Yeild data is coming in for F-series room.

[randorson]

Hi OP

I think you will get those numbers a lot higher, having seen yyields around 2g/watt done without breaking too much of a sweaat.

Does the light mover raise/lower? Our approach was to completely cover cannopy in low hanging leds (we use fotop boards, lm561c and with CO2, PPFD around 800-900 and about 30w per square foot) and it did really well.

If the light mover is hard to raise and lower it means you will be missing out on dialing in that part.

I allways thought light movers wasnt really for leds, more HID so you could hang a bulb low but not fry the cannopy. With led you can achieve this in easier ways thru design.

Obviously it has tthe drawback of not being able to leave the grow on its own as you will need to raise the light several times. But if your chasing g/w is the way to go.

Whaat did yield look like on a g/ square feet?

Yeah I see higher yields as well, but only with longer veg times (and other strains) which means at least one fewer run per year, and significantly lower annual yield.

Light movers do not raise or lower. The light hangers do of course. I keep the lights 7" above the canopy. I also have around 820-930 ppfd, depending on which part of the canopy I measure. I can turn the lights up to 1000PPFD If I wanted, but I do not run CO2 in this room and thus my efficiency would decline past what I find acceptable. I used CO2 for years in my DWC room and the economics of using CO2 are interesting. It seems not many actually check their return on investment. Personally I would not run CO2 unless I had over 950 PPFD. Not that you wont grow more, you will. But the cost to produce each gram rises.

For the record, we do get higher yields with other strains. Comparing Gavita grown mimosa to Gavita grown Ice cream cake for example, the ice cream cake was a far better yeilder. I don't have the data on hand at the moment.

Hanging an HID light closer to the canopy is not really advantageous. If you use a light meter you can see why. They already produce high enough PPFD at the height the are intended to be placed, at least in the middle of their footprints. Hanging them lower changes the angle of incident at which the light rays strike the canopy, favorably, but this is a tiny factor. However hanging HID's lower can really hurt you when it comes to overlapping the footprints. To provide an even lighting over the entire canopy when using HID's the lights have to be at both the correct distance apart and the correct heights. Moving the entire bank of lights allows you to cover more canopy space with the same amount of light. That is the advantage of light movers. They also allow the lights to penetrate the canopy by providing light at varying angles to the canopy.

The grams/sq foot was (redacted) = 27.54 that's including some "accessory/head stash" plants that were not planted in the garden beds. That's dried and trimmed, not counting trim in the weight.

I can do that 5 times a year by going from a cutting to rooted in a 6" pot, in a separate space (LED lit of course) before planting in the garden beds.

What I am truly chasing is grams/kwhr. Shit, (redacted) sometimes grows 3 pounds per 1000 watts. That's 1.362 grams/watt, but his grams per kwhr would be horrible because of the veg time required.

What other tips do you have for massive yields?

[randorson]

Also on that note @randorson do you mind if I ask around how long were your veg times with these runs and do you veg with the same lights you flower with at lower intensities? Thanks!

We have separate veg rooms lit by LED's. I use TopStar brand T5 to LED conversion bulbs. They go from cutting > 3" pot > 6" pot in about 7 weeks, all in the veg rooms. By the time the flowering room is ready for harvest, the plants are well established in 6" pots and ready to be planted into the garden beds of the flowering room.

Once planted in the garden beds, the plants receive 1 -2 weeks of veg time (usually 1) depending on the characteristic of the strain.

This allows for 5 runs per year from each flowering room, allowing some time for cleaning and resetting between each run.

[randorson]

Hi Randorson,

Was that wet weight or dried weight. Processed can mean so many different things.

Cheers,

Dried and trimmed.

Excellent. That's an impressive yield! To add to the question list, what amperage did you run on average and what is your set up in terms of series/parallels(if you don't mind divulging)?

The shop has 7 DIY Samsung F-series lights at this point. The prototype was wired in parallel and powered by a single HLG-600H-48B. The other 6 are wired in series, and powered by (2) HLG-320H-C1750B's per light.

