I recently accepted the challenge of testing out California Lightworks new 400W SolarStorm LED light and I’ll be posting updates for you hopefully weekly with progress and challenges along the way. This will most likely be my longest post with a little background on me and my setup. I am NO expert... but I hope that my updates can help others and that I can learn along the way as well! This will be my second grow… I’m happy to hear suggestions and help along the way.
I received my light a couple of weeks ago but needed to get my plants in Veg a little bigger and do some remodeling of my bloom cabinet before I was able to start giving you all some updates. So here’s a little about my grow…
I currently grow in Superclosets Trinity system. I have one cabinet that is split between my cloner and my vegetative growth. I have a separate cabinet for bloom. The cabinets grow hydroponically with both aeroponics and a top feed system in a 15 gallon reservoir. For the first grow I did in the cabinets, I used the setup that came provided with the cabinets… I’ve since made A LOT of upgrades to change the system.
In the last week I rebuilt my bloom cabinet to change some of the hiccups that I noticed during my last grow. The biggest change I made is the light... the cabinet had a 600W HPS light that had an intake and an outtake fan to cool the light… worked ok but still had a heck of a time controlling the temp and the fans were LOUD. I got rid of the light and the fans (left the carbon exhaust filter) and have replaced it with the SolarStorm. I also am running 4 T5 florescent lights under the canopy along the reservoir to get a little more light to the lower half of the plants.
I put a lot into upgrading the cabinet, but I think it’ll work a lot better this grow. I guess over the next 90 days we’ll find out!
A little about what I’m growing…
I’m growing Blue Dream with TechnaFlora chemicals.
The plants I just moved to the bloom cabinet have been in Veg for three weeks and were around 12” tall when I moved to bloom.
I assume that since you've cut the amount of light you cut the amount of space too?
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 actually didn't cut the amount of space since I figured that the output according to the research I've done is about the same as the 600W HPS light I was using. The new light with the addition of diamond foil in the cabinet and t5 lights lining the underside of the canopy is how I'm going to experiment this grow.
Now.... I've been gone for a couple weeks from here ALWAYS with the intent to come post an update and then something else seems to come up. It's been a very hectic and stressful couple of weeks with the new light. While I am very happy with the coverage that the light provides in the cabinet, I am very UNHAPPY with the amount of heat that this unit gives off. My previous set up had the light on its own intake and outtake fans to help keep it cooled, didn't work especially well and had hoped that by using LED I could minimize some of the heat... doesn't seem to be the case. The first night I had the light plugged in, the temp spiked to almost 100 degrees in the cabinet which my plants did not appreciate. Almost immediately they started showing signs of heat stress. I was able to keep the cabinet down around 87 IF I left the doors on the cabinet open which I probably don't have to say is less than ideal.
So, I needed to set out and figure out a solution to the problem (like plenty of others I've come across on here as well). My solution? I built a manifold that rests across the light (is not attached to the light in anyway other than the gasket seal) and exhausts the hot air outside of the cabinet. I still have high hopes for this light so I needed to just get the heat down. It's been a solid week now and I've managed to keep the temp down to a manageable 78 in the cabinet. I've attached a couple of photos so you can possibly see a little of the manifold. It was a headache and another $200 bucks plus 3 days wasted trying to get the thing built.... I really hadn't thought that I would need to make further modifications to the system once I had replaced the light, so I have to say I'm slightly disappointed but all will be forgiven if the light proves the potential that I think it has.
Well... now that the light is working and the heat is under control, it seems to be doing a fantastic job and the plants seem to be responding well to the new light. The plants have more than doubled in height since I've moved them to the cabinet (currently at 36") and are already showing beautiful signs of becoming nice and dense. There are still leaves near the tops of my plants that are still getting burned and stressed by the light, that is my next challenge to work on. Because I needed to duct the hot air away from the light, I unfortunately have lost a few inches of space that I can raise the light. As a result, I have almost raised the height on the light to its max, my plants have almost all reached the light in height and I'm growing concerned that there may not be much I can do to prevent the tops of the plants from becoming burned. If anyone has any suggestions or wisdom on the matter I'd love some help.
I'm hoping that now that I'm past what I HOPE is my biggest hurdle with the light that these babies will flourish under their new sun... time will tell I suppose.
OH... I also need to apologize for not posting photos sooner as I had previously hoped I would be able to, lets just say the camera has been a challenge for the last two weeks too! As a side note, in addition to testing the 400W SS, I am confident in the product enough that I purchased the 200W Solarflare for my Veg. So far, the smaller light doesn't seem to have too much of a heat issue in the space and the plants I just moved from clones are looking good under the light. For now at least, it seems that the November climate is probably helping the cabinet stay cool enough that I haven't had to build out a manifold for that yet, I do foresee needing it before spring in that cabinet too.
