Vertical cage match, 32K watts, 32 plants

redi jedi

Well-Known Member
Ive never had a op large enough to shut down a light without taking a big hit in yield..

If you had dimmable ballasts you could run swap the 1k's for 600's but do you want to?
 

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
Well unfortunately I don't have the cash for 32 mh bulbs :(

Money is at a scarry all time low. What is the consensus on running 1k bulbs at 600?
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Well unfortunately I don't have the cash for 32 mh bulbs :(

Money is at a scarry all time low. What is the consensus on running 1k bulbs at 600?
I totally feel you on the money being scary low thing.

Re. running HID at less than full power; Don't do it. Spectrum suffers, bulb life suffers, light emitted drops much faster than power saved, not gonna be good. Just leave them run at 100%. Running MH at low power is even worse for them than it is for HPS.

My info came from some fly by night company called 'Philips'... you may have heard of them.
 

dbkick

Well-Known Member
I remember a thread a few years back, a guy had one of those 8k dollar spectroradiowtf meters and found the results of dimming made a blue lamp more blue and a red lamp more red. Back the lights off or dim .
I also read dimming is fine as long as operating temperature of the lamp remains where it should, this is why a digital ballast will fire a 1000 watt lamp and run it at 1000 watts for 15 minutes even though you have it dialed back to 600.
 

Alienwidow

Well-Known Member
Well unfortunately I don't have the cash for 32 mh bulbs :(

Money is at a scarry all time low. What is the consensus on running 1k bulbs at 600?
Ahh well, your getting close to having some more. You know just as well as i do that youll be tweeking this for a year or more until you have it just right. Have you thought of a leaf blower to handle the fallen leaves? Looks like getting into all the hoses with a broom would be difficult. Not a gas one though lol. :):):)
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
I remember a thread a few years back, a guy had one of those 8k dollar spectroradiowtf meters and found the results of dimming made a blue lamp more blue and a red lamp more red. Back the lights off or dim .
I also read dimming is fine as long as operating temperature of the lamp remains where it should, this is why a digital ballast will fire a 1000 watt lamp and run it at 1000 watts for 15 minutes even though you have it dialed back to 600.
While it is true that dialing down the power of an HID lamp makes it produce more red light, what homeboy's spectrometer didn't tell him was that it shortens the life of the bulbs, too. This effect is much worse for MH. Also your light output per watt drops pretty drastically as well. Dimming HID is just a bad idea.
 

pilsung

Well-Known Member
would it make sense to turn half the lights in a room off for a few hours and then the other half for the same amount of time? wouldn't mess with photo cycle and should reduce power use a little.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
would it make sense to turn half the lights in a room off for a few hours and then the other half for the same amount of time? wouldn't mess with photo cycle and should reduce power use a little.
I've heard of people doing this to reduce temps when their climate control system can't keep up. I don't know if it would improve resin production.
 

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
Ttystick,
dimming a bulb does change its spectrum. .I did not lnow that it would make it more red. The notion that it decreases bulb life however is a fallacy. I called eye hortilux and asked them years ago. They said iverdricing there bulbs decreases life but not under powering them.

It's not so much the temps we are worried about as it is blasting them with light.

We will see what happens, I dimmed then to 600.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Ttystick,
dimming a bulb does change its spectrum. .I did not lnow that it would make it more red. The notion that it decreases bulb life however is a fallacy. I called eye hortilux and asked them years ago. They said iverdricing there bulbs decreases life but not under powering them.

It's not so much the temps we are worried about as it is blasting them with light.

We will see what happens, I dimmed then to 600.
I got my info from a Philips Lighting white paper on the subject.
 

pilsung

Well-Known Member
when i turned my 600's down to deal with summer heat a two month old ushio bulb failed in a few weeks and a slightly older lumitek a month later. so i don't run ushio or lumitek anymore and havn't trnd ballast down sense.
currently i'm running genises bulbs but i was very underwhelmed by my yield last run and thinking i should upgrade to hortilux'. prbly should have switched to them some time ago.
 

Joedank

Well-Known Member
Huh. I will Google that paper.

I have tried all the bulbs and it's hortilux for the win. The worst was digilux. Fucker degrade SO quickly
yea horti is all i will use ...
does it matter if they toast cheap bulbs with increased resonince??
EYE uses the best so if they fail send them back with the recipt and they will help you ... but turing them down last week is SMART .
"Pulsing" on and off every half hour to hour works too but can cause reaching in my exp..
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Huh. I will Google that paper.

I have tried all the bulbs and it's hortilux for the win. The worst was digilux. Fucker degrade SO quickly
I went for Plantmax HPS thouies; good combo of high lumen output and low cost. Probably have to replace more often than Horti tho.
 

pilsung

Well-Known Member
i know the majority of my problem is i kept girls too far away from the light, but even still i didn't get near what i think i should have, which is resulting in a savere unfatness of my wallet at the moment which may dictate i go with plantmax, for at least one round. thanks tty. got some extra bills to contend with this month an i'll see what i can afford after that.

@Joedank i think it would reduce the life of ballast and bulb turning on and off multiple times in a day cycle. should have the same effect as far as plants are concerned.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
i know the majority of my problem is i kept girls too far away from the light, but even still i didn't get near what i think i should have, which is resulting in a savere unfatness of my wallet at the moment which may dictate i go with plantmax, for at least one round. thanks tty. got some extra bills to contend with this month an i'll see what i can afford after that.

@Joedank i think it would reduce the life of ballast and bulb turning on and off multiple times in a day cycle. should have the same effect as far as plants are concerned.
As long as bulb fully warms up each cycle, say thirty minutes at a time or more, it shouldn't severely shorten lamp life or damage the ballast.

I've found Plantmax thouies for as little as $25 each, one good place to check is 1000bulbs.com
 
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