Double For Nothing

Well, nothing's free, but this is pretty close. I have posted this idea here and there on the boards, but thought I should just start a thread so that it bight be of some help to others.


I was one of those who set the dark cycle for the hottest part of the day. I am able to use a spare bedroom as a growing area, but while setting up the room I had so much trouble with light leaks that I thought it easier to just make a dark room for flowering, in a closet in another room away from the lights. I run vegetation 24/7 as well, and eliminating the light control issue solved many issues.

A few months ago I was smoking a bowl and thinking about the garden when I got an idea. The plant was in the dark cycle, light was off, and I realized that I was wasting space. I was also having an overcrowding issue in the vegetation area. I thought briefly of turning on the flowering light and just vegging under it since the flowers weren't using it when the light came on in my head.

Just leave the light on...duh, one of those "it's so simple why didn't I think of that" moments...Except I thought of it.

Just leave the flowering lights on 24/7, and run two "shifts" of plants. Just swap them every 12 hours from the dark room to the light room. I had just effectively doubled the flowering capability of my garden for the cost of electricity and plant maintenance costs. It didn't use up any more space in the garden, and I can now flower and veg in the same area. There are just so many advantages to growing this way. The only real disadvantage doesn't bother me too often, you do have to be there to move the plants every 12 hours, sometimes right when you want to be at your boys just chillin' but it's worth it.

Under a 600w HPS I was able to run 2 sets of 3 large plants. I had some bad genetics being a new-b, and those plants all hermied, but I still got almost 3 ounces off each plant though I had to cut them early. Hermies due to poor genetics. I just fixed that problem by completely replacing that genetic line.

Yeah that certainly works. For me and probably many others, moving plants isnt an option (Hydro, back problems). Do you have pots on wheels? A number of companies make 3 wheel adjustable plant dollies.

Another idea is to run your 1 ballast 24/7 with a flipbox connected to 2 lamps in their own separate light proof area. You can even make your own flipbox with a relay if you are electrically saavy. The down side is that you have to buy another lamp/hood setup.

Yeah, I would get very tired of moving plants......maybe a big turn table with a light proof door set. Like a giant Lazy Susan spin table could be a square or a rectangle.

Just raise a curtain in the middle and swing it around, close the curtain.

The thing is, the HID lamps are only good for 1000 hrs or so. You will run thru bubs quicker.

One reason I did this, was to get away from light control issues. It solved a lot of hvac issues as well.

RE bulb life. It is my understanding that it's the on/off cycles that wear out bulbs and ballasts. Though you will buy more bulbs annually, I think it has more to do with using twice the hours in a given time frame, you will actually see a net gain in your bulb investment.

When I first started growing I had an idea for a perpetual flowering setup as well. Mine was more along the lines of a military tank type track system where the plants would be in the light as they moved along horizontally and then disappeared/reappeared at the end where a simple paddle wheel type end cog would block the light as it brought up and took down a new row of plants. 25 years later it may be a viable setup in the new world of legal/medical marijuana. Happy dreaming everyone.

ProdigalSun said:

One reason I did this, was to get away from light control issues. It solved a lot of hvac issues as well.

RE bulb life. It is my understanding that it's the on/off cycles that wear out bulbs and ballasts. Though you will buy more bulbs annually, I think it has more to do with using twice the hours in a given time frame, you will actually see a net gain in your bulb investment.

Click to expand...

No, it is the part of the spectrum we can't see differences in intensity. And it is only about the hrs burned. I have a light meter, and usually will show 70K lux @ 6 feet, on a new, 1000 w, HPS.

I noticed that the glare seems a bit less so I measured at 800 hrs. 30K lux. Hmmm....the main thing is PAR watts. How much of that 1000w is in the photo-active range? Only about 250w to begin with.
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Since plants use energy between 400 and 700 nanometers and light in this region is called Photosynthetically Active Radiation or PAR, we could measure the total amount of energy emitted per second in this region and call it PAR watts. This is an objective measure in contrast to lumens which is a subjective measure since it is based on the response of the subjects (humans). PAR watts directly indicate how much light energy is available for plants to use in photosynthesis..
http://www.sunmastergrowlamps.com/PAR_Watts.htm
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So, if you play it correctly you will get a certain yield. It you are rotating two crops, you will get more yield in Less Time. You won't get more yield per ballast hour. I am pretty sure it is not all about the on/off cycling. 1000 hrs / 24 = 41.6 days.

