Strip LEDs in the garden of Paradise

Sup, man.

Everything's looking great! i grow the same way and havent looked back - absolutely love it.

Small pots of coco and multiple drip feedings for the massive win I remember reading a thread on ICMAG on this technique a few years ago. Did you ever see it? I owe a lot to that thread!

I'm going to try this technique with the 6inch rockwool cubes soon, just to see...ever been down that road?

looking forward to the flowers.

sethimus said:

what kind of archaic renters law do you have over there?

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Thankfully, there are no such controls with us. Every three months...? Boohh, that is hard!
Not even our old punk-hippy-dropout residential community was controlled and our farm was more a trailler park, we even had a movie screen behind which our plants grew, but no beamer, Lol!
Thankfully, our laws are much more liberal. We only have to pay attention to the police. 80% of all accusations come from statements of so-called friends, the remaining 20% are coincidence or stupidity!

Randomblame said:

Thankfully, there are no such controls with us. Every three months...? Boohh, that is hard!
Not even our old punk-hippy-dropout residential community was controlled and our farm was more a trailler park, we even had a movie screen behind which our plants grew, but no beamer, Lol!
Thankfully, our laws are much more liberal. We only have to pay attention to the police. 80% of all accusations come from statements of so-called friends, the remaining 20% are coincidence or stupidity!

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They're never far away.

Watching you watching me lol

lukio said:

Sup, man.

Everything's looking great! i grow the same way and havent looked back - absolutely love it.

Small pots of coco and multiple drip feedings for the massive win I remember reading a thread on ICMAG on this technique a few years ago. Did you ever see it? I owe a lot to that thread!

I'm going to try this technique with the 6inch rockwool cubes soon, just to see...ever been down that road?

looking forward to the flowers.

Click to expand...

Good question. I've been around a while, and others have copied my vertical techniques over the years at ICMag and elswhere, but drip-fed coco has also been around for a long time, so I can't take credit for this one.

sethimus said:

what kind of archaic renters law do you have over there?

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It's called "Australia" and we have some of the most expensive real estate and draconian tenant laws in the world. But we're used to it.

Part of the problem is a lot of gangs rent houses and convert the entire premises into grow ops, stealing power and wrecking the home, so it's a known issue here and the rest of us have to suffer for it unfortunately.

Buck5050 said:

Is all well down under?

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Week 3 and half and everything is doing fine - thanks for asking!

I don't know why so many people hang their LEDs way up high above their plants. I'm getting mine to just a few inches above the tallest tips and have seen no bleaching or burning yet.

Prawn Connery said:

Week 3 and half and everything is doing fine - thanks for asking!

I don't know why so many people hang their LEDs way up high above their plants. I'm getting mine to just a few inches above the tallest tips and have seen no bleaching or burning yet.

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Hi mate, you might want to consider raising the fixture a bit,I may be wrong, but it looks like the top fan leaves are strating to curl up/canoeing. From my experience so far with LEDs that would be one of the first symptoms, the actual burn would appear later.

Otherwise, they look lush and nice from here,
Keep it up!

You're right, there's a little bit of heat stress going on. I'm just seeing how close I can get them at this stage. Up until recently I had them about 10-12" away. But I noticed as some of the taller plants were growing they were getting close without any real issues. I'm just curious to see at what point they start to bleach. Then I'll back it off.

Promise

Prawn Connery said:

You're right, there's a little bit of heat stress going on. I'm just seeing how close I can get them at this stage. Up until recently I had them about 10-12" away. But I noticed as some of the taller plants were growing they were getting close without any real issues. I'm just curious to see at what point they start to bleach. Then I'll back it off.

Promise

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Can totally relate.. having an issue here myself as my fingers were to light on the dimmer knob for the first few weeks, and being hight limited..

Prawn Connery said:

I'm getting mine to just a few inches above the tallest tips

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is there an advantage to this? i like mine up high and out the way. im easily achieving 800 -1000 ppf with distance

Light intensity. Have you used your meter to measure the canopy with the lights down low?

