I first recieved my package containg the Solarstorm 4 days ago, this was shipped fairly quick and delievered in a discreet black box. Upon opening the box i discovered it was very well packaged for protection of the unit thru shipping. The Solarstorm is a Very solild feeling unit, I am even gave it a little shake to listen for rattles, weird noises, etc. No noises were made. I immediately replaced my 400watt MH HID set-up, which consisted of a Sunsystem Air-Cooled hood, 3 Fans, an inline booster fan, a 400watt digital Lumatek ballast that was running on "super-lumens," duct work, and a Hurricane ventilator.When I was done with this transformation I had one rotating fan that runs mainly for circulation of air and the 400watt Solarstorm (this started svaing me money on electricity Instantly). When I first turned the Solarstorm on I was "blinded by the light." Very pleased with how bright the l.e.d.'s were and the unit creates less noise than the circulating fan which is always a plus for sercurity. After 3 days had passed I was beyond impressed with the progression the plants had made. Plants that were F.I.M'd were filling out very quickly, plants that were topped were growing their second shoots at an accelerated pace, and all veg plants needed trellising after 3 days under the SolarStorm. I do run a perpetual harvest so I am able to see how the SolarStorm handles all stages of Veg and so far, a definite 2 thumbs up!
Last edited by SisterMaryElephant on Mon Jan 14, 2013 11:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason:No instagram requests, you can upload pictures here...
Sorry but I had to remove your request for instagram followers, we allow photo uploads here.
SME
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
I have been using the 400watt solarstorm for a few weeks now and one major thing I have noticed is the decreased length between nodes and the increased number of flower sites. I am very impressed with the results and even thought of selling my H.I.D. light equipment since it seems "out of date" compared to the technology presented with the Solarstorm. Less heat, less fans, less electicity, and even less watering But More Growth, more nodes, and Very Bright. I absolutely love this product.
thank you! and I was unaware I was able to post pics thats why I had posted the other name just in case anyone needed a visual reference. Thanks Again!
I also merged your two threads since they were both for the SS400w light, that way the comments are in the same place.
Let me know if you have problems posting pictures, it may be that some web browsers and/or phones have issues...
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
About a month or so since I began using the 400watt Solarstorm in place of my 400MH set-up. I run a perputual harvest so I am beginning to see the positive and negative effects the lighting setup has on all stages of vegetative growth. One main thing, which is covered in the manual, is distance from the canopy. As I raised the light to compensate for the growth of the bigger plants in veg, I realized my smaller plants were slowing down growth. Now, at first this was a Major concern to me as I rely on deep penutration into the growing space to keep my smaller, new plants going strong but this is honestly a much easier problem to contend with without raising your electric bill back to the H.I.D. expense. I plan on making a a stair style "step shelf" to place plants on in different stages of growth. If this does not fix my problem for some unseen reason, I'm sure there are other ways to around this, I haven't even tried C.F.L.'s for supplemental lighting yet, I will say this tho; I am still much happier with the Solarstorm than I was with my H.I.D. setup. O'yeah, first month savings on my electric bill was just about $70 and I run the solarstorm 23 hours a day compared to the H.I.D. cycle of 18 on 6 off. I still plan on purchasing two additional units to replace my H.I.D. lights in flower.
Yes, keeping the canopy level should help but don't let them get too tall, LED has penetration issues so that's why it's best suited for SOG/SCROG/short style grows. You really didn't give a lot of detail about your setup.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
My veg room is about 4 foot by 6 foot. I first began running a 400watt Metal Halide H.I.D. set-up. This included an air-cooled hood, wallmounted fan, floor oscilatting fan, and a fan just for the ballast. My set-up is now a 400watt Solarstorm and an oscilatting floor fan. No duct work is needed anymore since heat issues aren't a problem. I currently have the Solarstorm 18-24inches from the tallest plant but I also added two 24 inch flourescent tubes on the side wall for supplemental lighting that is at the level of the grow pots (3 gall buckets w\ 5 gallon grow bags). This helped Very Much and gave the smaller plants the boost they needed to benefit from the raised Solarstorm. Again, the only reason this is an issue is because of the perpetual style harvest I run. The light performs amazing and I have major issues with it as of yet. Very Solid Unit.
F.Y.I. the flower room I run is currently over 1200watts of H.P.S. in an 8 by 8 area but I plan to replace these lights with Solarstorm units as soon as possible.
4x6 is kind of an odd size for a single small veg light. If your supplemental lighting is enough to take up the slack I suppose you're covered.
