Sooo I went through flower at 150wtts

budman410

Well-Known Member
I wired up one of my leds with the wrong driver and instead of pulling 480watts it was only pushing 150..I end up throwing a hps over the 3x3 space to finish up the last 2-3 weeks of flower.But I actually got some nice dense buds. More popcorn then I would like but came out with 8oz after the first hanging. So this got my thinking, I’m ready to order more drivers. Do y’all think I should try some coco sogs under 300watt qb leds(132,312,288s,800) or stick to 480-600watts I’ve been doing. If I go with the 300watts I would double the amount of fixtures I’m currently using. Which would y’all think would come out stronger yield wise
 
You can flower a 3x3 very nicing with 300 watts of quality LED. Thats 33 watts a square foot Anymore light you would need CO2 to use it. I set my light to flower @ 300 watts. Here is a pic of my grow day 35. How many umol/j you getting? I run 2.5 - 2.6 umol/j on my light. View attachment 4428151
I’m a led newbie, what do you use to measure umol/j, essentially your saying over 400watts over a 3x3 is overkill without Co2?
 
I’m a led newbie, what do you use to measure umol/j, essentially your saying over 400watts over a 3x3 is overkill without Co2?
It depends on your fixture, but yeah, generally for a well built and designed fixture with low ideal hanging height in a reflective tent a 320 driver is all you need. Hlg recs their 240 kit for a 3x3 or 4x2. Over 1000 ppfd is hard to grow well especially without co2.

With autos the whole thing is a bit different as they have much more hours under the light.
 
It depends on your fixture, but yeah, generally for a well built and designed fixture with low ideal hanging height in a reflective tent a 320 driver is all you need. Hlg recs their 240 kit for a 3x3 or 4x2. Over 1000 ppfd is hard to grow well especially without co2.

With autos the whole thing is a bit different as they have much more hours under the light.
Just gave myself a little refresher in led, for my 4x4s I did a little overkill but was much needed considering all the hell I went through with different environmental factors. Ima shoot for around 30watt sqft and mix and match this next go around. I’ll have a new thread once everything is setup
 
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What do y’all use to measure ppfd, looks like I still need around 450 watts for a 4x4. I think I was around 500watts
 
What do y’all use to measure ppfd, looks like I still need around 450 watts for a 4x4. I think I was around 500watts
You can get a Lux meter for $30 on Amazon and then use the correct conversion factor to figure out your ppfd. Or drop $$$ and get a par meter.
If running LED from what I've seen (help me out led guys) you basically Have to Have a par meter.
Link below to conversions.

 
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I’m a led newbie, what do you use to measure umol/j, essentially your saying over 400watts over a 3x3 is overkill without Co2?
Quality LED light makers should have a Umol/j measurement or a PPFD measurement with the light specs. Bridgelux added it to their calculators awhile back not sure if anyone else has yet.
There is a wall you hit with ambient CO2 and how much PPFD you have. Seems to be a lot of disagreement about what that wall is. I go by the science Fluence put not too long ago which is 600 to 800 PPFD. With a quality light that's only about 30 or so watts a sq. ft. 400 watts in a 3x3 is about 45 watts a sq ft for sure going to need CO2 to use all that light. Here is the Fluence PDF for high PPFD growing it can explain it much better than Ihttp://fluence.science/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/High-PPFD-Cultivation-Guide-9.27.16.pdf
 

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Quality LED light makers should have a Umol/j measurement or a PPFD measurement with the light specs. Bridgelux added it to their calculators awhile back not sure if anyone else has yet.
There is a wall you hit with ambient CO2 and how much PPFD you have. Seems to be a lot of disagreement about what that wall is. I go by the science Fluence put not too long ago which is 600 to 800 PPFD. With a quality light that's only about 30 or so watts a sq. ft. 400 watts in a 3x3 is about 45 watts a sq ft for sure going to need CO2 to use all that light. Here is the Fluence PDF for high PPFD growing it can explain it much better than Ihttp://fluence.science/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/High-PPFD-Cultivation-Guide-9.27.16.pdf
When I first dove into led after I had some heat nightmares with hps(record high Temps in my region) I brought some hlg 132 and chinese knock offs. Now that it’s colder down some areas I’ll have atleast one hps table. Considering the good results I got from 150wtts ima go ahead and dial everything back. For a 4x4 would y’all think 400 or 500 watts.
 
500 watts for a 4x4 that's about 32 watts a square foot. Then you can always dim it a bit if needed.
 
"wow it really did some damage "
sounds like that ! was just smiling a bit about the sentence.
Just a tiny bit of overkill and not even need just wanted to see what damage it would do 15 mins later OOF damaged a few leaves but from that point their pretty damn happy wont be using it till late flower
 
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