LED Gardener recorded more than twice as much PPFD lowering his QBs from 24" down to 12".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=241&v=KbzTkz4gKzg

@Prawn Connery, It looks more like you gain 60%, but ok.

You need to look at uniformity as well though. If you get too close, you get hot spots and dark spots. Pointless to go so low that you just don't get bleaching while most of the plants are standing in the "dark"

For instance with the 135W test, if you go down to 12", the center gets up to 1400PPFD (950 average) while the other two thirds of the grow area (the part that's nearer to a wall) gets down to 450PPFD average. One third is potentially bleaching while the other two thirds barely gets any light. That's ridiculous. 18" is really the minimum distance for those boards by the looks of it.

Boards are not really a good example since the design is a very poor match for a small tent. You get one bright spot in the middle of the tent. The uniformity with these boards is horrible compared to COBs or strips. To correct for that you need to hang them high to get some uniformity and that costs you light on the walls yes. If you have a big grow that's much less of an issue.

Also, it shows that you shouldn't get a tent with white poly walls. It has extremely poor reflection seeing how much of the light gets lost on the walls with increasing distance. With properly reflecting walls that's a lot less.

Malocan did the same test a while ago and he saw a reduction of 20% in light by doubling the distance (30cm to 60cm).

@wietefras how much lumens (or umol/s) is acceptable range for "I don't want popcorn" ?

wietefras said:

@Prawn Connery, It looks more like you gain 60%, but ok.

You need to look at uniformity as well though. If you get too close, you get hot spots and dark spots. Pointless to go so low that you just don't get bleaching while most of the plants are standing in the "dark"

For instance with the 135W test, if you go down to 12", the center gets up to 1400PPFD (950 average) while the other two thirds of the grow area (the part that's nearer to a wall) gets down to 450PPFD average. One third is potentially bleaching while the other two thirds barely gets any light. That's ridiculous. 18" is really the minimum distance for those boards by the looks of it.

Boards are not really a good example since the design is a very poor match for a small tent. You get one bright spot in the middle of the tent. The uniformity with these boards is horrible compared to COBs or strips. To correct for that you need to hang them high to get some uniformity and that costs you light on the walls yes. If you have a big grow that's much less of an issue.

Also, it shows that you shouldn't get a tent with white poly walls. It has extremely poor reflection seeing how much of the light gets lost on the walls with increasing distance. With properly reflecting walls that's a lot less.

Malocan did the same test a while ago and he saw a reduction of 20% in light by doubling the distance (30cm to 60cm).

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Completely agreed.

Except I'm using strips that are evenly spaced apart with one strip specifically running down the centreline of each 4'x1' section (in line with the main colas of each row of four plants) with a strip either side for a total of six strips roughly 50mm apart. With 120-degree LEDs, the strips start overlapping about 40mm away from the canopy.

I'm not getting them that close, but clearly I'm able to get them very close with little detrimental effect (so far) - and the plants love it. The proof's in the pudding. Which is why I liked the idea of strips over COBS or boards in the first place.

And you're right - boards aren't a good example. But I posted the LED Gardener link as it was the first one I could think of with PPFD readings at different heights. And just to prove a point, even though the hot spot increases the closer the boards get, the outer edges and corners also get more light (higher readings). The 135w board, for example, has an average 545 umol/s at each edge at 12" but 370 at 24".

Light is light. A creative person could put their taller plants around the edge of the canopy and the short ones in the middle to even up the light spread whilst still taking advantage of the increase in intensity alround (if that's the way you grow).

My point is, people agonise over a 5-10% gain in luminous efficiency from one diode to the next, but then throw it all out the window by hanging their lights so high and losing all that light intensity!

Each to his own and clearly do what works best for your own set-up, but there is more than one way to get lots of light even spaced with good efficiency and as little waste as possible.

