1000w vs. 600w

In every thread I read comparing 600w HIDs and 1000w HIDs I see a ton of people repeating "The 1000w is better because of penetration." I was wondering exactly what this meant? Why would a 1000w concentrated onto an area 1.66x as large as the area a 600w is concentrated onto penetrate any further? It wouldn't. And 600w bulbs are more efficient. So the only benefit I can see coming from 1000w setups is less lighting equipment needed, though you'd quickly make up for the cost of equipment from the money saved on electricity using 600w.

For the actual footprint it can. A stationary 1000 has a footprint of a 5x5 area whereas a 600 has one at 4x4. I myself use 600's because they are more efficient. I can match the lumen output of a 1000 just by closing the distance to the canopy without burning tops since the hoods are air cooled. To each their own..

<<<member of the 600 Club

Member of the 400 club!
4 400s beat 2 600s
Haha also, distance from canopy is often misunderstood.
Hoods effect the area your light is covering (focusing light) and if your in a reflective area, than you can raise lights hgher without greatly affecting overall w/sqft or lumens or whatever makes ya happy

calicat said:

For the actual footprint it can. A stationary 1000 has a footprint of a 5x5 area whereas a 600 has one at 4x4. I myself use 600's because they are more efficient. I can match the lumen output of a 1000 just by closing the distance to the canopy without burning tops since the hoods are air cooled. To each their own..

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But imagine doing the same with a 1000 Watt HPS, Using very good inline fans in the fall and winter I can keep my 1000 Watt air cooled HID so cool you can put your hand on the glass and its cold. Because of this I can get my 1000 watt light within the min. distance (10-11 inches) for a 1000 watt, any closer and the lumen output is too much it burns that plant itself. How do I make up for lack of coverage area if I'm only 10 inches away? A track that moves the light slowly back and forth 4 feet. You can't match that Lumen output with the 600 watt, it's just not possible. If your looking to save money on the electric bill, the 600 is the way to go but if you can control the temp of a 1000 watt it's 100% worth it.

m420p said:

But imagine doing the same with a 1000 Watt HPS, Using very good inline fans in the fall and winter I can keep my 1000 Watt air cooled HID so cool you can put your hand on the glass and its cold. Because of this I can get my 1000 watt light within the min. distance (10-11 inches) for a 1000 watt, any closer and the lumen output is too much it burns that plant itself. How do I make up for lack of coverage area if I'm only 10 inches away? A track that moves the light slowly back and forth 4 feet. You can't match that Lumen output with the 600 watt, it's just not possible. If your looking to save money on the electric bill, the 600 is the way to go but if you can control the temp of a 1000 watt it's 100% worth it.

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I like it. And yeah it's obvious that with more energy given to the plant, the more it will produce. So it only makes sense that 1000w is better. Definately when you have the light moving around. I'd probably 180 my plants throughout the day every day to get the coverage to both sides once I move indoors

m420p said:

But imagine doing the same with a 1000 Watt HPS, Using very good inline fans in the fall and winter I can keep my 1000 Watt air cooled HID so cool you can put your hand on the glass and its cold. Because of this I can get my 1000 watt light within the min. distance (10-11 inches) for a 1000 watt, any closer and the lumen output is too much it burns that plant itself. How do I make up for lack of coverage area if I'm only 10 inches away? A track that moves the light slowly back and forth 4 feet. You can't match that Lumen output with the 600 watt, it's just not possible. If your looking to save money on the electric bill, the 600 is the way to go but if you can control the temp of a 1000 watt it's 100% worth it.

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2x 600w in a dual bulb reflector would more than match the output. Would be 35000 more lumens for only 200w more power. So I could say the same thing except in reverse. 1x 600w HPS & 1x 600w MH would be even better; 20,000 less lumens (still 15,000 more than a 1000w), but much improved spectrum and UVB for quality and potency from the MH. I'd see no reason to put it on a track though; you want your plants saturated during the whole lighting cycle, so multiple evenly distributed lights would be much better than a single moving light. Tracks are really only great for mothers you don't need booming with growth.

