Out of 3.5-4lbs (dried n cured) I pull about 1.5lbs trim thru my twister t4.
This is all sugar trim, no fans or sticks.
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More so was wondering what this room is throwing you with your 1265w of CMH. Is 3.5-4 your usual pull? Sounds insane if so!
Good enough! So these bad boys are throwing 40-50% trim at you. That’s pretty gnarly extract material.
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My room is an 8x12, but its offset from center 2.5’. On the right 2.5’ is my walkway, so it’s only a usable 5.5 x 12 room with 4x 315 in big kahuna hoods. Single bulbs. I keep close canopy distances, about 1.5’ at chop time. 2-3 weeks before chop
I can manipulate my yields. I now run 14 4.7gal pots plus 4-6x 3.5gal pots in my room. I can stuff 8x darlins net in a normal space of 6 plants. I average 4-5oz per darlins net every run.
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Right now I’m avg .9 gpw at 1200w (1kw de) per 5x5 about 1100 grams of dried finished flower. This is in an 8 light 12x24 room with no ac or c02 I’m wondering if cmh would be worth the time to try to switch to. I’m also building another 12 light and 8 light rooms
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I passed on a spydrX swap 2 yrs ago. The cost in swapping is not in question. The yields were. A few buddies went from many 315’s to all spydrX leds for 2 runs. Then switched back to cmh. Yield was drastically less. Overall growth was subpar vs cmh. Trich coverage suffered as well.
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We did something similar. I had custom 3500k, 660nm boards made with a Meanwell driver. Plants looked great and vegged fast. It was 40% off the power and HVAC bill right away and the THC % was on point. Being lower wattage from the wall, it was also lower yields.
We do a mix of LED’s and 3000k CMH now. The yield and oil production is higher and we still have a cost savings on the light bill.
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i still have time to switch out my 12 light room to go cmh but i need lights for 5x5 footprint. the 315’s just dont have that coverage. there are DE type 1000w cmh but ive not heard the best reviews on these so far
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Light spread can be manipulated with hood size. This is how I make my room work. Under 2’ canopy distance, zero light bleaching or burning. Mine are all air cooled as well, which helps.
Swap them out, you can thank me with a few cuts.
Lol
4x 315 in an 8x12 room, offset 2.5’ from center
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And using a net/sog/screen helps have a canopy full of tops.
what would be the best way to make a 5x5 footprint with 315’s?
Big kahuna hoods. I swapped 3x600 in BK hoods for 4x315 in the same hood. I get more yield, much better frost, 100-150 less power billmonthly, and less ac cycling.
maybe run 4x 315’s per 5x5 but now were talking 1260w vs 1000w so i wouldnt be upgrading anything.
i get about 1100 grams yield per 1kw DE light in a 5x5 square. i would need a way to maintain 5x5 scrog footprint. i dont know if a BK hood is designed to spread a 5x5 foot print?
Yeah, they aren’t fantastic. They have 3 arcs in them and they can burn out one at a time. It’s also not a standardized grow format yet, so it may get more expensive if it does not become more ubiquitous.
@Demontrich Big Kahunas are HTG Supply China junk marked up. You can get them direct from the manufacturer for about 1/3 of the price. If you are using 315’s just make sure you are getting 5-600 ppfd to get the same yield per watt as a 1k light.
I think there is two variants of those DE CMH bulbs one uses three arc tubes. Then there is another that uses two 500 watt tubes. But there is as far as I know no singles arc tube 1000 watt bulb. If I could get 3x 315 cmh to work on a 5x5 footprint I’d probably try them out
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@square_root_pharms My notes are at the farm, but I think we were doing 3x3’ per 315w with veg and 3.5x3.5’ with 630’s (2x315w) in flower. Using the CMH format for both really brought our amortized (up front) equipment cost down. I would think the 1k CMH equipment would cost more per cycle and take longer to pay off, even with higher yields per square foot.
A friend switched to cmh and likes them, but he said they don’t like to run on less than 100% power. Trying to use the dimmer setting on the ballast makes the bulbs burn out.
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If you need to dim a 315w bulb, your doing it all wrong.
Anytime you dim a bulb, you sacrifice bulb K as well as bulb life.
I pay 75@ hood for my BK’s.
And I have 2 spares, 4 spare ballasts, about 20 backup new bulbs.
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Where did you get them for that
My buddy works there. I got his employee cost about 4yrs back.
I find them all day on CL for 50.00
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Ya theres a few 2nd hand grow stores around here and thats anout the ticket juat disnt know if they were new feomna company for that.
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