Lighting Vipar LED The Manual.

[impulse741]

My electric use has halved since I went back to auto's and can leave the lights on instead of a 1000w heater although I'm pretty sure I'll have to add a CFL during the coldest part of Winter as the LED's just can't keep it warm enough

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That first grow I only had the V240, added the V300 for the last week once it got too hot with the CFL's in there.
Your grow looks pretty much exactly the same as my first one until I got it in my head I needed loads more light!
View attachment 361116
Now I've got the 2 panels angled in for the magic crossover of beams. The spot is a red/blue/white lamp for propogating that I leave on 24hours while the panels are on 20/4. I'm getting a Vipar C180 COB unit to provide the top down light and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to use all three led panels all year and 4 side spots during the cooler periods of Summer days. Can't imagine needing any more than that for the next year or so until the next tech comes along.
Big bonus after experimenting for a few weeks is that I can lower canopy temps pretty accurately in my size tent by moving the lights up 2" for every 1 degree C I need to lose.

Well my second 300w led arrived, its not a vipar but it's very similar, spectrum is slightly redder, but draw is the same at about 170-180.

Are the lights an ok distance from the plants would people say? is it closer the better, or do people think I should give it bit more space to allow the spectrums to mix a bit before they hit the plants?

 

[faded187]

I would put about 15 -20 inchs from top right now.let them climb to it.once ur in heavy flower I put that sucker bout 4-5 inchs from top with 4 2700k cfl all around bout 3 inchs from sides of colas

 

[nben]

I had mine about 3 inches from the tops of the flowers. I got some burn. It is now about 6 away, the highest I can go. It's summer now though, every garden is running hot.

This light is going to be phenomenal in the cooler months I'm thinking.

 

[EverythingsHazy]

I had mine about 3 inches from the tops of the flowers. I got some burn. It is now about 6 away, the highest I can go. It's summer now though, every garden is running hot.

This light is going to be phenomenal in the cooler months I'm thinking.

IF you put it less than 6" from the tops, wouldn't you be losing a lot of potential coverage? You'd only be able to cover the spot directly under the panel since it wouldn't spread much at all at that distance...

 

[nben]

Yes you do! Finding this out more and more. Unfortunately I can't get the light any higher... But you are VERY correct:stoneslap:

Edit: I'm hoping that the top most buds ripen soon so I can just take them and allow more light to hit other parts of the plant. Thought they were finishing and then they had another flowering spurt. Hopefully this will be the last one. I did think the buds were starting to look like they were going to finish a little on the puny side so I was kind of happy to see this.

 

[EverythingsHazy]

Yes you do! Finding this out more and more. Unfortunately I can't get the light any higher... But you are VERY correct:stoneslap:

Edit: I'm hoping that the top most buds ripen soon so I can just take them and allow more light to hit other parts of the plant. Thought they were finishing and then they had another flowering spurt. Hopefully this will be the last one. I did think the buds were starting to look like they were going to finish a little on the puny side so I was kind of happy to see this.

Hmm when when you say you can't get the lights higher, do you mean you physically can't raise them due to space limitations, or do you mean they don't work well any higher?
How are you're temps right under the light panels? If they are too warm you might get less dense buds so you may want to put a fan blowing right between where the campy and the lights are. Just a thought.

 

[nben]

Ya, I can't raise it any higher due to height restrictions. The buds are maturing dense at least and I do have a fan in there, but I'm going to have to figure something out for the next time this happens... Thankfully I am not growing a photo plant, I would really be having height problems for sure haha!

 

[impulse741]

Yes you do! Finding this out more and more. Unfortunately I can't get the light any higher... But you are VERY correct:stoneslap:

Edit: I'm hoping that the top most buds ripen soon so I can just take them and allow more light to hit other parts of the plant. Thought they were finishing and then they had another flowering spurt. Hopefully this will be the last one. I did think the buds were starting to look like they were going to finish a little on the puny side so I was kind of happy to see this.

I was thinking this too... I have my LEDs about 2-4 inches to my plants a and they are in final stages of flowering.

Although it is growing well, I have a feeling I've been keeping it too close to the buds, meaning I think the buds have not been getting the full benefit of the wide LED spectrum, and maybe only the light of the few LEDs directly above the bud, rather than say a mix of half the panel from a greater hight.

Does anyone have experience with this? Improving yield by raising the LED? I never understood why LED manufacturers said to keep the lights so high above the plants, but I guess this could be a good reason for it!

 

[impulse741]

http://www.rollitup.org/t/led-distance-from-canopy.529881/

Found this which could be helpful for some of you. Saw an interesting point mentioned that when you open your tent you'll quite often see a mini rainbow of colours on your floor. This to me shows at that point the spectrums have had a chance to mix, so there must be an ideal distantance where to keep the light, while minimizing light degradation. I'm going to raise my lights to 6-8 inches above canopy and see how that works.

May have to wait for my next grow before I can really see any impact tho.

 

[hope2grow]

Thinking about swapping a 400hps for a 300w Vipar LED mainly due to heat.. can't keep temp in my tent below 31c with the hps.. has anyone done this swap can you say how much it reduces temps roughly?? 2c? 5c? 10?? First grow.. any help much appreciated..