Is this overkill or best possible?

dandyrandy said:

Here is 16 3590's running at 800w at the moment. 4 weeks bloom 4 plants in 16 sq ft.

Click to expand...

Strainhunters said:

There's more brands of cobs out there which perform (near) equal to the cxa/cxb's but are much cheaper. Dont stare too much at specs on paper, but do some research and check real world results.
Citizen has some pretty great cobs, also Bridgelux seems a pretty awesome brand with the Vero's, and of course Cree has a great reputation (but comes with a price).
I also prefer to run more cobs at lower wattage than instead running fewer cobs and running them higher watts.

I replace 2x gavita 1000W hps with a total of 40 Citizen cobs run at 50W each, so a total of 2000W on 30~40square foot above a total of 40 plants in my hydro tent.

Click to expand...

Strainhunters said:

There's more brands of cobs out there which perform (near) equal to the cxa/cxb's but are much cheaper. Dont stare too much at specs on paper, but do some research and check real world results.
Citizen has some pretty great cobs, also Bridgelux seems a pretty awesome brand with the Vero's, and of course Cree has a great reputation (but comes with a price).
I also prefer to run more cobs at lower wattage than instead running fewer cobs and running them higher watts.

I replace 2x gavita 1000W hps with a total of 40 Citizen cobs run at 50W each, so a total of 2000W on 30~40square foot above a total of 40 plants in my hydro tent.

Click to expand...

JSB99 said:

Thanks a lot! I'm going to check out those alternatives.

I think I'm leaning towards 16x3500k COBs at 1400mA. I'm also leaning towards active cooling. Being an electronics/computer geek, I know the downsides of heat stress. I'm probably going to build my own as I'm sure it'll save me money.

Click to expand...

Strainhunters said:

Sounds good. Do some more research before you order stuff tho, check out Growmau5 @ youtube if you havent done already.

Click to expand...

JSB99 said:

Thanks!

Yeah, Growmau5 rocks! Those vids he put together are really helpful! Watching one right now

I'm still a couple months out and just started reading up on this yesterday.

Click to expand...

Trippyness said:

If you have a good budget then here is an optimal setup with numbers:
3590 3500k at 1.4A x 16 ( 1 COB a SQ/f) is 1234PPFD AVG with 782 COB watts.
3590 3500k at 1.05A x 16 is 982PPFD with 586 COB Watts.
Both are ideal setups, however 1.05A is less wattage and still perfectly ideal PPFD.
I would go with that as after 900PPFD you diminish returns.

Click to expand...

JSB99 said:

Thanks for the feedback!

After thinking about it last night I decided to go with 16 3590 COBs @ 3500k, 1.05mA. That seems like a good balance between power and coverage. Glad to see someone was thinking the same.

Click to expand...

Danielson999 said:

Here's a video of a guy attempting to get 2lbs from one plant using 16 cxb 3070's running at 1400ma. Not sure if he's on the forum or not but it's a great example of what you're wanting to do. Obviously your gardening skills are going to play a huge role in pulling that much weight but at least the potential is there

Click to expand...

JSB99 said:

I've just started learning about COBs and was figuring out how much I want to invest.

In a 4x4, a would 16 cxb3590s (4 per plant) be too much? I've been watching the YouTube vids and know I can piece everything together, but I thought getting either 3 or 4 of these would be easier...

http://timbergrowlights.com/200-watt-cree-cxb3590-4-cob-grow-light-kit/

It's basically 600w or 800w at the wall and $1200 or $1600 at the wallet.

I was looking at 3500k COBs, but with that many, would I want to go half 3000k?

Click to expand...

VegasWinner said:

You got it on the money. Peace

Click to expand...