9' x 5' 2x1000W?

Just wondering if 2 - 1000w lights on a 9 foot rail would be sufficient enough to cover an area that is 4'10" wide and 9'4" long?

Both lights will be on the rail, both will have (Daystar AC) reflectors, and both will be cooled by a 550CFM inline fan (1 fan both lights).

Maybe I should only use 6' of the rail? The other 3' is an extension.

Just want to make sure I am good to go before I build this thing.

thanks!

i'm sure the light rail would be nice for the plants, but why not just hang each 1000w light in between your 5x9 area? each 1000w is suppose to cover a 4x4 area but since you are overlapping a little bit the extra foot in the middle would be fine.

I think the light rail is a little overkill. spend the extra money on great reflectors.

desert fox said:

I think the light rail is a little overkill. spend the extra money on great reflectors.

Click to expand...

Already ordered it and its on the way.

Maybe I could use the mover with 1 light to cover this area? I guess that would probably not be enough, huh? Overkill with 2 on a rail and not enough with just one. That sucks.

How about this:

I could extend my grow area to either 10'10" long OR maybe even 12'6" long. I haven't build my system yet(working on that now) and I could always expand on it.

Would that make more sense though? I dont want to waste any lighting, thats for sure and would like to get the most out of it.

So same width, but which length? Can I stretch it to 12-1/2' or just shoot for the 10'10"?

thanks!

Actually, a rail is a great idea. Thats 6000 lumens per square foot, and unless you want
to be constantly rotating your plants, the rail is a must. I use one with 2 - 1000W HPS
on a 4X8 Table and it gives me 25% better yield than without it.

I wouldn't stretch it much further - if you drop your Lumen to Sq Ft ratio much further, your yield will suffer

torontoone said:

Actually, a rail is a great idea. Thats 6000 lumens per square foot, and unless you want
to be constantly rotating your plants, the rail is a must. I use one with 2 - 1000W HPS
on a 4X8 Table and it gives me 25% better yield than without it.

I wouldn't stretch it much further - if you drop your Lumen to Sq Ft ratio much further, your yield will suffer

Click to expand...

OK so then 10'10" at most? Or would you recommend staying at 9' in length? I would guess you would suggest the 9', but if I can stretch it to 10'10" without negatively effecting my yield, then that would be a good thing.

Reason I ask is because I plan on doing a SOG and keeping plants short. So maybe I can afford to stretch it out a bit so I can get more of the little plants under light.

torontoone said:

Actually, a rail is a great idea. Thats 6000 lumens per square foot, and unless you want
to be constantly rotating your plants, the rail is a must. I use one with 2 - 1000W HPS
on a 4X8 Table and it gives me 25% better yield than without it.

I wouldn't stretch it much further - if you drop your Lumen to Sq Ft ratio much further, your yield will suffer

Click to expand...

could you elaborate on your use please? how big of a distance do the two lights travel? how far apart are the lights? do you find that the plants on the edges are smaller than the plants in the middle?

since you already bought it. I would say stick with your original dimensions in the ballpark of 10X5. Light movers are a weird concept to me. Dont try to stretch your light too thin. I think your trying too hard to make max yield by chasing numbers too much. light movers are not ment to get that much greater coverage. Get a light meter and run an open set up. This will help you evaluate your light spread better, by tweaking distance, spacing and all that jazz. That way you are not spinning your wheels when making the cabinet. Torontoone made a great point about posibly having to move plants around manually.

48inch parabolic would work wonders in your area if you can keep the room cool also would make a great canidate for expanding it out a little, but since you already bought your gear its too late now to change it.

There is so many schools of thought for maximizing lighting efficency. air cooled lighting, distance, supper spreader, efficent reflectors, reflecting light from walls, lightmovers. lightmovers are just low on my list, mainly because of moving parts and murphys law.