Can 700 watts of LED strips grow trees???

Big Green Thumb said:

4' x 4'

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Sweet... People usually expect to pull a couple of pounds from such a space with that kind of wattage.

It has been one week now since I flipped to flowering light schedule and these Cookies had grown to within 3" of the light again so it i raised it another 4" or so the PBD aren't gaining height as fast as the cookies, but they are getting bushy as hell.

Platinum blue dream

welcome to the house of light

BGT, looks great. cant wait to see her flower.

Quick qeustion for ya, i have everything for my light build, and just getting the wiring down on paper before doing it.

I have 2 switches for the spectrums like I talked about, decided, whyyyy not. Also got the meter you told me to get. Im pretty sure I have it right, but if you get a chance to look it over for me, Id be thrilled for your time brother. I will be soldering and shrink wrapping ( like we talked about ) the connections via the strips to a main, then 1 in for each spectrum.

THANKS BRO,

Big Green Thumb said:

So I am limited to 6 plants in order to stay on the misdemeanor side of felony where I live and have built some 2' x 4' LED strip light setups. Currently my grow area is 4' x 4' but can easily be expanded to 4' x 6'. Right now I have my 6 plants vegging in a 2' x 4' section and have 1 2x4 led over it at around 210 watts. Each of these light fixtures can produce 360 watts after the power supply, or around 420 watts at the wall each. As of right now, I have 2 lights built with everything to build 2 more on hand, so 720 (840 at the wall) watts ready to go and 1420 (1680 at the wall) potentially available.

My goal here is a huge, quality yield growing 6 plants under my LEDs. So my question is how do I maximize my yield with what I have on hand? My plants are 3 platinum blue dreams and 3 animal cookies. The plants are being heavily trained into manifold/mainlines now with 8-12 colas each. Should I veg longer and double the number of colas? Sorry, I don't have any pics yet to show what's going on. I am just looking for direction on how to proceed. I am not in a huge rush and can veg a while but quicker is always better (that's what I tell my wife!).

Any advice is greatly appreciated!!!!

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I think that when you say trees most people will think that you mean tall plants. For that I would say that you need to understand the inverse square proportion law and look into lateral lighting.

Since you said you were planning a manifold style training program I'd say your best bet would be to figure out how much area your lights can cover and fill that space. Doing a manifold I'd train the plants out to the edges of the area you can effectively light and don't let the tops in your grid develope too much hight before flowering.

InTheValley said:

BGT, looks great. cant wait to see her flower.

Quick qeustion for ya, i have everything for my light build, and just getting the wiring down on paper before doing it.

I have 2 switches for the spectrums like I talked about, decided, whyyyy not. Also got the meter you told me to get. Im pretty sure I have it right, but if you get a chance to look it over for me, Id be thrilled for your time brother. I will be soldering and shrink wrapping ( like we talked about ) the connections via the strips to a main, then 1 in for each spectrum.

THANKS BRO,

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Looks like it will work to me! Which display/meter did you buy? How many amps is it rated for? I have been using the 20 amp displays that just wire in, wire out. The 100 amp displays are wired a bit differently.

OLD MOTHER SATIVA said:

welcome to the house of light

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I still need to get a couple disco balls to put in here!

Hey BGT, its the 20A, Peacefair -PZEM-031, with the build in shunt. Yeap, easy input/ loadout design

Thanks again for your help man,

OK, so I just hooked up 1 strip, everything is fine. The lowest I can turn down the P/S is 10.5 volts.
5k strip - 10.5 volts - 8.2 watts-.78 amps
3K strip - 10.5 volts - 6.2 watts-.60 amps

turned to 12.00 volts
5K strip - 12.0 volts- 15.9 watts- 1.34 amps
3K strip - 12.0 volts- 13.3 watts- 1.11 amps

Both on at 10.5 volts
15.2 watts - 1.45 amps 4,400 lux at 12 inches, 141 par

Both on at 12.0 volts
30 watts - 2.5amps 8,000 lux at 12 inches, 220 par

So i take it we are running these soft, so 10.5 volts is the one to go with i presume?
144 watts roughly for all 20 strips at 10.5 volts (13.8 amps)
292 watts roughly for all 20 strips at 12.0 volts (24.5 amps)

Now, my meter is max 20 amps. So, i take it, i cant go past that, but my P/S is 30amps, 360 watt

BUT, consensuses is soft anyways, right?
OK, just wanted to throw these numbers at you BGT, and see what You have to say.

Thanks

How big is your grow area? I'd shoot for 1 amp or less per strip (20 amps or less out of your power supply). Figure on at least 35 watts per square foot up to around 50 w/ft2. More light = more yield as long as you don't burn up your plants. Granted you will be producing more heat at higher wattage, but still more light, more ganja.