Nightmaresgrowing said:

I like it. And yeah it's obvious that with more energy given to the plant, the more it will produce. So it only makes sense that 1000w is better. Definately when you have the light moving around. I'd probably 180 my plants throughout the day every day to get the coverage to both sides once I move indoors

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LOL, yeah, more light is better than less light, for sure. i don't think that's what was up for debate. obviously 1x 1000w would do better than 1x 600w.............................................................................................................................................

calicat said:

For the actual footprint it can. A stationary 1000 has a footprint of a 5x5 area whereas a 600 has one at 4x4. I myself use 600's because they are more efficient. I can match the lumen output of a 1000 just by closing the distance to the canopy without burning tops since the hoods are air cooled. To each their own..

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It's actually harder to get 1000w bulbs close enough to the canopy. They produce more heat per watt than 600w bulbs. And they concentrate light more heavily, which makes even lighting more more difficult and makes burning parts of your canopy easier.

PendulumMan said:

It's actually harder to get 1000w bulbs close enough to the canopy. They produce more heat per watt than 600w bulbs. And they concentrate light more heavily, which makes even lighting more more difficult and makes burning parts of your canopy easier.

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that's just true. I can keep my 1000w 6 to 8 inchs from plants, but it's air cooled, and temps stay at 79f.

209 Cali closet grower said:

that's just true. I can keep my 1000w 6 to 8 inchs from plants, but it's air cooled, and temps stay at 79f.

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I assume you mean "that's not true." Anyway, I didn't say it's all the difficult to get a 1000w very close to plants, just saying it's difficult than with a 600w, due to more heat per watt and more light/heat coming out of a similar sized piece of glass making more drastic differences in light (hotspots). This doesn't mean you can't get a 1000w 6 inches from the plant; it just means while 6 inches is as close as you can get with a 1000w, under the same conditions you should be able to get within 3-4 inches with a 600w (though you might light bleach the plants, as at 3 inches from a 600w a plant is getting a lot more light than 6 inches from a 1000w). Anyways, I see no reason you'd want plants 6 inches from a 1000w bulb; that's like 15,000 lumens/sq ft. Plants can't utilize that much light, even with CO2 supplementation.

PendulumMan said:

In every thread I read comparing 600w HIDs and 1000w HIDs I see a ton of people repeating "The 1000w is better because of penetration." I was wondering exactly what this meant? Why would a 1000w concentrated onto an area 1.66x as large as the area a 600w is concentrated onto penetrate any further? It wouldn't. And 600w bulbs are more efficient. So the only benefit I can see coming from 1000w setups is less lighting equipment needed, though you'd quickly make up for the cost of equipment from the money saved on electricity using 600w.

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The light, colors and shadows, what our eyes see is one thing. What our plants see and use is completely different. PAR light is what a plant uses. It creates no shadows, its passes through a plants tissue. And while passing through the plant captures a small percentage of that energy and uses it. The rest filters on through. Being the R in PAR stands for radiation. The more watts or energy expended, more radiation emitted. More watts, more penetration.
600 vs 1000 though rests on far too many factors to ever say one is better than the other...

m420p said:

But imagine doing the same with a 1000 Watt HPS, Using very good inline fans in the fall and winter I can keep my 1000 Watt air cooled HID so cool you can put your hand on the glass and its cold. Because of this I can get my 1000 watt light within the min. distance (10-11 inches) for a 1000 watt, any closer and the lumen output is too much it burns that plant itself. How do I make up for lack of coverage area if I'm only 10 inches away? A track that moves the light slowly back and forth 4 feet. You can't match that Lumen output with the 600 watt, it's just not possible. If your looking to save money on the electric bill, the 600 is the way to go but if you can control the temp of a 1000 watt it's 100% worth it.

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Hey! M420p, just wondering where from and how much your 4ft light rail cost, please post a link or required information please, thanks,Kenny ken.

Alexander Supertramp said:

The light, colors and shadows, what our eyes see is one thing. What our plants see and use is completely different. PAR light is what a plant uses. It creates no shadows, its passes through a plants tissue. And while passing through the plant captures a small percentage of that energy and uses it. The rest filters on through. Being the R in PAR stands for radiation. The more watts or energy expended, more radiation emitted. More watts, more penetration.
600 vs 1000 though rests on far too many factors to ever say one is better than the other...

