Upgrade to cmh or cob

Flowki · Oct 20, 2017

Just want some input into what you would choose?. With experience using the light, I lean toward cmh in the below setting but do chime in to talk me out of it.

Flower room of 8 plants two lanes wide under scrog, 2x 600hps covers the 3x6 area nicely. The area will expand to 3x10 along with a light upgrade to accommodate. Using another 600 is just too much W and heat with poor spread.

As for what to upgrade to

4x 315's (1 light per two plants) using red/blue/red/blue alternating spectrum's. Cheap wing hoods will be used as I like the spread flexibility when dropping the lights lower (to around 16-18inch) while not focusing the foot print too narrowly, I hope this will play well using alternating bulb spectrum's. As far as I've read the mixture will offer a very nice spectrum evenly spread out across the canopy, for hid at least, on top of providing uv. The cost will fall in at around £1000.

I Have no interest what so ever in DIY cob and was recommended a pre built cob setup from a rui poster.

http://www.budmaster.co.uk/budmaster-horticultural-cob.html

It looks like 3 of the hc6's would be required to spread over the 3x10 area with an effective light distribution. I don't know much about the spectrum offered but at face value £2400 is not an option. If two of these lights could cover the area that's still £1600, is it worth it?, especially when I read of people needing to supplement uv or what ever else.

The other factor that is on my mind is the heat difference.

With a fan speed controller and 8inch in/out the 4x cmh will keep heating costs down to a minimum in colder weather most dominant in my country while not kicking back to idle speed. In summer heat waves the lights will be on alternating 3 or 6 hour intervals (paired or single lighting) to reduce heat. By what I've read this is still enough light to keep them going nicely and will remove the need for ac bills during those few weeks or couple month of the year.

What I wonder about the cobs is if they will run too cool on the ambient and canopy temp. This means the fan controller will be idle too much to maintain upper temp and then co2 will be reduced as a result. In the brief summer spikes all 3 may be able to run but I don't think this upside is worth the cold months downside, should it be one.

Any thoughts welcome.

DankaDank · Oct 20, 2017

Flowki said:
Just want some input into what you would choose?. With experience using the light, I lean toward cmh in the below setting but do chime in to talk me out of it.

Flower room of 8 plants two lanes wide under scrog, 2x 600hps covers the 3x6 area nicely. The area will expand to 3x10 along with a light upgrade to accommodate. Using another 600 is just too much W and heat with poor spread.

As for what to upgrade to

4x 315's (1 light per two plants) using red/blue/red/blue alternating spectrum's. Cheap wing hoods will be used as I like the spread flexibility when dropping the lights lower (to around 16-18inch) while not focusing the foot print too narrowly, I hope this will play well using alternating bulb spectrum's. As far as I've read the mixture will offer a very nice spectrum evenly spread out across the canopy, for hid at least, on top of providing uv. The cost will fall in at around £1000.

I Have no interest what so ever in DIY cob and was recommended a pre built cob setup from a rui poster.

http://www.budmaster.co.uk/budmaster-horticultural-cob.html

It looks like 3 of the hc6's would be required to spread over the 3x10 area with an effective light distribution. I don't know much about the spectrum offered but at face value £2400 is not an option. If two of these lights could cover the area that's still £1600, is it worth it?, especially when I read of people needing to supplement uv or what ever else.

The other factor that is on my mind is the heat difference.

With a fan speed controller and 8inch in/out the 4x cmh will keep heating costs down to a minimum in colder weather most dominant in my country while not kicking back to idle speed. In summer heat waves the lights will be on alternating 3 or 6 hour intervals (paired or single lighting) to reduce heat. By what I've read this is still enough light to keep them going nicely and will remove the need for ac bills during those few weeks or couple month of the year.

What I wonder about the cobs is if they will run too cool on the ambient and canopy temp. This means the fan controller will be idle too much to maintain upper temp and then co2 will be reduced as a result. In the brief summer spikes all 3 may be able to run but I don't think this upside is worth the cold months downside, should it be one.

Any thoughts welcome.

