Lighting Wondering if I should get new lights for my 2x4 ?

[Oldfartnoclue58]

I'm currently using Vivosun 200se wing light in my 2x4 and am only running 1-2 plants at a time. I also have the Adlite Deep red & blue. Only using the red atm. I was looking at the A/C Ionframe Evo3 or 4, Vivosun VSF3000 or 4500 and finally Mars Hydro FC3000 or 4000 EVO. They all seem similar so I guess I'm looking if anyone has experience with or own any of these. Any suggestions for one over the other, looking for any help/ advice. Or if you think my Vivosun 200 is fine, let me know, please. I also have 2 Vivosun 150's that I could swap out. I was looking at the bar systems because they seem to give a better spread and deeper penetration than the board lights. Finishing my first grow and wondering if this is an area I could improve on. Thanks in advance for your helpful advice/ help & guidance, it's greatly appreciate.

 

[Atulip]

I'm currently using Vivosun 200se wing light in my 2x4 and am only running 1-2 plants at a time. I also have the Adlite Deep red & blue. Only using the red atm. I was looking at the A/C Ionframe Evo3 or 4, Vivosun VSF3000 or 4500 and finally Mars Hydro FC3000 or 4000 EVO. They all seem similar so I guess I'm looking if anyone has experience with or own any of these. Any suggestions for one over the other, looking for any help/ advice. Or if you think my Vivosun 200 is fine, let me know, please. I also have 2 Vivosun 150's that I could swap out. I was looking at the bar systems because they seem to give a better spread and deeper penetration than the board lights. Finishing my first grow and wondering if this is an area I could improve on. Thanks in advance for your helpful advice/ help & guidance, it's greatly appreciate.

Don't know about all the lamps you've mentioned, but I've had a few Mars and a couple were heaters, and one had a bum dimmer. Of what you listed I like the AC Ionframe. The Mars fc 4000 evo has 765 diodes for 320w, whereas AC Ionframe evo3 is using 840 diodes for 280w. AC Ionframe will be cooler and more efficient with a longer lifespan, but the Mars may push out more light overall due to the 40 extra watts but will push out more heat. The AC Ionframe seems to be a bit more transparent about which leds they use as well.

 

[Cannaficionado]

I'm currently using Vivosun 200se wing light in my 2x4 and am only running 1-2 plants at a time. I also have the Adlite Deep red & blue. Only using the red atm. I was looking at the A/C Ionframe Evo3 or 4, Vivosun VSF3000 or 4500 and finally Mars Hydro FC3000 or 4000 EVO. They all seem similar so I guess I'm looking if anyone has experience with or own any of these. Any suggestions for one over the other, looking for any help/ advice. Or if you think my Vivosun 200 is fine, let me know, please. I also have 2 Vivosun 150's that I could swap out. I was looking at the bar systems because they seem to give a better spread and deeper penetration than the board lights. Finishing my first grow and wondering if this is an area I could improve on. Thanks in advance for your helpful advice/ help & guidance, it's greatly appreciate.

The vivosun 200 sould be plenty of light. Its designed for a 2x4 space to begin with, the only thing a bar style lights will give you over this is more even ppfd around the edges of the grow space. If you look at the par maps for a manufacturers board style as opposed to the bar style you'll see about a 15 to 20% jump in par across the board and it will be far more even across the whole space too.

The other positive about bar lights is most if not all have detachable drivers and you did mention wanting a cooler grow space. Like I said in my post before the newer lights from ac infinity have built in UVA but isn't a separately controllable spectrum like most other companies with built in UV. I would definitely take that into consideration.

I like the quantum board style, thats my opinion though I run an oversized light for my 3x3 space because the board fits. In a 2x4 space thats kind of hard to do. One other option is instead of getting a 2x4 light you could just get 2 100watt 2x2 space lights and daisy chain them. This will give you the option of being able to raise one light higher than the other if you have significant hight differences in your 2 plants while keeping them at the same power level.

 

[Oldfartnoclue58]

Like I mentioned before. I think I'm going to take out the 200 watt and put in the 2 150 watt, which will give me more control in case I grow more and allow me to adjust them separately if needed. plus they actually have better ratings on the outside edges compared to the 200 watt wing light. Thanks .

 

[Nightqueen]

I had the same question asked myself for my 140x70x200. I ended up with 2x 150W bar style lamps - because the 320w alternative limits in many ways.
2 lights can be have different heights.
They can be angled to get light more on plants instead on walls.
And with the smaller units, there's even room for a third of the 150w - not that it would be needed, but it's nice to be able to.
If filter and fan are inside the tent the 1 large light can be annoying and could cost height.
Lastly , this cheap China made items are not made to last forever- we don't know when but eventually they will fail and if they fail support won't help nor send replacement. With 2 units there's at least no hard interupt and just less light while having lost less money if one cheap lamp fails.

 

[Oldfartnoclue58]

Those were my thoughts on it too NQ. I've always got 1 as a back up and I still have the wing if needed. Thanks for the input Nightqueen, I appreciate it. Thank you to everyone who has contributed.

