Grow Room Suitable LED's For limited vertical space (34")

[G.Leave]

I tried a similar thread in the LED New Growers section but got no responses, so I thought I would try it here in the second most suitable category given my available space.

Okay so I am contemplating a microgrow to flower a few autos over the winter. My available space is 54" long X 20" deep X 34" high. The space currently sits empty, in the early spring(april1st-june1st) it houses 6 photo plants that veg out for outdoor using X4 4foot T8 fluorescent lights. Heat inside the unit is fine running the X4 T-8's.

@Fairlynew - Fairlynew and I have been chatting back and forth via pm about different options that might be feasible to work in this space. He suggested 2X 300w led(150w real draw each panel) but I am concerned about light burn from the lights being too close once the plants get large as they will surely get large with that much light. I would be lsting the plants to keep as low of a profile as possible, but unsure whether I will be able to keep them below the 1ft recommended from the light. The real bonus on the 300(150w real) ebay units(LEDlightschina) is their price...for $200 I could be set up.

So micropro's please give me some advice on what you think would be the best lighting system for my space. If I was to get more smaller watt units would that be an advantage?

Thanks

 

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@cannabry
Rather than jack Hotbunz thread any further I was hoping we could carry on the discussion here. Are you not concerned about the recommended distance from the light on the mars 48X3? I was looking at them but minimum of 12" in flower seems like too tight of a squeeze.

 

[Ozone69]

I think these guys are more the type of LED guys that go after large commercial operations using vertical farming setups, so there stuff is kind of in the "if price is no concern" category. Not much info as far as real world folks using them that I found, but then I didn't do all that much digging. They make a thin strip LED setup that looks to have good potential.

Illumitex Eclipse ES1: http://www.illumitex.com/illumitex-led-products/eclipse-es1/
Someone selling one for $450: http://www.shineretrofits.com/illum...20-277v.html?gclid=COjgzu3t08YCFYgBaQodijUKbQ

And the neat little spot that I found that led me to Illumitex:
Amazon product ASIN B00AKKUSSE

 

[Nuggz]

GreenSkell - You and I have the same problems. I've got a little more headroom than you do, but not by much. I would seriously like to put maybe one or two LEDs into that space, but most of the distance recommendations I've seen suggest that the plants be at least 18" away from the lights. Plus, LED UFOs are hung from a hanging mechanism that puts the top of the light some distance away from the ceiling. At the very least, I figure hanging LEDs in the typical fashion would reduce my usable vertical space by nearly 2 feet! And that's serious in our case!

I was wondering if it would work to hang the lights at the end where the walls and the ceiling meet at a diagonal angle pointing towards the center. That's the only thing I can see to do. Additionally, I think we'd both have to do some super-cropping or some serious LST to get the plants growing in a horizontal rather than vertical fashion.

Sure wish others would chime in with suggestions. I haven't ordered an LED yet, cause I'm not sure if what I think might work will actually work the way I hope it will.

 

[Nuggz]

I was thinking about buying two of the 180 watt UFOs from this ebay vendor. At $55.99 the price is right.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Stock-13...t=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item27fb9f5f58


The company is of course Chinese based, but they ship free out of their own warehouse in California, and from what I can tell offer to build an LED to any light spectrum combo you want. I emailed the seller and asked him how long the power cords on the units were, and he said the cords were 1.5 meters long.

 

[G.Leave]

I was thinking about buying two of the 180 watt UFOs from this ebay vendor. At $55.99 the price is right.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Stock-13...t=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item27fb9f5f58


The company is of course Chinese based, but they ship free out of their own warehouse in California, and from what I can tell offer to build an LED to any light spectrum combo you want. I emailed the seller and asked him how long the power cords on the units were, and he said the cords were 1.5 meters long.

@Nuggz - I was planning to custom flush mount on the top of the cab. The only problem I found is the power chord sticks out a couple of inches, which might be easily solved by buying a flush mount power chord. You and I are on the same page for sure. I also thought about angle mounting them in the corners to increase distance. I'd be planning to supercrop/lst these for sure regardless of light choice. Sure wish other experienced led owners would chime in too.
The UFO led in the link is similar to the ones I was considering. I was hoping I could get away with 270wX3 (real draw 135), but I think you are on the right path thinking the 180w would be better suited.
If only the dimmable 300w(165 real draw) had the dimmer knob on the end or side I would be set.(then if it was too intense I would simply turn the intensity down)

@Ozone69 - Thanks for your suggestion. I've looked at the strips but overall I have found that they all seem to be very low in power output vs cost.

 

[Nuggz]

Where did you find LEDs that have a dimmer on them? I haven't seen any of those yet.

The one thing that really caught my eye about the LED units I put a link up to, was that the lights come with a 3 year warranty. Cripes, I've seen similar LEDs going for over twice that much, and you'd be lucky to find a 1 year warranty on them.

 

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Here is the lights with the dimmer...highly recommended by fairlynew here on the forums. He was telling me that these light are great deal for what they offer.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Dimmable-300...676?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f3b9c1a0c
Edit- 2 year warranty.

 

[G.Leave]

2 of them can be had for less than $300.

 

[Nuggz]

It looks like you can get two for under $200 and that's a pretty fair price. But like you said, they'd have to be flush mounted, and I'm not set up to do that. For my money I think a couple of UFOs set up at the ends on a diagonal would be a much easier fix. All of them seem to have fan intake slots on the ceiling side of the units, which makes it much harder to figure out. But at least if the units were put in at a diagonal, there would still be some space where they could freely draw air.

My budget is real tight, so it'd be pushing it for me to even spend $112 for two UFOs. But I've also got a number of CFLs I can use to beef up the light intensity some. I think the combo of CFL and LED should work great and using them both should help keep the heat down. I also want to keep my electricity usage down to a minimum, if possible.