Lighting Heat and size

[mjdregba]

Hi afn,

Apologies if this has been answered many times, I did a search and could not really find a straight answer.

I am looking into the use of an LED panel for my small grow. The grow box is not really micro, but is only 2ft by 5 1/2 ft (thats 5 1/2 ft height space to accomodate the plant and light). And I usually grow one big one in a 12(ish) litre pot, or a couple of smaller ones in 6 litre pots. It would be great if I could get lights with more oomph in there to penetrate deeper into the plant.

The grow box is inside the house with an ambient temperature of about 21c. I currently use a 125w CFL (red) through the whole grow and this only really kicks the temps up to about 26c - I have a proper fan and cf combo with speed controller. It warms the room a few degrees too

Would something like an MS004 be okay for this size box, height is where I am most concerned as it may be hard to keep the plants a foot or two away from the lights when fully mature, but I assume it will cover 2ft width/depth.

My other worry is heat, it is what is stopping me using a more powerful CFL. What kind of heat output does it generate compared to a 125w CFL?

many thanks in anticipation.

 

[Magic]

Do you have a fan sucking the air completely out of your tent? If so you could keep things cooler with a m0004. My m0006 runs cooler that my 125w dual spec cfl. If I where to leave the cfl on all day my temp would raise into the low 80s easy but my GN never gets over 79F I would not worry about you plants getting too tall, you can have your light 12 inches during flowering if you are still worried about height you can learn to LST.

 

[mjdregba]

Do you have a fan sucking the air completely out of your tent? If so you could keep things cooler with a m0004. My m0006 runs cooler that my 125w dual spec cfl. If I where to leave the cfl on all day my temp would raise into the low 80s easy but my GN never gets over 79F I would not worry about you plants getting too tall, you can have your light 12 inches during flowering if you are still worried about height you can learn to LST.

thanks IDS; yes I have a proper hydro fan and cf it is a stealth box, so odor is number one priority. Your almost spot on with the temps, mine does get to just above 26.5c (80f), so if the ms0006 is cooler then the ms0004 would be even better. Will the ms0004 be big enough for my box, how much more actual light penetration do you think it has that the 125w cfl? The 125w cfl doesnt give me nuggs longer than about 4 inches (excluding centre) and virtually nothing mid cannopy - plant stretched lots tho,

 

[Bilbo]

It will have more penetration and better all round light than a cfl. I've got similar size space, 2 panels and 2 spots running atm, temps never get above 26c but with the 300w cfl it's 30c+ outside of winter time.