Question about HPS dimmable ballast: should I be running my ballast at 250,400,600 or super lumens in flower?

[Dunnysparks]

I'm on week 4-5 in flower, I have a 3.6by3.6 philizon tent 80in on height. Powered by a vivosun 600watt dimmable ballast with air cooled hood. Its exhausted by a 6in fan and 6in carbon filter outside of the tent. A Xfinity booster fan is used for intake air. My temps are running 72-76 in the day and 64-68 at night. My light is set at 400watt. What should I be running at? It's only 2plants in this tent currently.

 

[Killian]

I run mine 100% 600w from start to finish.

 

[013]

Provided you can keep temps in check - I’d crank that puppy up, but that’s just me.

 

[Dunnysparks]

What's the max on the temp in flower? Will running it on 600 help get a bigger yield?

 

[Weaselcracker]

The bulb is most efficient at full wattage- 600w. Basically- on the 400w setting you pay for 400 watts of electricity but don’t receive 2/3 of the light. Also the light spectrum becomes skewed a bit. But if you really don’t need the extra light because your plant canopy only covers a small area, then dimming it could still be fine.

Re the temps - most people try to avoid 30°C/ 86°F and higher.

Your buds won’t necessarily be much bigger because you have it set to 600. But you could definitely get a bigger yield than you do in situations where the lower and more shaded buds don't fully ripen at 400w.
If the 400w setting wasn’t quite doing it- the 600W setting would. More quality bud and less fluff. But situations vary and there are lots of other factors too.

Personally I’d just turn it up to 600 and ask questions later.

 

[Dunnysparks]

Cool, thanks for the good advice. I'm go iui nd to turn it. This vivosun has a setting that say super lumens. Should I use tht setting?

 

[Weaselcracker]

That setting basically up the wattage about 10%. I don’t usually put mine on that setting just because I’m kind of maxing out my power draw already. But go for it if you feel like it. I don’t think there’s much drawback other than the obvious - a tiny bit more heat, power drain, and shortened bulb life.