However, I'm a bit confused...
Surely 8x8 is a typo or you're not using the whole space for flowering plants? Right? How tall do you veg them before putting them in flower?
I'm also not sure how you save 70/mo running ~150w less, in veg, either. Especially since you ran the HID for fewer hours. Perhaps it's more weather related than the lighting? A few fans don't use much power either so that can't be it. *shrug*
I must be missing something, please advise...
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
4 foot by 6 foot would be the maximum size of my veg Room, width and length. It is an awkward shaped room as it's not a perfect square but none the less that would be the correct dimensions of the room. 8 foot by 8 foot would be the maximum size of the flower room, wall to wall, length by width. The closet I keep clones in I have not measured. None of the numbers I mentioned deal with the height because lights are adjusted constantly.
In the Veg room I added two 24inch tube flourescents for supplemental lighting due to the lack of penetration presented with SolarStorm. These two lights were mounted on the wall just above the pots.
So, in veg; there is one 400watt SolarStorm hanging from the ceiling in a room that is, at max, 6 feet long by 4 foot wide. There is also two 24in tube floursecents mounted on the wall just above the plant's pot level. There is also one oscilatting fan just above the solarstorm for heat and air circulation (more for circulation than heat.)
Before I purchased the SolarStorm I had a 400watt MH set-up for my Veg. This involved an air-cooled hood, one booster fan, ventilation fan, wall mounted fan, floor oscilatting fan, and also a small fan that was directly aimed at and used to cool the ballast. This equipment was in the same Veg room as the L.E.D.'s are. A 4 foot wide by 6 foot long room.
My current Flower room *basic* equipment list: -Dual 600watt Digital Ballast, running on 240v -2 air-cooled hoods -2 booster fans -2 floor fans -1 wall mounted osciallting fan -ventilation fan
In a Room that is 8 foot wide by 8 foot long. Hoods are often set at different heights depeding on plant(s) size.
Equipment that both Rooms share: -1 hurricane Intake fan with a splitter to supply both rooms with fresh air (this is on a timer, turning on every 1.5 hours for 15 minutes until the Flower room turns on, and then it runs for 12 hours.) -co2 tank that is setup to direct co2 to either Veg or Flower
Things I do to avoid wasting CO2: 1) Exhaust fans are plugged into a a power strip that also has a timer built in (back up batteries in power strip avoid losing set times when turned off.) 2) Flip power switch for the power strip\timer to off. This will turn off exhaust and allow plants to absorb the CO2 3) Open the CO2 tank valve and direct it towards whatever room I need via manual switch 4) wait until CO2 levels reach desired levels 5) turn off CO2 6) wait for the plants to absorb the CO2 7) turn exhaust back on
As far as the savings of $70, your guess is as best as mine. All I know is I did save that amount on my electric bill with no changes to anything else. My days consist of two activites, audio engineering and working in the garden (both I do from home); perhaps it was a mess up somewhere else. I doubt it was weather related due to the fact it's currently very cold, I don't run any electical heaters, and my electric bill was pretty consistent up until the purchase of the SolarStorm.
Plant Heights and Grower Tendencies: -currently have 4 different strains growing, most at one time was 8 strains -I run a perputual harvest so ALL plants are in different stages -i do NOT keep a calendar, the only calendar type utensil I use in my process is to keep track of when I watered with nutrientis, just regular reverse osmosis water, or spider mite treatments. -I spend hours every night just looking at the plants for twisting leaf tips, unusual development that may be signs of a hermaphrodite, mold at the soil level AND on the plant itself, etc.. Also catalyst development along with studying the individual stigmas (I think this is the correct terminology). Basically I stare at the plants. -I use a microscope to watch for signs of maturity; mainly looking for cloudy\amber trichome heads to indicate harvest. -if a plant seems too dry or moist I simply pick the plant up, if it's lighter than it should be, add water.
I am still very satisfied with the 400watt SolarStorm and I hope this clears some confusion up, but it may cause more
The branchy effect in Veg from the Solarstorm is great and when the plants are placed into the flower room this becomes obvious. (i know stretching happens a lot in flower due to the increased red light spectrum but there are branches growing everywhere)
I know so of my techniques seem a bit awkward but my last test results came in at 18.25% with .62%cbd.
Thank Again and Have a Great Day!
P.S. i just ordered two more 400watt SolarStorms to replace some of the Flower room lighting equipment with, as soon as I am able to calculate savings I will relay that information as soon as possible and with a list of Flower room changes.