 

[WildBill]

Like I mentioned before. I think I'm going to take out the 200 watt and put in the 2 150 watt, which will give me more control in case I grow more and allow me to adjust them separately if needed. plus they actually have better ratings on the outside edges compared to the 200 watt wing light. Thanks .

That's the best thing for you to do, since it costs no money!

Now your Supplemental light setup.
Keep running that deep red the same cycle as Your main light. I don't really know why Mars made the blue light! Their lights already have too much blue light, in my opinion. I have no idea how much blue is in those 150s you want to use Come up but more than likely they have plenty. About the only time I can see where you would want to use those blue lights is if you plan on growing a girl that stretches a lot or give you more control over an unruly sativa.

 

[Delps8]

Check out my comments in your thread about AC units.

If you're thinking of going with two lights, I'd go with either the Vipar Spectra XS 1500 Pro or the Migro Aray 150.

When the Vipar came out, it was the bees knees. Cheap, good spectrum for a 2' space, and a good amount of light. You can get one for about $90.

A couple of months ago, Shane at Migro released an entire new line of lights. The new lights are generate signficantly more photons and the Aray 150 is a pocket rocket. It's $150 for the light but the PPFD map is superb. I contacted Shane on another matter and I asked about PPFD maps for hang heights other than 16". He replied that that's the hang height that they recommend. So that's why there's only one PPFD map.

The spectrum of the 150 is different than the XS 1500 Pro in that it's got more red in it. Lights with a lot of blue will tend produce short, compact plants. Plants grown with more red light (and therefore less blue) will tend to be taller and yields are increased somewhat. This data is from chatGPT analyzing the spectrum of each light.

Wavelength Range	Migro ARAY 150	ViparSpectra XS 1500 Pro
Blue (400–500)	18.8%	24.6%
Yellow-Green (500–600)	33.3%	25.0%
Red (600–700)	43.7%	25.1%
Far Red (700–800)	4.2%	25.2%

(The actual values from the Migro site are 15, 35, 47, and 3 so GPT seems to be doing a pretty good job.)

The issue that I have with the AC Infinity lights is that they have a relatively uneven PPFD map.

The Migro Aray 150 is below and it's 1k in the center and ~900 in the corners. That's superb. ($150 each)

The AC Infinity bar light for a 2' x 4' with light levels falling off as soon as you move off center. I don't understand why they design their lights like this but that level of light falloff shows up in a lot of their lights. ($299)

Vipar also sells the XS 3000 which is two 1500's in a frame. It doesn't have the same output at 16"/18" but it does a very credible job and it's only $190.

 

[WildBill]

Nice rabbit hole @Delps8 !!!!!!


HLG sent me an email about their new 750w 'Enhanced spectrum' light.......with a VERY nice introductory price.

So geeking out spectrums a little bit more, well at least a little bit more than usual!

They did a lot of other changes, but spectrum wise, They basically took away 2% from blue and distributed it to red and green evenly.

I just compared Shane's distribution and where did he come up with so much red? Holy crap! Almost 49%!!!!! That's pretty crazy! I'm gonna have to ask him what is reasoning was on that. Turning an indica into a sativa?
All joking aside it does tend to increase the efficiency of the unit at least in the theoretical output. That's a huge amount of red! At least he's got the blue where it needs to be in my opinion.

I know he never shows it, but does Shane Grow cannabis? I can't remember for sure or not. I thought I heard him mention that one time about A Medical grow ........ But I'm sure I was stoned when I watched it !

I am tempted to get that new light! But I'm already adding under canopy lighting to this next grow.

I think HLG tends to be a more red shifted than the Mars for sure. This new HLG Light has 43% red. Total red, 38% green In 19% blue

 

[Cannaficionado]

Nice rabbit hole @Delps8 !!!!!!


HLG sent me an email about their new 750w 'Enhanced spectrum' light.......with a VERY nice introductory price.

So geeking out spectrums a little bit more, well at least a little bit more than usual!

They did a lot of other changes, but spectrum wise, They basically took away 2% from blue and distributed it to red and green evenly.

I just compared Shane's distribution and where did he come up with so much red? Holy crap! Almost 49%!!!!! That's pretty crazy! I'm gonna have to ask him what is reasoning was on that. Turning an indica into a sativa?
All joking aside it does tend to increase the efficiency of the unit at least in the theoretical output. That's a huge amount of red! At least he's got the blue where it needs to be in my opinion.

I know he never shows it, but does Shane Grow cannabis? I can't remember for sure or not. I thought I heard him mention that one time about A Medical grow ........ But I'm sure I was stoned when I watched it !

I am tempted to get that new light! But I'm already adding under canopy lighting to this next grow.

I think HLG tends to be a more red shifted than the Mars for sure. This new HLG Light has 43% red. Total red, 38% green In 19% blue

Shane from Migro? he says no, but he does work very closely with cultivators.