Led- Turn them up or down

So the more I've been reading about leds and their outputs the more I have been seeing that the lower they are the more efficient they run. I am running 2 qb 288s and 2 f-series strips.

According to the HLG webside you get more lumens/w the lower mAH you are. So is it more beneficial to turn them down and get them closer?

I think I may have found my answer actually.

Run @60%of max on the strips but almost max the driver if i recall right

@ledgardener is a good dude to ask one of the best

Yea I've been reading all his articles for the past month or so. Its where I pretty much learned what I know. I was just asking because when I turn them up I am getting some serious heat off the drivers from the QB boards and the strips. So I have them turned to about 80% atm

Hopefully hell pop in

You could ask @Randomblame hes pretty knowledgeable on the subject

Yes it is on your power bill.

I'm not worried about saving 3$ a month.

At 60% on HLG drivers, the efficiency of the driver starts to fall off. Buy a driver that you know at the lowest you plan on running is about 60%. Don't worry about the driver temp. Datasheets show 70* for 100000 hrs. IF your grow style is more suited to T5 fixtures, then go with strips. If your grow styles is more suited to DE fixtures, then COBs might be the better option. I like my lights around 20"-24" over the canopy. This turned into a 2+ pound run with 630 watts of COBs.

Until the cost of strips come down or cost of electricity goes up. Just lay it on as sparse as you can and run them as hard as you can thermally manage.

nevergoodenuf said:

At 60% on HLG drivers, the efficiency of the driver starts to fall off. Buy a driver that you know at the lowest you plan on running is about 60%. Don't worry about the driver temp. Datasheets show 70* for 100000 hrs. IF your grow style is more suited to T5 fixtures, then go with strips. If your grow styles is more suited to DE fixtures, then COBs might be the better option. I like my lights around 20"-24" over the canopy. This turned into a 2+ pound run with 630 watts of COBs.

Click to expand...

Im using an HLG-240h-c2100a for the qb boards and a HLG-120h-c1400b for the strips. Im fairly new to growing and extremely new to indoors. So I was just looking to maximize what I already have. Currently they are around 75% at 16-19" high and the plants seem to like it. I had 4 in the tent but 2 popped up males so at the moment I only have 2 flowering. I know the qb boards are rated at a max 3000 mAH so they are being under driven. And the strips at 1400mAH are being slightly over driven, but at 75% they are probably more optimal.
Beautiful plant btw. Extremely gorgeous. I hope to one day be able to pull that off a plant. Would be an amazing sight to behold.