My first grow and I think I might need more lighting before first harvest.
Early stages of 4 plants; 2x Chocolope, 1x Gorilla Glue, 1x Gold Leaf from seeds in a 4’x8’x6.5’ tall tent. I have a Viparspectra PAR700 LED fixture, an exhaust fan, an oscillating fan, a humidifier, and a small heater for when the lights are off. The room the tent is in gets in the low 60*s F and is very dry. I’m using timers and temperature controllers to keep conditions right at all times.
I’m definitely handy enough but would prefer to just buy. I already have enough projects at work and around the house. I don’t mind spending ‘some’ but not crazy money. The light I have now, the Viparspectra PAR700, is within budget to get another. But is that my best option?
Diy will save you some money, but plug and play is pretty convenient.
If you go with qb’s/eb strips or quality cobs aim for 35w/sq ft.
Horticulture lighting group
Timber grow lights
Rapid led
I’m willing to listen on diy. But dang, I can have another PAR700 which has 3 dimmers for the blue/white/red and all hanging hardware on my doorstep in 2 days for 3 bills.
$300 for $328 watts isn’t bad. It’s up to you. I bought plenty of amazon blurple lights in the beginning, and they grow fine.
They’re just not efficient.
When you start growing more plants and adding more lights, you soon realize that all those watts add up $$$
I’m only growing 4 plants, and I’m all QB/cob/eb strips, I’m pulling 1kw/hour with lights/fans. That doesn’t include the heater that’s set to 70f.
I have used the Mars pro II 160 in 2x4 tent for a while. It worked well. It is Mars Newest light but not the best cost-effective one. Their reflector 192 can work in 4x4 area. The price is not expensive for beginners. Maybe you can have a look.
If you look at spectrum of Viparspectra led, you will find the red light is very few, it is bad for bloom stage. So I think you can add a led with more red light, Mars Hydro or California light are good choice. The two brands are cost-effective.
With the exception of maybe a couple of companies, you get what you pay for. There’s no reason for multi channel dimming on the vipar lights because the best is with all at 100%. So you only really gain there with cutting power in smaller space when you don’t need it. It would take about 4 or so of those vipars to recommended par levels in that size space. One $800 light will replace two of them with less power consumption. So a nicer light isn’t really that more expensive.
Thanks for the help. @dbrn32, what would it cost to diy something to augment what I have? Could/should I build 2 smaller, more bloom-friendly lights to straddle the viparspectra?
I don’t even know what I would need to cover these 4 plants thru to harvest. The room is big and dedicated so I bought a big tent. I don’t necessarily need to fill it.
That would be biggest thing to figure out. If you only need about half of the space, no sense lighting the whole thing. A typical build for 4x4 runs about $600-$800. Even those can be divided up into multiple lights and done little by little. You should also be thinking about what you may want to do in the next couple of years and plan that into purchases you make now.
A 200-300 watt cob build can be really flexible in your space. So would something like xl 260 qb kit.
Hmmm, maybe I could slide everything to one side and separate with panda film. Use the viparspectra for veg on one side and build lights for bloom on the other. Leave the exhaust fan in the bloom side and humdifier in veg side. Kind of a two-stage tent. Anybody do something like that?
I love these new GrowMau lights from RapidLed that @dbrn32 and @TDubWilly turned me on to. They’re about $1 a watt and they’ll blow any Amazon light away. I modified the 5x5 light I bought
For my space, They’re very easy to put together. It looks like you would need a 2x4 light for that space. I had 3 of the good 300 actual watt Amazon lights and I just wasn’t getting enough yields to make the edibles I need for the pain @poundcake.
Those Growmou5 RapidLED Chilled Logic lights look pretty cool. For the 4 plants I have would 2’x4’ be enough or would I need 4’x4’? Or 3’x3’? @OldSkunk @dbrn32
I don’t mind spending ‘some’ but not crazy money. The light I have now, the Viparspectra PAR700, is within budget to get another. But is that my best option?