My last lamp didn't last a year. 800 hrs is 67 days. Could have been a bad bulb, sure. Oh yes, it was still bright, but it didn't have the PAR illumination. In other words, just for folks that don't know, the light we use is not the same as the light the plant uses. We cannot tell illumination differences in the PAR frequencies very well. A 250w PAR contribution in 1000w looks almost the same as 100w in 950 w total output at those frequencies. And it cost the same to run the light for no real output.

Just more to consider if you are looking to increase yield.

I would need a way to measure the PAR range. I think they have those light meters now.

Now that was one very useful post. I have been trying to get my head around this PAR thing, I really need to get a meter. I agree with everything you said, I just thought that as a rule, electronics, and anything that has a heat/cool cycle will wear out slower if you just leave them on, eliminating those cycles.

I do think that leaving them on would have an effect, but certainly I would need a good meter, and would have to chart on a daily basis the PAR difference and how many hours were on the bulb. A test using another bulb of the same manufacture on a traditional schedule using the same logging and testing methods would prove an interesting theory.

I agree with that for solid state devices, but it is almost nothing these days. 20 years ago, that was more true than today. But, with the utility costs these days, I still turn them off. I don't run digital ballast because they are said to not last as long.

I didn't realize that I'd have to replace the bulbs so often though.

Hey ProdSun - Good idea on the plant mgt. I'd be up for it except what about when I go out of town a couple days. Nobody knows what's in my basement.

I don't wanna derail your thread but since Doer is responding and it seems he knows his stuff about lighting I wanted to toss up a question for him or anybody that knows.


I bought on a whim one of these light meters:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003CHDFV4/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The data output is in candlepower. What inferences can I make from it? About all I have used it for is spot checking light intensity, and I use it to monitor bulb burn out. (I take a light reading at 12" when a new bulb comes out of the box and write the date and CP output on the box).

Anyway, other than I have read that around 8000 CP you start getting some burn I'm not sure how to use the thing. PAR, Lumens, LUX, all that shit's kind of greek to me and hard to keep straight.

That link I gave goes into depth about it. Candlepower is the visualization in the human sight range of one candle at a certain distance. Lumin is similar, about the human eye.

Lux is a measurement of energy at a distance across an area. A bit closer to real. Energy per square foot. But, we also know, all energy is not created equal. It comes in colors.

Infrared to Ultraviolet, is just at the edges of visible for us. But there are more colors than that. In fact, radio is a set of colors, microwaves, another set of colors we cannot see.

The colors we use to see, are not the same colors, that a plant uses to grow.

In fact, that need also changes during the growth period. Enter another way to measure. Kelvins. Kelvin is the absolute temperature scale that begins at true Zero. And that has never been attained in the Lab, btw. Close....very close, only so far.

Grow lamps are important in the colors we cannot see very well......blue - red. Low Kelvins to high. Early spring sun, until late fall colors of light. In grow light bulbs the good colors run out and they are hard to measure. But, today, we can. I found this meter, specifically for measuring in greenhouse, the variable lighting sunrise to sunset. It goes the next step and measures the actual flux of photons, the quanta of light in energy terms, and integrating that over time. Not too bad a price, at $329

http://www.apogeeinstruments.com/mq-100-quantum-meter/
MQ-100 Quantum Sensor
Spectral Range:
410 nm to 655 nm

Doer said:

Yeah, I would get very tired of moving plants......maybe a big turn table with a light proof door set. Like a giant Lazy Susan spin table could be a square or a rectangle.

Just raise a curtain in the middle and swing it around, close the curtain.

The thing is, the HID lamps are only good for 1000 hrs or so. You will run thru bubs quicker.

Click to expand...

I agree with everything you said but this; 1000 hrs for an HID lamp/light??? HUH? No offense, but you're off by about 9000 hours.

Doer said:

Lux is a measurement of energy at a distance across an area. A bit closer to real. Energy per square foot. But, we also know, all energy is not created equal. It comes in colors.

Click to expand...

But.... but..... they said there wouldn't be any math. And I live in a rural area and our energy is not in colors, all we have is black & white.

Sorry, of course. No doubt about it, I am very stoned. 10K hrs is more like what they say. So, I definitely mis-stated that, if you mean until the PAR values are not higher than the rest of the frequencies. I don't have a lot of testing in. But, I am looking for the 1/2 life value. That, I would say is when the PAR has reduced to 1/2 of start value.

But, when you run a test you might be surprised. I think I mis-stated my test, also. I said 800, meant 1800. 2 bloom runs at 75 days is 900 hrs per run x 2 = 1800. I had 1/2 the intensity on my meter. But, I only noticed that I had stopping putting on the sunshades, sub-consciously.