Here are some photos, not the greatest quality given the camera issues, I'll try to have better photos to post.
Attachments
view with cabinet running
light on.jpg (12.12 KiB) Viewed 2059 times
view of the light and manifold in the cabinet
manifold2.jpg (13.27 KiB) Viewed 2059 times
I tried to capture the manifold that I build for the light
Two of the most common LED myths are: 1) That a smaller LED will yield as much as a much larger HPS. 2) That LED lights don't get hot.
Unfortunately, neither is true, based on results so far. Marketing propaganda and real world grows often conflict. Don't get me wrong, they can and do grow decent plants but they seem to be about equal to a similar sized HID, maybe even a little less.
High powered LED grow lights do get hot, perhaps not as hot as an uncooled HPS but hot enough to cause problems. Another forum member also designed a manifold to vent his SS; you can post your design, if you'd like to share.
Hope that helps...
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 guess I fell to the myths.... I was operating under the same assumptions! The plants seem to be growing fantastic under the light.... they've gotten HUGE in just a short time so I'm gonna let the experiment ride out for this grow and see how the one light compares to what I had previously worked with. Now that the heat is under control after that debacle, the plants look a lot healthier and less stressed out already too. I am going to check out the supercropping mentioned though... I've got to do something to get them away from that light, they are just burning.
All a learning experience I guess. Thanks for the help and suggestions... I need it
You can grow decent plants with the SS400w but LED doesn't penetrate as well nor does it cover as much area as some people think. LED lights are better suited to shorter plants so growing styles should adapt too...
Supercropping or some form of LST may be your only solution, this time around, assuming you have enough room in your cabinet. Supercropping or any kind of emergency pruning, this late in the game, will affect yield but since they stretched so much and space is so limited, you may not have much choice. It appears that you're 3 weeks into flowering what seems to be a sativa strain that's already stretched past 36" tall after flowering at ~12", right? The tiny thumbnail sized pictures are hard to tell with any details, maybe 800x600-ish sized pictures in the future? The good news is most of the vertical stretching should be over but they will still get a little taller and wider until harvest. Overcrowding is a common mistake for newer growers and growers with new systems/styles.
Stretching happens for various reasons but I'd suggest sticking to indica or, at least, indica hybrid genetics in the future. They don't usually stretch as much during flowering and usually finish in about 8 weeks. The effect is different than with sativa genetics but with your setup, I'd avoid sativas. You may need to flower an inch or two shorter if headroom becomes a constant problem. I know those trinity style cabinets seems like a good idea but you'll most likely ditch them (or convert them) after you get a little more experience and you need more room.
Let us know if you have more questions...
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.
So another two weeks and still battling to keep my plants from the light.
In the last post my plants were 3 weeks in and had already stretched... correct! (I'm actually a little impressed you got THAT from that crappy photo). It is a hybrid strain (Blue Dream) which is why I didn't expect it to get so much height but I was apparently wrong about that as well. In the past two weeks they've continued to grow in height. I took the advice to super crop the plants to get them away from the light which seemed to work beautifully... until they just grew taller back up to the light! I've been looking into what else I might be able to do. It's a little late in the grow to do anything too drastic I realize so that's about where I'm at with it.
I have a new batch started in the Veg cabinet currently under the 200W SolarFlare and they look beautiful, now that I learned a little something about super cropping I hope I can catch them from getting too tall too fast.
I had trouble trying to get bigger images to upload when I posted. The system insisted I make them smaller to upload, I'll try to post bigger photos soon that should have a little more detail.
The Veg cabinet I have seems to be great... enough room, keeps the temp and humidity well I can't complain too much. The Bloom cabinet... it's testing my patience to say the least. It did seem like a great idea, but I'm learning quick on that one. I'm sure once I get through a couple more grows I'll either have adapted or ditched it. But having done the last grow in there, hopefully I can at least tell if the light is doing ANYTHING different.
Thanks again for the wisdom, I'll try to get some pics up soon
Actually, I got all of that from your post, not the little pictures, but I was just assuming that it was a sativa strain. There are other reasons that plants stretch and the most common reasons are genetics and not enough light. Personally, I suggest 50+w/sqft for flowering.
Try around 800x600 for pictures, they seem to be close to what fits on a page here. Other people with journals may make a different suggestion.
I'm not sure what size each chamber is but if you get good results from the veg chamber (short, bushy, tight internodes, etc) then you're making progress.
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.