Glass Removal on PG-260?

From what I've heard, removing the glass on the Pro-Grow units...and any major LED for that matter, can boost the overall radiance and lumens up to 30% in some cases. I don't know about the rest of you but if an improvement like that is waiting behind just a couple of screws here and there, I'm comfortable voiding a warranty if that's all I have to do.

Question is, I've tried this once before, but to no avail. Couldn't locate the guide where I had originally read about the effect, and after opening the back up all I could find were hard solders holding in the glass. Emailed Ben at HydroHut and he said while possible, it's not something he can recommend personally because of the warranty and all that. If there's anyone out there who has experience taking the glass out of any of Ben's Pro-Grow line, your help is greatly appreciated!

I have a Pro-Grow 260. To be honest I think the glass is there for a reason - protection for expensive bulbs...but mostly for heat. If you put your hand under a PG260 there is still some warmth. Guarantee it'll raise grow room temps if you take the glass off and possibly bleach the plants. Plus I'd rather not void a warranty when I already spent $400 on just a light. Just me

Yeah if your not comfortable doing it............i wouldn't
Someone in another thread said that the new spectras have no glass shielding the leds........I don't think its a problem for the plants(comparable to T5 in heat?)
But it is robbing you of valuable light............Decisions...decisions...

I'd wait til after the warranty is up to take mine apart. I've actually been thinking about that since I got them...it's tempting!

You know it's funny someone posted this question, cause I just took the glass off both my BS240's today . One's almost out of warranty and the other is over 90 days old so what the hey.

They don't seem much brighter really, just not as diffuse anymore, if you know what I mean. Wish I had something to measure the outputs with, but that's gotta wait for another time. I've got them about 16 to 20 inches above the tops so I wouldn't expect any bleaching, but I guess I'll find out sometime tomorrow.

Heat wise the tent was fine all day. No problems, if anything it's probably better for the BS's since now air is now being drawn across the face of the panel. Hell I was looking at the aluminum panel that the LED's are mounted on and was wondering how I could attach 3 or 4 of those crazy ass fan-less CPU coolers and just chuck the fans altogether. Would make it a bit more energy efficient.

Having said all that, a BS-240 is not a PG-260 which is a damn fine panel it seems and I wouldn't fuck with it. Good luck ex1.

Removing the glass is definitely something to consider, but i wouldnt really expect to see a visable difference or a yield difference (noticeable that is). While it is possible for glass to block a significant amount of light (lumens) the reality is this glass is often very thin and of pretty decent quality, it is likely to fall between 5 and 10% lumen loss, if that.

My concern is not really the increase of heat to the grow room, because the same heat is still there, and the led diodes really dont put off the heat, its more on the backside that you have to worry about. The back of the chips and moreso the power sources for them. The thing that does worry me is that these lights were designed with the glass in, and im cautious about removing the glass and possibly altering the direction/route of airflow. It may be reducing the cooling capacity of the fans to the places that need them. Of coarse this is model dependent and entirely speculation. A good critical look at the light should be able to tell you if removing the glass poses a risk to altered airflow.

I want to remove the glass on my GLH Spectra primarily because its somehow smudged looking on the inside, and in such a case i could be losing light on those spots.

Before i do anything though i would like to buy a cheapo lumen/lux meter to test before and after, at least for this model we could see the % results to some degree.

Yeah. I didn't mean the light would actually put off more heat, I'm just worried since it's designed that way if the heat won't dissipate correctly if the glass is off. I think the glass used on most panels is thin enough to negate any reason of removing it unless your cleaning it..that would be interesting if there was a higher par/lumen output though.

Someone briefly mentioned removing the glass reduced the dispersion visibly, this could be a negative and a positive. It could be putting too much in too small of a spot (of a specific nm) as well it could be reducing the coverage area. This idea is similar to how greenhouses diffuse the light for more even coverage and reduce hot spots by using slightly rippled glass (bumpy?).

just theories really though.

JamesBong007 said:

Yeah. I didn't mean the light would actually put off more heat, I'm just worried since it's designed that way if the heat won't dissipate correctly if the glass is off. I think the glass used on most panels is thin enough to negate any reason of removing it unless your cleaning it..that would be interesting if there was a higher par/lumen output though.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure if you screw with the efficiency of the units cooling, the heat won't dissipate from the aluminum mounting properly, thus building up heat and increasing the units overall temperature and producing more heat. But it's probably such a small amount in this case that it's unnoticeable. And I guess there's now slightly more UVA coming out of the panel which could be a good or bad thing. Personally I think the lower power cheaper Chinese units, especially the one's with 120 degree beam angles, can get a little bump in output at a cost of slightly more heat and less protection for the LED's. The good panels that have glass and were designed and tested with their glass on should be left alone. You may even be screwing with the efficiency (efficacy?) of the individual LEDs by increasing heat, but that's probably a bit extreme. You pay so much for some of these panels, who wants to void a warranty over what amounts to a one percent increase in lumens?

At least that's the way I'm looking at it. Anyone else?

^^^^^All valid points......

I've been spamming the shit out this forum for anybody with an unused promo/discount code for this exact panel>>..Yes I'm a cheap bastard.....

Thanks...

Why are we even opening the case? Its expensive and when I hit the power switch it turns on.

Yeah I'd agree FranJan.