We adjust our lights based on my PPFD readings, as opposed to amperage readings. But if I remember correctly it takes about 1.4A to produce 930 PPFD. Here is a chart I made. There are only 2 weeks of veg time because we always use a separate room for most of the vegetative phase of growth. Not all strains require a 9th week of flowering, in fact we intentional avoid any strains that require more than 8 weeks.

[TEKNIK]

Another alternative to using a light mover is to add a control system to a strip build to turn certain parts of a strip build on and off to simulate a moving light. Although this seems like alot more expense the price of strips is getting so low it's not really a big deal, this also gives a chance for the leds to cool down while off making them last longer and also a little brighter when initially turned back on.

[randorson]

Another alternative to using a light mover is to add a control system to a strip build to turn certain parts of a strip build on and off to simulate a moving light. Although this seems like alot more expense the price of strips is getting so low it's not really a big deal, this also gives a chance for the leds to cool down while off making them last longer and also a little brighter when initially turned back on.

That is interesting. You would have to build enough lights to cover the entire canopy though. I'm covering a row of beds 4'x21' using 3 F-series lights, each using 8 strips. So my physical lights add up to 12 feet, and consist of 24 strips. Two other rows each 4'x13' are covered using only 2 of these F-series builds.

Also you would lose the advantage of introducing light at varying angles as the lights travel over the canopy. But your idea does take advantage of the fact that plants only need a given DLI and they will not see short periods of low lighting as an interruption to the photoperoid.

[TEKNIK]

With enough strips it will cover all angles, it's another way of doing what you are doing without any mechanical moving parts. I have thought of a few different ways of doing this to maximize efficiency.

Keep up the good work, loving how you keep real data to share.

[randorson]

With enough strips it will cover all angles, it's another way of doing what you asre doing without any mechanical moving parts. I have thought of a few different ways of doing this to maximize efficiency.

Keep up the good work, loving how you keep real data to share.

Thanks!

That's true, with enough strips you cover all angles. My gut tells me the cost of more strips, drivers, ect would be more than the cost of light movers but that might not be the case. It is nice to have the lights separate units but I bet you could do what youre suggesting without loosing that feature.

Moving parts are always a safety concern in a grow room but as far as mechanical reliability, I have a light mover motor that is like 7-8 years old so they can be quite durable. On the other hand, I have seen the motors go bad in only days from improper set-up. And if you dont live in a place where replacement parts are readily available locally, like I do, it could be an issue.

[Rocket Soul]

Hi OP

I think you will get those numbers a lot higher, having seen yyields around 2g/watt done without breaking too much of a sweaat.

Does the light mover raise/lower? Our approach was to completely cover cannopy in low hanging leds (we use fotop boards, lm561c and with CO2, PPFD around 800-900 and about 30w per square foot) and it did really well.

If the light mover is hard to raise and lower it means you will be missing out on dialing in that part.

I allways thought light movers wasnt really for leds, more HID so you could hang a bulb low but not fry the cannopy. With led you can achieve this in easier ways thru design.

Obviously it has tthe drawback of not being able to leave the grow on its own as you will need to raise the light several times. But if your chasing g/w is the way to go.

Whaat did yield look like on a g/ square feet?

Yeah I see higher yields as well, but only with longer veg times (and other strains) which means at least one fewer run per year, and significantly lower annual yield.

Light movers do not raise or lower. The light hangers do of course. I keep the lights 7" above the canopy. I also have around 820-930 ppfd, depending on which part of the canopy I measure. I can turn the lights up to 1000PPFD If I wanted, but I do not run CO2 in this room and thus my efficiency would decline past what I find acceptable. I used CO2 for years in my DWC room and the economics of using CO2 are interesting. It seems not many actually check their return on investment. Personally I would not run CO2 unless I had over 950 PPFD. Not that you wont grow more, you will. But the cost to produce each gram rises.

