Received 400w Solarstorm last week and had up and running that night. Delivery was prompt. This is my second 400w Solarstorm so that should tell you my feelings about the product. I purchased my first light about three months ago to replace a 400w MH i was using for the veg stage. I was looking to upgrade to a more efficient light and had heard LEDs where great for veg. After shopping for a LED decided on the Solarstorm. Being my first LED I was a little skeptical but have been more then impressed with the results. My plants have not been strecthing like they were under the metal halide light and are developing almost twice as many flowering sites as before. Besides being more efficient they lights run a lot cooler so I decided to get another Solarstorm and try flowering with it. I put both 400w solarstorm lights in my 5x7 flower room. I have ten small to medium sized plants in 3 gallon pot with organic soil. The plants where under the Storm for veg and Have been flowering for two weeks, the first under the MH, and both Soloarstorms since. Cant wait to see how they do in flower.
The CLW SS400w is pretty new, they must have really impressed you. I'm looking forward to your journal...
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.
Its been about two weeks since my first entry and I would have to say Im more than satisfied with the performance of the Solarstorm 400. I been using HPS lights to flower for about two years now and based on just over 3 weeks of the Solarstorm in 12/12, its performing just as well, if not slightly better. I have been impressed so far, but not surprised based on the job the Solarstorm was doing to veg with. I switched to the LEDs to save on energy costs and havent been let down with performance yet. In addition Im able to save energy by not having to cool my HPS hoods with an inline fan anymore. No more fan and ducting to hassle with!! Very excited to see how they perform in the next few weeks.
How about some details? What size HPS lights were you using to flower? What kind of genetics do you grow? What kind of yield do you normally get? How big is your grow area?
Thanks,
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.
hello there decided to do a quick review and it appears one of my entrys didnt make it on, that would have answered a few of your questions!For this particular room we are doing the led trial in is a 5x7 room which had 2 600w convertable lights(using the sodium bulb mostly) which we have 2 400w solarstorms in now.We have a very biracial room as we keep many strains going.Some of the early finishers wappa, northernlights hs,big band..still waiting on jack herer and cheesus.we do a perpetual so all the new girls go in the old spots so most of the room has new girls(sage aphrodite ice bomb gforce) all ready in place.For a little more info we were also running a test using super soil so everybody was in 5 gallon bags w/ 30% supersoil in bottom.They only recieved one dose of nutes in 1st week 12/12 floranova is what we use.My impression of the lights performance was that they did as well as the 2 600w hps.they did get the 400w solarstorm inveg also so i think that helped them along a bit.The yields were up about 20% but not sure if that was due to soil mixture of lights.Time will tell...My verdict is still out on the supersoil,but they certainly didnt do worse and its was awesome to have a low maitainance room.
Still no pictures? 3 posts, over a couple of months, without pictures, isn't really a journal.
How do you keep your flowering lights at an acceptable distance from the plants if you put smaller new plants in the holes where larger old plants were just harvested? Usually when you mix taller plants with shorter plants, under the same light, the shorter plants lose.
You're claiming 20% more yield with 50% less light in an area that was already too big for the old HPS lights? I find that hard to believe, based on other journals or, perhaps, you were doing something horribly wrong before. Maybe I'm just missing something but the math doesn't seem to add up. We're looking forward to the next update.
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.
Oh,it was my impression that pics were recommended not required.will post my pics,which i havent included because the resolution is not great.In response to your queries/comments/critisisms it is my opinion that 1200w is adequate in a 5X7 room.Not to say that it would be optimal to have a bit more but that is the amount of energy we are comfortable will using in that particular room.It is Not our goal to use as much power as possible but too use the Least amount of wattage and still be satisfied with the results.It is my Opinion over the last 60 days that the 800w of led light did a comparable job to the 1200 of hps. By my calculations that is 75% of previous wattage not 50%.I also indicated that the fact they were in large pots with supersoil should have made a difference.To answer your question about the canopy in a perpetual,it is not that hard.We just build the floor up and then remove sections as they stretch.This is not our typical way of running this small room,but this is what we worked out to get the trial started right away and also to deal w/ the variety of genetics we had on hand.Im sure there is many ways to run a grow room just as there is many ways to crack an egg.Picture to follow shortly
They are not required, they just help a lot. I wasn't demanding, just nudging. Most "journals" have more frequent updates too.
Unfortunately, 1200w HPS is less than suggested. For optimal results you'd want approximately 50w/sqft to get high end results. 35 sqft x 50w = 1750w for a 5x7 room, assuming that it's all used as grow space. Now, that said, if you're looking just for "acceptable" results, then that's up to you. Most people want to get high end (no pun intended) results not mediocre results. The difference between 50w/sqft and your 34w/sqft HPS is enough to affect quality and yield.
Also, you should know that the SS400 doesn't put out 400w, it's actually about 310w due to being "full cycle" and the inefficiencies of LED so what you thought was 800w is really 620w. Which I rounded to 50% of a 1200w HPS system. The math on your new lights is even worse than the math on your old lights. 620w / 35 sqft - 17.7w/sqft which isn't even close. You will get more internodal stretching and lighter fluffier flowers but you should still get something. If that "something" is good enough for you, far out.
Now, based on LED myths, you might think that 18w/sqft is enough and if you don't care about your results then it might be enough but if you look at the other grow journals here with people actually running 40w to 60+w/sqft you'll see that nobody is growing at 18w/sqft and getting good results. Even CLW suggests 40w/sqft for their SS series of lights which is still less than optimal, based on results. You're not even close to CLW suggested specs.
Absolutely, the soil change may have helped to some degree which is why I said that it's possible that your older HPS grows were less than optimal or that I'm missing something.
Yes, of course, the old put something under the short plant to make it taller trick, I told you I must have been missing something. Funny how we sometimes blank out on the obvious common solutions.
What kind of yield were you getting before, with your 1200w HPS? A well running HPS system should get you around 40+ ounces off of 1200w but since you were at 34w/sqft I'm guessing it's closer to 20-25, maybe less if you think the LED is doing better than your old system.
I've said it a thousand times, growing is part science and part art, there is no one, single, right way. That said, experience shows us that not enough light WILL impact results in a negative way. Nobody is telling you that you can't run 18w/sqft if you want, I'm just letting you know that it's not enough for high end results. If you're OK with that; then carry on.
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.
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I was asked to include a few photos during the grow journal process but was having problems figuring out how to upload them until now. these are a couple pics from first set using the solarstorm for 12/12.
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Thank you for the update and pictures. I appreciate that you included one with "normal" lighting so I can see the colors correctly, etc.
(P.S. Please post all updates in this thread instead of starting new threads in the grow journal forum. Since your in the GFP, it'll be nice to keep them all in one place. Thanks again...)
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.