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The comparison is not 1 bulb vs 1 bulb. It's performance of each using same wattage (6x1000w vs 10x600w). 10x 600w puts out more PAR light than 6x 1000w.

I realize what we see is far removed from what a plant "sees." Our eyes adjust to luminosity so that relative brightness is generally pretty similar even when actual brightness is much less or much more than it appears (such as if you stare at the sun for a minute then walk into a dimly lit room, will seem almost pitch dark). I don't really see hot that applies here. I'm talking about lumens, which is the standard unit of measurement for the amount of visible electromagnetic radiation emitted from an object. Luckily, this unit of measurement fits pretty well with the spectrum plants use, which falls almost perfectly within the visible spectrum, with just a tiny bit in UV and IR. This would only really matter if the spectrum between a 600w and 1000w of the same model varied appreciably. It doesn't. Lumens is an accurate measurement for plant-usable-light when comparing different wattage HID bulbs.

I'm not really gonna read this thread, just because I find myself repeating the same exact thing over and over again.

Light penetration isn't the only factor in growing. If you cannot dissipate the heat, who cares what light your running with.

1000W magnetic ballast draws almost 1200W. You can buy a splitter and run 2 600W lights off of the 1 magnetic ballast (If your concerned about footprint)

Your electrical load is a factor too, you can't (well, shouldn't) run 2 1000w lights off of a single breaker when using 120v wiring. You can run 2 600's easily though.

Take it from someones personal experience. I grow in hydro because I did the dirt thing and am onto bigger and better things. People compliment the taste of soil grown.. but, I could care less about the taste if there's a production increase. Hydro tastes just fine to me. Show me the production numbers. That's why I also went with CO2. The numbers vs. investment cost do all the talking.

I did the 400, 600, and 1000W. 1000W are the way to go. If you want side lighting or supplemental lighting, get some 400's to go with them, so you can run 1400w on one circuit. (120v)

I also run 1000's because the growth rate and nug density, overall, seems to be better.

You'll fight heat a lot more with 1000's vs. 600's. With an open reflector, expect about a 1F degree temperature rise per 100W. 100W = +1F (depending on the size of your room obviously, im referring to a 4x8x7 space)

Krondizzel said:

I'm not really gonna read this thread, just because I find myself repeating the same exact thing over and over again.

Light penetration isn't the only factor in growing. If you cannot dissipate the heat, who cares what light your running with.

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Wasn't talking about heat issues. That isn't so much the bulb as the system it's put into. With proper setup light bleaching would be an issue long before heat.

I think I should rephrase the question: Is there any scientific evidence or information which shows that 1000w bulbs do/would do better than 600w bulbs per watt? I can't find any. Everything I can find points towards 600w bulbs doing better per watt.

PendulumMan said:

I think I should rephrase the question: Is there any scientific evidence or information which shows that 1000w bulbs do/would do better than 600w bulbs per watt? I can't find any. Everything I can find points towards 600w bulbs doing better per watt.

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My very informal research showed that 600s and 1000s are about the same: 150 lumens per watt. This suggests to me that heat per watt will be the same ... which makes sense from a physical perspective.
I am also under the impression that a 600HPS and a 1000HPS (same brand of lamp) will have comparable spectral output.

That said, I'm a big fan of a light on a mover. 1x600 energized a 4x6 grow area and yielded me north of a pound on my very first hydro attempt (second grow over all). I never got a chance to optimize it. cn

I use two 600a instead of a 1000 for most of the reasons you list. However I grow small plants or lollipop larger plants and collect my buds from the canopy. If you are growing large talk bushes 1000s do penetrate deeper into the canopy.

PendulumMan said:

I think I should rephrase the question: Is there any scientific evidence or information which shows that 1000w bulbs do/would do better than 600w bulbs per watt? I can't find any. Everything I can find points towards 600w bulbs doing better per watt.

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You're just going have to find out for your self. As I've had to my self. I love 600w, but 1000w just kick ass. The bulb is just so sexy