Phillips Elite Agro 315w T12 CMH in open fixtures - Impressive!!!

I'm fine with these being on 240V, it helps the ballast last longer not to have to step power up so far. There's a slight per savings due to efficiency improvement at 240V, as well. That's one reason- the other being safety while pulling lots of amps thru wires in my WOODEN HOUSE.

So, all lighting circuits in my grow areas are already wired for 240V and I highly recommend anyone pulling more than 600W in a single device do the same.

120V is good for a 1500W hairdryer, which means PART TIME. People exceed their 80% of maximum amps rule much more often in 120V circuits than 240, because it's twice as easy to do.

End of safety message. The ass I saved from gettin toasted could be yours!

Yeah, I understand 240v is a little more efficient. Not concerned about the safety in my case, all my circuits/wiring are to spec, separate circuits for lights, inline fans, circulation etc., none are anywhere near capacity and most I'll be running in there is 800W on 2-3 lights and a dedicated light circuit. Next time I have the room down for any length of time I'll likely add that 240v circuit. If this company had been a little more on the ball I may have even done it now. But after conflicting information, not supporting even he 315W on 120v, they just don't seem interested or ready to get into this market, thereby my level of interest and willingness to go the extra mile to try their product waned. I can get/use the 315w elite agro, or any LED including DIY and run them at 120v out of the box, and not take my room apart, easy...

Kind of curious as to what's taking advanced tech to release their 120v ballast for the philips bulbs.. Last I heard it was coming out in 2 weeks, 2 months ago.... I wonder if they're just not on the website.

Just pulled the trigger on one of these: Sun System LEC 315w Light Ceramic MH Fixture 120v, price was not terrible for a complete kit, $500 incl. shipping. I've seen one kit with the Agro 315w, without the reflector on e-Bay, and with a Chinese no-name ballast for $400. Will be firing it up with some LED's in 2-3 weeks and journal it. Excited to see how these fare in bud production, alongside some LED's, should be decent, will run somewhere between 425-525W total on 3-5 plants depending on final sexing for the seedlings coming up in veg

GroErr said:

Just pulled the trigger on one of these: Sun System LEC 315w Light Ceramic MH Fixture 120v, price was not terrible for a complete kit, $500 incl. shipping. I've seen one kit with the Agro 315w, without the reflector on e-Bay, and with a Chinese no-name ballast for $400. Will be firing it up with some LED's in 2-3 weeks and journal it. Excited to see how these fare in bud production, alongside some LED's, should be decent, will run somewhere between 425-525W total on 3-5 plants depending on final sexing for the seedlings coming up in veg

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You should love it..........it is the only 120v option for the agro line ATM...........wonder what step-up trans they use?.

be safe and good luck grower

PSUAGRO. said:

You should love it..........it is the only 120v option for the agro line ATM...........wonder what step-up trans they use?.

be safe and good luck grower

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Hard to find any specifics on it, will see when I get it I guess. LEC looks like a decent company, the specs on the ballast and life rating look good. Looking around they really do look like the only one's that can drive these lamps w/120v right now. This in the centre, with some 2700/3000k LED's Tubes and COB's covering all sides should produce some nice flowers

GroErr said:

Just pulled the trigger on one of these: Sun System LEC 315w Light Ceramic MH Fixture 120v, price was not terrible for a complete kit, $500 incl. shipping. I've seen one kit with the Agro 315w, without the reflector on e-Bay, and with a Chinese no-name ballast for $400. Will be firing it up with some LED's in 2-3 weeks and journal it. Excited to see how these fare in bud production, alongside some LED's, should be decent, will run somewhere between 425-525W total on 3-5 plants depending on final sexing for the seedlings coming up in veg

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You will like them, I guarantee. Also, those guys answer the phone and actually have killer tech support..... Travis I think...

Hey Bubba, thanks, pretty excited to get this thing going. Checked out your grow, looks like you're happy with the lights, will be interesting to compare against my last LED-only run. Good run, no f'up's, and some great quality bud but no density with the LG LED's, second shot at flowering with it and less than stellar results. Only averaged 20g of top shelf bud per plant and 20g of popcorn, hoping to blow that away this next run, otherwise I better go back to outdoor

Got it in on Wednesday, it's hanging up out of the way right now. Just flipped my LED's (great veggers) to 14/10 yesterday, will be running them 10 days at 14/10 to stretch them a bit, they're super-dense balls right now, tied them into shape last night. I'll flip to 12/12 in about 9 days and switch to the Sun System in the centre, with 100W of LED panels on each end, and 54W of 2700k LED Tubes on each side. Will use the LG Panels on the ends until I build my 2x 100W 3000k Cree CXA-3070 panels and switch them up at that time. 315W of CMH + 300+W of LED's in what will end up to be a 3'x4' footprint, that should do it

Cheers...

nice,i'm enjoying the light right now,in a 3x3 area.

very good light spread.this pic was a week ago,with the veg bulb in.
at that distance the plants get 350-435 fc x10 at tops..
way better growth than the 400 mh for veg.

Nice, looking good Looks like this light config will cover 3x3 very nicely, adding the LED's on the sides/ends will stretch that to 4x4' no problem...