PM me

Budies 101 · Oct 20, 2017

CMH is one of the only lights I have not grown with but that said I like LED far far far far far far better than HPS even tho my LED are only growing the same as my nanolux DE lights with a high end Philips bulb. To me LED are on par (lol) with gavita/nanolux with the best bulbs you can buy... That being said you have to have high end "bulbs" in your LED's or just like with HPS you will grow much less yield and quality. As of now, to me, LED is the way to go because it's less power, smaller profile, more adjustable, no new bulbs needed ever 6-8 months, less heat and if you build yourself it's actually cheaper to build the LED than buy the HPS/CMH.

LED has a future IMO, HPS's time is limited to high costs of crap LED companies milking. My lights that I built are growing far better than I planned and covering a 5x10 unbelievably well, I thought it would cause my grow to suffer. Just think, if my lights at 300watts x 4 lights = 1200watts can grow as well as 2x1000watt HPS than my lights are 40% better than HPS... In the years to come we could see LED's doing the same with watts around 800watts over a 4x8.

Again, I dono about CMH but I usually hear it's used as supplemental to HPS. I don't see why people "in the know," meaning they know of these high producing LED lights would waste their time on tech that's going away unless some massive upgrade is discovered.

Budies 101 · Oct 20, 2017

My lights are PCB now, I have 16 COB builds and 6 PCB lm561c builds. At this point I will only be doing PCB lights unless again some tech is discovered making HPS/COBs or anything else a whole lot better than theya re now.

You asked about CMH or CoB build. I'd suggest PCB lights over COBS, no issue with cobs, just saying the coverage is on a level of it's own. I mean light gets so deep because of how many different directions the lights is coming from that I can wave my entire hand 1 inch over the top of a bud and you hardly see shadowing on that bud... I have said that to a lot of people and shown it to them in person and they chit themselves.

CobKits · Oct 20, 2017

Budies 101 said:
My lights are PCB now, I have 16 COB builds and 6 PCB lm561c builds. At this point I will only be doing PCB lights unless again some tech is discovered making HPS/COBs or anything else a whole lot better than theya re now.

now far are your cobs from your canopy?

a 16 cob rig at 18" or more should offer the same if not better uniformity than 6 boards in the same space

Budies 101 · Oct 21, 2017

CobKits said:
now far are your cobs from your canopy?

a 16 cob rig at 18" or more should offer the same if not better uniformity than 6 boards in the same space

I'm only running 2 COB bards with 4 cobs on each bar, so 8 cobs on this run. I feel that clearly the boards do better uniform, less shadows as I wave my hand just inches over the plants. Don't get me wrong, the cobs are doing great but the boards seem to be better. I also like everything about the boards better, from cooling passive up to 230 watts to less actual lights being needed. 4 PCB > 6 COB lights. The PCB also takes me 10-15 to build with almost no issues VS well over an hour for cob builds due to drilling and running wires. I simply do 4 holes on the heatsink in less than one min, put the pcb on it, put on the sides that hold it together (perfectly no gaps between the pcb/heatsink) and push the neg/pos into the wago inputs. few bolts with hangers and I'm done outside of putting the plug on the driver. The PCB light is far lighter, thinner profile and costs far less than cobs because I only need 4 lights over my 5x10 VS 6 COB lights. The PCB build costs more to build, but not by much. Also, my PCB light per Samsung calculator says I'm at 170lm/w at 300 watts for the light (fan glossing over the light - no passive cooling) VS my cob build that's probably around 150lm/w... When I run the PCB light at 200 watts as I have been to not burn the plants I'm getting even better efficiency.

I am not calling cobs trash by any means, I have like, a shit ton of cob lights. The plants under my cob lights look great too, I'm happy with both I just like working with the PCB lights a lot more.

I get quite a few requests for my lights, I don't mind helping people out but it's not my biz to make lights to sell.

Flowki · Oct 21, 2017

I appreciate the time people are taking to post here but it's not of much help to the OP context.

I don't know what pcb is will have to dig into it, but DIY cob as said is not really a desire. It may be easy I don't know.. not wanting to mess with electrics may be a cliche statement but it's one for a reason.

DankaDank · Oct 21, 2017

Flowki said:
I appreciate the time people are taking to post here but it's not of much help to the OP context.

I don't know what pcb is will have to dig into it, but DIY cob as said is not really a desire. It may be easy I don't know.. not wanting to mess with electrics may be a cliche statement but it's one for a reason.

So you are in 0.91 by 1.83 meter area with 1200 watts of SE HPS.
So let’s say your bulbs and reflectors are new and you are around 25% efficient.
Your total output (PPF) is 1440μmol/s or 1.2μmol/w
(PPFD) is 865.

