Why do HID lights have better penetration?

Greengenes707 said:

I have been charging ~1500$ for 600w super panels(12 cxb3070 at 1400ma). Based on if using reflectors, housings, and other "extras". No options on drivers...they get meanwell hlg's unless they personally ask. Its really hard to offer a truly better product while still under selling the current best in productions panels. But they have to commit to things for long term. I can implement the newest as soon as its available.

They get bulk pricing...but pay overhead
I don't pay overhead...but I don't get good bulk deals.

EDIT: I'm not throwing my hat in the ring for this build. Just talking cost for custome panels.

Click to expand...

I'd pay that. Is it the DIY super good ones every ones talking about?

Definitely would not do business with this guy.. lol. Psycho!!!

So for starters, I got the U2 bin, which is the top flux bin. That makes it better than lower flux bins.

At test current of 800mA, the luminous efficacy of source is 143.71lm/W and 44% efficient. I run mine at 500mA, which gives me almost 160lm/W and 49% efficiency. DIY units use top bins, and underdrive while prebuilt units tend to drive HIGHER than test current and don't buy the top bin cxb.

churchhaze said:

I actually don't fully agree with EH about the penetration thing. The beam angle is sort of irrelevant. The number of total photons emitted is what matters, regardless of the angle. Angle is just a trick.

You get better "penetration" by spreading the light out and making it more diffuse, not by concentrating it into a central beam. The term penetration is sort of a bogus term to begin with when using it in the context irradiating weed.

Click to expand...

Penetration is a fuzzy subject. It comes from the depth of field of a given light source, between the point where any closer and it burns to the point where any further and it's inadequate. The higher the wattage of the light source, the larger the distance between these two values will be- and since HID lamps tend to run high wattage- up to 1kW in wide use- it stands to reason that people would think this gives greater penetration of the canopy.

Yet there are several ways to game this outcome; one way is to put the light source on a mover, and then as the light moves, so does shading. Another is multiple light sources, so the cross lighting does the same thing.

One last consideration is that at least for 600W and 1kW HPS lamps, the light source itself is fairly long, allowing for substantial shading reduction.

I don't think these make HID lighting better, but it does account for the perception of 'penetration'.

I'm still designing a fixture for my own application, but I think LED can easily create similar penetration levels to HID lamps, and with enough height in the space above the canopy, perhaps even more.

But why would this be necessary or desirable? ScrOG techniques already flatten the canopy so much that any advantage gained wouldn't be well utilized. I see precious few grows where top quality bud is produced at a level far below the canopy, so the point would seem to be null. Better to have plenty of light sources all optimized to work within a foot of the ScrOG canopy to reduce shading and get maximum umol values where they belong.

Thoughts?

churchhaze said:

Definitely would not do business with this guy.. lol. Psycho!!!

Click to expand...

Well, it would be cool to have a skeptic do a side by side. You get a lot of them that can't be convinced with the math. I'll build the lamps and ship them to him if he's got the money. He get's a good deal sans labor and I get some credibility/advertisement if he follows through with the grow log. I mean, you know what will happen in a 600w V29 lamp vs a 600w HPS.

The grow comparisons I've seen compare a HPS to it's supposed equal yield counterpart because LED enthusiasts have a thing with growing similar with less wattage. An equal wattage showdown would give the skeptics something to look at they couldn't brush off.

Rahz said:

Well, it would be cool to have a skeptic do a side by side. You get a lot of them that can't be convinced with the math. I'll build the lamps and ship them to him if he's got the money. He get's a good deal sans labor and I get some credibility/advertisement if he follows through with the grow log. I mean, you know what will happen in a 600w V29 lamp vs a 600w HPS.

The grow comparisons I've seen compare a HPS to it's supposed equal yield counterpart because LED enthusiasts have a thing with growing similar with less wattage. An equal wattage showdown would give the skeptics something to look at they couldn't brush off.

Click to expand...

I'm not a skeptic, but I'm also not handy with electronics, mostly a lack of prior experience.

I want to build a two thousand watt COB fixture. Not one that's 'equivalent', it will really run on 240V and pull 2kW.

PM me for more off the wall details. I'm serious.

A 2000w fixture? Or 2000w of lamps?

TheChemist77 said:

i can not build diyled..im not good w that stuff.. however my offer stands,, build one for a 4x4 area ill pay u for expenses and time building, ill make it worth ur wile,promise!! i just dont understand y diy guys can build great leds wile the companies selling them can not build one as good as u diyers?? doesnt make sence...thess companies are suppose to be at the cutting edge of leds for growing and i can not buy one that works as well as one built in a persons basement!!!

Click to expand...

That's not entirely true. A51 lamps operate at 128 LPW or something like that. 600w of A51 lamps could be pitted against a 600w HPS, it's just whether someone wants to pay the cost associated with it. Apache and Optic Vero units probably operate in the 120-130 LPW range. Nobody is producing 60% efficient lamps because the prices would be even higher than they already are. If you buy my lamps they will be in the 120-135 LPW range w driver inefficiency depending on which emitters I go with... and they will beat your 600w bulb so it's not like these units don't exist yet for retail, it's just whether you want to pay for it.

