First serious grow! LEC 315 in a 4x4 tent (Philips elite agro CMH)

borbor

borbor

Well-Known Member
set phasers to stun!
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man, brazil amazonia there is really putting on weight.

but that starbud...mmmm I'm so excited. I got a regular 40x microscope today, trichs are much easier for me to view now, and they're lookin' nice. about half clear half cloudy.

by the way, this whole experience has been the most fun I've had in years.
 
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GroErr

GroErr

Well-Known Member
borbor said:
Thanks! Looking forward to the next round, I'm always thinking about the veg tent and what's gonna be next. Right now I'm thinking either 4 hog clones of two phenos, 4 hog clones of one pheno, two hog clones of one pheno and two colombian gold clones of one pheno, or one of each hog pheno and one colombian gold, no matter what it'll be 4 plants in 7 gallon pots.

just finished jarring the burmese kush, 30 grams, looks like great smoke actually, frostier than the fool's gold


so I'm at 149 so far...


still very strongly considering another LEC, but I'm curious about what some of you would do with it.
I could fit it in the flower tent, side by side with the other LEC if I took out the LEDs and put them in the veg tent
or I could put it in my veg tent, and put the fluoros from there into my flower tent for even more side lighting

would two LECs just be too much light for a 4x4 tent?

I'll have the money for another light in about 10 days.

or maybe I should wait a while for a51's fancy new cob fixtures?

also, I noticed on the sun system website they started making the lights with a remote ballast, but only in 208-240v and 277v.
would I be pulling the same amperage if I used a step up converter to run that on 120v?
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Looking good, nice to have to even worry about choosing which strains/phenos to flower :)

imo 2x LEC's would be overkill in that space, with summer coming too you'd probably have a bit of a time controlling temps. They're cool but still produce some heat, besides imo it would be wasting a lot of light. For reference, the best output so far in weight for me under 1x 315w LEC has been from a 3.5 x 3.5 footprint.
I think you're referring to those commercial fixtures, they only come in the higher voltages. If you go by the 120v fixtures which include the step down converter to run @120v, adding the step down converter is going to pull ~40w more and double the amperage.
 
GroErr

GroErr

Well-Known Member
borbor said:
@GroErr cool, exactly what I wanted to know!

I guess now I'll debate between cmh and led for the veg tent

off to do more DIY LED research!
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Haven't tried the CMH for vegging but they do make that 4200k bulb and I'm sure they'd do quite well for veg. But might be overkill price-wise for vegging. I've used the cheap green reflector panels that TopLED sells (they're manufactured by LG) for clones, seeds and veg for a couple of years now with no issues. If anything I have to slow them down to keep my perpetual cycles in check. DIY with 4k/5k would work well. Pretty well any light will veg well though. The main advantage with using the LEC's for veg would be the flexibility to swap the bulb for the 3100k and flower if you want or need it. Some would say you could flower just as well with the 4200k CMH. That's a key difference and advantage (if you want flexibility) over the cheap Chinese LED's, I wouldn't flower with those Chinese LED's, been there/done that and they suck imo. You could say the LEC's have an advantage over DIY LED's for veg in that if you want to maximize your veg lights with DIY, you'd probably want to go into 4/5k spectrum for more blues. 4/5k isn't the greatest for flowering and it's more difficult to swap out the COBs than swapping a CMH bulb in the LEC's. Some food for thought as you research your options...
 
Mohican

Mohican

Well-Known Member
Scottyballs ran CMH the whole way through and got some amazing rock hard buds.

Greengenes707 has just built an LED that is going to do the same thing.
 
borbor

borbor

Well-Known Member
I think starbud might be starting to foxtail, seems like there's been some new pistils growing
think I should chop? trichs seem about 10-20% amber

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brazil amazonia's looking crazy, the branch next to the fan is turning color way quicker than the rest, is that normal?
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GroErr

GroErr

Well-Known Member
borbor said:
I think starbud might be starting to foxtail, seems like there's been some new pistils growing
think I should chop? trichs seem about 10-20% amber

brazil amazonia's looking crazy, the branch next to the fan is turning color way quicker than the rest, is that normal?
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You'll have to judge the chop but she's looking nice and ready. I have a JTR pheno that continues throwing out new pistils to the end, if I waited for all of them to turn it would never finish!
 
Mohican

Mohican

Well-Known Member
If you keep feeding them N they will keep throwing out new hairs forever and foxtail six inches long!

When I flip I just start feeding P and K and let them fade to the finish.
 
borbor

borbor

Well-Known Member
cut starbud last night, it was a lot of work, but it looks like a lot more than it did on the plant!
left some lower nugs on her and put her in the veg tent., it's really crowded in there, and just the one lonely plant in flower. Must mean I'll be switching that up soon! I think after brazil amazonia gets chopped I'll move some vegging plants in there and switch that tent to 18/6.


right before chop-
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hanging in a 2x4 (that's a kessil h150 for scale)

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veg tentIMAG0724.jpg IMAG0725.jpg IMAG0726.jpg

:mrgreen:
 
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borbor

borbor

Well-Known Member
GroErr said:
Haven't tried the CMH for vegging but they do make that 4200k bulb and I'm sure they'd do quite well for veg...
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I used the 4200k bulb for veg on these ladies, seemed to work very well, much better than these t5s, and the distance is nice too, the HOG seeds in particular are getting serious height and almost touching the t5s sometimes

With that said, I should add the competition is over. until now it's been hard to decide what the immediate veg lamp replacement would be, but I see that a51 is finally out of stock on the rw-150s, which was the big competitor, seems like tuesday, wednesday, or thursday I'm buying another LEC 315.
 
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bellcore

bellcore

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borbor

borbor

Well-Known Member
GroErr

GroErr

Well-Known Member
borbor said:
I used the 4200k bulb for veg on these ladies, seemed to work very well, much better than these t5s, and the distance is nice too, the HOG seeds in particular are getting serious height and almost touching the t5s sometimes

With that said, I should add the competition is over. until now it's been hard to decide what the immediate veg lamp replacement would be, but I see that a51 is finally out of stock on the rw-150s, which was the big competitor, seems like tuesday, wednesday, or thursday I'm buying another LEC 315.
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Nice haul on that starbud, I think you'll find that whatever strain you flower with these LEC's, you'll get the most out of it. Not a bad thing having the LEC's for veg, if I had a bigger veg room I'd go for it and they can cover a large area in veg if you have the room height. Cheers and enjoy some of that fine looking smoke!
 
borbor

borbor

Well-Known Member
brazil amazonia's getting really fat, day 89 (yeah really):
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buying another LEC tomorrow no question, they're just begging for light... and space,
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I can't wait for brazil to be done, just so I can throw that tent on 18/6 for a while to split the plants between both tents and give em some space. I would just put some of those into flower, but Burmese kush taught me a lesson I won't soon forget- you gotta transplant before flower, at least into something bigger than 2 gal, and sometime last week I transplanted them into 1 gallons. I can't quite remember how long ago, could have been over a week, working 6 days a week time has just been flying by.
In fact, I just looked back in the journal, these vegging plants are 36-37 days old! definitely need more light.
 
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