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Question About My New Lights..


Hydraulic Jack

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I was planning on veging and flowering under HPS this time due to the new lights I bought...I couldnt hang the hoods so that I could lower them due to height constraints...Will my clones stretch up to the lights during vege due to the lights being 3-4 feet above them?  If so I will have to adapt some other lights for vege.....I know plants do reach up to the light but with the new 1000 watters the whole area is flooded with light.......In the past I used T-5's and kept them 3-4 inches above my plants..HJ

Edited by Hydro Jack
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After running strictly 1000w lights I bought some T5s to cut the electric bill down. I also bought a light meter and then determined that the larger footprint of the T5 actually provided better growth than my old 1000s. So I began running T5 all through veg and in the first couple of weeks of flower.

 

Trying to apply my experience to your question, I found that the T5s outperformed the 1000w in veg and early flower if I had even canopy height. Previously, I could run the 1000w about a foot above the tall plants and the smaller ones under the same light got enough light that stretching wasn't an issue. Then again, headed into the warm/humid season, I like a little more stretch to keep the density of colas smaller and therefore the risk of mold lower.

 

3-4 feet might be a bit much though. Remember that doubling the distance from the light source results in 25% of the intensity. I run my veg plants to about 18-24 inches before I flower them. So there is a bit of a loss on your medium-sized plants in veg. I found that little veg plants do just fine 3-4 feet from the 1000watter, and of course the tall plants rock...but those in between might stretch. A good solution might be a 400-600 watter for the mid size plants....so you run your big veg plants and newly-rooted ones under the 1,000 and put those in between under the 400.

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I will be putting 12 clones aprox the same size all at once under them...They are dimmable to 50% would dimming them help?   HJ

I would have big vegging plants under a 1,000 about a foot under the hood. That meant that the new clones were about 2-2.5 feet under the light. It worked great. Clones did very well..

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oops...let me be a little more specific, the clones will only be 6-8 inches tall and they will be in hydro and most likely only vege 2-3 weeks at most...HJ

Based on my own experience In hydro (DWC) if your light is about 3feet above those clones they will excel. You should see good node spacing, and once they flower if you keep the lights closer, you'll probably be more than happy with the results.

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Hell with it I rehung the T5's under the HPS......HJ

 

...probably the best of both worlds.  Please let us know how that works out....HID from above supplemented with yesterday's T-5's as side lighting.  Light seems to be our limiting factor...so it would seem that "the more, the better" applies here.

 

On an unrelated note, and understanding your background as an electrician, I'm hoping you can give some insight here.  I have a patient who wanted to put a bathroom in her basement, with enough juice to power the macerating toilet, a hair dryer, and electric heater, plus additional demand on the panel to accommodate the likely basement use...TV, etc.  She had a 60-amp line running to the laundry center.  I took out the big 220 plug and replaced it with a 60-amp subpanel, with 20 amps to the laundry (I ran a new gas line in order to eliminate the electric dryer) and a 15 amp circuit to run the hair dryer/curling iron/electric heater.  (not all to be used at the same time).  I ran another 15 amp circuit to cover the lighting, exhaust fan, and toilet grinder.  Then another 15 amp circuit to power TV. lights, etc. in the basement.   I used the existing 3-wire configuration and then ran a separate copper ground from the sub to a new 8-foot grounding rod outside.  But then I talked to a licensed electrician and did some internet research and came to understanding that the ground and neutral need to be bonded at the main panel....so I guess I departed from code by grounding the sub to its own ground.  Question is:  Does this represent a safety hazard?  Should I disconnect the lead to the grounding rod and instead take a #6 (or so) wire back to the main service box?

 

This leads to another question.  I just bought a house with a pole barn about 150' away from the main panel (in the basement of the house).  This is an older home but with upgraded electrical service.  There is a newer 200 amp panel..I'm not sure of the brand...QO, or it might be Square D/Homeline....regardless, there was 100 amp service running to the barn, through a conduit, and the unfortunate former owner who got foreclosed on took the wire with him and along with it the service panel in the barn.   I have had a hard time finding a consensus on the wire to run.  At first, I planned to buy spools of #2 and run three of them together and then ground the sub-panel at the barn with an 8-foot grounding rod....thinking that I could save a few bucks on wire and that it would be easier to pull 2/2/2 through a conduit rather than 2/2/2/6..but understanding now that this isn't to code, I think I need to run 2/2/2/6 wire from the main panel in the basement of  the house out to the barn.  Does this seem about right?  Thanks for any help you can provide.

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Yes yolu need to run 2/2/2/6 from the house to the barn. The barn also needs to have its own ground rod as it is an accessory structure. grounds and neutrals are kept separate and only bonded back at the main panel.

 

Same goes for the sub panel at your pts house except you aren't required to have a ground rod for that sub panel. But you need to replace the feeder and use a correct cable with all fours wires in the same jacket. If you ground the sub panel with a ground rod the grounding wiring between the sub panel and the main panel must be si\zed based on the service size. If she has a 100 amp service it needs to be #6 if it is a 200 amp service #4.

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