Most LED companies have been using single emitters so it will be interesting to see what happens to overall quality and price as the transition to COBs happens.

One unit with x number of COBs, pulls 2kW. On 240V. That's about 8A.

Edit: with 94% efficient drivers and such, closer to 10A@240V.

I want two of them.

Y'all think I'm crazy? I just bought a dozen 315W LEC kits, specifically to do head to head testing with.

Instead of using something as dangerous and destructive as UV, stop wasting energy on all that blue and use a good high good red-to-far-red ratio to increase resistance against PM and max resistance against botrytis bud rot.

a mongo frog said:

Is it the DIY super good ones every ones talking about?

Click to expand...

No, just a 3 times more expensive light than a superior professional grade quality HPS.

160lm/W and 2.4umol/J and 49% efficiency isn't inferior, it's far superior.

When you mislead people, you slowly lose credibility.

I gotta chime in. Physical threats are pretty disgusting. Better to stretch one's brain a little more and come up with reasonable dialog.

ttystikk said:

Y'all think I'm crazy? I just bought a dozen 315W LEC kits, specifically to do head to head testing with.

Click to expand...

You KrAzY man..

Rahz said:

A 2000w fixture? Or 2000w of lamps?


That's not entirely true. A51 lamps operate at 128 LPW or something like that. 600w of A51 lamps could be pitted against a 600w HPS, it's just whether someone wants to pay the cost associated with it. Apache and Optic Vero units probably operate in the 120-130 LPW range. Nobody is producing 60% efficient lamps because the prices would be even higher than they already are. If you buy my lamps they will be in the 120-135 LPW range w driver inefficiency depending on which emitters I go with... and they will beat your 600w bulb so it's not like these units don't exist yet for retail, it's just whether you want to pay for it.

Most LED companies have been using single emitters so it will be interesting to see what happens to overall quality and price as the transition to COBs happens.

Click to expand...

Wait, you're making light fixtures to sell? Details?

churchhaze said:

160lm/W and 2.4umol/J and 49% efficiency isn't inferior, it's far superior.

When you mislead people, you slowly lose credibility.

Click to expand...

It's just more garbage from the peanut gallery.

AquariusPanta said:

Wait, you're making light fixtures to sell? Details?

Click to expand...

What I meant is that the lamps I'm going to sell him will be as effecient or slightly more effecient than what's already on the market. If you're asking if I'm selling lamps commercially, no not yet at least.

I don't need more lamps, but I can't seem to stop building them so there will be more lamps for sale... hence the incentive to trade my labor for a grow log vs hps. I had actually hoped to find someone to do that for me. Who better than a skeptic?

Sativied said:

The Bibled efficiency numbers you parrot do not translate to reality. If you weren't so blinded by your new religion you would have seen I proved that several times by now. The newest members of a church, hype, following, are always the most fanatic spreading their propaganda... Defending that silly misleading efficiency bullshit is what triggered your ongoing meltdown isn't. It's made up so the led fans can pretend they beat HPS....

No, clowns, that 600w LED is not superior to a 1k Gavita, of which you can buy 3 for the same price.

Click to expand...

What have you proven other than your bias.

Don't take my word for it. Cree provided us with minimum lumens/W and the LER. That gives us efficiency. Sativied champion of professionals vs Cree, a multi billion dollar corporation with a long standing history of crafting excellent LEDs.

straw-man.....

Sativied said:

Being delusional makes it hard to see to separate pro grows from epeen grows and I guess basic math is too hard if you actually have to do it yourself, I get that, but that HPS god comment... don't you, and church, and the fakestyles have any self respect? The projecting is so thick... There's no such thing as an HPS god, HPS is for atheists. People who need to see before they believe instead of making shit up and finding friends to brainwash while giving them a reach-around...

Click to expand...

Yup all the pictures posted in this subforum are photo-shopped. I did most of them. Pretty good work eh? can't even tell by the pixles.

Sativied said:

The Bibled efficiency numbers you parrot do not translate to reality. If you weren't so blinded by your new religion you would have seen I proved that several times by now. The newest members of a church, hype, following, are always the most fanatic spreading their propaganda... Defending that silly misleading efficiency bullshit is what triggered your ongoing meltdown isn't. It's made up so the led fans can pretend they beat HPS....

No, clowns, that 600w LED is not superior to a 1k Gavita, of which you can buy 3 for the same price.

Click to expand...

I don't know much about HPS fixtures, as I've never grown with em', but I understand they don't generally surpass 40% in efficiency. I wouldn't doubt an exception.

What I do know is that COBS are the real deal, at least in comparison to the red/blue/orange LEDS - such as BlackStars or Chromes. The reason I know this is because of experience between using LEDS to grow over the past couple of years. I don't have many grows in, but the ones I do have were all LED/COB related, with the exception of a few trials under the sun whilst as a youngster (when life was o' so simple).

I couldn't help but get snagged on your comment about some of us being misconstrued on efficiency numbers. Are you really proposing that the efficiency numbers that we, as a community, have collectively worked on together is complete bullshit?