You are happy with how this is going but want to use less power when you expand.

Now you want to upgrade lighting and increase area to 0.91 by 3 meter space with 1260watts of CMH
Brand new bulb and reflector, CMH is around 36-40 % efficient.
Your PPF is around 2268 μmol/s or 1.8μmol/w
(PPFD) is 831

Budmaster is overpriced and less efficient than CMH so there is no point.

Regarding Heat You will have the same amount of heat +- 60 watts.

Flowki · Oct 21, 2017

DankaDank said:
So you are in 0.91 by 1.83 meter area with 1200 watts of SE HPS.
So let’s say your bulbs and reflectors are new and you are around 25% efficient.
Your total output (PPF) is 1440μmol/s or 1.2μmol/w
(PPFD) is 865.

You are happy with how this is going but want to use less power when you expand.

Now you want to upgrade lighting and increase area to 0.91 by 3 meter space with 1260watts of CMH
Brand new bulb and reflector, CMH is around 36-40 % efficient.
Your PPF is around 2268 μmol/s or 1.8μmol/w
(PPFD) is 831

Budmaster is overpriced and less efficient than CMH so there is no point.

Regarding Heat You will have the same amount of heat +- 60 watts.

That's the perfect type of info really appreciate it. Out of interest do you know of a UK pre built cob company that could rival the cmh coverage but more importantly initial investment?. I could justify a slight price increase because as it stands cmh bulb replacement every 18 month will be £600. So if the cob investment is around £1500 with no maintenance for at-least the next 2 year it can be justified.

On top of this question. I understand that aside from initial investment cob is more efficient W for W. However what is your take on the uv provided by cmh and potential supplementation required when using cob?. It seems like that supplementation detracts from the cobs efficiency bonus.

This also ties into my earlier question. If cob is more efficient W for W then that means you would be using less W to cover the same area as cmh, then it puts out less heat and may also need heating supplement for ambient temps, or you just use more cob to get heating + light but ofc that will increase investment. If cob does become an option I'd love to have the answers to these questions prior.

Also I understand that one of hid bonuses (subjective I guess) is that it points the heat toward the canopy so that you can maintain good canopy temps. Cob so I've read points the heat up and into extraction. How do you suppose this effects canopy temps and what is the result of that?, if it's an issue.

Ryante55 · Oct 21, 2017

Flowki said:
Just want some input into what you would choose?. With experience using the light, I lean toward cmh in the below setting but do chime in to talk me out of it.

Flower room of 8 plants two lanes wide under scrog, 2x 600hps covers the 3x6 area nicely. The area will expand to 3x10 along with a light upgrade to accommodate. Using another 600 is just too much W and heat with poor spread.

As for what to upgrade to

4x 315's (1 light per two plants) using red/blue/red/blue alternating spectrum's. Cheap wing hoods will be used as I like the spread flexibility when dropping the lights lower (to around 16-18inch) while not focusing the foot print too narrowly, I hope this will play well using alternating bulb spectrum's. As far as I've read the mixture will offer a very nice spectrum evenly spread out across the canopy, for hid at least, on top of providing uv. The cost will fall in at around £1000.

I Have no interest what so ever in DIY cob and was recommended a pre built cob setup from a rui poster.

http://www.budmaster.co.uk/budmaster-horticultural-cob.html

It looks like 3 of the hc6's would be required to spread over the 3x10 area with an effective light distribution. I don't know much about the spectrum offered but at face value £2400 is not an option. If two of these lights could cover the area that's still £1600, is it worth it?, especially when I read of people needing to supplement uv or what ever else.

The other factor that is on my mind is the heat difference.

With a fan speed controller and 8inch in/out the 4x cmh will keep heating costs down to a minimum in colder weather most dominant in my country while not kicking back to idle speed. In summer heat waves the lights will be on alternating 3 or 6 hour intervals (paired or single lighting) to reduce heat. By what I've read this is still enough light to keep them going nicely and will remove the need for ac bills during those few weeks or couple month of the year.

What I wonder about the cobs is if they will run too cool on the ambient and canopy temp. This means the fan controller will be idle too much to maintain upper temp and then co2 will be reduced as a result. In the brief summer spikes all 3 may be able to run but I don't think this upside is worth the cold months downside, should it be one.

