Lighting Renovations = Big toys, Help me choose!

[briman]

I run dual California Lightworks Solar Storm 400's. There are 3 links at the bottom of my posts to go through, if you have the time.

https://www.autoflower.org/f5/buddha-seeds-purple-kush-grow-journal-27872.html

https://www.autoflower.org/f5/brima...licious-seeds-northern-lights-blue-32484.html

https://www.autoflower.org/f5/buddha-seeds-magnum-flash-seeds-kush-van-stitch-grow-25841.html

 

[TheGreenBastard]

Well I made the plunge and I bought the 2 new Vipar 675Watt LEDs. Picked up a thermostat space heater to run on 77 deg during lights off to keep the room perfect temp as well! They seem like a reliable and well built light for the price. I made sure to look up a few grows and I found good results. So I guess now I am strictly an LED Guy! Gosh I'm excited. Now time to get rid of those old, bulky, hot, energy sucking HPS. Total now, I will have the 2 Vipars 675w + my TOPled 450w which I may sell or keep for added IR and extra wavelengths. That's a total of 900 watts from the grid that I can pick and choose from instead of having one big light running at all times. It sounds like a win win.

Gana have a Fast & Vast RDWC LED grow for you to feast on soon. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, its greatly appreciated.

 

[briman]

Great call GB!! Welcome to the led brotherhood!! There is a learning curve with led. Thet stack the plants nodes fairly thigh. An inch apart is a good starting point and when they hit the pre flower stretch, they should be right as rain! LED karma your way!!:thumbs:

 

[The Elvis]

Nice GB ! Maybe ill get some for Christmas. Im tired of HiD and the power bill.
Great purchase!

 

[Bilbo]

Good choice GB, plants seem to love the beam crossover from 2 panels.

Remember to keep both those panels as high as you can until you know those 5w chips aren't going to shred your young plants leaves and whatever you do remember to get some calmag supplement you can use from the start!

 

[TheGreenBastard]

Does anyone know if a water chiller is a must for rdwc. I don't think I need it but I keep hearing waterchiller in dwc grows. If so does anyone have a link for a Cheap one. They seem wicked expensive.
Thanks! This is the final piece to the puzzel that I have not purchased.

 

[lykaboss]

I have looking into chillers myself, to be honest they are not that expensive. Your not going to spend Thousands of dollars on one for home use. I have no experience yet with them but i have talked to quite a few people about chillers. All of them say go bigger then you need/think. Efficiency of the chiller is what you want. You don't want something so cheap that it is just running 24/7 trying to keep the water cool. I guess the price of the chiller depends on how much water you are going to be chillen. For me i was looking at the 1/2 hp commercial eco plus, think its around $700, but the guy told me it would only run about 10 to 15 min every hour to keep roughly 80 gallons of water chilled to 70f. That is pretty efficient.

I forget his name... there was one person on youtube i seen had a 1/10hp chiller and he was complaining that it ran pretty much 24/7 and never really reached the target temp.

for what its worth that is my view/experience with chillers

 

[pop22]

Does anyone know if a water chiller is a must for rdwc. I don't think I need it but I keep hearing waterchiller in dwc grows. If so does anyone have a link for a Cheap one. They seem wicked expensive.
Thanks! This is the final piece to the puzzel that I have not purchased.

Woth your room temps running that high, you need to cool the res somehow. You can use 2 liter bottles of frozen water, but that can be a pain unless you insulate your res. Alsao you can build a chiller from a dehumidifier cheap! I posted a link to a DIY chiller. Search and you should find it. Its really simple actually. Requires you be running RDWC. You can search youtube for it also. there are a couple of goo DIY vids on there. You can find used dehumidifiers for $50 or less,

 

[pop22]

I have looking into chillers myself, to be honest they are not that expensive. Your not going to spend Thousands of dollars on one for home use. I have no experience yet with them but i have talked to quite a few people about chillers. All of them say go bigger then you need/think. Efficiency of the chiller is what you want. You don't want something so cheap that it is just running 24/7 trying to keep the water cool. I guess the price of the chiller depends on how much water you are going to be chillen. For me i was looking at the 1/2 hp commercial eco plus, think its around $700, but the guy told me it would only run about 10 to 15 min every hour to keep roughly 80 gallons of water chilled to 70f. That is pretty efficient.

I forget his name... there was one person on youtube i seen had a 1/10hp chiller and he was complaining that it ran pretty much 24/7 and never really reached the target temp.

for what its worth that is my view/experience with chillers

Thats because commercial small chillers are a ripoff! I'm will to bet a DIY chiller made from a 30 pint dehumidifier could chill the res running 15 minutes 2 or 3 times a day! And after insulating my res, I believe everyone one should. It makes a tremendous difference in how long the res stays cool. right now, my 19 gallon res will stay below 70F, when rising from about 63F for way over 24 hours with the room temp at 75 or less. And thats with just a sloppy insulation job.

 

[Bilbo]

With a small 20l tank like mine losing/gaining heat quickly depending on ambient temps outside I'd like the luxury of one of the Hailea chillers for £200. It would definitely be a luxury but I'd be happy knowing my res temps were always 20c summer or winter