I just bought a Indagro Pro 200 PAR. Can this really flower by itself?

Ok call me skeptical but can this really replace a 400w HPS? OBVIOUSLY it's not going to have the penetration.... or the lumen output.....(So lets get that bullshit out of the way) but hey its has a whole bunch of VEL (whatever the f* that is, yes I read their whole little pamphlet and I feel like I can make up words too) . Now I OWN this light and the first thing I want to say is its kinda cheap feeling, the reflector inside isn't very tight to the housing and rattles, the whole ride home in the car my eye was about to pop a blood vessel. It just doesn't feel like it cost $610.00 that's all.

I spent some cash on this thing so I feel like I am allowed to say this without having everyone jump down my throat but... its just a magnetically operated CFL, with better spread since its not in a spiral. They have those TEK T5 lights that basically seem like the same thing to me. This light will just last a long time because it doesn't have an electrode in it to burn out, but its still just a CFL.

So I am kinda high but basically what I am stating is this thing is just a really long life 200 watt CFL bulb at 5000k.

What makes this thing so amazing?

I grow in a now 3x2x3 ft tent (Secret Jardins DP90) and I scrog only 1-2 plants. This is in an attic so heat is already an annoying problem to tackle. I have a good cool intake and I exhaust into another room with a closed door between then so temps cant mix.

I got this Indagro because I want to get rid of my 250w HPS. I don't feel I really need the penetration of an HPS and although the lumen output is great the heat isn't. If your tents 94 degrees with an HPS you still get airy buds.

So will this flower all by itself? If I add in 4 2ft T5HO 2700k lights in will that give me the red I need in flower better? Or should I grab some 2x 50W Cobs of 630-660nm leds from ebay glue them to some computer heat sinks strap on a cheapo power supply from ebay and run it till it fails?

So will this thing flower by itself or what do I need to supplement it, other than an HPS...

welcome to the no changing bulb for 10 years club. The 200 will definitely outperform a 400w hps. Psuagro has the 100 and gets great yields with huge buds. He got I think a little more than 1 gram per watt. 117w with the pontoon. I myself have 2 420 combos and a vpar combo. You will be surprised at now well they do. Inda gros do not need to be supplemented. Except for maybe with pontoons. 66 deep red less and 730 IR leds.. They are far from a CFL or t5. They have very high cri (color rendering index) and decent par output. I don't know about the 200. The 420 puts out 800 umole/s at 18 inches away with the pontoons of course.

Grow journal it. Lets see how it performs in real life. I said the same thing when we went to LED, "no way this thing is gonna perform like HID", but it did once we tweaked everything. I have been looking at the plasma lights as well, very interested to hear/see your results. p.s. the only reason I haven't tried induction yet is that I am concerned about accidentally breaking it, much less chance of that with LED. imho. Still a bit too expensive for me to headbutt the thing or some silly shit like that.

I am trying to price out putting 50-60w of led to get that deep red. For about 60w with REAL leds (not ebay stuff) its about $160 just for the emitters. So instead of getting T5s I might work with that.

(So lets get that bullshit out of the way) but hey its has a whole bunch of VEL (whatever the f* that is, yes I read their whole little pamphlet and I feel like I can make up words too) .

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The IG website takes the time to explain the differences between general area and plant lighting terms. Because you don't understand something does not mean that it is not a valid term. VEL stands for Visually Enhanced Lumen which the IES formally adopted two years ago as a Spectrally Enhanced Lumen for area lighting task levels. What this means is the light being emitted is in the mesopic range of human vision instead of the photopic regions that area light meters are calibrated for. Designing area lighting projects in SEL values as a scotopic to photopic ratio of the light levels means the eye see's greater 'apparent brightness' from the light source.