Prawn Connery said:

It's called "Australia" and we have some of the most expensive real estate and draconian tenant laws in the world. But we're used to it.

Part of the problem is a lot of gangs rent houses and convert the entire premises into grow ops, stealing power and wrecking the home, so it's a known issue here and the rest of us have to suffer for it unfortunately.

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that sucks man, here in germany renting is nearly like owning, owners can still inspect their property, but they need a reason and they need to give you a 2 weeks notice, just switch the locks and you're safe

Prawn Connery said:

Light intensity. Have you used your meter to measure the canopy with the lights down low?

LED Gardener recorded more than twice as much PPFD lowering his QBs from 24" down to 12".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=241&v=KbzTkz4gKzg

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800 - 1000 ppfd from up high suits me better, i just dont see the advantage of having em low...still dont! if i put my leds that close they would for sure burn my plants

i'll check out the link this eve. cheers

lukio said:

yeah i have, dude - i wasnt guessing! 800 - 1000 ppf

i'll check out the link this eve. cheers

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The boards are uber powerful. I was running 1300 - 1500 over the canopy until I got the par meter out. I reduced it to 1000 . The plants look happier now and I saved over 100 watts by dimming the intensity
My lights are around 15" from canopy.

Moflow said:

The boards are uber powerful. I was running 1300 - 1500 over the canopy until I got the par meter out. I reduced it to 1000 . The plants look happier now and I saved over 100 watts by dimming the intensity
My lights are around 15" from canopy.

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i edited my post - didnt read the reply correctly haha! but yea...QB's up full whack would cook my plants that close! better efficiency lower at lower watts but less spread just doesnt suit my tents

anyhooooo - plants are looking lovely!

Mate, I've always said whatever works, works.

There is the equivalent of 4x QB288 boards spread pretty evenly over about twice the area of a HLG-550 in my set-up (running at a similar wattage), so I'm guessing the coverage is pretty even and appears to benefit from being mounted closer to the canopy. There shouldn't be as many hot and cold spots as the boards, nor should the light bleed off as much towards the edges - especially as it's being reflected back in by the walls of the tent.




The frame pretty much fills the 4'x2' space. So if anything, I think I would benefit more from dimming the drivers and leaving the frames where they are than raising them with the same power - assuming there is too much light in there to begin with.

I don't have a PAR meter, so have no idea. But the plants - so far - are pretty good.

Remember also that only the tallest buds are 6" or so away from the LEDs - most of the other buds are a good 12" or more away. The closer I can get to the top buds without burning or bleaching them, the more the lower buds will benefit. That is, looking at the canopy as a whole, and not just the highest points.

Now, as this is my first horizontal grow for, like, ever (well over 15 years!), I'm hoping to get things dialled in as I progress. That could mean running a net and trimming the plants a bit more to get a more even canopy height.

Right now it's not too bad, but as we all know, everything can be improved with time and experience.

Prawn Connery said:

Completely agreed.

Except I'm using strips that are evenly spaced apart with one strip specifically running down the centreline of each 4'x1' section (in line with the main colas of each row of four plants) with a strip either side for a total of six strips roughly 50mm apart. With 120-degree LEDs, the strips start overlapping about 40mm away from the canopy.

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That's not an "except" that's exactly what I said. You determine the height of the fixture by desired uniformity. Which then is a compromise between uniformity and wall losses. With strips (or even COBs if you have enough of them) that will be a few inches and with those boards it's at least 18", but either way it's still uniformity first.

What you should NOT do is to squash the lights as close as possible on the plants so they just don't bleach right under the lights. You will still get poorly developed plants everywhere that way. Uniformity is more important than a few percent of light.

With strips (or many cobs) it's only 1 or 2 inches difference anyway. Also, if you have a grow area with properly direct (!) reflective walls then it doesn't matter so much either.

I also agree that you should go for uniformity on the average canopy. It's no use lifting the whole light for a few higher tops.