600 watts or 1000 watts

Why do some people go with 600 watt lamps and other go with 1000 watts. Will 1000 Watts make the plant grow faster? Also, Is HPS the best way to go and if so Why. Thanks guys.

good question there danny good thinking

what man? are you going to buy a 600 or 100W HPS posibly?
The only reason I guess that people who have the money to buy a 1000W would buy a 600W is heat... but if you could buy a 1000W you should spend the extra 250 and get a good aircooled hood...
so why indeed?
HPS is the best way to go while flowering because it mimics the sun during late summer. aparently magicaly the sun rays are more of twords the red spectrum, and HPS are more towards the red. while MH are more twords the blue...

the January issue of high times has a great in depth artical about light spectrums, how the plant uses different spectrums, and why certain lights are best for different times.

tckfui
so if i go with 1000 watts. hps is used for folwering but what about vegging. Do i use an hps bulb for that as well?

if money isnt an object you should buy a digital switchibal ballast, and you would use a HPS bulb for flowering and a MH bulb for veg... unless you want a seperat veg room, which you should want to have this way theres always somthing flowering

mh...........

what??????

1st: if your going to get a 600 or 1000 hps make sure that you are having a grow large enough for these lamps. it gets to a point where the plant can only use so much light and the rest is being wasted. the reason people get larger lights is because they have a large grow so they need a lamp that will deliver light to a large area.
2nd: MH lights produce more blue spec light. good for veg. HPS have red spec. good for flowering. if you can only afford one, go with a HPS light as you can veg pretty well with it.

i have a 4 foot wide. 4 foot deep ten foot tall cement square closet in a cellar im using a 2 tube 4 ft floro and 3 100 watt hps lamps , im growing 6 plants and its plenty, but for some reason i still want more . mabey 2 more hps 100s? whats anyone think worth the effort to add the two?

well 600's are the most efficent watt for watt, and you can always do stuff like use 3-600 instead of 2 1000 and get better results because the 600 can be closer to the plants and you will have more coverage with less power, if your only using 1 light go with hps because it puts out more light, i cloned under a 600 hps on my last grow and it worked out killer

Fat Sam is totally correct. If you have the money buying like three 600 watt lights is better than two 1,000 watt lights. But I'll be a little more specific for you. Let's compare the 600 watt and 1,000 watt HPS bulbs, and I'll stick with Sunmaster because it's a good light and different brand bulbs put out different lumens.
600 watt super hps = 90,000 lumens and 215 PAR watts
1,000 watt super hps = 150,000 lumens and 358 PAR watts

Now if you go with three 600 watt lights, that will be 270,000 lumens and 645 PAR watts
Now if you go with two 1,000 watt lights, that will be 300,000 lumens and 716 PAR watts

Initially it looks like the two 1,000 watt lights have the three 600 watt lights beat by 30,000 lumens and 71 PAR watts. But that's not the whole story, as you are using 200 more watts (2,000 vs 1,800). The 600 watt efficiency is 90,000/600 = 150 lumens/watt, so if you had 200 more watts worth of a 600 watt light, that would be 30,000. That would equal 300,000 lumens per 2,000 watts of 600 watt bulb light or 150,000 lumens per 1,000 watts of 600 watt light. This is the exact same efficiency as the 1,000 watt light, so as far as Sunmaster bulbs go, the efficiency of a 600 watt bulb and 1,000 watt bulb is the exact same. This goes against everything that I've ever read.

Now as far as PAR watts go...
215/600 = 0.3583
358/1,000 = 0.358

So you do get 0.0003 more PAR watts per watt with the 600 watt bulb, however, this is obviously next to nothing.

I guess the fact that you can place the 600 watt lights closer to the plants would make them more efficient. But then again, if you have air cooled lights and are blowing a lot of air through them you can still get the 1,000 watt lights pretty close. If you decide to run either two 1,000 watt lights or three 600 watt lights the main advantage of the 600 watt lights is that you get better light distribution.

Also, tckfui said something about the electronic ballasts being more expensive, which isn't true. The price is pretty much the same these days. At least it is over at htgsupply.com and a couple other stores that I've seen. I think a good ballast to get would be the new electronic ballast that allows you to change power from 25-50-75-100%...with 100% being 600 watts. Although, I'm not sure how high quality it is, but it looks pretty nice. Here is the link

http://stores.shop.ebay.com/MGS-Supply__W0QQ_armrsZ1

It is the orange ballast and I just noticed they now have a 1,000 watt adjustable ballast too, but it costs 142$ more.

I do believe that there are probably a few different factors that you should consider, other than the cost, before you decide between a 600w and a 1000w. If you have a smaller space, there are some advantages to having a lower watt system. The amount of usable light your plants get goes down as you move your plants away from the light source, I'm not sure what the formula is to figure out how much, but google it, its alot. Anyway, if you dont need a 1000w system, you could be doing yourself a favor by buying a less powerful, cooler light that you can keep closer to your canopy, thus giving yourself more useable light than you may have with even a 1000w. Or something like that.....

Grow big or go home. 1000w will penetrated further than a 600. Plain and simple. Grow more bud further down the plant. 1000w is excellent for a 4 x 4 as that is the ideal coverage for that light. Check out the web and you will see what they recommended for the light you want. and yes heat is more with the big boy.

I have a 600 watt hps and i am starting a new grow .I currently veg with cfls and change to the hps when i flower ,should i be using the hps for vegging or stick with the cfls ? whats the advantage of using hps over cfl for cloning and vegging??

HIWAY said:

I have a 600 watt hps and i am starting a new grow .I currently veg with cfls and change to the hps when i flower ,should i be using the hps for vegging or stick with the cfls ? whats the advantage of using hps over cfl for cloning and vegging??

Click to expand...

No advantage. You just need to make sure the CFL is 6400K-7000K which has more blue in it and are ideal for veg. CFLs come in a range of spectrums, 2400K is the lowest I think, redish/white better for flowering. 6000K+ more ideal for veg.

600 vs 1000 just depends on your space, setup and needs. I run a 400w because of heat management and space, harvest 5-6 ounces every two months and its all I need

HIWAY said:

I have a 600 watt hps and i am starting a new grow .I currently veg with cfls and change to the hps when i flower ,should i be using the hps for vegging or stick with the cfls ? whats the advantage of using hps over cfl for cloning and vegging??

Click to expand...

Personally I would use the CFL's for the clones, and for the first two weeks if a seedling, and then switch to the big light, or - get a perpetual system going, stick with the CFL's for veg and the HPS for flower.