Any thoughts welcome.

Expand your budget a little an get 2 hlg550 I think they have a discount code this month cmh is cool but the price is so close now it's better to just spend a little more for the led 4 cmh would end up being the same price after 1 bulb change

Oochicoochi420 · Nov 5, 2017

Flowki said:
That's the perfect type of info really appreciate it. Out of interest do you know of a UK pre built cob company that could rival the cmh coverage but more importantly initial investment?. I could justify a slight price increase because as it stands cmh bulb replacement every 18 month will be £600. So if the cob investment is around £1500 with no maintenance for at-least the next 2 year it can be justified.

On top of this question. I understand that aside from initial investment cob is more efficient W for W. However what is your take on the uv provided by cmh and potential supplementation required when using cob?. It seems like that supplementation detracts from the cobs efficiency bonus.

This also ties into my earlier question. If cob is more efficient W for W then that means you would be using less W to cover the same area as cmh, then it puts out less heat and may also need heating supplement for ambient temps, or you just use more cob to get heating + light but ofc that will increase investment. If cob does become an option I'd love to have the answers to these questions prior.

Also I understand that one of hid bonuses (subjective I guess) is that it points the heat toward the canopy so that you can maintain good canopy temps. Cob so I've read points the heat up and into extraction. How do you suppose this effects canopy temps and what is the result of that?, if it's an issue.

Search for Jack Freeman here and on youtube, uk based LED builder who will build u a light far more efficient than a Budmaster for a lot less.

Flowki · Nov 5, 2017

Oochicoochi420 said:
Search for Jack Freeman here and on youtube, uk based LED builder who will build u a light far more efficient than a Budmaster for a lot less.

Thanks for the recommendation.

growin-Jables · Sep 1, 2018

Budies 101 said:
CMH is one of the only lights I have not grown with but that said I like LED far far far far far far better than HPS even tho my LED are only growing the same as my nanolux DE lights with a high end Philips bulb. To me LED are on par (lol) with gavita/nanolux with the best bulbs you can buy... That being said you have to have high end "bulbs" in your LED's or just like with HPS you will grow much less yield and quality. As of now, to me, LED is the way to go because it's less power, smaller profile, more adjustable, no new bulbs needed ever 6-8 months, less heat and if you build yourself it's actually cheaper to build the LED than buy the HPS/CMH.

LED has a future IMO, HPS's time is limited to high costs of crap LED companies milking. My lights that I built are growing far better than I planned and covering a 5x10 unbelievably well, I thought it would cause my grow to suffer. Just think, if my lights at 300watts x 4 lights = 1200watts can grow as well as 2x1000watt HPS than my lights are 40% better than HPS... In the years to come we could see LED's doing the same with watts around 800watts over a 4x8.

Again, I dono about CMH but I usually hear it's used as supplemental to HPS. I don't see why people "in the know," meaning they know of these high producing LED lights would waste their time on tech that's going away unless some massive upgrade is discovered.

Have you had a chance to try cmh yet,? I use to think the same thing as you dude..untill i tried it...now it's all I ever use in flower usually. Pics posted was my first run. 630cmh. 700 grams in a 5x5 only filled 2/3 full with 6 short plants. I didnt expect there to be almost zero stretching with these lights. So now I just grow them an extra week or two out before flipping. Quality and terpenes are like nothing I ever saw when using hps+led. The buds are not as dense as they were under hps. With a bit more leaf to calyx . But overall comparison the characteristics I see from cmh beat the kind of characteristics I see with hps+led 2:1. Hps will definitely grow tasty high thc % stuff. But the terpenes and sheer resin stacks upon stacks that I see is just unmatched

Humple · Sep 1, 2018

growin-Jables said:
Have you had a chance to try cmh yet,? I use to think the same thing as you dude..untill i tried it...now it's all I ever use in flower usually. Pics posted was my first run. 630cmh. 700 grams in a 5x5 only filled 2/3 full with 6 short plants. I didnt expect there to be almost zero stretching with these lights. So now I just grow them an extra week or two out before flipping. Quality and terpenes are like nothing I ever saw when using hps+led. The buds are not as dense as they were under hps. With a bit more leaf to calyx . But overall comparison the characteristics I see from cmh beat the kind of characteristics I see with hps+led 2:1. Hps will definitely grow tasty high thc % stuff. But the terpenes and sheer resin stacks upon stacks that I see is just unmatched

So you were running HPS and LED together? What LEDs were you using?