The adoption of an IES VEL/SEL standard was driven by the SSL industries valuing LED lumen outputs for parking lot lighting as a way to compete with photopically driven light source values such as HID which would have high lumens per watt but poor color rendition. On paper the HID lamps would appear to be the better choice as a higher lumen per watt but the apparent brightness of the LED was not being taken into account. With the IES having formally adopted SEL as an accepted design criteria, LED mfg's now benefit from spectral weighting when factoring the energy savings of an LED to an HID source relative to each technologies 'apparent brightness' to the human eye. This link is to a DOE position paper that points to how the dialogue began;

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/corporate/ies_position_response.pdf&ei=zsZfU8-uApKTyAS-qoLYDQ&usg=AFQjCNGC04llq9ppn4qEL8AsC4e3Mr141Q&bvm=bv.65636070,d.aWw&cad=rja

All of the above was provided as a way of introducing the reader to emerging technologies and their energy savings relative to both area and plant lighting design (PPF) design strategies. As this section only warranted your criticism perhaps you would find the measuring plant lighting paper more to your liking.
http://www.inda-gro.com/pdf/MeasuringPlantLight.pdf
http://www.inda-gro.com/pdf/MeasuringPlantLight.pdf

Good luck with your garden.

airisweetheart said:

I am trying to price out putting 50-60w of led to get that deep red. For about 60w with REAL leds (not ebay stuff) its about $160 just for the emitters. So instead of getting T5s I might work with that.

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Check out BML light bars. You can choose length, lens angles, and spectrums

I am super happy with noticeable growth from the 2 X 3ft I popped into my tent Saturday evening to supplement ~ 180w of 3500/5000k led ufos

They use Osram/Oslon 3w diodes

PetFlora said:

Check out BML light bars. You can choose length, lens angles, and spectrums

I am super happy with noticeable growth from the 2 X 3ft I popped into my tent Saturday evening to supplement ~ 180w of 3500/5000k led ufos

They use Osram/Oslon 3w diodes

Click to expand...

big difference over 4 days???

Should look on youtube for a guy named splifferous, what he was doing really impressed me with these lights and convinced me. And that was before the pontoon came out, can check out some of his vids from earlier last year to see it. All I can say is you may want to look into SCROG to get the most out of your area, making your canopy spread on a horizontal plane is the key to large harvests with this light imo. Not that I SCROG but I try to keep a level canopy.
Good luck, looking forward to your grow.

I am in all hopes I am wrong and this thing is amazing. All I am doing right now is waiting on the sale of my old rooms surplus crap so I can have the space to start.

natro.hydro said:

Should look on youtube for a guy named splifferous, what he was doing really impressed me with these lights and convinced me. And that was before the pontoon came out, can check out some of his vids from earlier last year to see it.

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Yip..Spliff remainz the premier Inda-grower...

chazbolin said:

The IG website takes the time to explain the differences between general area and plant lighting terms. Because you don't understand something does not mean that it is not a valid term. VEL stands for Visually Enhanced Lumen which the IES formally adopted two years ago as a Spectrally Enhanced Lumen for area lighting task levels. What this means is the light being emitted is in the mesopic range of human vision instead of the photopic regions that area light meters are calibrated for. Designing area lighting projects in SEL values as a scotopic to photopic ratio of the light levels means the eye see's greater 'apparent brightness' from the light source..

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How is any of that relevant to plant system design? Lumens is the worst measure with the bias being toward human vision, not plant processes. Lux or PAR seem to be the only viable measures. Even the PAR sensors only have a mild bias in the 500-600 range and error rates that make me think a PAR meter is a waste of cash. Certainly compared to a 200,000 Lux meter which costs about $15. As soon as they start talking the human visual response we are talking a totally different bias and is irrelevant to the plant. I think I missed what you guys were driving at.

Even the PAR sensors only have a mild bias in the 500-600 range

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What makes you think a quantum meter has a 'mild bias' in the 500-600nm range? They don't. The only difference between a quantum meter and a photometer is that the quantum meter is not photopically corrected and would be calibrated to sunlight spectrums. A quantum meter gives an equal, spectrally unweighted, intensity reading for any photon emitting between 400-700nm which is precisely why the LED area lighting mfg's parallels plant lighting measurement methods in that they wanted 'spectral weighting' in the new SEL design standard as an energy efficiency credit relative to how humans respond to light in the mesopic regions. It is also true that since there is no spectral weighting with a quantum meter in plant lighting PAR regions (PPF, PPFD, YPF, values alone are not spectrally weighted) that led IG to develop V-C-F which shows energy being emitted in three distinctly different spectral regions of plant chlorophyll absorption.

To the average grower, little of this will make sense nor will they take the time to even begin to understand the information or the correlations being drawn. But to anyone with even a passing interest in what this information represents, it is unassailable in that what drives lighting efficiencies for both area and plant lighting is the continuing research relative to both plant and visual response from artificial lighting sources.