For the record, we do get higher yields with other strains. Comparing Gavita grown mimosa to Gavita grown Ice cream cake for example, the ice cream cake was a far better yeilder. I don't have the data on hand at the moment.

Hanging an HID light closer to the canopy is not really advantageous. If you use a light meter you can see why. They already produce high enough PPFD at the height the are intended to be placed, at least in the middle of their footprints. Hanging them lower changes the angle of incident at which the light rays strike the canopy, favorably, but this is a tiny factor. However hanging HID's lower can really hurt you when it comes to overlapping the footprints. To provide an even lighting over the entire canopy when using HID's the lights have to be at both the correct distance apart and the correct heights. Moving the entire bank of lights allows you to cover more canopy space with the same amount of light. That is the advantage of light movers. They also allow the lights to penetrate the canopy by providing light at varying angles to the canopy.

The grams/sq foot was 7491g/271 sqft = 27.54 that's including some "accessory/head stash" plants that were not planted in the garden beds. That's dried and trimmed, not counting trim in the weight.

I can do that 5 times a year by going from a cutting to rooted in a 6" pot, in a separate space (LED lit of course) before planting in the garden beds.

What I am truly chasing is grams/kwhr. Shit, my dad sometimes grows 3 pounds per 1000 watts. That's 1.362 grams/watt, but his grams per kwhr would be horrible because of the veg time required.

What other tips do you have for massive yields?

Our best grow was around 700g per 1x1.1m tray with about 375 board watts but it was a dream run, 1g/w even on the hps side. Plants had some vegg problems that let them grow big as they regained health.

It was a winter grow with 24/7 gassheater just to maintain temps. CO2 galore as a consequence.

Up to 2000 lm561c diodes per tray, running diodes soft on nominal, less than .2w per diode. Like running a 4 foot f-strip around 50w each.

Since then weve done well, but never that well.

We also did really well with bridgelux vesta, using only the 2700k 90 cri diodes, again .2w per diode approx.

My best guess is get rid of the movers and cover your whole cannopy in light, looooads of diodes run soft, keep them a bit closer if spreading the watts made it less intense.

Also try the meijiu fotop (aka qb800) they generally go cheap, like 80$ plus china shipping and taxes. Max 6 boards a packet, this makes for besttt shipping per board.

Strain was amnesia haze, elite clones, 10 week strain so realistically only 4 runs per year. But even so the numbers seems to give a bit more than what you do on 5 runs a year. Around 55g per square foot.

System was coco dtw, 7 l pots, 6 per tray, hand watered first 5 weeks.

[randorson]

Hi OP

I think you will get those numbers a lot higher, having seen yyields around 2g/watt done without breaking too much of a sweaat.

Does the light mover raise/lower? Our approach was to completely cover cannopy in low hanging leds (we use fotop boards, lm561c and with CO2, PPFD around 800-900 and about 30w per square foot) and it did really well.

If the light mover is hard to raise and lower it means you will be missing out on dialing in that part.

I allways thought light movers wasnt really for leds, more HID so you could hang a bulb low but not fry the cannopy. With led you can achieve this in easier ways thru design.

Obviously it has tthe drawback of not being able to leave the grow on its own as you will need to raise the light several times. But if your chasing g/w is the way to go.

Whaat did yield look like on a g/ square feet?

Yeah I see higher yields as well, but only with longer veg times (and other strains) which means at least one fewer run per year, and significantly lower annual yield.

Light movers do not raise or lower. The light hangers do of course. I keep the lights 7" above the canopy. I also have around 820-930 ppfd, depending on which part of the canopy I measure. I can turn the lights up to 1000PPFD If I wanted, but I do not run CO2 in this room and thus my efficiency would decline past what I find acceptable. I used CO2 for years in my DWC room and the economics of using CO2 are interesting. It seems not many actually check their return on investment. Personally I would not run CO2 unless I had over 950 PPFD. Not that you wont grow more, you will. But the cost to produce each gram rises.

