315w CMH. They work fine and dandy.

[greenvigilante]

yes but if there more efficient for less voltage they could be viable... even though people are satisfied with MH HPS at the moment dosnt mean we will be using them forever...

You wouldnt choose a CRT TV over a Flatscreen 4K HD would you?

but they arnt more efficiant? yes they are less wattage but they arnt anymore productive than the hps we use? ie par watts which everyone is banging on about these days

[Subliminal Criminal]

like i said im not going to buy CMH tomorrow but the technology will get better and cheaper to produce surely..

[greenvigilante]

like i said im not going to buy CMH tomorrow but the technology will get better and cheaper to produce surely..

hopefully it does as u say and get better and cheaper:)

maybe even hps will get better and cheaper aswell:)

[~Sanctuary~]

Yeah they are designed to replace traditional metal halide and compete with gavitas plasma offerings @@greenvigilante, metal halide have been behind and the cmh addresses that, two 315w cmh would out perform a 600w hps for a few reasons but mainly I believe because they produce a more tailored spectrum for plant growth, I'd still pair them with hps though.

The 1000w de is the advancement for hps and the bulbs half halfed in price but I doubt it'll happen for cmh, more likely an led supplementary light will pop up.

Edited January 3, 2016 by ~Sanctuary~

[Subliminal Criminal]

surely if nobody bought new technology then it wouldnt advance..

It would be interesting to see what people are using to grow weed in 20 - 30 years..

[Mugwuffin]

@@~Sanctuary~ Ah I see what you mean by double tubed now, these are the ones your referring to ? http://www.cp-lighting.co.uk/Philips-MasterColor-CDM-TP-Elite-MW-315W-942

I think (if I read the the blurb correctly) the GE bulb I ordered uses a HPS style enclosure for the same reasons ?

@@Sapo I don't think UV LEDs have the penetration to be effective yet, I'm using 4 26w high output UV-B reptile bulbs, they are good but only last 3-4 grows :\

[GSZZ]

630w of CMH gives out more light than 600w of 240v HPS, only a bit but as @@~Sanctuary~ says its the quality of light that makes up the difference, whereas a MH produces 20% less usable light than a HPS because the lamp is producing more light across the spectrum some of which isn't as good at driving biomass but does other stuff like colour, terps, flavanoids, trichomes etc so it's all spread - the spikes in the spectrum are the parts that's outputting the most, a lot of them have big spikes in parts of the spectrum that don't necessarily do a lot for plant growth.

Sodium lamps concentrate almost all of the power into the red part of the spectrum which just drive photosynthesis and thus biomass production - the CMH produce the same biomass driving production as a red spectrum HPS, but across all the plant usable spectrum, I think thats why they perform so well. I'm of the opinion that 315w of CMH WILL NOT replace a single HPS, but will perform about the same as a 500w HPS.

What I typed earlier was wrong, I had fried my own brain reading stuff/conflicting info from manufacturers.

240v 600w HPS = 1100 umols

400v 600w HPS = 1800 umols

240v 630w CMH = 1197 umols

Thats correct ^^

I've not made my mind up yet whether these are best used in combination with HPS or all on their own - but I am certainly not disappointed with the buds under them ATM and what I got off them last time from 4 1/2 plants and that was with just the mastercolour lamps.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Golden Syrup

[Sapo]

@@~Sanctuary~

Naah life's too short to worry about the boogeyman. As i said, been using them for years without issues, and you can pick any big mall and you'll find thousands of them hanging around with next to no maintenance .

I've made some pictures again.

Don't really like that fixture that much. Hard to hang really evenly, so I lose some light when the plants are young. But it works.

These are much more like it. I only have these as backup if I'd ever need an extra light. These are CDM-TDs, different socket.

But I found even nicer ones I'll be using in the future. Not meant to put inside of ceilings like the two above.

@@Mugwuffin

Hmm I'm not entirely sure how much UV is enough, and how much is too much, got some insight? I do plan on using mixed UV-A,B & C bulbs (I know, I know only UV-B is supposed to be great ). The ~25W halogens are on my menu too. They'd last long enough for me. I get them for 3€/piece including shipping. I'll send you a pm with the LED bulbs to see if we are talking about the same thing.

[twoscoops]

@@Subliminal Criminal

Think we all be using something like the "replicator" off Star Trek or some type of souped up 3D printer for our Percy

twoscoops

[Subliminal Criminal]

i think we will all be using C02.. like magic pots that give off C02 just fed by oxygen.. but who knows

[GSZZ]

I am glad to see you are running them in enclosed fixtures @@Sapo! I bet they are bright as fuck those DE lamps, it'd be cool to see them use that tech for the horticulture lamps like the 1000w DE - I hope they do work on higher wattage CMH lamps, there is the 860 lamp that I mentioned previously in the thread have you seen that? I saw some on the 'bay going cheap but unfortunately the ballasts to run them werent so cheap

[lazi]

With the 315w bulbs, the open reflectors (should) have the type of socket that won't work with bulbs needing a closed fixture.

I thought it was either/or with Elite/Agro. Oops. It gets confusing. afaik, Agro is for Agrocultural. [sic] fwir, there was a typo in a Philips brochure and it got listed as Argo. Some dealers started calling it Argo. :

[Sapo]

As I said, standard issue. If you'd want to run them in an non-enclosed fixture, you'd need to custom build and add a GU12 socket to something else .

I hope they do work on higher wattage CMH lamps, there is the 860 lamp that I mentioned previously in the thread have you seen that?

Don't quite know what you mean. Under up to 70W you can pretty much use one reflector for everything. Anything higher and you'll need need a specific reflector for your wattage.

Couldn't just stick a 250W into the reflector I'm using now for example. Nope didn't see the lamp, I'll go back and look

[~Sanctuary~]

They are enclosed reflectors @@Sapo so they'll be fine

[Sapo]

Yeah sorry mate if I didn't make that clear enough .