Big Green Thumb said:

How big is your grow area? I'd shoot for 1 amp or less per strip (20 amps or less out of your power supply). Figure on at least 35 watts per square foot up to around 50 w/ft2. More light = more yield as long as you don't burn up your plants. Granted you will be producing more heat at higher wattage, but still more light, more ganja.

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It's a strategy with rapidly diminishing returns;

Its only a 2x2,

I just received new seeds and starting to germinate 2 Cookie Wreck and 2 Triple Nova seeds. I sure hope these are show stopper buds when done. The current plants have around 7 weeks left so these seeds should be vegged long enough to throw in the disco light room then.

https://greenpointseeds.com/collections/cannaventure-seeds/products/cookie-wreck?variant=33611645703
https://greenpointseeds.com/collections/cannaventure-seeds/products/triple-nova?variant=46298702931

InTheValley said:

OK, so I just hooked up 1 strip, everything is fine. The lowest I can turn down the P/S is 10.5 volts.
5k strip - 10.5 volts - 8.2 watts-.78 amps
3K strip - 10.5 volts - 6.2 watts-.60 amps

turned to 12.00 volts
5K strip - 12.0 volts- 15.9 watts- 1.34 amps
3K strip - 12.0 volts- 13.3 watts- 1.11 amps

Both on at 10.5 volts
15.2 watts - 1.45 amps 4,400 lux at 12 inches, 141 par

Both on at 12.0 volts
30 watts - 2.5amps 8,000 lux at 12 inches, 220 par

So i take it we are running these soft, so 10.5 volts is the one to go with i presume?
144 watts roughly for all 20 strips at 10.5 volts (13.8 amps)
292 watts roughly for all 20 strips at 12.0 volts (24.5 amps)

Now, my meter is max 20 amps. So, i take it, i cant go past that, but my P/S is 30amps, 360 watt

BUT, consensuses is soft anyways, right?
OK, just wanted to throw these numbers at you BGT, and see what You have to say.

Thanks

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Be sure to post pics. Everyone loves pictures. With this power supply, do the strips seem "bright"? If you have a build thread going, please post a link so I can follow along.

Hey BGT, I will for sure start a journal. I have 4 little ones 10 days old. Building the frame tonight.

I hooked all 20 up, wiring all good. I plan to run at 26 inches, and get 800ish par center, 750 in the corners.

12.volts 225 watts 17.6 amps
14 inches-- 1270 par--70,000 lux -- 225 watts
26 inches-- 800 par--45,000 lux -- 225 watts
36 inches-- 630 par--32,800 lux --225 watts (680 par @ 255watts) (20amps, meter max)
47 inches-- 500 par-- 20,000 lux --225 watts

10.5 volts 95watts - 8.7 amps
14 inches -- 620 par-- 30,000 lux -- 95 watts
26 inches -- 450 par-- 24,000 lux -- 95 watts
36 inches -- 360 par-- 18,000 lux -- 95 watts
47 inches -- 300 par-- 13,000 lux -- 95 watts

Not to bad numbers. The par numbers are from my DIY Par meter I made, sooooooooo, we know that story, lol..

I have them in the aluminum extrusions, laying on a wooden table, for 2 hours let them run, and the table barely even got warm. So thats cool, literally, lol.. Still trying to decide how I want to build the encasement. Waiting on a friend with aluminum working experience, for the aluminum, but i might make a fancy wood encasement. mainframe and aluminum sheet ofcourse, but the outter edges all wood. lol..

I made a badass poker table once. Plus will have 2 fans for cooling.
Good shit on the seeds too bro,

If i turn it to 11.5 volts, at 26inches, where i prefer to have the light, I get 600 par with 38,000 lux, using 188 watts, thats not to dam bad bro.

I dont know what the max for these strips, but Im perfectly fine with these numbers for sure. No need to crank it up, right.. I also think the aluminum extrusions are helping reflect the light down.

About 2 1/2 weeks into flower now and they are doing good. Animal Cookies
The girls were thirsty this morning. Check out those sagging leaves.

And these are the much shorter, bushier Platinum Blue Dreams

Very nice bud development for this age into flower, I think anyways. gonna be a nice haul bro, great job thus far.

Almost 3 weeks into flower. PBD

Big Green Thumb said:

About 2 1/2 weeks into flower now and they are doing good. Animal CookiesView attachment 4021924
The girls were thirsty this morning. Check out those sagging leaves.
View attachment 4021925
And these are the much shorter, bushier Platinum Blue Dreams
View attachment 4021926

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This actually looks like the future