Humple · Sep 1, 2018

OP, if you genuinely need the heat, and there isn't a way to efficiently supplement it, you're probably better off with CMH. That said, with the CMH, you may find that you have to supplement cooling during the summer, and if the ongoing cost of bulb replacement is going to cost more - in the long run - than heating your space in the winter, go with LED.

Lordhooha · Sep 1, 2018

growin-Jables said:
Have you had a chance to try cmh yet,? I use to think the same thing as you dude..untill i tried it...now it's all I ever use in flower usually. Pics posted was my first run. 630cmh. 700 grams in a 5x5 only filled 2/3 full with 6 short plants. I didnt expect there to be almost zero stretching with these lights. So now I just grow them an extra week or two out before flipping. Quality and terpenes are like nothing I ever saw when using hps+led. The buds are not as dense as they were under hps. With a bit more leaf to calyx . But overall comparison the characteristics I see from cmh beat the kind of characteristics I see with hps+led 2:1. Hps will definitely grow tasty high thc % stuff. But the terpenes and sheer resin stacks upon stacks that I see is just unmatched

I'm trying out some cmh 630 de for the first time. I usually rock LEDs. But winter time is harder needing extra heat in my basement. I run geothermal and for summer time cooling wise its unmatched but winter in Michigan in a basement it only heats so much.

growin-Jables · Sep 1, 2018

Humple said:
So you were running HPS and LED together? What LEDs were you using?

I ran viparspectra with hps. I was considering trying out one of timber grow lights models. But a buddy of mine told me that he was slightly disappointed with his expectations. Hea trying another round with them to see if it was just. Matter of dialing in. But at the same time like the OP mentioned. Here in the Pacific Nortwest I really need the heat from my cmh fixtures to keep from running a heater. So I've put trying the timber lights on hold. Really on way I would ever see it worth while switching is if I lived somewhere that never had a cool season.

Ryante55 · Sep 1, 2018

growin-Jables said:
I ran viparspectra with hps. I was considering trying out one of timber grow lights models. But a buddy of mine told me that he was slightly disappointed with his expectations. Hea trying another round with them to see if it was just. Matter of dialing in. But at the same time like the OP mentioned. Here in the Pacific Nortwest I really need the heat from my cmh fixtures to keep from running a heater. So I've put trying the timber lights on hold. Really on way I would ever see it worth while switching is if I lived somewhere that never had a cool season.

What were his expectations? I think sometimes people want too much from led and alot of times people don't run the lights close enough to the canopy I see too many pictures of lights 2 feet above the plants with led

growin-Jables · Sep 2, 2018

I think again there was just alot of hyped up claims that people may have exaggerated or he simply just was naive about expectations. He is not what I would call in experienced or beginner status. Hes been using a mix of HPS and CMH. But heat plays a big factor where hes located. And he invested converting his smallest flowering room over to timbers . Honestly not even sure which chips hes using. That's the other confusing part for me regarding leds. So many options and it's hard to find one single brand that has lots of verified proof. I always see good grows with a variety of brands . Quantum Samsung cree etc. He said the quality wasnt what he was disappointed about. More or less over all yield

Humple · Sep 2, 2018

growin-Jables said:
I think again there was just alot of hyped up claims that people may have exaggerated or he simply just was naive about expectations. He is not what I would call in experienced or beginner status. Hes been using a mix of HPS and CMH. But heat plays a big factor where hes located. And he invested converting his smallest flowering room over to timbers . Honestly not even sure which chips hes using. That's the other confusing part for me regarding leds. So many options and it's hard to find one single brand that has lots of verified proof. I always see good grows with a variety of brands . Quantum Samsung cree etc. He said the quality wasnt what he was disappointed about. More or less over all yield

There's a very real learning curve when moving from HID to LED. Poke around the threads here, and you'll see ample evidence that a properly dialed-in LED grow will yield every bit as well as HID, at 60-75% of the wattage. But this requires that the environment and nutritional inputs be adjusted - temp, humidity, nutes, they all have to be tweaked a bit from what someone is accustomed to using under HID.

Upgrade to cmh or cob

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