Grow light advice

Hey folks,

Hoping I can get a little advice here. I have recently added a 4x4x7 tent to my setup and am struggling a little bit on lighting choices.

I previously ran a 2x4x5 tent with two ONEO blurple Leds (amazon specials). They consume about 185w a piece from the wall, and served me reasonably well. Ive since turned this tent into a veg setup with fluorescent lighting and have moved the 2 LED lights into my new 4x4 flower tent.

I would like to add some additional lighting and eventually move the 2 LED lights into the veg tent. Heres my issue.. my budget at the moment is only about $300 CAD ($225 USD..ish) max.. like MAX (working on buying a new house). I can add additional lighting in the coming months, but only have about the $300 CAD mentioned at the moment.

I've been looking at the following options..

1 x 315cmh
1 x 600 watt hps
1 x 135 watt Quantum Board.

I've been playing with the idea of strip lights, but it looks like its a little outside my budget at the moment. I can keep the 2 LED lights i currently own in the tent in addition to the new light I buy.

I like the thought of the quantum board, as I can add 2-3 additional boards down the road, however I'm not sure that a 135 watt board by itself at the moment will add a whole lot the current LED lights.

I'm thinking a 315 CMH flanked by my 2 LEDS may be the best bet, but once I look to move the LED lights to the veg tent, the 315 CMH may be a little under powered for my 4x4.

I've also looked at the knockoff QB kits on Aliexpress, but I've heard some mixed things about boards not using the diodes they specify. using these I could spring for about 260watts of juice, but Im unsure of the quality.

Any input from folks would be much appreciated.. If you were in my shoes.. what would you do?

Ironically, I work at a licensed producer where we run some insane gear. 84,000 watts of HPS in a our flower rooms and real nice LED lights in our veg/mother rooms. Coming home and looking at my little tent setup is funny at times lol.

Cheers!

A 315 and start saving for a second. Use the LED you have until you have to use them elsewhere. Check the Samsung LED strips. I’ve seen some great bud from people making their own with the strips. A lot of items can serve as a heat sink including a large aluminum cookie sheet from a restaurant supply.

Example of parts.

http://www.ledstrips8.com/samsung-led-lights-c-49.html

burchell said:

315 CMH may be a little under powered for my 4x4

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Agreed, great for a 3x3 but needs a little help in a 4x4. You might consider a 630 CMH, I have a DE version thats pretty cool. They even make a 600 watt DE CMH bulb that you can run in a HPS DE system, so a simple bulb swap and you have either CMH or HPS. It's a growerschoice bulb that I found for that.

If you cant steal from your workplace what's the point of working.
I do it daily but then I am self employed so im not sure who's winning or losing.

coreywebster said:

If you cant steal from your workplace what's the point of working.
I do it daily but then I am self employed so im not sure who's winning or losing.

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LOL I had to a "relieve" a few people of their job titles recently for that reason!

Thanks everyone for the input. Its easy to grow when your budget, equipment and space are non issues but Its interesting how complex things become when your wallet/responsibilities become a road block.. I laugh a little on the inside about the fact that growing 4 plants at home is more challenging than growing several thousand at work!

I have a 600w HPS from vivosun in one of my 4x4s, it has done 2 crops in that tent. 4 plants first time pulled 14.5 ozs dry, second crop had 3 plants and pulled 10.5 ozs dry. Not spectacular numbers but it was also my first ever grows. I think the 600w HPS kit for 239.99 on Amazon is still one of the best bang for your buck you can get lol.

I also have a 315cmh in another 4x4....its perfectly fine for vegging but as others have mentioned, its coverage is not quite good enough to flower a full 4x4 canopy imo.

Depending on your temps and ventilation, I would run a 600w hps. I've used 1000w and I'm not sure the outgrew the 600w. Either way I have no experience with the 315w or those LEDs. I stick to hps and MH