plant size using hlg 600r in tent

Hello experts, I am closing in on taking advantage of the sale on the 600r right now and was reading some of the info on it and now I am wondering about the some of the details. the tent is a 48x48x80. HLG says to leave 15" of headroom above the light and for conversation lets say the light is an inch thick making the mounting space 16 inches. Next we have the distance to canopy during flower, 28-36" for flowering. This leaves you with 36" from canopy to floor. Now if you factor in your growing medium of 10 inches(using 7 gal fabric pots). We are now down to 26 inch plants at harvest time.

Looking at grows and posts in here and other sites, the plants certainly look much larger than 26 inches so what am I missing?

Can I hang it closer to the top of the tent, can I run the canopy closer to the light, or is it a combination of both? Or is everyone running the gorilla tents with the height extenders?

tried searching but it doesnt seem like too many folks went with the 600 from what I can find it sounds like folks are running around the 22-24" light to canopy mark but that still isnt leaving much plant room

I was looking at the meijiu bar setups to be able to shorten the canopy to light gap but between the freight and dutys and such, it will end up being considerably more monies

If you only have 6 1/2’ of headroom I would run a strip fixture. Something like the Timber Cypress 8, which can be ran 6-12” from canopy.

Meijiu makes good strip lights as well.

i got a meijiu strip light and its only about 3" tall. 42"x42" i got 2 in a 5x10 tent. its too much light compared to hps 1k's but i'll keep it high off the ground and turned down. it will be fine.

If you fan cooled the top of the fixture you could get it within an inch of the tent top.

7CardBud said:

If you fan cooled the top of the fixture you could get it within an inch of the tent top.

Click to expand...

You dont want that driver touching the tent top....although i dont think it would start a fire ....it could. Them drivers get hot! plus you need a few inches to mount the light.

getogrow said:

You dont want that driver touching the tent top....although i dont think it would start a fire ....it could. Them drivers get hot! plus you need a few inches to mount the light.

Click to expand...

Right...You still need some space to mount and let air move over the top of the driver to cool it.

Thanks for the replies. I wanted to do a strip but even the meijiu will be almost a grand by the time its in my tent. I was already planning on getting at least 1 fan to blow over it to keep driver temp as low as possible so I knew I was going to have to leave some headroom but when i saw 15 inches on the website It made me wonder if I had to upgrade to the gorilla tent which would have brought me back up to the grand mark for expense.

Xsan said:

Thanks for the replies. I wanted to do a strip but even the meijiu will be almost a grand by the time its in my tent. I was already planning on getting at least 1 fan to blow over it to keep driver temp as low as possible so I knew I was going to have to leave some headroom but when i saw 15 inches on the website It made me wonder if I had to upgrade to the gorilla tent which would have brought me back up to the grand mark for expense.

Click to expand...

The problem is the HLG has densely packed diodes that are run pretty hard so you need quite a bit of distance from canopy. Not because of heat but because of intensity.

Another option is to run 6x QB 96’s on an HLG-480h-54a driver. That’s 80w per light which is pretty soft for maximum efficiency and would cost about $550-600 total.

Or DIY with Bridgelux strips.

Interesting that hlg recommends that much space above the fixture.

in that tent I’m not sure you’d need to run it at 600w I’m sure 480 would be good. You can run it a bit closer to the top of the tent probably. Especially if you remove the drivers. You’ll have to do your own testing with your ambient temperatures and your exhaust fan etc. HLG is making a safe recommendation for everyone.

a taller tent is also never a bad idea.