For the record, we do get higher yields with other strains. Comparing Gavita grown mimosa to Gavita grown Ice cream cake for example, the ice cream cake was a far better yeilder. I don't have the data on hand at the moment.

Hanging an HID light closer to the canopy is not really advantageous. If you use a light meter you can see why. They already produce high enough PPFD at the height the are intended to be placed, at least in the middle of their footprints. Hanging them lower changes the angle of incident at which the light rays strike the canopy, favorably, but this is a tiny factor. However hanging HID's lower can really hurt you when it comes to overlapping the footprints. To provide an even lighting over the entire canopy when using HID's the lights have to be at both the correct distance apart and the correct heights. Moving the entire bank of lights allows you to cover more canopy space with the same amount of light. That is the advantage of light movers. They also allow the lights to penetrate the canopy by providing light at varying angles to the canopy.

The grams/sq foot was 7491g/271 sqft = 27.54 that's including some "accessory/head stash" plants that were not planted in the garden beds. That's dried and trimmed, not counting trim in the weight.

I can do that 5 times a year by going from a cutting to rooted in a 6" pot, in a separate space (LED lit of course) before planting in the garden beds.

What I am truly chasing is grams/kwhr. Shit, my dad sometimes grows 3 pounds per 1000 watts. That's 1.362 grams/watt, but his grams per kwhr would be horrible because of the veg time required.

What other tips do you have for massive yields?

Our best grow was around 700g per 1x1.1m tray with about 375 board watts but it was a dream run, 1g/w even on the hps side. Plants had some vegg problems that let them grow big as they regained health.

It was a winter grow with 24/7 gassheater just to maintain temps. CO2 galore as a consequence.

Up to 2000 lm561c diodes per tray, running diodes soft on nominal, less than .2w per diode. Like running a 4 foot f-strip around 50w each.

Since then weve done well, but never that well.

We also did really well with bridgelux vesta, using only the 2700k 90 cri diodes, again .2w per diode approx.

My best guess is get rid of the movers and cover your whole cannopy in light, looooads of diodes run soft, keep them a bit closer if spreading the watts made it less intense.

Also try the meijiu fotop (aka qb800) they generally go cheap, like 80$ plus china shipping and taxes. Max 6 boards a packet, this makes for besttt shipping per board.

Strain was amnesia haze, elite clones, 10 week strain so realistically only 4 runs per year. But even so the numbers seems to give a bit more than what you do on 5 runs a year. Around 55g per square foot.

System was coco dtw, 7 l pots, 6 per tray, hand watered first 5 weeks.

Thanks for the info!

[ViridisHC]

Hi OP

I think you will get those numbers a lot higher, having seen yyields around 2g/watt done without breaking too much of a sweaat.

Does the light mover raise/lower? Our approach was to completely cover cannopy in low hanging leds (we use fotop boards, lm561c and with CO2, PPFD around 800-900 and about 30w per square foot) and it did really well.

If the light mover is hard to raise and lower it means you will be missing out on dialing in that part.

I allways thought light movers wasnt really for leds, more HID so you could hang a bulb low but not fry the cannopy. With led you can achieve this in easier ways thru design.

Obviously it has tthe drawback of not being able to leave the grow on its own as you will need to raise the light several times. But if your chasing g/w is the way to go.

Whaat did yield look like on a g/ square feet?

Yeah I see higher yields as well, but only with longer veg times (and other strains) which means at least one fewer run per year, and significantly lower annual yield.

Light movers do not raise or lower. The light hangers do of course. I keep the lights 7" above the canopy. I also have around 820-930 ppfd, depending on which part of the canopy I measure. I can turn the lights up to 1000PPFD If I wanted, but I do not run CO2 in this room and thus my efficiency would decline past what I find acceptable. I used CO2 for years in my DWC room and the economics of using CO2 are interesting. It seems not many actually check their return on investment. Personally I would not run CO2 unless I had over 950 PPFD. Not that you wont grow more, you will. But the cost to produce each gram rises.