Very nice setups fellas, should bring in some great product & numbers at a manageable wattage draw.

Be safe growers

After looking into several options, an amazing opportunity landed in my lap. I run mostly old school switchable magnetic ballasts because they were cheap, versatile and I figured they'd hold their resale value when the time came to upgrade... which is now.

First, I looked at the Elite Agro 315W bulb, but it's completely out of my price range. Double ended HPS thouies aren't the answer either, because I run vertical.

Then a guy told me about Philips 860W CDM bt37 and that they would run only on magnetic MH ballasts. And, they run vertical only. AND, they were $125 for a case of six on clearance.

They'll be here this week.

genuity said:

nice,i'm enjoying the light right now,in a 3x3 area.
View attachment 3184117
very good light spread.this pic was a week ago,with the veg bulb in.
at that distance the plants get 350-435 fc x10 at tops..
way better growth than the 400 mh for veg.

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Is the ballast integrated into the reflector? Does it give off a lot of heat?

it stays cool to the touch,if the room is cool.imo

Just circling back to this conversation on the Philips Agro CMH bulbs. I've posted a thread (in my sig) and it looks like the only one in here being journaled from what I can see. I'm a week into 12/12 with it, 8 weeks or so and we'll see first hand how good these bulbs are Too early to tell anything else but so far I'm impressed with how cool they run, very nice for this tech. Only thing I needed to do to maintain my temps (78-82F) was turning my incoming air inline fan to 1/3rd throttle, it went up about 2-3F over my LED's.

Genuity, do you have a journal going with yours? How long have you been running yours? Didn't see any postings regarding this setup in here...

no J,i was just gonna keep posting in this one...haha

i have had mine for around 6+ months i think(maybe less).i have only been vegging with it,cause i was waiting on my clones to get ready.
but with these clones,i have ran them 2-3 x under hps,so i know how they grow...right now,around 2-3 weeks 12/12 under these 315LEC they look a week ahead
all ready,frost comes faster,seems like better node spacing.

i got 5 more of these lights on the way.

genuity said:

no J,i was just gonna keep posting in this one...haha

i have had mine for around 6+ months i think(maybe less).i have only been vegging with it,cause i was waiting on my clones to get ready.
but with these clones,i have ran them 2-3 x under hps,so i know how they grow...right now,around 2-3 weeks 12/12 under these 315LEC they look a week ahead
all ready,frost comes faster,seems like better node spacing.

i got 5 more of these lights on the way.

Click to expand...

Very nice, wish I had a good comparison, only thing I'll be able to go by was the one JTR plant I'm running is a clone from my last run under LED's and a little smaller going in than the mother I flowered. The other 2 are new strains from seed. But, I averaged only 20g's of nice bud per plant with the low-end LED panels and expect this setup to blow that away. Wow, 6 of these should get you some nice results

Hi guys - I have a few questions for those who might know or have a sound opinion. These might sound like novice questions -
My goal (probably like everyone elses) is to save on my electricity bill but have the performance of a 1kw HPS setup - and of course stay under the radar.
First - the 860w bulbs @ttystikk bought - if I fire those up mag ballast (which I run) will those draw 1kw because I'm running a 1kw ballast - or will they draw just above 860w? That seems like the best option financially. No ballast needed. Just a case of 860's
Second - frequencies of the digital? Ballast that comes with these 315w units --
Backstory: I used to run digital ballast from quantum/lumatek/Chinese - the frequencies of two or all of these interfere with cable and telephone lines. I had cable guys knock on my door more than once at different locations. So I did some reading and turns out that the digitals emit out RF that disturbs the neighborhood. So I dumped the digitals and went magnetic.
The question is - will these digital ballasts disturb cable/telephone frequency - spending $500+ is not worth people knocking on your door asking to fix what's wrong (I was asked more than 3x to upgrade my lines - as soon as I switched to mag ballasts they stopped knocking).
Thanks ahead of time for your knowledge.

Hi longbeach, not sure on the 860w but commenting on the 315w philips agro bulbs, they run on mag ballasts, haven't seen any issues with any sort of interference with those, you shouldn't with mag, they're also very quiet and cool. From what I've seen so far this round if I were in a position to replace a 1k hps, I'd replace it with 2 of these 315W running either bare bulb or vertical reflectors. imo, they'd be pulling around 760W total @ 120v, or ~680W @ 220/240v and yield the equivalent of 2x 600w hps. Cooler for sure than 1x 1000W hps, not sure how they compare in heat to the 860w MH.

GroErr - that was about to be my third question - but I think if someone answered the first question - it would help me make the decision to grab 400w mags - with socket adapters ?? And Phillips bulbs

My preference is spend the $500+ IF the 400mag still runs me 400w with a 315w bulb - i Just dont see why i would waste 85ish watts.

Currently my electricity bill for 3kw (flower and veg - dehueys exhaust fans/fans/ water pumps/air conditioners etc) is $700. If I can take that down a notch - I won't have to quit growing with the area I have. Although the woman would probably like that lol

Thanks for the reply. I don't see a button to like your post on my phone..?