Choosing lights for a first time grower

Northern Canada and in the basement with plans for a tent after awhile. I’m torn between led and hid. LED is cooler and uses less power. But with my budget I’m worried it will crap out and need warranty. Hid is the tried and true light that’s easy to fix if need be. But Im not sure how warm it actually gets and if it could burn my house down for some reason. And also how much power would one 600w light actually consume over led. Also I’ve now read some ballasts can’t run hps and mh bulbs? The kit I am looking at comes with both bulbs and uses a digital ballast. And from reading that some ballasts can use both bulbs and from the info provided by the company it sounds like it can run both bulbs which would be great for a newb

Don't worry about burning the house down, just use common sense like not drying clothes or frying shrimp on your bulb and you'll be good :)

A HID bulb consumes about 10% more power than the name suggests.

A 600w LED consumes 600w, or else the seller is misleading you by telling you the combined max wattage of the diodes which is just bs since they're never driver over 50%.



Watt is just a measure of the power (joules per second) that goes into the unit, it doesn't say anything about how much light comes out in the other end.

HID converts about 35% of the power to light and 65% to heat. High reliablility, low upfront cost.

A blurple LED lamp converts about 35% of the power to light and 65% to heat. Low reliability, low to insane upfront cost depending on brand.

A high end LED converts >50% of the power to light and <50% to heat, depending on load. It's possible to reach ~65% light. Extremely high reliability, medium to insane upfront cost depending on brand.

A 1200w electrical heater has a 0/100 light to heat ratio, just to paint a picture :)



A tight budget and an, assumingly, often cold basement is screaming for some HID light, the radiated heat you get is brilliant when you have plants in a cold room ;)
 
Do not use an air cooled HID hood as I saw above posted. If you want to go HID please watch the video in the link in my sig. The entire video, which is long, has great info all the way through. Last time I was at the grow store the employee and I joked about when was the last time he sold one of those. He couldn't remeber.

They reduce yield in many ways by solving the heat problem incorrectly. Watch the video.
 
Do not use an air cooled HID hood as I saw above posted. If you want to go HID please watch the video in the link in my sig. The entire video, which is long, has great info all the way through. Last time I was at the grow store the employee and I joked about when was the last time he sold one of those. He couldn't remeber.
hmmmm.... this I did not know
I am interested in a HID for my next grow
and, mistakenly I guess, thought that an air cooled hood just made sense
I guess I'll be watching your vids
Cheers VI ;)

Edit
Oh no!
@VilliageIdiot the link in your sig for HID hoods is not working
 
It ain't my vid... these guys make tons and they are all great info. Some is selling stuff. This one is just them telling you what about different hoods.

I could splain it all but the video is so worth watching. Half way through you learn something cool about lights at different latitudes. It is a great vid. 30 mins about...go get high.
 
They made me hide the link. It is a video so I couldn't place it in the sig. I buried it in my old journal so I linked that post. The comment says HID lighting reflectors
 
NP... there are 2 things people will waste money on doing wrong for years. Lighting and nutes.

Hence my sig.

Best penetrating Par per watt will be a small tight beam open air DE HID bulb. There is something to be said about having the ballast close if you can vent that. I have a tent so input the ballast outside.

But the way HID works is by getting hot. The hotter the bulb the more light...the more efficiancy. They wear out because they can't maintain the heat.

When you actively cool a HID light...you are using energy in a fan creating heat in the motor to reduce the effective output of the light at the same wattage. And to do so you have to add a glass surface you qont maintain propperly. And an air hose you qont insulate.

Reducing you par and efficiency together like 30% lower yielding you really screw it up. Sux...

Don't be unschooled.
 
NP... there are 2 things people will waste money on doing wrong for years. Lighting and nutes.

Hence my sig.

Best penetrating Par per watt will be a small tight beam open air DE HID bulb. There is something to be said about having the ballast close if you can vent that. I have a tent so input the ballast outside.

But the way HID works is by getting hot. The hotter the bulb the more light...the more efficiancy. They wear out because they can't maintain the heat.

When you actively cool a HID light...you are using energy in a fan creating heat in the motor to reduce the effective output of the light at the same wattage. And to do so you have to add a glass surface you qont maintain propperly. And an air hose you qont insulate.

Reducing you par and efficiency together like 30% lower yielding you really screw it up. Sux...

Don't be unschooled.
Interesting vid
biggest drawback is the reduction of overall light from the glass
as well as a reduction in UV-B
but seems to be ok for small tent grow such as a 5X5?
 
So...agreed those are some of the worst... the dealio is incramental gains.

In growing we do lots of tricks. To get sweet top grade stuff... there is more to it than following a nute program.

But there are a few very specific things you can do that make it easier...if you can. And incramental gains add up to major increases.

There are many things they point out...you brought up 2 without pointing out the main point...if you buy air cooled you might get one that is ok...and you need to maintain it regularly. Open air is a better design for multiple reasons. It is better to vent the room properly.

So the real deal is for new growers I want them to get off to the best start for the buck.

If you buy a propper 600W and run it correctly you will do better than running an improper and poorly maintained 1KW.

If you can handle the ventilation running 1KW HID DE, it makes growing very easy. Deep penetration. Buds everywhere that are thick.

You run lots of hot air so no mold.

Grow lights are a tool like a car... and must be maintained and like tires you gotta change the bulb. If you get high end bulbs that get 10% or more yield that matters.

Straight up. I use the best DE bulb I can buy in a tight hood so I get stupid deep rays and I get thick buds...go figgya.

How do the good growers get thick big buds? We use big lights and serrious ventilation and keep it cool and bright.

If you don't want to do it the old school way..LEDs are great. Esspecially for small grows in tents.

There are real fancy big LEDs now that cost 4x the equivalent HID. So that shouldn't be your first light IMO.

A beginner should use a 400W or 600W HID unless they can afford a propper 1KW DE. Or a 140W - 400w LED in a tent.

Get a few grows right then buy a $4000 light.

But tight open air hood DE bulb...even at 600W is better penetration than most lighting and that matters.

In a small tent you can run a fancy ballast that over drives the 600 to 700W. There are many options. Mine overdrives my 1K to 1150W. I dont use it much. Mine can lower the 1000W to 600W if I want to cool the tent. Mine also auto tests the bulb befor startup and will run any HID DE or regular. So I can plug in any hood. Get any par at any heat.

But I don't mess around on lights.

I have LEDs too. Cheap ones for veg...you don't need good lights in veg.

This is from a while back...this time around I removed the hose and put the fan right in the hole. Seems fine so far.



My point is they say 1K is too much for a 5x5 and I say I figured out how to manage and I am an idiot. It helps if you can afford and use the tools right.



 
Maybe you can try our Mars ECO series, for first time growers usually, not costing too much, full spectrum with new upgrated SMD chips, not like the ones 1000w, 2000w in the market which still using the old traditonal ones.
IMG_20180831_000410.jpg
 
I’m on my first grow and went with Viparspectra 600w Reflector series. I went with them over the good reviews it received and because they were affordable.

That being said, I purchased about 3 weeks ago a fully assembled/tested HLG 600H Quantum Board. Need the extra brightness for the 8 plants in my tent, and they should be here tomorrow
Thank you for choosing Viparspectra.
 
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