For the record, we do get higher yields with other strains. Comparing Gavita grown mimosa to Gavita grown Ice cream cake for example, the ice cream cake was a far better yeilder. I don't have the data on hand at the moment.

Hanging an HID light closer to the canopy is not really advantageous. If you use a light meter you can see why. They already produce high enough PPFD at the height the are intended to be placed, at least in the middle of their footprints. Hanging them lower changes the angle of incident at which the light rays strike the canopy, favorably, but this is a tiny factor. However hanging HID's lower can really hurt you when it comes to overlapping the footprints. To provide an even lighting over the entire canopy when using HID's the lights have to be at both the correct distance apart and the correct heights. Moving the entire bank of lights allows you to cover more canopy space with the same amount of light. That is the advantage of light movers. They also allow the lights to penetrate the canopy by providing light at varying angles to the canopy.

The grams/sq foot was 7491g/271 sqft = 27.54 that's including some "accessory/head stash" plants that were not planted in the garden beds. That's dried and trimmed, not counting trim in the weight.

I can do that 5 times a year by going from a cutting to rooted in a 6" pot, in a separate space (LED lit of course) before planting in the garden beds.

What I am truly chasing is grams/kwhr. Shit, my dad sometimes grows 3 pounds per 1000 watts. That's 1.362 grams/watt, but his grams per kwhr would be horrible because of the veg time required.

What other tips do you have for massive yields?

Our best grow was around 700g per 1x1.1m tray with about 375 board watts but it was a dream run, 1g/w even on the hps side. Plants had some vegg problems that let them grow big as they regained health.

It was a winter grow with 24/7 gassheater just to maintain temps. CO2 galore as a consequence.

Up to 2000 lm561c diodes per tray, running diodes soft on nominal, less than .2w per diode. Like running a 4 foot f-strip around 50w each.

Since then weve done well, but never that well.

We also did really well with bridgelux vesta, using only the 2700k 90 cri diodes, again .2w per diode approx.

My best guess is get rid of the movers and cover your whole cannopy in light, looooads of diodes run soft, keep them a bit closer if spreading the watts made it less intense.

Also try the meijiu fotop (aka qb800) they generally go cheap, like 80$ plus china shipping and taxes. Max 6 boards a packet, this makes for besttt shipping per board.

Strain was amnesia haze, elite clones, 10 week strain so realistically only 4 runs per year. But even so the numbers seems to give a bit more than what you do on 5 runs a year. Around 55g per square foot.

System was coco dtw, 7 l pots, 6 per tray, hand watered first 5 weeks.

Thanks for the reply!

I'm wondering if light movers could save money on electricity by using less fixtures as @randorson said and have a similar yield though? I feel like movers will increase efficiency with all lights, even say the softest LED build with no part of the canopy left uncovered. Seems like the movement of light and angles of it would still reach further into the canopy and hit more leaf area than that ultimate LED fixture being stationary. It definitely would be more effective with HID lighting or even COB's because of the hot spots though.

I was thinking I may be able to get away with using less lights as the LED's would cover more space by moving back and forth and therefore get way with using say two EB Gen 2 builds instead of 3 on one of my beds, that is about 10' by 3'. One EB build would be 4' by 3', 16 BXEB-L1120Z-35E4000-C-B3 strips at 400 watts instead of two of the same builds covering 8' by 3'. The other light would be a 2' by 3' EB Gen 2 build, 22 BXEB-L0560Z-35E2000-C-B3 at 250ish watts instead of 3 of lights stationary for one of my beds. I'm thinking of running both on opposite sides of the bed alternating with the movers. If I were to get a similar yield with the movers then I would be using 38% less electricity. As well as the LightRail Mover 3.5 with Add a Light being able to do the job for about $220 which is less than the cost of an extra fixture and saves the time building one.

@Rocket Soul how long was the veg time for the 700 gram, 1 meter tray yield if you don't mind me asking? Also, were you using HPS in the same room when you say HPS side? If so, do you think that might of added to the yield possibly from any mixing of the lights?