every week and I rotate my crop so that the oldest ones are getting the most light (on the ends of the trays where the light rail hesitates before changing direction and there is light spill from the adjoining tray), I am thinking of making my third lamp a MH and using that on the middle tray. All of the oldest plants would be moved to that tray (as plants are rotated in) to be finished off. Comments? Edited September 9, 2008 by Randalizer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Assassin69 Posted September 11, 2008 Share Posted September 11, 2008 light intensity virtually doubles every 6 inches closer a HID is to the canopy of budlight adheres to the "inverse square rule" ,i.e it diminishes to the square of the distance ,which can mean you may be losing a lot of your lights potential , always make sure your lights are at the right height to provide maximum lumens but not too close incase of heat and not to far away because it will be less efficient here is a rough rule of thumb for lights hang 1000w and 600w HID's 24-36 inches from canopy hang 400w HID's 18-24 inches from canopy and smaller HID's to 6-12 inches away. peace Hello (Fellow) old toker. Does the same height from plants also apply to hps lights or should be higher. Noticed hid lights mentioned not hps Sorry if the question seems stupid but this is my first grow,so being over cautious. Is the babys bottle rule still ok for heat. Plants still in veg and have outgrown prop light spread. Regards. Assassin 69 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jiffa Posted September 11, 2008 Share Posted September 11, 2008 (edited) yes mate they should be sweet imo the best way is to place your hand ,palm down over the top of your plants . underneath the light . if its hot on your hand its hot on your plant , if you hold your hand there for a few minutes it should be comfortable Edited September 11, 2008 by Owderb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Assassin69 Posted September 11, 2008 Share Posted September 11, 2008 yes mate they should be sweet imo the best way is to place your hand ,palm down over the top of your plants . underneath the light . if its hot on your hand its hot on your plant , if you hold your hand there for a few minutes it should be comfortable Hi Mate. Can i get closer with cool tube. Suppose they cant get too much light then Regards. Assassin 69 P.S, Now in 3 litre pots Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djay Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 yes mate they should be sweet imo the best way is to place your hand ,palm down over the top of your plants . underneath the light . if its hot on your hand its hot on your plant , if you hold your hand there for a few minutes it should be comfortable Hi Mate. Can i get closer with cool tube. Suppose they cant get too much light then Regards. Assassin 69 P.S, Now in 3 litre pots You can get closer with a cooltube but you may start to get light bleaching , having said that the light spread is so poor with a cooltube you may just want to leave it where it is, or buy a mini grostar much better choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmynail Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 good thread, check this out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
son of shiva Posted November 9, 2008 Share Posted November 9, 2008 I run 600hps lights. I manage to get the lights about 6-8inchs from the plants with out any problems with light burn or hot spots. I'm using the heat shields you can get theat fit under the bulb. They reflect the light directly under the bulb up to the rflector first. I use them in my veg room on my supernova reflector and on my adjusta wings in my flowering room. You really notice some difference when you can get the lights this close. The lower growth carries alot more density as the light intensity is as if it were only 2ft away which is roughly what the tops of the plant would be recieving if i had to have the lamps alot higher. I also have oscilating fans blowing between the canopy and bulb which helps with the temps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blayz'd Posted November 9, 2008 Share Posted November 9, 2008 They reflect the light directly under the bulb up to the rflector first. I have my 600 about the same distance with air cooling on the go using fans across the top of the canopy. If your reflecting light up doesn't that means your light travels further and loses lumens due to the travel? Or is it minimal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
son of shiva Posted November 9, 2008 Share Posted November 9, 2008 (edited) They reflect the light directly under the bulb up to the rflector first. I have my 600 about the same distance with air cooling on the go using fans across the top of the canopy. If your reflecting light up doesn't that means your light travels further and loses lumens due to the travel? Or is it minimal. It's only minimul and the side effects out way that factpr by a long way in my eyes. Thinking about it, the light only really travels slightly more distance tahn the light that is produced from the top of the bulb and travels straight up to the reflector. You might find that you lose more lumens from the light travelling through the tube casing? Just a thought though! Edited November 9, 2008 by son of shiva Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scraglor Posted December 4, 2008 Share Posted December 4, 2008 light intensity doesn't drop just from travelling through air, (think of a lazer, it's just light, that's focused in a straight line) it loses intensity because it spreads out, look at the diagram someone posted above, if you're grow area is the same size as the four squares, it's no good having the lamp so close that it only covers an area of one square, because while you may have very intense light directly under the lamp, all the plants at the edges will receive eff all light and your yield will suffer as a result. all this "get your lamps as close as possible without burning the plants" talk is wrong (unless you're using a light mover like randalizer) what you want is EVEN light distribution, light isn't lost by the lamp shade being further away, it's just spread over a greater area. so what you actually want to do is have your shade at the distance from your plants that produces a "footprint" of light that best fits your area. although with shit cheap reflectors like barn door types, this can be difficult, as the reflector will give an uneven footprint whatever the distance 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazi Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 Just to add to scraglors post, I'm now using parabolic reflectors that, in theory, give 30% less light according to the inverse square law but because of the even lighting my yields have increased. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grooving Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Hopefully this is related to this thread... With a heat shield on an adjusta shade my dual spectrum 400w (+digi ballast) is about 240mm (9") away and my hand is ok under the light. Problem is after reading lots on this here site I'm still not sure whether the potential lumens lost from using the heat shield are made up for in light intensity due to the lighting being closer? Or should the heat shield/super spreader be an emergency measure combined with some LST when you run out of headroom? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scraglor Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Hopefully this is related to this thread...With a heat shield on an adjusta shade my dual spectrum 400w (+digi ballast) is about 240mm (9") away and my hand is ok under the light. Problem is after reading lots on this here site I'm still not sure whether the potential lumens lost from using the heat shield are made up for in light intensity due to the lighting being closer? Or should the heat shield/super spreader be an emergency measure combined with some LST when you run out of headroom? :wink: depends, if you have a small floor area, you'll be able to get your lampshade closer and you'll want the heatshield to protect your plants, if it's further away, light is lost to the walls. if you have a larger area then you'll need your shade further away to cover the area better, and may or may not still need the heatshield. a heatshield should only be used if it's needed, not just to get the shade closer to the tops of your plants, as has been said, you want even coverage more than you want high intensity from having your lamps too close Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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