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- #1,041
fanleaf
Well-Known Member
OK guys, I've seen several post on here now about heat. I've got a few things to say about this and maybe this will help some of you.
First, let's all understand that any light that pulls like a 600W hps and a 600W cob array and a 600W blurple LED and a 600W Induction light will ALL PRODUCE THE SAME EXACT AMOUNT OF HEAT!!!!
Yes, I know I know, everyone says but going LED is suposed to make less heat for me to deal with right? Well yes but I will explain this in a bit.
OK guys let's explain it like this. Let's use a 600W hps to explain this with ok? While a 600W hps may be say only 38% efficient that means basically it's turning 38% (228 watts) of that 600W into light and the remaining 372 watts are pure heat watts. Now, light is not just imaginary but is photons that travel from the light bulb outwards ok? Light travels at (the speed of light) 300,000,000 meters per second. If it traveled really slow there would be a noticeable delay when you flip a light switch off. You would be able to see the light travel ok?
Now, your plants don't suck up but a fraction of this light because it also lights up your whole grow room right?
So what happens when you flip a light switch off is the photons still bounce off your walls and plants and everything in your grow room at speeds so fast you cannot comprehend until those photons absorb into heat. The photons bounce around until they are either used by the plant or absorbed into your walls or floor as heat!
Basically what I'm trying to say is 600 watts is ALWAYS 600 watts of heat period! Another way to look at it is like this;
600 Watt hps at 38% efficient.......372 pure heat watts straight off the bat just to work and 228 light watts that eventually turn into heat whatever is not used by the plants. Result 600W of heat.
600W Cree CXB 3590 array running at 60% efficient.......240 pure heat watts straight off the bat just to work and 360 light watts that will eventually turn into heat as well!...Result= 600W of heat!!!
This is the reason I ALWAYS PREACH EFFICIENCY!!!!
So how can we deal with a ton less heat thaen the 600W hps and get a better yield and lower heat you ask......Simple, our LED with 1 chip per square foot allows better canopy coverage, better penetration, and we can use 15-25% less wattage and still out perform the hps easy! How??? Because we turn more power to light by a big margin depending on how efficient you make your array.
So now we see this
600 Watt hps =38% efficient
372 pure heat watts
228 light watts that eventually turn into heat
vs
600W LED 60% efficient
240 pure heat watts
360 light watts that will eventually turn into heat
IT'S THE SAME HEAT EITHER WAY!
So in this rough example you can see the key is efficiency here. So how do we make our LED outperform the hps and create less heat???? The answer is right there. Let's see how far we can turn our 60% efficient 600W LED to still create as many "light watts" as the 600Whps.
600W 60% efficient LED array dimmed to 400 watts in this example would provide 160 pure heat watts and 240 light watts!!!! BINGO, YAHTZEE!!! 240 light watts is more light watts than the 600 watt hps makes at 600w!!! But to sweeten the deal the LED array still has way better, more even canopy coverage too!
So this example would tell us that we could yield more with our array dimmed to 400w and have 200 less heat watts to deal with!
This is exactly why regardless of what you read LUMENS PER WATT IS HUGE HUGE HUGE in building an efficient array.
The whole key is we can use less total power that will all eventually turn into heat and still create more light with less total wattage.
Yes, par is for plants and lumens are for people no doubt guys but lumens are IN THE PAR SPECTRUM! This means lumens that a cob chip produces are somewhere in the PAR spectrum and can be used by our plants. The more lumens you can create per every watt of power used means you are making your light more efficient plain and simple.
Now, we can also relocate our drivers outside of the grow area and let that heat go where we don't care about and keep the grow areas even cooler at high wattage too.
I hope this helps a few of you.
Build them efficient boys......Only a few cobs ran at really high power drives the chips at a much less efficient level. The softer you can run them the more efficient they get. That's why 1 cob per square foot is the killer of ANY light out there. You can run soft, efficient, less total power and still create more light and less heat.
First, let's all understand that any light that pulls like a 600W hps and a 600W cob array and a 600W blurple LED and a 600W Induction light will ALL PRODUCE THE SAME EXACT AMOUNT OF HEAT!!!!
Yes, I know I know, everyone says but going LED is suposed to make less heat for me to deal with right? Well yes but I will explain this in a bit.
OK guys let's explain it like this. Let's use a 600W hps to explain this with ok? While a 600W hps may be say only 38% efficient that means basically it's turning 38% (228 watts) of that 600W into light and the remaining 372 watts are pure heat watts. Now, light is not just imaginary but is photons that travel from the light bulb outwards ok? Light travels at (the speed of light) 300,000,000 meters per second. If it traveled really slow there would be a noticeable delay when you flip a light switch off. You would be able to see the light travel ok?
Now, your plants don't suck up but a fraction of this light because it also lights up your whole grow room right?
So what happens when you flip a light switch off is the photons still bounce off your walls and plants and everything in your grow room at speeds so fast you cannot comprehend until those photons absorb into heat. The photons bounce around until they are either used by the plant or absorbed into your walls or floor as heat!
Basically what I'm trying to say is 600 watts is ALWAYS 600 watts of heat period! Another way to look at it is like this;
600 Watt hps at 38% efficient.......372 pure heat watts straight off the bat just to work and 228 light watts that eventually turn into heat whatever is not used by the plants. Result 600W of heat.
600W Cree CXB 3590 array running at 60% efficient.......240 pure heat watts straight off the bat just to work and 360 light watts that will eventually turn into heat as well!...Result= 600W of heat!!!
This is the reason I ALWAYS PREACH EFFICIENCY!!!!
So how can we deal with a ton less heat thaen the 600W hps and get a better yield and lower heat you ask......Simple, our LED with 1 chip per square foot allows better canopy coverage, better penetration, and we can use 15-25% less wattage and still out perform the hps easy! How??? Because we turn more power to light by a big margin depending on how efficient you make your array.
So now we see this
600 Watt hps =38% efficient
372 pure heat watts
228 light watts that eventually turn into heat
vs
600W LED 60% efficient
240 pure heat watts
360 light watts that will eventually turn into heat
IT'S THE SAME HEAT EITHER WAY!
So in this rough example you can see the key is efficiency here. So how do we make our LED outperform the hps and create less heat???? The answer is right there. Let's see how far we can turn our 60% efficient 600W LED to still create as many "light watts" as the 600Whps.
600W 60% efficient LED array dimmed to 400 watts in this example would provide 160 pure heat watts and 240 light watts!!!! BINGO, YAHTZEE!!! 240 light watts is more light watts than the 600 watt hps makes at 600w!!! But to sweeten the deal the LED array still has way better, more even canopy coverage too!
So this example would tell us that we could yield more with our array dimmed to 400w and have 200 less heat watts to deal with!
This is exactly why regardless of what you read LUMENS PER WATT IS HUGE HUGE HUGE in building an efficient array.
The whole key is we can use less total power that will all eventually turn into heat and still create more light with less total wattage.
Yes, par is for plants and lumens are for people no doubt guys but lumens are IN THE PAR SPECTRUM! This means lumens that a cob chip produces are somewhere in the PAR spectrum and can be used by our plants. The more lumens you can create per every watt of power used means you are making your light more efficient plain and simple.
Now, we can also relocate our drivers outside of the grow area and let that heat go where we don't care about and keep the grow areas even cooler at high wattage too.
I hope this helps a few of you.
Build them efficient boys......Only a few cobs ran at really high power drives the chips at a much less efficient level. The softer you can run them the more efficient they get. That's why 1 cob per square foot is the killer of ANY light out there. You can run soft, efficient, less total power and still create more light and less heat.