I will need more tests and I bet cheap bulbs are cheap. So, thanks for that concept correction. IAC, if you run 12 hrs a day for 360 days, that is only 4320 hrs. So, I am pretty sure, these HPS @ 1000w on magnetic ballast, are 5000 hrs until I am done completely, with the PAR goodness. It will look bright, but I am wasting 12Kw hrs/a day, minimum, to say nothing of risking lower yield.

I have never heard of bulbs, you can run for 2.5 years as grow lights.. (2.283 years of constant operation = 10K hours) Just have to run the tests.

AimAim said:

But.... but..... they said there wouldn't be any math. And I live in a rural area and our energy is not in colors, all we have is black & white.

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Just feel the force, Luke. Outdoors, plenty of PAR.

Hey, here is one for $181.00. BTW, just did a quick review of how much time you can expect for the HID lamps. MH is even less than HPS. And the rule of thumb is 2 grows or about 2000 hrs max.

[h=1]HydroFarm Quantum Light Meter [Item # eco-5552]

http://www.horticulturesource.com/product_info.php?products_id=13587[/h]

I did this before. By the 5th week. I started fucking up putting ladies in dark room a hour late. A couple times i feel asleep and put them up like 2 hours late. Sometimes I wouldn't get up in time and put them under light a hour and a half late. If you have large ladies or a lot of small ladies you will get sick of moving them trust me

LoRd MeGaTR0N31 said:

I did this before. By the 5th week. I started fucking up putting ladies in dark room a hour late. A couple times i feel asleep and put them up like 2 hours late. Sometimes I wouldn't get up in time and put them under light a hour and a half late. If you have large ladies or a lot of small ladies you will get sick of moving them trust me

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I agree. Moving plants is a pain in the ass, especially when you have large ones. I have a bad back and if I move a plant I have to be REAL CAREFUL, otherwise I will be in serious trouble. Anyone who has Spinal Stenosis understands what I'm saying; it's why I have my Medical MJ Certificate.

I also feel that moving plants around could be detrimental to the overall growth pattern. I have experimented with rotating my plants, and it seems, when a grower does this the plant is constantly searching for a "Path" for bud development. When you move the plant, you completely change the developed direction of the towers/bud sites, creating an unnatural seeking for new light. You also close up the very places where light was reaching in for, because now the "Sun" in your grow room has moved suddenly, not slowly.

In my current grow, I have not moved my plants since they've been in "Flowering", and I've noticed a substantial difference in bud development. I just train the towers or buds by moving fan leaves or by using rods in the soil and tie downs up top. When I look at my canopy, I can see that bud towers from below have begun to reach through the canopy by their own effort and the last thing I want to do is fuck that up.

I also wonder if rotating or moving plants around could cause the the plant(s) to go Hermaphrodite. Stress is the leading cause of pushing plants into throwing out balls/nanners, and moving plants could be a growers mistake. Just something to think about.

+1 Wow, glad you took the time to think about my problem, you have certainly shed some new light on some facts I had overlooked.

I'll try marking the direction the pote are facing from now on. I thought that rotating the plants would be helpful, but what you are saying makes much more sense.

ProdigalSun said:

+1 Wow, glad you took the time to think about my problem, you have certainly shed some new light on some facts I had overlooked.

I'll try marking the direction the pote are facing from now on. I thought that rotating the plants would be helpful, but what you are saying makes much more sense.

Click to expand...

Thanks...the main reason I considered this is because of how plants grow in the ground. Once they're in, they're in. I know we can't follow every outside feature of nature while growing in a closet, but trying to mimic the natural state of the plant appears to be wise. Our weaknesses as growers are; we are always trying to make the plant do MORE. Move it, check it, touch it, speak to it, when in reality, we might want to just let them do their THING, with a little help! lol

Guitar Man said:

Thanks...the main reason I considered this is because of how plants grow in the ground. Once they're in, they're in. I know we can't follow every outside feature of nature while growing in a closet, but trying to mimic the natural state of the plant appears to be wise. Our weaknesses as growers are; we are always trying to make the plant do MORE. Move it, check it, touch it, speak to it, when in reality, we might want to just let them do their THING, with a little help! lol

Click to expand...

So very true. I have had some remarkable flowering from a plant I considered dead. It was remarkable that it flowered at all.

So, this is the way I say it.

The plant knows what to do. It takes a predator to interfere, but it take a human to really screw it up.