i must say it 600-1000 ppfd is good...and huhu delps8
and another thing buy a caluma led delps8!
I saw your posting on another thread, the one where you copied and pasted a lot of info. Overall, it was a good way to spread "the good word" about grow lighting but I lost interest when it appeared to be nothing more than a series of copy and paste actions.
Amidst the verbiage was mention of the Caluma and, IIRC, you referred to the Vipar XS-1500 Pro as "trash" yet you offered nothing in the way of substantiating your claim. Your assertion was hyperbolic and offered without evidence. As a result, I disregarded it.
After this posting, I looked at the website for the Caluma. I see that it's a board light, offered in a variety of input wattages. I couldn't find any PPFD maps on the manufacturer's web site. That's a surprising omission and weighs against it because it makes it harder to do a factual comparison of the light against the competition.
A few clicks later, I was found a
PPFD map on a few of the models and it looks like those lights are a fairly typical board light. For each of the PPFD maps in the PDF, the max PPFD values are modest and once you move off center, the PPFD values drop off quickly. The word I use for attenuation like that it "collapse".
In the case of the Caluma 150, for example, at the 30cm (12") hang height, PPFD in the center is, according to the manufacturer, a bit below 700µmol. That's below the 800-1000µmol range that is considered the light saturation point for cannabis. Moving to the edges, the light values are < 400µmol and the corners are <270. The latter two values are sufficient for seedling and germination stages of cannabis but are unsuited for flowering cannabis.
What struck me as strange is that the measurements are taken in an 80cm (31") tent. That's a very large area for a 150 watt fixture to cover and, if the company is trying to appeal to the US market, using a tent that large doesn't help them. When I factor in the increased size of the tent and rethink the PPFD values, my use of the word collapse for PPFD values continues to be valid. The key point is that map shows that highest PPFD values for the grid square and, in a 2' x 2' tent, according to the manufacturer, the maximum PPFD values in the edges and corners would be the values displayed in their 80 cm PPFD map.
In sum, the 150 has PPFD map that shows that, at its highest, it will not generate a sufficient amount of light to reach the light saturation point for cannabis in flower and, as you move off center, the PPFD levels drop off to the point where, when measured on the side and in the corners, the fixture does not provide enough light to support high quality growth during the vegetative stage.
After reviewing the light output for the 150, I checked the pictures of the light on the manufacturers website to see if the driver could be dismounted from the fixture. This is a common feature of bar lights but, historically has not been a feature board lights. In the case of the Caluma series of lights, I could not find a mention of whether or not the driver could be dismounted and, based on the images in the website, the light hangers attach to the top of the driver. By inference, I conclude that the driver cannot be dismounted. For a 150 watt light, this is acceptable but, when moving up in the wattage levels, the inability to move the driver out of the tent makes thermal management more difficult.
Board style lights are a mature design and offer price advantages over a bar style light. They have always had the marked characteristic of having a high PPFD value in the center and a rapid falloff as you move off center. One light that has changed that trend is the Vipar Spectra XS-1500 Pro and Vipar deserves kudos for creating a very low cost growlight that provides a very even PPFD map.
Based on the information from the Caluma website, their products appear to be modern releases of a traditional board style light that has a non-detachable driver, high light output in the center, and very rapid fall off as soon as you move away from the center point. While that design offers the advantage of low manufacturing and production costs, outside of the 2' x 2' space, board lights are, from a cost/performance perspective, second tier performers.
As expected, advances in technology make older designs less attractive and, within a short time, obsolete. As with board lights from other manufacturers, the products offer a low price for a model in a give product class but, when the specifics of the model are examined, the cost/benefit is shown to be high. All in all, board lights are cheaper going in but that's because, due to the fact that they are a board light, they are not able to produce a PPFD map that offers an even cast of light on the canopy.
As I've argued in other places, that's why the Vipar XS-1500 Pro is such a standout. Vipar has produced a small board light that offers high PPFD values and gives an extremely even light cast and brings that product to market at an extremely low price.
Having taken a quick look at the Caluma line, the Caluma Force Pro appears to be a far superior product to their board style offerings. The PPFD map covers a 90 cm (48") tent, which is standard, but the hang height is a staggering 36". While I'm sure I've seen some PPFD maps using that height, it's very uncommon, and my thinking is that they're using that to offer a comparison to HPS lamps which have to use a signficant hang height to reduce the impact of the tremendous amount of heat they give off. In contrast, LED's generate far less heat. That allows the fixture to be moved closer the canopy which, in turn, allows more photons to be delivered at a lower cost of electricity, among other benefits.
With that in mind, the Caluma Force Pro is a marked contrast to the Caluma board lights. When you compare the PPFD map for the
Force Pro it's quite a respectable competitor to the Chilled Growcraft 600 watt light at a hang height of 24" whose PPFD map is
here. There's a big difference between 36" hang height and 24" hang height but the Growcraft was a 2017± design and has been out of production for a year. Putting that aside, the fact that the Force Pro is able to generate almost 900µmol at the center and >700 along the sides at 36" hang height speaks well of that light.
What did strike me as strange, however, is that the manufacturer recommends a hang height of 40cm to 60cm (16"-24") but they show a PPFD map for a 36" hang height. While it does offer values that can be seen as an "HPS replacement", it doesn't make it easy to compare this model to competing models from manufacturers who make the performance data about their lights at a variety of hang heights easily available.
In short, the Caluma Force Pro might be a of interest while the Caluma board lights are a modern release of a technology that is at the end of its
technology lifecycle.
